Video scrambling software house Macrovision Inc has come up trumps by signing up six majors as licensees for its DVD digital video disk copy protection software for use on personal computers. The vendors are Compaq Computer Corp, Gateway 2000 Inc, Hewlett-Packard Co, IBM Corp, Micron Electronics Inc and Packard Bell NEC. Hardware from these companies
incorporating the software will protect copyright material, such as Hollywood movies, from being copied onto video cassette recorders. VHS copies can be indistinguishable in quality from the originals, and only one VCR is required to make copies. Macrovision’s analog copy protection software is included in DVD movie players as part of an integrated circuit which converts the digital video from the disk to the analog signal required by standard television sets, and Macrovision already has some 37 companies incorporating its copy protection in their digital to analog semiconductor chips, including Analog Devices Inc, Crystal Semiconductor, GEC Plessey, IBM Corp, Mitsubishi Electric Co and SGS Thomson SA. Over 70 DVD player companies use the technology in their DVD players. Macrovision says it has high hopes that the rest of the personal computer industry will see the light and use its technology for their DVD-enable computers. Sunnyvale, California-based Macrovision Inc was founded in 1993, and filed a key set of copyright protection patents a year later. It has offices in the United Kingdom and Tokyo.
