AACS picks Macrovision to plug analogue hole on next gen discs

May 26, 2006

Despite
all methods of trying to enhance the copy protection of the next generation disc formats
Blu-ray and HD DVD, it is not until now that a copy protection measure has
been selected to protect the analogue holes, particularly since the vast majority of consumers
still use analogue TVs and recording equipment. Macrovision's Analogue Copy Protection (ACP) has now been included as a specification requirement by the AACS LA for the copy protection technology in Blu-ray and HD DVD.

As a result, the latest AACS LA protection specification will include Macrovision's ACP to protect pre-recorded and recordable media in both PCs and consumer equipment from piracy over analogue connections. Macrovision's President & CEO Fred Amorosco announced that they are committed to working with the AACS Industry Consortium to assist the movie industry with the transition to the next generation of optical discs.

So far, Macrovision's ACP leads the market for analogue copy protection with currently over 4.5 billion DVDs protected with their ACP technology. Their Analogue Copy Protection is already used to plug the analogue hole on DVD players & recorders, PCs and PVRs.

Macrovision Corporation today announced that its analog content protection technology (ACP) has been included as a requirement in the specification for the content protection technology for next-generation optical media content such as Blu-ray and HD DVD by the Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator (AACS LA). This announcement expands Macrovision's leadership in content protection for entertainment content to next-generation, high-definition media formats.

With this agreement, Macrovision's ACP will be included in the latest AACS LA protection specification release, the Advanced Access Content System, which manages content stored on the next generation of prerecorded and recordable optical media for consumer use with PCs and CE devices. Using Macrovision's ACP solution, movie studios and consumer electronics companies will be able to protect content on next-generation optical discs from analog piracy and consumers will be able to enjoy the enhanced quality of these next-generation formats.

If Macrovision's analogue copy protection has not been
made a requirement in the AACS until now, it would be interesting to see what copy protection measures these next generation players currently impose over the analogue outputs. As this analogue copy protection will cover next generation of recordable discs, it looks like content recorded from broadcasts on the next generation discs will become protected with analogue copy protection also, unlike DVDs where generally only pre-recorded discs contain analogue copy protection.

Source: Business Wire Press Releases