Rovi Corporation is a globally-operating, U.S.-based company that provides technology solutions for digital entertainment devices and services. Its customers include consumer electronics manufacturers, cable television and satellite television operators, movie studios and online entertainment portals and content distributors.

Rovi was known as Macrovision Solutions Corporation until it changed its name in July 2009., Rovi press release, July 16, 2009

History

Rovi was established under the name Macrovision Corporation in 1983. The 1984 film The Cotton Club was the first video to be encoded with Macrovision technology when it was released in 1985. By the end of the 1980s, most major Hollywood studios were utilizing their services. The technology was extended to DVD players and other consumer electronic recording and playback devices such as digital cable and satellite set-top boxes, digital video recorders, and personal media players. Macrovision subsequently introduced products and services for facilitating access control and secure distribution of other forms of digital media, including music, video games, Web text and graphics, and computer software.

However, with the acquistion of Gemstar-TV Guide on May 2, 2008 in a cash-and-stock deal worth about $2.8 billion, the company began developing guidance technology for the TV and cable and satellite industry.

After the announcement of the intent to acquire Gemstar - TV Guide, Rovi Corporation completed additional transactions to move its business out of the software licensing market and into entertainment technology market. On February 14, 2008, Thoma Cressey Bravo and then, Macrovision Corporation announced that an affiliate of TCB has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Macrovision's Software Business Unit in a cash transaction valued at approximately $200 million. The transaction was closed in April 1, 2008. The transaction would convert Macrovision's Software Business Unit into stand-alone software company following the close of the transaction, which included FLEXnet, InstallShield, Adminstudio family of products. Mark Bishof, Macrovision's Software Business Unit's Executive Vice President and General Manager, would assume the role of CEO for the stand-alone software company following the close of the transaction. On the day the acquisition was completed, the standalone company was named Acresso Software.

Macrovision continued to divest other areas of its business not aligned with its focus on digital entertainment technology, including TryMedia, eMeta, TV Guide Magazine, TV Guide Network and TVG - Horse Racing.

On April 29, 2008, Macrovision Solutions Corporation and Macrovision Corporation agreed to sell $100 million aggregate principal amount of their 11% Senior Notes due 2013 to J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. and Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated for approximately $96.5 million. As part of the plan began in December 12, 2007, Mars Merger Sub, Inc., merged with and into Macrovision Corporation with Macrovision as the surviving corporation, Galaxy Merger Sub, Inc., merged with and into Gemstar-TV Guide International, Inc., with Gemstar-TV Guide as the surviving corporation, resulting Macrovision and Gemstar-TV Guide becoming the wholly owned subsidiaries of Macrovision Solutions Corporation. The above transactions were closed in May 2, 2008. Effective on May 5, 2008, the common stock for each of Macrovision Corporation and Gemstar-TV Guide would cease to be traded and would no longer be quoted on the Nasdaq Global Select Market. The remaining trading stock was Macrovision Solutions's Common Stock under the symbol "MVSND" until June 2, 2008, which was traded under the symbol "MVSN" afterwards. The resulting company was called Macrovision Solutions Corporation.

The company announced its intention to acquire All Media Guide on November 6, 2007 and substantially all the assets of Muze, Inc. on April 15, 2009. Both companies provide entertainment metadata.

On July 16, 2009, Macrovision Solution Corporation announced the official change of its name to Rovi Corporation.

Digital home entertainment

Rovi provides a variety of software and entertainment metadata for consumer electronics and satellite and cable devices. It also provides entertainment metadata to online content distributors such as Amazon.com, Borders.com and iTunes. Its heritage product is a technology for discouraging the copying of video through analog interfaces of consumer electronic devices. More recently, through its acquisition of various digital entertainment technology companies and assets, Rovi began developing and marketing software components for enabling video playback in consumer devices. Rovi's home entertainment technologies are incorporated into the vast majority of all DVD players, digital cable/satellite set-top boxes, personal computers, Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) and portable media players. Its portfolio of solutions includes content network capabilities, guidance technology, content protection, and entertainment metadata.

Technology details

Media Guide

In July 2009, Rovi introduced a media guide for televisions and other consumer electronic devices. The media guide includes a program listings for broadcast and cable TV content; a broadband content guide finding TV and movie content for both free and paid services, Internet video, music and other content on the Internet; and a guide for connecting to consumers' home media collections. The media guide also includes personalization and recommendation capabilities.

Interactive Program Guide

Rovi provides interactive program guides to both the consumer electronics, satellite and cable market. Its technologies are use in approximately 75 million CE devices, and by 104 million subscribers worldwide.

Metadata

Rovi also provides entertainment metadata on movies, music, books and games to online distributors and other entertainment portals. The company has over 50 years of entertainment metadata including more than 1 million TV series episodes, more than 1.6 million pop and classical music albums and 13 million tracks and more than 420,000 movie titles.

Content Networking Technology

Rovi technology portfolio includes a content networked software for storing, finding, and play back personal and Internet-based content. The Connect technology is a standards-based software technology for home CE devices.

Content Protection

RipGuard

In February 2005, Macrovision introduced its RipGuard technology designed to prevent or reduce digital DVD copying by altering the format of the DVD content to disrupt the ripping software. Although the technology can be circumvented by several current DVD rippers such as AnyDVD or DVDFab, Macrovision claimed that 95% of casual users lack the knowledge and/or determination to be able to copy a DVD with RipGuard technology.

