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47-472: In VHS, alterations to the analog video signal are added in a Macrovision -provided "processor box" used by duplicators. Analog video formats convey video signals as a series of "lines". Most of these lines are used for constructing the visible image, and are shown on the screen. But several more lines exist which do not convey visual information. Known as the vertical blanking interval (VBI), these extra lines historically served no purpose other than to contain

94-516: A chip in DVD players and digital cable or satellite boxes. A DVD recorder receiving an analog signal featuring these pulses would detect them and display a message saying that the source is "copy-protected" followed by aborting the recording. VCRs , in turn, react to these excessive voltage pulses by compensating with their automatic gain control circuitry. This causes the recorded picture to wildly change brightness, rendering it annoying to watch. The system

141-405: A stream cipher and mangles the keystream with the plain-text data to produce the cipher text. The stream cipher is based on two linear-feedback shift register (LFSR) and set up with a 40-bit seed. Mangling depends on the type of operation. There are three types: In order to decrypt a DVD-Video, the player reads the disc-key-block and uses its player-key to decrypt the disc-key. Thereafter,

188-446: A 450 MHz Intel Pentium III. The CSS design was prepared for the leak of a few player-keys. New discs would not contain an encrypted variant for these player-keys in the disc-key-block. However, Stevenson's exploits made it possible to generate all player-keys. Libdvdcss uses such a list of generated player-keys. There are cases when no title-keys are available. A drive may deny access on region mismatch but still permit reading of

235-472: A DVD with RipGuard technology. The Analog Protection System (APS), also known as Analog Copy Protection (ACP), Copyguard or Macrovision, was the Macrovision Corporation's flagship product, a copy protection system for both VHS and DVD . Video tapes copied from DVDs encoded with APS become garbled and unwatchable. The process works by adding pulses to analog video signals to negatively impact

282-457: A DVD-Video disc as any DVD-ROM disc. The player reads the disc's user-data and processes them according to the DVD-Video format. However, if the drive detects a disc that has been compiled with CSS, it denies access to logical blocks that are marked as copyrighted (§6.15.3 ). The player has to execute an authentication handshake first (§4.10.2.2 ). The authentication handshake is also used to retrieve

329-578: A cheap microcontroller together with an analog multiplexer and a little other circuitry is needed. Individuals less experienced with such things can purchase video stabilizers. Discs made with DVD copying programs such as DVD Shrink automatically disable any Macrovision copy protection. The ease with which Macrovision and other copy protection measures can be defeated has prompted a steadily growing number of DVD releases that do not have copy protection of any kind, Content Scramble System (CSS) or Macrovision. Digital recording devices ( DVD recorders ), on

376-496: A key length that had already been shown to be wholly inadequate in the face of increasing computer processing power (see Data Encryption Standard ). Based on the leaked DeCSS source-code, Frank A. Stevenson published in November 1999 three exploits that rendered the CSS cipher practically ineffective: The latter exploit recovers a disk-key from its hash-value in less than 18 seconds on

423-503: A much higher level of security than the less secure 40-bit key size of CSS. The content scramble system (CSS) is a collection of proprietary protection mechanisms for DVD-Video discs. CSS attempts to restrict access to the content only for licensed applications. According to the DVD Copy Control Association (CCA), which is the consortium that grants licenses, CSS is supposed to protect the intellectual property rights of

470-646: A private equity-backed company; and its consumer websites to All Media Networks, a new company, in July 2013. Continuing on this path, the company made a similar announcement in January 2014 indicating its intent to sell the DivX and MainConcept businesses. On April 1, 2013, Rovi acquired Integral Reach, a provider of predictive analysis services. The technology would be integrated into Rovi's audience analysis services. In April 2013, Facebook began licensing Rovi metadata for use within

517-421: A video signal through a VCR before the television, some VCRs would output a ruined signal regardless of whether it is recording. This also occurs in some TV-VCR combo sets. Apart from this, many DVD recorders mistake the mechanical instability of worn videotapes for Macrovision signals, and so refuse to make what would be perfectly legal DVD dubs of legitimate video tapes, such as home movies. This widespread problem

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564-442: Is a cloud-based service that offers consumers entertainment choices similar to their chosen program, movie, album, track, musician or band. Rovi Advertising Service enables the monetization of entertainment platforms. It places ads that appear as content choices in application menus and user interfaces for set-top boxes, connected TVs, smartphones, tablets, Blu-ray players, game consoles and other devices. Rovi Audience Management

