Vista Madness (PMP, DRM, WHQL & More)

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DOT is rejecting Vista, click here.

"Compatibility with existing applications appears to be the Transportation Department's major concern."
 
DOT is rejecting Vista, click here.

"Compatibility with existing applications appears to be the Transportation Department's major concern."
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That article seems to be a good find. In the end the cost for an upgrade costs all of the US drivers money and raises the taxes of all of us. Imagine exactly how many computers we are looking at... millions of computers. Both needing new hardware and software. A nation at war has no business throwing away billions on Vista computers. It is likely that in this case the DOT is forcing MS to bite on a better package deal?

On the FLIP side the US Congress is busy again determining exactly what digital rights big business will put in it's pockets. The PREFORM act is back and should it pass (most feel it will) your desire to record TV shows like House: MD, Lost, Heroes and all the rest will be simply a desire. At the moment recording TV or radio is the last sort of free recording we can do.

Electronic Frontier Foundation's article and petition here!
 
Another lost of use; this is getting way out of hand. I don't see a reason for all these companies running to the government to protect the content. My understanding is that ever time a song or movie is played the content owners get a piece of the pie.

And of course if this bill is passed the content distributors will use it beyond the intended purpose. Abuse...IMO

Thanks for the PERFORM Act link
 
Magnum,

I recently posted something similar to what you are saying --- but found that the topic has now been locked out --- do you know why???
 
I have never, nor will I ever, ask for a thread to be locked. Again you assume way too much... which is your problem. You make huge assumptions based on little bits of information and run with it. If you wish to find out why a thread was locked, ask the forum moderator... as you can plainly see, I am not the moderator.

Trust me... you in no way "made a sport out of me".
 
I have never, nor will I ever, ask for a thread to be locked. Again you assume way too much... which is your problem. You make huge assumptions based on little bits of information and run with it. If you wish to find out why a thread was locked, ask the forum moderator... as you can plainly see, I am not the moderator.

Trust me... you in no way "made a sport out of me".
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I see wow that is something. So you assume that I assumed that you had Ninja hook you up? Guess what... I don't make assumptions that often. I actually speculated and I am sure that you are not qualified to determine what problems I have if any.

Kiss Kiss Baby
 
I have a complaint to make to zoron and alpha--

First, I dont appreciate topics that i post to be flamed out of existance because of either of you. With this in my mind, can you refrain in future and stick with point as both of you have good points to offer ---it does no good to rant without reason as your points are lost and so are mine (even if i'm agreeing with you). Can we all be friends --- or atleast seem like friends in these discussions.
 
Yes, there are bad things in Vista, for you. Not for everyone. I haven't run into any problems so far, my games work. But Vista is the future. Linux is too. But I don't see everyone switching to Linux in Vista's lifetime! What exactly can you do on Linux? Sure, it's free. And yes, I have used Ubuntu, and I like it. But it's complicated. Games don't work on it. Programs are limited. Drivers are limited. If those things are worked out, I don't even want to say Microsoft.
 
I have a complaint to make to zoron and alpha--

First, I dont appreciate topics that i post to be flamed out of existance because of either of you. With this in my mind, can you refrain in future and stick with point as both of you have good points to offer ---it does no good to rant without reason as your points are lost and so are mine (even if i'm agreeing with you). Can we all be friends --- or atleast seem like friends in these discussions.
Click to expand...
For my part I apologize 😳
 
I has taken me a while to read through all these post, and I felt I should read them before joining the discussion.

The original poster seems to be very intent to putting some points across to 'warn' unsuspecting PC users from the evil that is Vista. He tries to gain sympathy by instilling doubt to readers of this forum, and offends users that don't agree or even come up with valid proof to debunk his claims. He flames people for commenting in 'his' thread without reading his posts, yet he does exactly the same (and apperently is proud of it as well);

I would love to comment but I'm retired! I can mention *inux and I have no issues running it. I'm sorry that you can't get it up ( you're *inux system I mean) but eventually you may. For some reason I completely forgot what you posted, sorry! It must be because I have to grab some lunch? Wait, I only read the first and last scentences, Oh well.

