Vista - this review, its promise and DRM

[exisnet]

Of course the public doesn't mind, they can barely find the on/off button let alone understand the ramifications of DRM in Vista. By the looks of some of the posts here, I'm wondering if some of the people here understand the ramifications. A friend of mine is going to provide the article, in my signature, to DARPA. Let's see if they have any concerns about the fact that their computers can be "bricked" by a driver revocation from M$. Not to mention all the other good stuff in the article. I am hoping for an antitrust suit, or at least a non-HD version of Vista without all of the DRM pigsh!t, and I am usually against the lawsuit approach. I will not be using Vista until long after support for XP runs out. As was said earlier, if you don't like it don't buy it. I won't buy it.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the lost of freedom from M$ monopoly. I don't understand posters like 306maxi who will cave in to M$ and defend them with blatant rude remarks. If everyone would take the time to read, learn and not purchase Vista, then and only then, the consumer will continue to have competitive choices and lower costs. Vista's success will have a domino effect with high prices for everything associated with the M$MMA (Multi-Media Appliance) even for non-Vista users IMO.

Edit: Please read the following links.

http://badvista.fsf.org/
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html
http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2007/01/20/windows-vista-content-protection-twenty-questions-and-answers.aspx

 

[Ghost9]

I understand what this could mean, but the question is what can we do about it?

Boycott vista? Sure, we could try. But the fact is that the majority of people out there don't have a clue about any of this. Even if you told them in plain terms they aren't going to understand.

So what do we do? Segment the market into Vista, MAC, and open source hardware? Don't see that happening. Do we get squeezed into going mac or vista and have all of our hardware controlled?

What do we do? What can we do?

I can say I won't buy it, but then what? I can use a mac(which isn't much better than M$, they just have better PR) for my graphics I suppose, but what about games? no more games since they'll all require vista. Go linux? can't. vista edged out all the open source. hell they may even edge out macs.....

so what do we do? What can we do?

 

[sailer]

so what do we do? What can we do?

What can we do? Resist. Don't buy it, even if we have to go back to Windows 98 or the equivalent. Ok, maybe not that serious. But really, is resistance futile after all? Right now, my intention is to go to either XP64 Pro or to abandon Microsft altogether for Linux 64.

Maybe the time will come in a couple years when there is no choice but Vista. If that happens, we all loose, but then we're all in the same sinking boat together. At least there can be some measure of satisfaction by having resisted.

 

[lfe2211]

Zorg,

In your last post you stated --

"Of course the public doesn't mind, they can barely find the on/off button let alone understand the ramifications of DRM in Vista."

This is spot on and perhaps the most important point made on the entire 5 page thread. As the lemmings go marching to the Best Buys, CompUSAs,etc,, like lambs to the slaughter, an articulate "voice" needs to get through to them so that they can at least know what they are about to do. This cannot be done in forums like this one. The very first post probably stopped many genuinely curious but technically challenged individuals from continuing on because it was written in language they cannot understand--i.e.,

" A review of Windows Vista that glosses over the most controversial issues such as DRM implementation is NOT a review, it's a Micro$oft advert. Shame on you TGH! This NOT "...the information (we) need to know."! "

The definition of DRM is not given in that post and the language is jargonistic as it is in so many posts here. Joe and Jane Public (who comprise a majority of the PCs 95% market share) don't know what these acronyms are and don't speak the lingo here.

What they would read (if they ever got here) was a thread written in plain simple english without undefined indusry specific acronyms and without the jargon used so glibly by many communicators on this site.

I propose that you and/or a colleague start a thread containing the most relevant information entitled something like

"What You Should Know About Vista Before You Buy, Explained in Simple English Terms".

I think this would provide a great service and help accomplish what you and others hope to achieve. For Micrsoft supporters who have expressed enthusiasm for the new architecture of Vista, what harm could it do to explain in plain simple english what Vista will or will not do. Some examples:

--As Vista is currently written, you cannot play the internet games X,Y and Z.


--As Vista is currently written, a High definition DVD will be displayed at a much lower resolution on yout computer screen even if your screen supports very high resolution images.

 

[MxM]

I propose that you and/or a colleague start a thread containing the most relevant information entitled something like

"What You Should Know About Vista Before You Buy, Explained in Simple English Terms".

It is funny, but I think this document exists and it is called "MICROSOFT SOFTWARE LICENSE TERMS". It is quite easy to understand. For example with respect to DRM all you have to know is summarized in couple of lines:

Content owners use Windows Media digital
rights management technology (WMDRM) to protect their intellectual property, including
copyrights. This software and third party software use WMDRM to play and copy
WMDRM-protected content. If the software fails to protect the content, content owners may
ask Microsoft to revoke the software’s ability to use WMDRM to play or copy protected
content. Revocation does not affect other content. When you download licenses for
protected content, you agree that Microsoft may include a revocation list with the licenses.
Content owners may require you to upgrade WMDRM to access their content.