Analog copy protection

A DVD recorder receiving a data stream encoded with Macrovision's legacy analog copy protection (ACP) signal will simply display a message saying the source is "copy-protected", and will pause the recording. This is achieved through a signal implanted within the offscreen range (vertical blanking interval) of the video signal—either physically recorded directly on the tape (as with VHS) or created on playback by a chip in the player (as with DVDs) or the digital cable/satellite box (as with all HDTV programs being down-converted to standard definition). NTSC and other video formats store the video signal as “lines.” A portion of these lines are used for constructing the visible image by transposing them on the screen, but there are approximately 20 to 40 lines outside the visible range that are used for different things in different countries, like closed captioning. Macrovision inserts pulses into this non-displayed area. These signals cause the automatic gain control on the recording VCR to compensate for the varying strength. This makes the recorded picture wildly change brightness, rendering it unwatchable. On most televisions, the viewer on the screen sees no effect in ordinary playback of the modified video because the signal is outside the visible area, but some TVs do not properly blank the vertical retrace and leave dotted white lines near the top of the picture. Some newer TVs also mistake the Macrovision pulses for synchronization pulses. Another modification also used in Macrovision is the addition of colorstripes—rapidly modulated colorburst signals.

Historically, the original Macrovision technology was considered a nuisance to some specialist users because it could interfere with other electronic equipment. For example, if one were to run their video signal through a VCR before the television, some VCRs will output a ruined signal regardless of whether it is recording. This also occurs in some TV-VCR combo sets. Apart from this, many DVD recorders mistake the mechanical instability of worn videotapes for Macrovision signals, and so refuse to make what would be perfectly legal DVD dubs of people's old home movies and the like. This widespread problem is another factor contributing to the demand for devices that defeat Macrovision. The signal has also been known to confuse home theater line doublers (devices for improving the quality of video for large projection TVs) and some high-end television comb filters. In addition, Macrovision confuses many upconverters (devices that convert a video signal to a higher resolution), causing them to shut down and refuse to play Macrovision content.

Some DVD players give the user the option of disabling the Macrovision technology. This is possible since the signal is not stored on the DVD itself; instead commercial DVDs contain an instruction to the player to create such a signal during playback. Some DVD players can be configured to ignore such instructions.

There are also devices called stabilizers, video stabilizers or enhancers available that filter out the Macrovision spikes and thereby defeat the system. The principle of their function lies in detecting the vertical synchronization signal, and forcing the lines occurring during the vertical blanking interval to black level, removing the AGC-confusing pulses. They can be easily built by hobbyists, as nothing more than a cheap microcontroller together with an analog multiplexer and a little other circuitry is needed. Individuals less experienced with such things can purchase video stabilizers off the Internet. The best device for defeating Macrovision is a Time Base Corrector (TBC), although they are more expensive than the simpler video stabilizers.

Discs made with DVD copying programs such as DVD Shrink automatically disable any Macrovision copy protection. USB-based video interfaces designed to allow DVD recording on PCs are legally required to detect the presence of Macrovision signals on any analog signals input to them, and if so, inhibit the recording.

The MPAA maintains it has every right to limit copying of movies, comparing DVDs to pay-per-view where the consumer is allowed to view the movie in question but nothing more. Many are concerned that the organization is attempting to quash fair use by disallowing consumers to make personal copies.

On the other hand the ease with which Macrovision and other copy protection measures can be defeated has prompted a steadily growing number of DVD releases that do not have copy protection of any kind, CSS or Macrovision.
United States fair use law, as interpreted in the decision over Betamax (Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios), dictates that consumers are fully within their legal rights to copy videos they own. However, the legality has changed somewhat with the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act. After April 26, 2002, no VCR may be manufactured or imported without Automatic Gain Control circuitry (which renders VCRs vulnerable to Macrovision). This is contained in title 17, section 1201(k) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. However, there are a number of mostly older VCR models on the market that are not affected by Macrovision.

On October 26, 2001, the sale, purchase, or manufacture of any device that has no commercial purpose other than disabling Macrovision copy protection was made illegal under section 1201(a) of the same controversial act.

In June 2005, Macrovision sent a cease and desist letter to "Lightning UK!", the maker of DVD Decrypter, a program that allows users to backup their DVDs by bypassing CSS and Macrovision. They later acquired the rights to this software.http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/7056.cfm
In June 2005, Macrovision sued Sima Products under section 1201 of the DMCA, claiming that Sima's video processors provided a way to circumvent Macrovision's analog copy protection. Sima received an injunction barring the sale of this device, but the parties ultimately settled without a judgment on the legal issues.

Notable acquisitions

• In 2000, Macrovision acquired Globetrotter, creators of the FLEXlm, which was subsequently renamed Flexnet.

• In 2004, Macrovision acquired InstallShield, creators of installation authoring software.

• In 2005, Macrovision acquired the intellectual property rights to DVD Decrypter from its developer.

• In 2005, Macrovision acquired ZeroG Software, creators of InstallAnywhere (direct competition to InstallShield MP (MultiPlatform)), and Trymedia Systems.

• In 2006, Macrovision acquired eMeta.

• On January 1, 2007, Macrovision acquired Mediabolic, Inc.

• On November 6, 2007, Macrovision announced its intention to acquire All Media Guide

• On December 7, 2007, Macrovision announced an agreement to acquire Gemstar-TV Guide.

• On December 19, 2007, Macrovision purchased BD+ DRM technology from Cryptography Research Inc.

• On April 15, 2009, Macrovision announced that it has acquired substantially all of the assets of Muze Inc.