What is Macrovision?
Macrovision is a form of copyguard protection encoded into DVD discs that prevents illegal copying from DVD to DVD. A standard DVD player contains a special Macrovision-enabled digital-analog conver chip that is activated when a DVD is played. The activated chip applies copy protection to the analog output and causes copies made on most VCRs to be substantially degraded. However, making copies of DVD onto VHS tapes with VCR recorder is the only way to legally copy DVDs to a video format.
More about Macrovision Ripguard technology.
In February 2005, Macrovision introduced their new RipGuard technology. This is designed to prevent (or reduce) digital DVD copying by altering the format of the DVD content in such a way as to disrupt the ripping software. Macrovision claims that 97% of all current DVD rippers will not be able to copy a DVD with RipGuard technology. However, it can be bypassed with DVDSmith for Windows, RipIt for the Mac, Slysoft's AnyDVD, Fengtao's DVDFab Decrypter, RipIt4Me, or MacTheRipper 3 for Mac OS X. Macrovision released RipGuard-MOD v2.4 in May 2007. MOD v2.4 successfully disrupts some of the methods that these programs use to circumvent the copy prevention, thereby slowing down the copying process significantly. In addition, v2.4 also provides for the ability to copy prevent Recordable DVDs, including Dual Layer Recordables. RipGuard also renders the formatted section of DVDs unwatchable on some players. The audio is intact, but the image appears scrambled. This has been confirmed with Toshiba DVD/TV combo model MD20FL1. The most recent version of DVDFab Decrypter has been successful at removing this protection method.
The recent proliferation of cheap DVD recorders has presented a major setback to vendors of DVD anti-copying systems, since by linking a DVD player to a DVD recorder via S-video, and disabling the anti-copy system by using an inexpensive Macrovision removal box, excellent quality dubs can be made, which can then be freely copied. Although they no longer have the menu structure of the original DVD release, many users consider that an 'improvement', since in many cases it means that the entire feature, (stripped of all the "extras") can fit uncompressed on a single-layer disc. It also means that the movie can be watched without having to view multiple previews or several seconds of unskippable corporate logos and copyright warnings.
