Harry Potter, Macrovision and Economics

markthebrewer writes "Apparantly Warner Home Video have released Harry Potter and the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone without any of the usual Macrovision copy-protection systems. Looks like its just a trial, but someone's done the maths and decided it may be cheaper not to copy-protect videos after all. Find the full article in the New Scientist." There is certainly something desperate about macrovisions response to this development. Does anyone see macrovision as a real barrier to copying anymore? What a bunch of snake oil salesmen these people are. In related news, I'm marketing my own personal copy protection device.

Comments

Macrovision is easy to defeat

[DickBreath]

I have defeated Macrovision on both VHS and DVD, only for legal purposes, by simply using what amounts to a video amplifier, which I picked up at Worst Buy some years back for about $50.

Re:Macrovision is easy to defeat

[Goldberg's Pants]

If you get certain APEX model DVD players (be sure to check the serial number, some require hardware modding), the A1500, available at most Walmart's, you can download a rom from an A1000, burn it to CD, stick the CD in and voila, your player is now Macrovision free, region free, AND can defeat the RCE protection that is used on some disks.

Add to this the fact that the APEX is one of the few that converts PAL to NTSC on the fly, thus allowing European disks to play, and you've got a great player.

I've flashed mine and tested it with a region 2, PAL disk and it played fine. I wanted to play out of region disks mostly, but I also wanted to defeat Macrovision purely on principle. Fuckers.

Blah, which some knowhow you can get rid of it

[Verizon Guy]

On some DVD players, you can disable Macrovision by means of uploading a new ROM into the player by burning it onto an ISO 9660 CD-R, or by hitting a secret key combination on the remote. It's mostly APEXes and Daewoos that let you do this; ironic that they are the cheapest yet most hackable DVD players. I have a cute little APEX I scored for $70 at Circuit City... that sucker plays DVDs, VCDs, SVCDs, CD-Rs, MP3s (!), and they kitchen sink. Most DVD players have a "Factory setting" menu that you can get to, but you need to know the secret code.

Of course you'd never get goodies like this from the big boys (aka Sony, Toshiba, Panasonic).

Re:Violation of DVD Consortium Licensing ?

[timster]

Macrovision is mandatory in the DVD player. The player itself is responsible for creating the signal; you can't encode Macrovision into an MPEG stream. The creators of the disks have to decide whether to use Macrovision on their disk though, which is basically "set the Macrovision bit" or not. If they choose to set the macrovision bit then they're supposed to pay some money per copy to Macrovision.

Re:The other effect of macrovision

[newerbob]

This is not how Macrovision works.

What ever happened to the Metamoderator. The /. l337 h4kr faggots who modded this up should be slapped silly.

Anyway, Here's how Macrovision works, and here is a link for a Macrovision remover that will actually work (I built one!).

VCD Helper...

[chronos2266]

VCD Helper has had a list of DVD Player hacks available for quite a while. From everything to modifying your brightness to reconfiguring country codes through methods put in by the manufacturer for testing. It's really interesting to see the hidden features of your otherwise normal DVD player :)

Re:Violation of DVD Consortium Licensing ?

[karmawarrior]

No, it isn't, and more to the point this isn't unusual. I had a DVD player for six months, hooked up to my TV through the VCR, before I had to get a modulator because I bought something with Macrovision on it. Before then, I'd thought that the consensus that DVDs were unusuable without a direct TV hookup or a modulator meant that my VCR was funky - it never occured to me that Macrovision might not actually cover 90% of discs. This includes blockbusters like The Fifth Element, Reservoir Dogs, Groundhog Day, etc.

If something is protected with Macrovision, it'll generally have the Macrovision logo on the back together with the Dolby Digital and Region stuff. Those who think it's compulsory might want to flick through their DVD collection and look.

Now this article is newsworthy if it's suggesting that Harry Potter is Region Free and CSS Free too. But there's nothing to hint at that in the write up. Harry Potter is macrovision free because it doesn't actually help, it's expensive (DVD content makers have to pay a per-disc * per-crippled-frame royalty for using the system), and it's a load of crap.