Quoted from another thread were he apperently met too much opposition so he had to flee and create 'his own' thread...

He uses quotes from 'reporters' without specifying a source, and uses that in a way to insult the poster that questioned his claims.

He uses WHQL as an example how MS 'closes down the box' and prevents development of open standards. Now tell me this, WHQL exists for YEARS, and is not exclusive to Vista. WHQL only applies to Windows platforms and device drivers for that platform, and has NO (I Repeat) NO influence whatsoever on development of support for other OS', open source or not.

Hardware designed to protect content (or maintain the so called PMP) has NO (I repeat) NO influence whatsoever on development of device drivers for OS' that decide not to support playback of protected content. The only result is that that OS will have no legal way to support playback of that content (If the OS was never designed to support it, what point would there be in writing drivers for these dedicated chip anyway).

Proof: nVidia has several Videocards that comply with the PMP specification for Vista, yet have working and up to date drivers available for Open Source platforms such as Linux. The vary nature of Linux will probably mean that playback support for protected content will be very unlikely, so these Videocard 'features' simply don't apply to Linux environments.

Another bit of 'proof' is handed in the form of an article concerning your DOT. In don't know what a conspiracy theorist reads into that article, but I read the same as I read when Win95, WinNT, Win2K, WinXP, WinXP64, OSX and OSX for Intel was introduced; lots of PC's concerned, cost of upgrade, new OS means compatibility issues for older software. If you have 1 PC, then these issues are easy to solve, if you 15.000 (or more), then you may want to hold off with your upgrades untill software support has caught up. Here in France many police stations still work with Win2K. Why? because the software they use hasn't changed in years, so there is no reason for them to upgrade. Does that mean that the French police department are officially saying that XP is bad, or evil? No it means just that; no funds, compatibility issues.

Another example; a friend of mine is a veterinarian. The database they use runs on Win98 only. He NEEDS to buy a new PC because this one is running on its last leggs. He has been told that he can get an upgrade to his database program to support XP (or Vista), but it will cost him € 1500. By the OP's logic, this man is refusing to upgrade because of concerns over DRM/monopoly/MS standards etc. I mean, why else would the article about the DOT be made relevant in this discussion? The facts are a lot more simple though; he would like nothing more than to upgrade to a more secure XP or Vista environment, but he refuses to pay an outrageous fee to get his database compatible. I am now helping him set up a Vista environment and we're going to virtualize a Win98 environment for his database. Linux is not the answer to his problem, nor is OSX. Simple economics are dictating his decision. There are MILLIONS of small bussinesses who are constantly weighing their software decisions on simple economics.

Will Vista increase the Cost of PC's? No, not as far as I can see. If I go to Dell, the prices for similar PC are the same, before and after the introduction of Vista. If I look at the prices of XP Professional OEM compared to Vista Professional OEM, I don't see any real difference (deffinatelly not in the order of 100%, as claimed on the boards). OK, if you want the latest of the latest stuff, with HD playback and the whole shebang, you're gonna pay more than just a normal Mid-Range PC, but hasn't it always been like that? My first DVD-rom drive cost something in the order of € 300, and required a dedicated MPEG2 board to playback DVDs (with a VGA loopthrough cable, imagine that). Now a DVD-rom drives can be had for € 20.

An often quoted article on the board is the one found on this link: [url=http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/....auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html [/url]. This article has made wild accusations about the impact of Vista on our lifes. A lot of the accusations have been proved as nonsense and, without notice (or rectification comment) have been removed or toned down from the article. So, an article that is used by a lot of people as proof of the evils of MS, has been changed on numerous occasions without prior notice (somewhat like a MS EULA, see the parallels?). But again, something a lot of people fail to grasp is that it is not the (monetary) cost of DRM that is the issue here, it is the cost of new technology (as has always been the case). HDTV's now cost only a fraction of what they cost a few years ago. A DVD player now costs a small fraction of what they cost when they were just released. Does anyone remember € 1000 CD-players? I do. Minidisk players? € 700... My first Geforce2 GTS card? € 500...in fact, with inflation correction applied, you will find that EVERY top of the range Geforce graphics card has been introduced at retail for roughly the same price, DRM/AACS/DHCP or not...