So Vista can revoke the right of any driver, player, etc. to play or copy the protected content. Otherwise the computer will function UNAFFECTED! No hardware "drop dead" scenarios described in the original post!

Thus, you should worry about DRM and ability to show protected content ONLY if you actually going to often use it for playing DRM protected data, i.g. if you use your computer as "media center" in the living room.

It is better to read the license agreement yourself rather than few page rant about it!

Also I do not think that it is right to say that MS will be "monitoring" what you doing on your computer and thus violate the amendments rights. All you send to MS is the same info as you send during activation, which is your hardware key and license number. Similar as you do it today with windows XP when you validate XP installation. This is far from the monitoring of what you doing at your computer...

As for the whole DRM in Vista issue I think that it is required by law that any device which is sold in US and which can play HDTV protected content only should only provide the signal output with HDCP present in it. Failure to do so is a violation of the law. So do not blame MS for it. Blame our congress who accepted the law.

 

[Zorg]

I agree with you. Unfortunately I am not the best qualified to write such an article and I have to work for a living. This topic should be addressed by television media if it is to reach sufficient people to make any difference at all. It is probably too late to stop the momentum by any form of boycott at this point anyway. The task will probably fall to the government (oh the pain in my gut) to reel in this out of control freight train. What really concerns me is that I have seen posts from many people on these threads, that I know can understand the magnitude of the repercussions that Vista is going to generate, that would indicate either complete apathy or that they are indeed employees of M$ and are using subterfuge to mitigate any backlash. If the people on this forum, that understand what is at stake, don't care then what can be done?

 

[Zorg]

So where's the non-HDCP copy of Vista that doesn't allow M$, at their whim, to brick my video card by revoking the driver? Also the article covers several other points besides what you quoted in your WDRM EULA. But if that's all you got out of the article, oh well. As far as holding congress accountable, the question is where to start.

 

[MxM]

So where's the non-HDCP copy of Vista that doesn't allow M$, at their whim, to brick my video card by revoking the driver?

Please re-read the license itself (not the rant article). Especially the following line

Revocation does not affect other content.

So MS CAN NOT brick your video card by revoking the driver. It would be against the license agreement!

Also the article covers several other points besides what you quoted in your WDRM EULA.

As for other implications, the only other imprecation I see is the extra cost of the development to make everything DRM complaint. But realistically, how much do you think will it cost per PC? 5 extra dollars?

But even then why do you blame MS for making hardware complaint to the law?

 

[306maxi]

So where's the non-HDCP copy of Vista that doesn't allow M$, at their whim, to brick my video card by revoking the driver?

Please re-read the license itself (not the rant article). Especially the following line

Revocation does not affect other content.

So MS CAN NOT brick your video card by revoking the driver. It would be against the license agreement!

Also the article covers several other points besides what you quoted in your WDRM EULA.

As for other implications, the only other imprecation I see is the extra cost of the development to make everything DRM complaint. But realistically, how much do you think will it cost per PC? 5 extra dollars?

But even then why do you blame MS for making hardware complaint to the law?

It's a little bit more than $5 buddy. Do you have a HDCP compliant monitor for your PC? If not how much will one cost and if you do how much did it cost?

Methinks you don't even know what HDCP actually is or how it works.

 

[Zyxthior]

"People are stupid. Think of how dumb the average person is, and then realize that half of them are dumber than that."
- George Carlin

There is essentially nothing we can do. We are but a small voice, and an infinitesimal contributor to Microsoft's bottom line. If a thousand, or ten-thousand, of us 'techies' decided not to buy Vista...it wouldn't matter.

Most people either don't care or don't understand what is starting here. There are no real alternatives yet to the Windows platform.

Write up a FAQ in plain english all you want. It will do no good. People are already going hog wild over Vista and its beautiful Aero interface.

I'm just going to sit back and relax and watch the show for the next year or so before the inevitable occurs.

Also, you have to remember we're all taking about 'POTENTIAL' issues. We don't know yet if things will turn out as dire as we pessimists think. It's a wait and see game now.

 

[danny9894]

"People are stupid. Think of how dumb the average person is, and then realize that half of them are dumber than that."
- George Carlin

There is essentially nothing we can do. We are but a small voice, and an infinitesimal contributor to Microsoft's bottom line. If a thousand, or ten-thousand, of us 'techies' decided not to buy Vista...it wouldn't matter.

Most people either don't care or don't understand what is starting here. There are no real alternatives yet to the Windows platform.

