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    Macrovision is a company that sells copy protection products.

    The company's first product was a copy protection system for VHS tapes, which was also known as Macrovision. For a detailed look at that system, read Antti Paarlahti's Macrovision FAQ.

    The Macrovision copy protection system was later extended to DVDs. Macrovision is designed to prevent DVDs from being copied to tape.

    How Macrovision Works

    Macrovision works by making modifications to the video signal, including:

    • Automatic Gain Control: Macrovision inserts pulses into the vertical blanking signal. This confuses the synchronization and automatic-recording-level circuitry in most VCRs.macrovision
    • Colorstripe: Macrovision creates a rapidly modulated colorburst signal.

    Defeating Macrovision

    Macrovision's Colorstripe mode can be defeated simply by using Component Output, which does not support burst.

    Macrovision's AGC mode can be defeated with a number of off-the-shelf devices that regenerate a proper video blanking signal.

    In addition, some DVD players do not enable Macrovision and others can be modified to turn off Macrovision.

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    4 comments
    1. Sadie

      10 September, 2011 at 4:51 pm

      hello, I’m trying to play a dvd on my laptop. However, I keep getting popup that says this dvd-video content is protected by Macrovision. The system does not satisfy Macrovision requirement. Can’t continue playing this disc..How do I buypass this? When I try to play it through wmp  it says I cannot play the dvd because a compatible dvd decoder is not installed. I  have no idea what any of this means.

      Reply
      • Marlon Franco

        11 September, 2011 at 3:20 am

        Have you tried using other DVD players? There are lots of free dvd players online, you might want to try it first. I have heard this issue before, like 6-8 years ago, and as far as i can recall, it has something to do with Nvidia drivers that make these “stringent checks” to comply with Macrovision requirements. Please keep me posted on this. Thanks

        Reply
    2. BJ Hansen

      7 January, 2011 at 1:33 am

      Happy New Year!

      I was with a company that went belly up. While in that mess I bought several VHS tapes “It’s About Time” from Microvision. I would like to know if this is available in DVD?
      1996 Clear Image, Inc. is on the back of the case.

      Thank-you, BJ Hansen
      Phoenix, AZ.

      Reply
      • memenode

        11 January, 2011 at 9:11 pm

        According to some people on imdb the show might be found on ebay or ioffer.com. I couldn’t find it on ebay at this time though (just the comics and cards), but I found one sale on ioffer. Could that be it?

        Regards

        Reply
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