611-618: Is a suite of products (Advertising Optimizer and Promotion Optimizer) combining big data with predictive analytics to provide TV audience insights and advertising campaign management. Ad Optimizer allows provides campaign management and media planning capabilities to TV networks and multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs). Promo Optimizer uses past viewing data to enable cable and broadcast networks to create plans for on-air promos. The company historically developed technologies and products that helped protect content from being pirated. Its two core legacy products were called RipGuard and

658-507: Is added by DVD players and digital cable/satellite boxes. While not invented by Macrovision, the company's products implemented it. CGMS-A consists of a "flag" within the vertical blanking interval (essentially data, like closed captioning) which digital recording devices search for. If present, it refused to record the signal, just as with the earlier ACP technology. Unlike digital recording equipment, however, analog VCRs do not respond to CGMS-A encoded video and would record it successfully if ACP

705-583: Is not also present. There are also devices called stabilizers , video stabilizers or enhancers available that filter out the Macrovision spikes and thereby defeat the system. The principle of their function lies in detecting the vertical synchronization signal, and forcing the lines occurring during the VBI to black level, removing the AGC-confusing pulses. They can be easily built by hobbyists, as nothing more than

752-406: Is not possible with every drive—even if the drive grants access to the feature, prediction of title keys may fail. However, DVD players exist which do not enforce regional restrictions (after being disabled manually), which makes regional restrictions less effective as a component of CSS. The DVD-ROM's main-data (§16 ), which are consecutive logical blocks of 2048 bytes, are structured according to

799-606: The AGC circuit of a recording device. In digital devices, changes to the analog video signal are created by a chip that converts the digital video to analog within the device. In DVD players , trigger bits are created during DVD authoring to inform the APS that it should be applied to DVD players' analog outputs or analog video outputs on a PC while playing back a protected DVD-Video disc. In set top boxes trigger bits are incorporated into Conditional Access Entitlement Control Messages (ECM) in

846-618: The Rovi Corporation and Macrovision Solutions Corporation , was an American technology company headquartered in San Jose, California . Now operating as Xperi , the company is primarily involved in licensing its intellectual property within the consumer electronics industry, including digital rights management , electronic program guide software, and metadata . The company holds over 6,000 pending and registered patents . The company also provides analytics and recommendation platforms for

893-416: The 1990s, Macrovision acquired companies with expertise in managing access control and secure distribution of other forms of digital media, including music, video games, internet content, and computer software. Ryan (founder and CEO of Macrovision from June 1995 to October 2001) and William A. Krepick (president of Macrovision Corporation from July 1995 to July 2005 and CEO from October 2001 to July 2005) led

940-561: The Analog Protection System (APS). Macrovision introduced its RipGuard technology in February 2005. It was designed to prevent or reduce digital DVD copying by altering the format of the DVD content to disrupt the ripping software. Although the technology could be circumvented by several current DVD rippers such as AnyDVD or DVDFab, Macrovision claimed that 95% of casual users lack the knowledge and/or determination to be able to copy

987-419: The DVD-Video format. The DVD-Video contains (besides others) an MPEG program stream which consists of so-called Packs. If CSS is applied to the disc then a subset of all Packs is encrypted with a title-key. A DVD-ROM contains, besides the main-data, additional data areas. CSS stores there: CSS also uses six bytes in the frame header for each logical block of user data (§16.3, §6.29.3.1.5 ): The drive treats

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1034-675: The Xperi name and have a combined value of $ 3 billion. TiVo had previously considered splitting out its hardware operations from its licensing operations. The merger was completed on June 1, 2020. In August 2022, TiVo announced the TiVo OS for smart TVs launching in 2023 in Europe with Vestel . Rovi provides guides for service providers and CE manufacturers. Rovi provides entertainment metadata for consumer electronics manufacturers, service providers, retailers, online portals and application developers around

1081-489: The analog signal's color burst. Also known as color striping, this technology caused numerous off-color bands to appear within the picture. APS can be also signaled digitally, in the CGMS-A bit field sent in the vertical blanking interval . Historically, the original Macrovision technology was considered a nuisance to some specialist users because it could interfere with other electronic equipment. For example, if one were to run

1128-581: The assets of Muze, Inc. on April 15, 2009. On July 16, 2009, Macrovision Solutions Corporation announced the official change of its name to Rovi Corporation. Rovi announced its first product on January 7, 2010 – TotalGuide, an interactive media guide that incorporated entertainment data, to search, browse and provide recommendations. On March 16, 2010, Rovi acquired MediaUnbound for an undisclosed amount. MediaUnbound had helped build static and dynamic personalization and recommendation engines for clients such as Napster, eMusic and MTV Networks. On June 16, 2010,

