Macrovision Changes Name And Direction

Macrovision took a few letters off of its name and now calls itself Rovi, the company said Thursday.

"Today's announcement is the next step in uniting our technology and people under one shared identity, allowing us to move forward in creating a highly enjoyable entertainment experience for the consumer," said Fred Amoroso, president and CEO of Rovi.

Richard Bullwinkle, Rovi's chief evangelist, said the name change will help the company better reflect its transition from primarily being a content security technology developer to its new role as a developer of digital entertainment content solutions.

Long known as a producer of copy protection methods for content providers, the company has a wide portfolio of products, including on-screen guides for consumer electronics offerings. In that arena, Thursday also marked the announcement of the company's new digital media guide, as well as a relationship with Blockbuster.

Code-named "Liquid," the new guide plans to simplify the consumer's entertainment experience by offering a single user interface that combines content on the Internet with content stored at home, as well as broadcast and cable television. The hope is to build on the now familiar on-screen television guide and incorporate an easy way to sort through other forms of digital content.

Liquid will consist of three individual solutions: a Television Content Guide, a Broadband Content Guide and a Personal Content Guide. The Television Content Guide essentially is a visually appealing, easier to read version of the grid most of us currently get our TV listings on. The Broadband Content Guide will allow users to connect to online television and movie services, as well as popular music and video destinations on the Internet. And as the name Liquid implies, the Personal Content Guide enables consumers to navigate and share their own media collections.

Where Liquid can really make a splash is in its ability to learn the preferences and tastes of viewers, each with their own profiles, and personalize the experience with an automatically populated favorites list, as well as making recommendations of new content, via the use of meta-data.

To that end, The Broadband Content Guide also will be able to connect to social network applications. One example the company gave is Flixster, one of the largest social networks for movie lovers on the Web where, via the guide's interface, users can share and discover new entertainment content.

Rovi also announced Thursday a relationship with Blockbuster that will offer content and services from Blockbuster OnDemand integrated directly into the Liquid guide.

Liquid is expected to be made available to consumer electronics manufacturers in early 2010 as individual modules or an entire package. It will be interesting to see how many CE companies forego the similar, in-house designed features in favor of Liquid. Additionally, there is no mention of how the inclusion of Liquid will affect the price of products that incorporate it.

Do you like the features of Liquid enough to spend extra for a product that offers it? And, if so, how much more would you be willing to pay?

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