Macrovision also announced that rip-control solution RipGuard DVD™, has been awarded THX™ Verified product status, ensuring the audio and video quality of the original content.

RipGuard DVD is a unilateral content protection system that is applied to DVD discs and requires no additional software or hardware to be incorporated into PCs, DVD players or DVD recorders. The combination of Macrovision’s analog copy protection technology (ACP) and RipGuard DVD provides comprehensive DVD protection for both major piracy threats faced by video content copyright owners — the analog and digital holes.

The analog hole is the result of consumers making high-quality copies of original DVD content from the analog outputs of their DVD player, DVD recorder, or PC. The digital hole is the result of PC-based DeCSS ripper software, which allows millions of average consumers to make unauthorized perfect digital copies of copyrighted DVDs in mere minutes.

The two processes of applying RipGuard DVD and ACP to DVD optical discs can be transparently combined at the replication facility, regardless of the type of manufacturing systems used. In support of the worldwide content protection ecosystem, Macrovision has developed extensive test and certification facilities used to validate both these products for seamless playability on nearly all manufacturer’s DVD players, drives, and recorders prior to market release.