Now, about DRM, and the (non-) necessity of it. As I have told before, I am not a big fan of restrictive DRM, but having worked in the content creation bussiness has allowed me to realise things others may not have. With HD content available to the general public for the first time in history, we are in a unique situation that the public has now access to material in almost the same quality as the content creators' source (film) material. With bit for bit digital copies and broadband internet, we are now in a situation where a pirate copy is identical to the legal copy or worse, to the source material. Never, in the history of creative media creation, has it been easier to enjoy a Cinema quality experience in the confort of your own home (Legal or Illegal). In the entire history of content creation, only since the dawn of the CD recorder has it been possible to make 1 on 1 copies (a relatively recent event) of audio content, and even later than that DVD copies.
Now people claiming that 'it has always been possible to make copies, until now, and that is unfair', you are wrong; a compact cassette copy of an LP and the LP are not the same. A VHS copy from TV or DVD is not the same. For decades, if you wanted to see a movie, you had to go to the cinema, and even with VHS there was still a huge quality incentive to go the the cinema. In the digital age, and with the HD revolution in full swing, all that changed. The content environment changed (immensely in our benefit as consumers), but some people insist that even in a changing environment, the rules should stay the same (rules that were never designed to cope with digital copies and mass digital distrubution). Some people even take that to extremes and declare any measure to protect intellectual property as an assault on their freedoms. But is that really the case? I mean, you are still free to choose to buy content or not...You are still free to choose to enjoy content or not...Those freedoms are still protected as they always were. Heck, if you were so inclined, you can still obtain illegal copies of content and enjoy it on your Vista PC. You are still free to NOT support DRM by not buying protected content, and you know what? Vista will NOT report your ass to MS/AACS/RIAA/MPAA for NOT buying protected content.

Now back on point, every OS/Device that will want to offer compatibility for protected content has but one choice and that is comply with the rules set by the provider of said content. Every OS/Device that does not want to offer that compatibility, or wants to protest such rules, is free to do so. Linux (apparently) runs fine fine on all the latest HDCP compatible hardware, but since Open Source is in direct conflict with the wishes of these content providers, some of the 'features' of this hardware will simply not work, and some content will simply not play back on Linux...Now why is that so bad? I mean, if you are against DRM in the first place then why would you have a problem with the fact that certain DRM specific hardware will not work on your Linux PC, not playing back the DRM protected content you weren't going to buy in the first place? I simply don't get it... Why is that a bad thing? And how are the design specs for Vista drivers causing problems for Linux drivers that use entirely different specs?

You assume that one thing has something to do with the other...You assume wrong.

Sorry (again) for the long post, but it needs to be said that the original poster is wrong in most of his points and the 'research' he has done to come to those points and the conclusion he comes to from that research is flawed, based mostly on shady, opinionated hearsay articles... But I suspect the response I will be getting is that I am just a naive 'Spider Monkey' who is marching in step with Bill Gates. Nevermind the nearly 2 decades I've spent using several different OS environments, from DOS/Win to MacOS to SGI IRIX.
 
KwyjiboNL77,

I disagree with some of what you are saying. For example, you say

"Hardware designed to protect content (or maintain the so called PMP) has NO (I repeat) NO influence whatsoever on development of device drivers for OS' that decide not to support playback of protected content. The only result is that that OS will have no legal way to support playback of that content (If the OS was never designed to support it, what point would there be in writing drivers for these dedicated chip anyway)" --- however, fail to state that there is still an increased hardware cost that is passed on to consumer.

