SANTA CLARA, Calif. 2/1/2005 - Macrovision Corporation (Nasdaq: MVSN) today announced it is working with Microsoft Corp. to provide support for interoperability between Microsoft Windows Media DRM and Macrovision’s copy management solution. The agreement allows entertainment content owners to benefit from greater distribution flexibility while maintaining rights protection on PCs, digital video recorders and portable media devices. Microsoft and Macrovision will roll out this functionality over the next year.
For the entertainment industry to deliver premium on-demand entertainment in the home, rights must be protected to prevent revenue loss. With about 10 million digital video recorders expected to ship in 2005, a surge in demand for PCs running Microsoft Windows XP Media Center 2005 and broad consumer adoption and use of digital media technologies, Microsoft and Macrovision are working to provide a flexible rights solution that allows the entertainment industry to take full advantage of new usage models for today’s digital home.
"Interoperability is critical to increase content flow to consumer devices," said Blair Westlake, corporate vice president of the Media/Entertainment & Technology Convergence Group at Microsoft. "With Macrovision and Microsoft’s efforts to support analog copy management, content providers should gain the confidence they need to enhance the rollout of digital video content to PCs and related devices. We believe that this move benefits Hollywood, device makers and consumers."
Under the agreement, Microsoft’s Windows Media DRM technologies will "recognize" the Macrovision signals, enabling temporary storage (time shifting) on digital devices of Macrovision-protected content received via analog interfaces. Additionally, an Internet-delivered movie, downloaded to a PC, can now be protected on analog video playback out of a PC.
"With the growing popularity of Video-on-Demand and Internet-delivered on-demand entertainment, this agreement is good news for consumers who want more recent movies and other entertainment delivered straight to their homes," said Steve Weinstein, vice president and general manager, Entertainment Technologies Group at Macrovision. "It also benefits the entertainment industry, which can take advantage of emerging revenue channels while remaining confident their rights are protected."
About Macrovision Solutions Corporation
Macrovision Solutions Corporation is focused on providing a uniquely simple digital home entertainment experience by delivering solutions to businesses to protect, enhance and distribute digital goods to consumers across multiple channels. Macrovision's technologies are deployed by companies in the entertainment, consumer electronics, cable and satellite, and online distribution markets to solve industry-specific challenges and bring greater value and a more robust user experience to their customers. The result of deploying Macrovision's solutions is a simple end user experience for discovering, managing and enjoying digital content. Today, Macrovision provides connected middleware, media recognition, interactive programming guides, copy protection and rich media, data and metadata on music, games, movies and television programming. The company also operates an entertainment portal which can be found at http://www.allmusic.com/. Macrovision holds over 4,100 issued or pending patents and patent applications worldwide.
Macrovision is headquartered in Santa Clara, California, with numerous offices across the United States and around the world including Japan, Hong Kong, Luxembourg, and the United Kingdom. More information about Macrovision can be found at http://www.macrovision.com/.
# # #
Forward Looking Statements
All statements contained herein that are not statements of historical fact, including statements that use the words "will" or "is expected to," or similar words that describe the Company's or its management's future plans, objectives, or goals, are "forward-looking statements" and are made pursuant to the Safe-Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause the actual results of the Company to be materially different from the historical results and/or from any future results or outcomes expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors are further addressed in the Company's most recent quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the period ended September 30, 2008 and such other documents as are filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time (available at http://www.sec.gov/). The Company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this release, except as required by law.
