PSA: Required reading for ANYONE considering Windows VistaTech

[unixronin]

schneier tells it how it is about the DRM in Windows Vista.

The details are pretty geeky, but basically Microsoft has reworked a lot of the core operating system to add copy protection technology for new media formats like HD-DVD and Blu-ray disks.  Certain high-quality output paths--audio and video--are reserved for protected peripheral devices.  Sometimes output quality is artificially degraded; sometimes output is prevented entirely.  And Vista continuously spends CPU time monitoring itself, trying to figure out if you're doing something that it thinks you shouldn't.  If it does, it limits functionality and in extreme cases restarts just the video subsystem.  We still don't know the exact details of all this, and how far-reaching it is, but it doesn't look good.

Microsoft put all those functionality-crippling features into Vista because it wants to own the entertainment industry.  This isn't how Microsoft spins it, of course.  It maintains that it has no choice, that it's Hollywood that is demanding DRM in Windows in order to allow "premium content" — meaning, new movies that are still earning revenue — onto your computer.  If Microsoft didn't play along, it'd be relegated to second-class status as Hollywood pulled its support for the platform.

It's all complete nonsense.  Microsoft could have easily told the entertainment industry that it was not going to deliberately cripple its operating system, take it or leave it.  With 95% of the operating system market, where else would Hollywood go?  Sure, Big Media has been pushing DRM, but recently some — Sony after their 2005 debacle and now EMI Group — are having second thoughts.

Go ahead, read the whole thing.  Learn where the bodies are buried, and what it means to you.

Comments

[genuine-snark.livejournal.com]

I'll have to search for the documentation, but all HD-DVD and Blu-Ray playback devices -must- support signal degradation over analog outputs if the proper bits are set on the media. It's part of getting the license to the patent to play the media.

In reality, no media is out with this bit set yet. I think that's a semi-official decision by Sony, waiting for HDMI to penetrate, and an unspoken one on HD-DVD.

Not saying I love Vista in any way shape of form, but I don't believe this one is strictly Microsoft's fault. Blame the MPAA.

[genuine-snark.livejournal.com]

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060122-6027.html

There's one document on it. If you poke around, you'll find more. This is a popular slashdot topic.