"Daniel Crichton" wrote in message
. ..
Stoneskin wrote:

Are you sure it's because of macrovision? I'm not an expert but from
what I have seen a macrovision 'currupted' screen will be more like an
image which changes the contrast and color balances of the image.
Plus the sound will keep dropping out.

As I said, I'm not an expert, but it sounds more to me like those 5x
drivers were more to blame. Changing drivers shouldn't affect any
macrovision protection.

Not quite true. Some/most/all (not sure which) of the drivers after 41.09
will disable playback of DVDs if the TV out chipset is a particular
version
as it was shipped with Macrovision signal generation, thereby allowing
DVDs
to be played without Macrovision protection and recorded. The studios/DVD
forum/someone put pressure on nVidia to "correct" this by disabling
playback
of DVDs on affected chipsets. If you have a TV out chipset that is not in
the banned list, it works fine (like my Leadtek A250 LE with the 42.70
drivers happily still plays DVDs). This is really a stupid thing for
nVidia
to have done - it seems a large number of cards are affected by this. And
if
someone wants to record a DVD to video Macrovision is the least of their
worries - for very little cost you can get a cable with a Macrovision
stripping circuit and remove the signal anyway.

Dan
Or you get a DVD recorder and do a decent job without analog TV involvment.
But that requires the use of illegal software.

I would guess that some form of pressure was put jointly on Nvidia, the card
makers and the software DVD makers together so that joint blame was implied
and neither could blame the other. Changing the driver may get them out of a
legal fix but it's not like people can't swap drivers when they need too.
But that's the law for you.