Page 1 of Macrovision

What is macrovision?
I am a newbie to DVDs, and why is it best to disable macrovision?
Rob.

Macrovision is a technique for spoiling the signal of a video image so that it confuses VCRs into recording images out of sync, hence why you can`t easily copy PAL DVDs or even VHS tapes with standard high street equipment. What you get if you try anyway is the picture rolling up and down, going black and white then back to colour, and a few other wierd things too.

It is not supposed to cause any interferance with anyone legitimately trying to view it on their TV set or projector, or whatever. However, for a tiny minority it does, especially those who have their DVD player connected to their VCR and then their VCR to their TV set, rather than going directly. It is also rumoured to cause problems with some projector setups.

However, it doesn`t actually exist on the DVD itself, it was built into the spec that all players MUST be able to add Macrovision to video if the DVD has a certain flag set. So, when you disable it from a secret menu on a player that allows you to, or your machine is chipped to remove region coding and Macrovision, what is in fact happening is its just not adding it to the video signal, instead of actually removing anything.

Whether it is best to remove it, depends on if it is causing you problems. For most people it doesn`t.

Thanks man! totally cleared everything up!
Rob