1175-674: The company announced the Rovi Advertising Network which bundled guide advertising and third-party interactive TV platforms. On December 23, 2010, the company announced its intention to acquire Sonic Solutions and its DivX video software in a deal valued at $ 720 million. Sonic provided digital video processing, playback and distribution technologies and owned RoxioNow (formerly CinemaNow) an OTT technology provider. On March 1, 2011, Rovi announced its acquisition of online video guide SideReel . The company announced Amoroso's intention to retire on May 26, 2011. Tom Carson, formerly

1222-436: The company through an IPO in 1997 priced at $ 9.00 a share. Under their leadership, the company went from a private company with sales of under $ 20 million to a global, publicly traded corporation with annual sales of $ 220 million and market cap exceeding $ 1 billion. In July 2005, the company hired Alfred J. Amoroso as chief executive officer and president to succeed William A. Krepick, who announced his retirement earlier in

1269-718: The content owner. The details of CSS are only given to licensees for a fee. The license, which binds the licensee to a non-disclosure agreement , would not permit the development of open-source software for DVD-Video playback. Instead, there is libdvdcss , a reverse engineered implementation of CSS. Libdvdcss is a source for documentation, along with the publicly available DVD -ROM and MMC specifications. There has also been some effort to collect CSS details from various sources. A DVD-Video can be produced with or without CSS. The publisher may for instance decide to go without CSS protection to save license and production costs. The content scramble system deals with three participants:

1316-560: The controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act . After April 26, 2002, no VCR may be manufactured or imported without Automatic Gain Control circuitry (which renders VCRs vulnerable to Macrovision). This is contained in title 17, section 1201(k) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. However, after 2002 there were still some mostly older VCR models on the market that were not affected by Macrovision. On October 26, 2001,

1363-474: The disc, the drive and the player. The disc holds the purported copyright information and the encrypted feature. The drive provides the means to read the disc. The player decrypts and presents the audio and visual content of the feature. All participants must conform to the CCA's license agreement. There are three protection methods: The first two protection methods have been broken. Circumvention of regional protection

1410-454: The disc-key-block and the title-keys. The drive may also support Regional Playback Control (RPC) to limit the playback of DVD-Video content to specific regions of the world (§3.3.26 ). RPC Phase II drives hold an 8-bit region-code and adhere to all requirements of the CSS license agreement (§6.29.3.1.7 ). It appears that RPC Phase II drives reject title-key requests on region mismatch. However, reading of user-data may still work. CSS employs

1457-455: The encrypted DVD-Video. Ethan Hawke presented a plain-text prediction for data repetitions in the MPEG program stream that enables the recovery of title-keys in real-time directly from the encrypted DVD-Video. In Geeks Bearing Gifts , author Ted Nelson states "DVD encryption was intentionally made light by the DVD encryption committee, based on arguments in a libertarian book Computer Lib .",

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1504-529: The executive vice president of sales and marketing, was appointed CEO and President in December 2011. Under Carson the company shifted its focus on "growth opportunities related to its core enabling technology and services" and it announced that it intended to sell the Rovi Entertainment Store business. It entered into separate agreements to sell the Rovi Entertainment Store to Reliance Majestic Holdings,

1551-422: The other hand, often disallow the recording if they detect a protection signal on the input. The unit may display an error message about the program being copy protected. United States fair use law, as interpreted in the decision over Betamax ( Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios ), dictates that consumers are fully within their legal rights to copy videos they own. However, the legality has changed somewhat with

1598-605: The player reads the title-keys and decrypts them with the disc-key. A different title-key can be assigned for the Video Manager and for each Video Title Set . The title-keys are used to decrypt the encrypted Packs. CSS employs cryptographic keys with a size of only 40 bits. This makes CSS vulnerable to a brute-force attack . At the time CSS was introduced, it was forbidden in the United States for manufacturers to export cryptographic systems employing keys in excess of 40 bits,

1645-460: The rights to this software. In June 2005, Macrovision sued Sima Products under section 1201 of the DMCA, claiming that Sima's video processors provided a way to circumvent Macrovision's analog copy protection. Sima received an injunction barring the sale of this device, but the parties ultimately settled without a judgment on the legal issues. Macrovision TiVo Corporation , formerly known as