Vista includes various design requirements for the content industry that add costs to the pc wether content protection is being used or not. Additionally, I think these design elements hurt innovation and increases cost in the pc industry. For example, Vista's content-protection requirements eliminates the ability to accomodate different feature sets in a one-size-fits-all design, banning the use of separate TV-out encoders, DVI circuitry, RAMDACs, and other discretionary add-ons because feeding unprotected video to these optional external components would make it too easy to lift the signal off the bus leading to the external component. So everything has to be custom-designed and laid out so that there are no unnecessary accessible signal links on the board. This means that a low-cost card isn't just a high-cost card with components omitted, and conversely a high-cost card isn't just a low-cost card with additional discretionary components added, each one has to be a completely custom design created to ensure that no signal on the board is accessible. Instead of adding an external DVI/TMDS chip, it now has to be integrated into the graphics chip, along with any other functionality normally supplied by an external device. So instead of varying video card cost based on optional components, the chipset vendor now has to integrate everything into a one-size-fits-all premium-featured graphics chip, even if all the user wants is a budget card

ATI stated that we "Cannot go to market until it works to specification… potentially more respins of hardware” ATI also stated "This increases motherboard design costs, increases lead times, and reduces OEM configuration flexibility". These costs are passed on to the consumer. Increase development time hurts innovation as innovation is based on the previous product that was released.

Drm also requires third party licensing which also increases costs. Ati stated “We've taken on more legal costs in copyright protection in the last six to eight months than we have in any previous engagement. Each legal contract sets a new precedent, and each new one builds on the previous one”. All of these legal costs are passed on to us. Microsoft also recommendeds as part of their content protection that vendors license third-party code obfuscation tools to provide virus-like stealth capabilities for their device drivers in order to make it difficult to interfere with their operation or to reverse-engineer them --- this also increases the costs.

There is also increase time and costs in developing new drivers as hardware vendors must deal with all the implications of drm and be concerned with the possibility of hardware driver revocation as the driver would be revoked if found to leaking content after the fact (in other words --- the driver can be revoked for all graphic cards of a particular model if it is found to be leaking content --- even if it was already installed on your computer). This increases liability of the hardware vendors and means hardware vendors will be more concerned with just assuring that the hardware drivers are not revoked rather than just concentrating on designing a better performing graphic card. Further, microsofts licensing agreement states “It is recommended that a graphics manufacturer go beyond the strict letter of the specification and provide additional content-protection features, because this demonstrates their strong intent to protect premium content”. Essentially, all the liability and costs of development are layed on the hardware manufacturers --- these costs are also passed on to us.

From a general stand point, the hardware spec (ie grahpic card) is now controlled by the content providers. This means if a hardware manufacturer was looking at new and revolutionary design concept that was outside of the spec --- it would now have to also deal with all of the complexities of the spec not making it feasible or to costly to develop. This hurts innovation. It also means longer development cycles between new products because hardware vendors must deal with all the complexities of the spec --- this also hurts innovation.

Prior to vista, the resources of the pc industry were placed on making software and hardware as non complex and non restrictive as possible so as to gain performance, lesson cost, and encourage innovation. The new requirements for drm at both the software and hardware level introduces a layer of complexity that means longer and more costly development time for pc hardware and software

You also seem to make a comparison to that vista has not increased the cost by looking at the price dell is charging; however, to get the same performance and functions as current xp machine --- it does cost more- and even then (with doing all the upgrades --- you still wont get same performance as xp). It also does not take into consideration how all of this new complexity may hurt future innovation.

To me, through the introduction of vista, microsoft has defined a market where the pc is used nothing more than as a device for the entertainment industry. There are other uses for the pc that extend beyond the use of protected content. The content industry should spend its own money developing this stuff if it wants to implement drm.

I agree with those of you are saying that the content providers have a right to protect content --- but wonder if they have gone to far. I do not believe it is appropriate for content providers to have this much control in the pc industry and increase the costs of the pc across the board and in a manner which hurts future innovation.

