Page 1 of What is Macrovision

I notice on the Forums that people are eager to switch off Macrovision from their DVD players.What advantage does this have,also what is Firmware?I own an Encore DV-450 and notice that there is a site listed in the Forums for disarming Macrovision.Will this damage my machine and inalidate warranties!

I`m not an expert on Macrovision but in theory it prevents people using DVD to make illegal copies of films onto VHS. The DVD transmits a alternating signal that interferes with video recorders, eventually causing the VCR to display a blank screen, hence most DVD players have to be plugged directly into a TV.

I say in theory because some older, and indeed newer video recorders aren`t susceptable to this signal.

The signal can be disabled with a piece of electronics, but how this is done I`m afraid I don`t know and have no intention of finding out, cos I`m happy with DVD as it is.

Hope this makes things clearer,

All the best

Andrew

As stated above Macrovision is a DVD copy protection system (similar to that used on some Pay Per View channels). Most videos will not display a picture if macrovision is present. Depending on your DVD player it can be disabled via a handset hack or via hardware mod. You can also buy external macrovision disabling hardware. Recently quite a few manufacturers (such as Samsung) have been removing the macrovision disable options from their players (The Macrovision company has been threatening legal action or something).

Karl.

~In my experiance Macrovision will nto stop a VCR from displaying a picture but just that the picture will be distorted - normaly by the contrast repeatidly flickering and the colours being wrong - this effects new and old VCR`s because of the reason below
Technical Explanation - as far as I am aware the Macrovision protection ssytem works by generating a harmonic frequency (a frequency that shares simularities) of the video signal - TV`s can read the signals and distingush between them so it doesn`t cause a problem - however - VCR`s has less sensative electronics and record both frequencies causign them to mix and therefor distort the picture - this can also ahppen on some projectors which is of course why most people have the copy removing boxes - it just happens to allow copying by removing this interfering frequency.
Any questions ? !!
(the above is mainly from what I`ve read and worked out and I can not garentee the reliability of the source)

Simon is correct. Part of the way it does this is by fooling the VCR into thinking that it has a very weak signal. The VCR responds by setting its amplifiers to full gain - causing all sorts of signal overload problems. It`s a clever exploitation of the AGC (automatic gain control) system used in most VCRs.