My 11-year-old, 21-inch standard definition television doesn’t have AV input. No composite, no component. A single loose coaxial connection constantly in danger of falling out of my TV serves as its lone input option. In this HD era, audio and video signals reach my television by first passing through a composite switch and traveling from there to a cheap Wal-Mart VCR which has only one of the two standard audio inputs (a white, but no red hole). They finally reach my television via coaxial cable, passing through a SNES RF switch first, of course. I can only assume the picture I finally see would cause any videophile to vomit violently.

Though this setup is less than ideal when it comes to playing video games, the real problems arise when I try to watch a DVD. You see, some DVDs, seemingly chosen at random as I can find no common link between distributors or copyright holders, are protected by a dutiful soldier on the front lines of the war on piracy called Macrovision. “Designed to deter unauthorized recording of copyrighted materials,” Macrovision horribly distorts the DVD’s video signal if it passes through another recording device – like a cheap Wal-Mart VCR – on its way to its final destination. Macrovision alters the brightness of the image, causing it to pulse between light and dark extremes. Of course, this only affects anything on the DVD you’d actually want to watch. Trailers and advertisements are always wholly unaffected.

I realize the primarily goal of anti-piracy measures is to punish people that legimately buy a product, and to that effect Macrovision is a worthwhile tool. Nevermind the fact that I can take any Macrovision-infested DVD and easily rip it to my computer’s harddrive with no ill effects. I realize that I’m one of a select few that are still forced to run connections through other devices due to a lack of proper inputs, and therefore the number of people with honest intent affected by this problem is minimal, but what percent of piracy involves coping DVDs by running their output signals through VCRs? How many people even own a VCR any more, let alone actually have one set up to watch these freshly pirated DVD-to-VHS conversions?

Developing this Macrovision technology cost someone money. Licensing it for implementation on your newly released (and yet already widely available online) DVD collection also costs someone money. It’s a good thing I’m forced to use my PC’s DVD drive to watch half of the movies Netflix sends me because of this. At least Macrovision’s helping curb that prevalent VHS piracy and doing its part to drive up DVD prices.