Macrovision CDS300

Macrovision is a world leader in copy protection and digital rights management. Their CDS300 product line prevents piracy while still allowing legitimate users to copy and burn digital-rights-managed (DRM) audio files.

For Fluid, Inc., I helped structure and streamline the user experience, developed a design vocabulary for the user interface, and produced all the interface assets. In addition, I also designed and created a custom skin for Windows Media Player to completely brand the product and unify the user experience.

The end result was an application that sported both an Internet Explorer ActiveX object (for displaying the Flash UI) and a Windows Media Player Active X object (for controlling playback of the music from the CD). CDS300 was designed to be quite small and unobtrusive (just over 300 pixels square), with upper UI was formatted like a CD jewel case booklet and tray card spine; when buttons and panels are interacted with, they are given a smoked-glass look and feel entirely with Flash vector art. The application is fast, responsive, and simple. Recently a facility to even burn legal backup CD's directly from this application was added as well.

This digital product will ship on millions of compact discs starting in 2004, and is being localized into many languages.