Macrovision re-invents itself as Rovi, kicks off with new guide "Liquid"

Hold on to your hats folks because the company that we love to hate is turning over a new leaf by kicking off its old DRM shoes and leveraging its acquisition of Gemstar in a big way. What we mean is that this is the first time in the history of Macrovision that we can remember being excited about an announcement; and boy does it make perfect sense that it comes with a new company name. Rovi's first consumer product should be available in various HDTVs next year, and among the new jazzed up looking guide you can expect a full DLNA client that is designed to be a single access point for all of your content. This includes internet sourced content like Slacker radio, YouTube XL, BLOCKBUSTER OnDemand, and CinemaNow; as well as anything you might have on your PC like pictures, music and even videos. Add in a little social networking from sites such as Flixster and we might have ourselves a new way to watch TV. No word yet on what new TVs will feature Liquid, but we'd expect to hear more at CES '10. The full release is after the jump.

Gallery: Rovi's Liquid guide

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Rovi Launches Digital Media Guide to
Transform the Entertainment Discovery Experience

New Guide Solution will Work with Internet Content Providers to Deliver on
Vision for the Future of Television and Connected Entertainment

SANTA CLARA, Calif., July 16, 2009 – Rovi Corporation (NASDAQ: ROVI), formerly Macrovision Solutions Corporation (see press release titled, "Macrovision Solutions Formally Changes Name to Rovi Corporation"), today unveiled a new Media Guide, code named "Liquid". This new industry leading media guide is capable of connecting consumers to entertainment content on the Internet and digital content stored at home, as well as broadcast and cable TV in a single, elegant user interface designed to simplify the entertainment experience.

Today's consumers have more entertainment options than ever – from television shows and movies to online video content, music and digital photos. With so much content available, the problem then becomes how to sort and find what you really want to watch.

Supported by Rovi's extensive collection of rich entertainment data and intelligent discovery technologies, as well as Rovi's experience in developing market leading program guides, the Liquid guide enables consumers to easily sift through the enormous amount of digital content available today. It builds upon the familiar user experience of the television guide to make it easy for consumers to find what they want, when they want it.

"We see today's announcement of the Liquid guide as the next step in delivering on our new vision and mission to power the discovery and enjoyment of digital content," said Fred Amoroso, president and CEO of Rovi Corporation. "By uniting all forms of digital media into one interactive and personalized source, we believe our new guide solution sets the bar for how we'll experience home entertainment in the future."

Liquid Guide Features
The new media guide solution is comprised of three distinct, but integrated solutions: a Television Content Guide, a Broadband Content Guide and a Personal Content Guide.

The Television Content Guide is a linear broadcast television discovery solution that CE manufacturers can embed into their devices. The Broadband Content Guide connects users to their favorite full length television and movie content for both free and paid services, as well as additional content including Internet video, popular music, social networking and other Internet destinations. The Personal Content Guide not only helps consumers navigate their media collections, but it also gives them the ability to share their content from the ease and comfort of their television screens.

The solution is also capable of personalizing the entertainment viewing experience by learning the preferences and tastes of viewers based on their interactions with the guide. The Liquid guide uses this intelligence to store favorites and make metadata-enhanced recommendations for undiscovered content. The guide also stores user profiles, so each member of the household can retrieve a personalized guide each time he or she turns on the TV.

The Liquid guide is designed to be able to connect to social network applications, such as Flixster – one of the largest social networks for movie lovers on the web – to access and provide recommendations directly through the guide. "With over 20 million monthly users on the Internet and mobile devices, Flixster helps people share and discover new entertainment content. Bringing that service directly to the TV, as part of the Liquid guide, solves a key missing link and will add enormous value to our users and their friends," said Joe Greenstein, co-founder and CEO of Flixster.

Availability
The Liquid guide is planned to be available for CE manufacturers in early 2010 as an entire package or individual modules.

Additional Supporting Quotes
"The Liquid guide offers an elegant solution for today's consumers, allowing easy access to their favorite content and rich information on a variety of connected devices," said Jonathan Sasse, senior vice president of marketing at Slacker. "Rovi helps our listeners learn about the artists and albums by providing detailed biographies, reviews and more. Slacker radio provides the best music experience without having to work at it and Rovi helps us do this."

"Consumers have access to more content than ever before, and savvy viewers are increasingly pairing traditional broadcast content with on-demand premium content and video from the Internet," said Colin Dixon, senior partner with the Diffusion Group. "However, along with the explosion of entertainment options comes the challenge of information overload. Consumers need a way to easily cut through the clutter to find the entertainment that really matters to them. By combining intelligent entertainment recommendations with access to digital content, the Liquid guide provides consumers with an important new tool to help discover, manage and enjoy entertainment for years to come."

About Rovi Corporation
Rovi Corporation is focused on revolutionizing the digital entertainment landscape by delivering solutions that enable consumers to intuitively discover new entertainment from many sources and locations. The company also provides extensive entertainment discovery solutions for television, movies, music and photos to its customers in the consumer electronics, cable and satellite, entertainment and online distribution markets. These solutions, complemented by industry leading entertainment data, create the connections between people and technology, and enable them to discover and manage entertainment in its most enjoyable form.

