Macrovision

An extremely annoying copy protection used on commercial VHS videos and the output of DVD players. Although it is easily worked around with a Macrovision Buster, it's a necessary evil that content producers need to use to protect their assets.

I lack technical details on this one, but basically what it does is mess with the gain control on whatever device you attach it to, particularly VCRs, so that the picture keeps alternating between light and dark. Tremendously annoying.

From the company that brought you distorted video when you connect your DVD player to your VCR, comes a new technology designed to give new audio CDs the nostalgic sound of traditional analog LPs! Yes, with Macrovision's new audio CD protection scheme, when you rip the music, it will have an added bonus - clicks and pops! This begs the question: So they've got clicks and pops, will it sound warmer as well? Wait, this isn't a technology to make CDs sound like vinyl, this is a half-baked copy protection scheme designed to thwart MP3 and OGG fair-use (RIAA translation: piracy)!

Slashdot, ZDNet and CNET have covered this story, but for the juicy bits, here's how it is supposed to work in a nutshell:

The CDs are produced with intentional errors in the datastream. During playback, standard audio CD players ignore the errors and interpolate between the last good sample and the one following the error, with only "barely audible" distortion. CD-ROM drives, on the other hand, rip the entire stream, errors and all, peppering your music with clicks and pops.

Okay, so it might be vaporware, as of this noding, no one seems to have heard of any CDs that actually employ Macrovision's new protection. It is something to keep an eye, or an ear rather, if the new CDs you buy suddenly sound really crappy and you're not listening to (insert name of band you dislike here).