My problem is the approach. The approach should of been for the content providers to develop there own special add on module or special dvd drive that could be added to pc rather than now making all pc's an entertainment device. Another possible approach would be to have two version of vista --- one without high def dvd support and drm and one with drm --- would love to here other alternatives from anyone.
 
dsharp9000,

I think you are confusing a few things. When devices support HDCP and comply with the PMP are used on an OS that does not require these specs and does not support protected playback, that does not mean that these devices will not work on such OS (as suggested by some people here), nor will it complicate driver design for such OS, because these requirements can simply be ignored on that OS.
As for added cost, well, several devices already comply, and they are no more expensive than their comparable previous versions. New standards are introduced in software and hardware constantly, DirectX goes througyh constant revision, so does OpenGL. Programs and hardware that ran fine on MacOS 9, no longer works on OSX, not without some cost involved. The discrete PC graphics market (intergrated graphics solutions are not affected by the PMP requirement) is a market with HUGE profit margins, especially in the Highend segment. Chips are being sold at several times the amount they cost to make and develop. ATI stated that they are going to pass on their cost to consumers, whereas they are not in a position to claim that is necessery. ATI has the choice of offering solutions without support for protected content playback. ATI chooses not to do that. ATI could reduce their profit margin on each chip sold in order to accomodate costs involved with ensuring compatibility with the emerging HD market. ATI chooses not to do that and instead pass that cost on to its clients. ATI chooses to blame MS/Vista for the rising price of their products, forgetting that the windows platform is ATI's main reason of existance.
Innovation in PC component design, Videocards in specific has never been higher that it is currently. nVidia and ATI are on product cycle times almost half the time as any other component. You cannot honnestly be serious that a company that can come up with a completely new chip architecture every 9 months to satisfy a market willing to pay huge amounts of money for their gaming fix, hasn't got the resources and knowhow to implement a 10$ security feature in its 600$ retail design? And that a specification that is all laid out clear, and only needs to be implemented (not reinvented) hurts innovation...?

The PC in its current state is all based on content. The current PC has evolved from a typewriter replacement to a machine that can handle complex 3D tasks, HD video playback, enormous storage needs, world wide connectivity etc. It has done so because of consumer demand. Content isn't only protected HD content, but is everything you read, watch play, use and listen to. Without content, there would be no PC. Content has dictated the development of PC/PC components for many years, for Windows, Apple and Linux alike. Content dictates the specs for your Video out, the requirements of your 3D card, the size of your harddrive, the size of your screen, the cabbles to your amplifier, the functionality of your playback software and ultimately the functionality of your OS. It has done so for many, many years. For many, many years people have used and abused their PCs to enjoy but also copy, share and distribute content. Many people have never bothered to find out who made it possible for them to enjoy that content, and have never had second thoughts about sharing, copying and distributing that content, just because technology made it possible for them to do so, and to do so in relative anonimity. These people are now often mistaken that possibillity they always had for a right they always had. They reason thas as soon as they buy a DVD, they own the movie on that DVD and they should be allowed to do with that whatever they want. But surely if you buy a concert ticket you don't drive home with the band in your trunk, do you? Or if you buy a ticket to the zoo, you don't drive home with an elephant strapped to your roof, do you? You bought the ticket, but you don't expect to have the right to make a photocopy of the ticket 'for safekeeping' and still be allowed into the concert with that photocopy, do you?

What I am trying to say is that some people want it all. They want HD, but they don't want to pay for it. They don't want to accept the consequenses of a decade and a half of free-spirited copying and downloading. They are now offered a simple choice, if you still want to enjoy content, you will have accept the rules. The choice is simple, yet the only thing they can come up with is; I want the content, but I don't want to accept the rules. If DRM is making PC more expensive, then it can also be said that the evolution of the PC has made Content creation more expensive.

On your last comment about two versions of Vista. Can you explain to me exactly what the difference is with the current situation? If your hardware doesn't support protected HD media playback, then there is nothing for the DRM to protect in the first place so it will be a complete non-issue. Why would that require a different version of Vista? I can tell you from my own experience (Vista 32bit Ultimate) that DRM on my PC is a complete non-issue. Since I don't play DRM protected files, I have never seen any proof that it was affecting my PC in any negative way, be it perfomance related or functionality related.
 