Rovi holds over 4,000 issued or pending patents and patent applications worldwide and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California, with numerous offices across the United States and around the world including Japan, Hong Kong, Luxembourg, and the United Kingdom. More information about Rovi can be found at www.rovicorp.com.

Forward Looking Statements
All statements contained herein that are not statements of historical fact, including statements that use the words "will" or "is expected to," or similar words that describe the Company's or its management's future plans, objectives, or goals, are "forward-looking statements" and are made pursuant to the Safe-Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause the actual results of the Company to be materially different from the historical results and/or from any future results or outcomes expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors are further addressed in the Company's most recent report on Form 10-Q for the period ended March 31, 2009 and such other documents as are filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time (available at www.sec.gov). The Company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this release, except as required by law.

[adam @ Jul 16th 2009 7:46AM]

looks like it will be on fios in the near future not like there network couldnt handle it
looks pretty intensive

[Eddy Munn @ Jul 16th 2009 7:47AM]

That's a great looking User Interface, the times should be in perspective with the rest of the deign though instead of being horizontal.

[Tony C @ Jul 16th 2009 11:45AM]

That's called bad photoshopping -- note the errors in the grid (48 hours on ABC? Not). In fact, I'd say this entire "Liquid" gallery isn't really a functional program guide at all, merely a rendered mockup designed to wow investors, OE manufacturers and consumers.

It does bear a very strong resemblance to Verizon FiOS' grids though.

[Adam @ Jul 16th 2009 8:04AM]

Great UI! Now only if Tivo would get off their arshe and update theirs..competition is good!

[Tony C @ Jul 16th 2009 8:16AM]

For a product named "Liquid", the GUI looks awfully cubist and inorganic...

[Quikboy @ Jul 16th 2009 9:24AM]

I think the UI in action, feels pretty 'fluid' like. Maybe like the Zune interface.

[Alex @ Jul 16th 2009 8:53AM]

That's pretty hot. When can I skin this onto WMC?

[ChamPro @ Jul 16th 2009 1:14PM]

Or rather, when will someone copy it for XBMC.

[Jordan Biffle @ Jul 16th 2009 9:10AM]

Please tell me this will work with current tv guide operated cable boxes.

[Jon Acheson @ Jul 16th 2009 9:29AM]

1995, your product is calling...

[Todd.Starbuck @ Jul 16th 2009 9:45AM]

Can we PLEASE stop using leverage and source as verbs? MBA and Marketing grads are destroying English with great enthusiasm.

[John Stracke @ Jul 16th 2009 10:27AM]

Any noun can be verbed. If you don't like it, stick with Latin.

[Miguel @ Jul 16th 2009 1:17PM]

"Leverage" and "source" both have secondary definitions/uses as transitive verbs. They appear in Merriam-Webster's dictionary as such, with a date of origin in 1957. American Heritage likewise has the words listed as verbs. Oxford English Dictionary I do not subscribe to (honestly, Oxford, why the Hell do you have to subscribe to use your dictionary online?), but I imagine it's the same there. Language evolves. A few hundred years ago, a "gentleman" was a wealthy man with a coat of arms and some landed property. Now it just describes someone's general approval of another's behavior. Get used to it.

[John Stracke @ Jul 16th 2009 10:28AM]

Arrgh. When will people learn that displaying their information on 3D surfaces makes it harder to read?

[Gorilla800lbs @ Jul 16th 2009 10:30AM]

I thnk that "the wall" pictures viewing metaphor employed on screenshot #5 is going to be kind of pointless to use with a conventional TV remote. You need some form of kinetic scrolling (mouse, wheel) to appreciably relate to the speed/slant of the wall scrolling.

[why not the LS2LS7? @ Jul 16th 2009 10:50AM]

Screw Macrovision. They killed Videoguide to further their VCR Plus crap. They then sued everyone in the world claiming that you couldn't display channel information in a grid of channel by time (as shown here) without paying them patent license fees.

And this is before we get to their involvement in copy protections.

Screw em.

[Jimi @ Jul 16th 2009 11:00AM]

As long as they don't drop support for their old TVGOS (TV Guide On Screen) that is built in to my current T.V. then I'm all for it :-)

[zorg @ Jul 16th 2009 11:16AM]

The only "liquid" I can associate with MacroVision is Eau de Skunk.

There's no way to trust a company that thrives on consumers miserable. E.g., with only one high quality input on my tv, I tried to chain my input devices together, something that alerts MacroVision that I *must* be attempting to copy content. Their solution: buy another TV! No wonder they are more popular with manufacturers than consumers.

[Releaux @ Jul 16th 2009 11:46PM]

Use of the Macrovision guide information will require a hardware security dongle and synchronized LCD glasses from approved vendors only. Failure to use either will result in your guide information looking like old school scrambled Skinimax.