Frequently Asked Questions
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Q: Are DVD media copy protected?

A: There are four forms of DVD copy protection.

  1. Analog CPS (Macrovision) - Videotape (analog) copying is prevented with a Macrovision 7.0 or similar circuit in every player. The general term is Analog Protection System (APS). Computer video cards with composite or s-video (Y/C) output must also use APS. Macrovision adds a rapidly modulated color burst signal or color stripe along with pulses in the vertical blanking signal to the composite video and s-video outputs. This confuses the synchronization and automatic-recording-level circuitry in 95 percent of consumer VCRs.

  2. Copy Generation Management System (CGMS) - Each disc also contains information specifying if the contents can be copied. This is a serial CGMS designed to prevent copies or copies of copies. The CGMS information is embedded in the outgoing video signal. For CGMS to work, the equipment making the copy must recognize and respect the CGMS.

  3. Content Scrambling System (CSS) - Because of the potential for perfect digital copies, movie studios forced a deeper copy protection requirement into the DVD standard. CSS is a form of data encryption to discourage reading media files directly from the disc. Most players have a decryption circuit that decodes the data before displaying it. No unscrambled digital output is allowed until work in progress for secure digital connections is finished. On the computer side, DVD drives and video display/decoder hardware or software exchange encryption keys so that the video is decrypted just before being displayed by the encoder. This means that many DVD drives and video display boards have extra hardware and cost for movie copy protection.

  4. Digital Copy Protection System (DCPS) - In order to provide for digital connections between components without allowing perfect digital copies, five digital copy protection systems have been proposed to the Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association (CEMA). The front runner is digital transmission content protection (DTCP), which focuses on Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 1394/FireWire, but can be applied to other protocols. The draft proposal, called 5C for the five companies that developed it, was made by Intel, Sony, Hitachi, Matsushita, and Toshiba in February 1998. In December 1998, Sony announced the development of a DTCP chip planned for release in spring 1999. Under DTCP, devices that are digitally connected, such as a DVD player and a digital TV or a digital VCR, exchange keys and authentication certificates to establish a secure channel. The DVD player encrypts the encoded audio/video signal as it sends it to the receiving device, which must decrypt it. This keeps other connected but unauthenticated devices from stealing the signal. No encryption is needed for content that is not copy protected. Security can be renewed by new content, such as new DVDs or new broadcasts, and new devices that carry updated keys and revocation lists to identify unauthorized or compromised devices.

The first three forms of copy protection are optional for the producer of a DVD. Movie decryption is also optional for hardware and software playback manufacturers: a player or computer without decryption capability is only able to play unencrypted movies. Gateway's hardware and software DVD solutions are capable of decryption. DCPS is performed by the DVD player, not by the disc developer. These copy protection schemes are designed only to guard against casual copying, which the studios claim causes billions of dollars in lost revenue. The goal is to "keep honest people honest." Even the people who developed the copy protection standards admit that they will not stop well-equipped pirates. There are inexpensive devices that defeat analog copy protection, but Macrovision claims none of the devices are effective against the new color stripe feature.