1692-420: The sale, purchase, or manufacture of any device that has no commercial purpose other than disabling Macrovision copy protection was made illegal under section 1201(a) of the same controversial act. In June 2005, Macrovision sent a cease and desist letter to "Lightning UK!", the maker of DVD Decrypter , a program that allows users to back up their DVDs by bypassing CSS and Macrovision. Macrovision later acquired

1739-540: The service. On April 29, 2016, Rovi Corporation announced that it had acquired TiVo Inc. for $ 1.1 billion. The combined company operated under the TiVo brand, and held over 6,000 pending and registered patents. Rovi plans to discontinue in-house hardware production, and focus primarily on licensing its technologies and the TiVo brand to third-party companies. In December 2019, TiVo Corporation announced their intent to merge with Xperi . The surviving entity will operate under

1786-473: The software business unit closed on April 1, 2008, becoming Acresso Software . Macrovision also ultimately sold off parts of Gemstar-TV Guide not focused on digital entertainment, including TryMedia , eMeta , TV Guide Magazine , TV Guide Network and the TV Games Network . The company also bought two companies providing entertainment metadata: All Media Guide on November 6, 2007, and substantially all

1833-470: The stream delivered to the STB. In VHS, alterations to the analog video signal are added in a Macrovision -provided "processor box" used by duplicators. Content Scramble System The Content Scramble System ( CSS ) is a digital rights management (DRM) and encryption system employed on many commercially produced DVD-Video discs. CSS utilizes a proprietary 40-bit stream cipher algorithm. The system

1880-451: The vertical synchronizing pulses, but in more modern implementations they are used to carry or convey different things in different countries; for example closed captioning . Macrovision's legacy analog copy protection (ACP) works by implanting a series of excessive voltage pulses within the off-screen VBI lines of video. These pulses were included physically within pre-existing recordings on VHS and Betamax and were generated upon playback by

1927-435: The video industry. In 2016, Rovi acquired digital video recorder maker TiVo Inc. , and renamed itself TiVo Corporation. On May 30, 2019, TiVo announced the appointment of Dave Shull as the company's new president and CEO. On December 19, 2019, TiVo merged with Xperi ; the combined firm operates as Xperi. Macrovision Corporation was established in 1983 by Victor Farrow and John O. Ryan. The 1984 film The Cotton Club

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1974-638: The world. The company has over 50 years of metadata for video, music, books, and games covering more than 5 million movies and TV programs, 3.2 million album releases and 30 million song tracks, 9 million in-print and out-of-print book titles, and 70,000 video games. The metadata includes basic facts, local TV listings and channel line-ups for interactive program guides, original editorial, imagery, and other features. Rovi Search Service allows consumer electronics manufacturers, service providers, and developers to provide solutions that enable consumers to search for and access desired content. Rovi Recommendations Service

2021-552: The year. Macrovision acquired Gemstar-TV Guide on May 2, 2008, in a cash-and-stock deal worth about $ 2.8 billion. The combined company would seek to be “the homepage for the TV experience,” said Mr. Amoroso. After the announcement of its intent to buy Gemstar-TV Guide , Macrovision made other changes in order to focus on entertainment technology, including selling its software business unit, valued at approximately $ 200 million, to private equity firm Thoma Cressey Bravo . The divestiture of

2068-509: Was another factor contributing to the demand for devices that defeat Macrovision. The signal has also been known to confuse home theater line doublers (devices for improving the quality of video for large projection TVs) and some high-end television comb filters . In addition, Macrovision confuses many upconverters (devices that convert a video signal to a higher resolution), causing them to shut down and refuse to play Macrovision content. Another form of analog copy protection, known as CGMS-A ,

2115-530: Was introduced around 1996 and was first compromised in 1999. CSS is one of several complementary systems designed to restrict DVD-Video access. It has been superseded by newer DRM schemes such as Content Protection for Recordable Media (CPRM), or by Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) in the Advanced Access Content System (AACS) DRM scheme used by HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc , which have 56-bit and 128-bit key sizes , respectively, providing

2162-425: Was only effective on VCRs made in the mid-1980s. In addition, these voltage pulses caused some TVs to lose track of the vertical blanking interval, meaning they no longer knew when one frame ended and the next began. This caused the picture to roll wildly up and down the screen on affected sets. A later form of Macrovision's analog copy protection, called Level II ACP, introduced multiple 180-degree phase inversions to

2209-412: Was the first video to be encoded with Macrovision technology when it was released in 1985. The technology was subsequently extended to DVD players and other consumer electronic recording and playback devices such as digital cable and satellite set-top boxes , digital video recorders , and portable media players . By the end of the 1980s, most major Hollywood studios were utilizing their services. In

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