Thanks, for the reply. It is good to hear from someone that wants to discuss this subject from a more logical standpoint.

I am not going to repeat what I already said relating to increase hardware costs but will repeat that ATI has said that it does increase costs. As you said, "ATI stated that they are going to pass on their cost to consumers, whereas they are not in a position to claim that is necessery". I am unsure what you mean by "they are not in a position to claim that is necessary" as you seem to saying that any company cant recoup costs. You also state "ATI has the choice of offering solutions without support for protected content playback. ATI chooses not to do that" ---- thus leaving future support for any non protected version os (ie:linux) suspect or at the very least more expensive.

You also state 'ATI could reduce their profit margin on each chip sold in order to accomodate costs involved with ensuring compatibility with the emerging HD market. ATI chooses not to do that and instead pass that cost on to its clients". This also means more cost to the pc. You also state "ATI chooses to blame MS/Vista for the rising price of their products, forgetting that the windows platform is ATI's main reason of existance". I agree that ms/vista is reason for rising price of their products. Additionally, I also agree that windows platform is main reason for ATI existance; however, the new requirements for drm at both the software and hardware level introduces a layer of complexity that means longer and more costly development time for pc hardware and software. The new complexity that drm and vista at both the hardware and software level negates the policy of the past leaving the potential of the pc market suspect --- if I were ATI --- I would be concerned about future.

You also state "the PC in its current state is all based on content. The current PC has evolved from a typewriter replacement to a machine that can handle complex 3D tasks, HD video playback, enormous storage needs, world wide connectivity etc. It has done so because of consumer demand". I agree with you and want to continue to see the pc to evolve rather than become stuck as a overpriced dvd player. When the pc first came out --- no one saw what it be able to do at present. The same holds true now --- no one knows where the pc might evolve to in future --- but the spec is now controlled by the content providers --- this may hinder its evolution in ways we cannot fully comprehend as one must get the approval of content owners for any change in the spec. This type of limitation did not exist in the past leaving future innovation in question.

You state "Can you explain to me exactly what the difference is with the current situation? If your hardware doesn't support protected HD media playback, then there is nothing for the DRM to protect in the first place so it will be a complete non-issue. Why would that require a different version of Vista?" . A none drm version of vista would remove all the drm stuff from the vista kernal --- drm adds unnecessary complexity to both the hardware and software and wastes computer resources and to me represents an engineering defect. A non drm version would also allow the adding of open source (none drm) hardware that is outside of requirements of content owners.

There are also other concerns that I have with the content providors controling the pc market as it is negatively (in some cases eliminating) effecting segments of pc software in addition to hardware even though it does not relate to drm (if you ask I can get into --- but trying to keep my response to you from being to long). For example, alternative virtualization technologies such as vmware face elimination from the market place because of the "potential" threat virtualization poses to drm protection. This is problem with content providors having to much control in the pc industry --- technologies are either eliminated or become so laced with limitations so as to hinder its usefulness because of "mere threat" to protected content even when protected content is not relavent to drm.

You also state "What I am trying to say is that some people want it all. They want HD, but they don't want to pay for it". Personnally, I dont know anyone that has not been paying for dvd's. All the people I know have loads of dvd's ---- my own dvd collection takes up a whole closet. The content providers could of released hd dvd's long ago if they were not so paranoid about all the drm protection. In my opinion, the protected content owners have already missed out on numerous marketing opportunities and potential increased revenues because of shear paranoia.

Please note I do not disagree with you at all relating to content owners having right to protect content; only believe there is an underlying issue here that is of far greater concern whether you believe in drm or not and wonder if there is any alternative which might be option--- maybe there is not --- but thought it be worth asking.
 
dsharp9000,

I have gone back to the other thread (the benchmark thread) to continue the discussion there. I hope you forgive me for not going into great detail on this thread here. I am happy to discuss this subject, but it seems unnecessery (IE I lack the time) to discuss this in 2 threads.
 
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