Write up a FAQ in plain english all you want. It will do no good. People are already going hog wild over Vista and its beautiful Aero interface.

I'm just going to sit back and relax and watch the show for the next year or so before the inevitable occurs.

Also, you have to remember we're all taking about 'POTENTIAL' issues. We don't know yet if things will turn out as dire as we pessimists think. It's a wait and see game now.

May I ask where you got that George Carlin quote? +1 you

 

[MxM]

It's a little bit more than $5 buddy. Do you have a HDCP compliant monitor for your PC? If not how much will one cost and if you do how much did it cost?

This is not VISTA problem, this is requirement for ALL electronic equipment that plays 1080 with HDCP. So you have to have HDCP complaint monitor to watch protected content no matter what. It is required by law.

Methinks you don't even know what HDCP actually is or how it works.

Methinks you presume too much about other people and very fast make the discussion personal and not technical. We (users of this board) are not interested in this kind of discussions here. Go to other boards (internet is full of them) if you want to post disrespectful post about other posters, or stop doing this here.

 

[Zorg]

It's a little bit more than $5 buddy. Do you have a HDCP compliant monitor for your PC? If not how much will one cost and if you do how much did it cost?

This is not VISTA problem, this is requirement for ALL electronic equipment that plays 1080 with HDCP. So you have to have HDCP complaint monitor to watch protected content no matter what. It is required by law.

Methinks you don't even know what HDCP actually is or how it works.

Methinks you presume too much about other people and very fast make the discussion personal and not technical. We (users of this board) are not interested in this kind of discussions here. Go to other boards (internet is full of them) if you want to post disrespectful post about other posters, or stop doing this here.

Again I will ask you, Where is the version of Vista that doesn't have all of the DRM B.S in it. By the way, what will happen to my video card when they revoke the driver? It will just stop playing HDCP but other that that the card will work as it did before? I think not. I read the M$ response and it was lame at best. Do you work for M$ or in some way rely on income from them?

 

[pkellmey]

I'm really not understanding the issue here. The OS is now compliant with laws and regulations that MS has been slapped by before. They promised, as part of the federal investigations, that the new and future OS would be fully compliant. However, I can still take a DVD on my Vista Ultimate machine, copy it to the hard disk and watch a movie. I watched the ports and there was no activity that Big Brother received an IM that I was watching a movie and no one stormed my house. I only have a monitor that does not support 1080P (I think it is 720P), but it still had the full quality as I am used to seeing. I think this argument has become extreme about potential, but not actualities. Is anyone right now in this forum not able to watch their DVDs on Vista and know that they are otherwise running DRM compliant specs? That would be where the argument should be directed at - as a technical support issue or on a political website complaining to Congress. Otherwise, MS is just following current laws as has been suggested they should by many very technical computer regulator advisory groups.

 

[MxM]

Again I will ask you, Where is the version of Vista that doesn't have all of the DRM B.S in it.

I miss your logic. Why are you asking that? Why there should be Vista that doesn't have DRM thing?

By the way, what will happen to my video card when they revoke the driver? It will just stop playing HDCP but other that that the card will work as it did before? I think not. I read the M$ response and it was lame at best.

Please read again

If the software fails to protect the content, content owners may
ask Microsoft to revoke the software’s ability to use WMDRM to play or copy protected
content. Revocation does not affect other content.

Which means that video card will not be able to play protected content if the driver is revoked. We should be able to play and copy all other content, including un-protected HD content, according to this paragraph. It says quite clear that "Revocation does not affect other content".

If they revoke video driver and you are not being able to play content other then protected, then they are breaking their own license agreement and you can sue them for that. (Though what kind of damages you can collect from them? May be a class-action suit would make more sense here, this way it would be more painful to MS.)

Do you work for M$ or in some way rely on income from them?

No, I do not work for MS, I do not have any income from them, and I do not like them for their business practices. But it does not mean that I can not read and understand the license.

 

[MxM]

However, I can still take a DVD on my Vista Ultimate machine, copy it to the hard disk and watch a movie.

I am not sure, but does Vista view the standard DVD as protected content? It would not make sense because if DVD is treated as protected and your hardware is not complaint, then Vista is supposed to down-convert it to... DVD quality.

 

[Zorg]

I'm really not understanding the issue here. The OS is now compliant with laws and regulations that MS has been slapped by before. They promised, as part of the federal investigations, that the new and future OS would be fully compliant. However, I can still take a DVD on my Vista Ultimate machine, copy it to the hard disk and watch a movie. I watched the ports and there was no activity that Big Brother received an IM that I was watching a movie and no one stormed my house. I only have a monitor that does not support 1080P (I think it is 720P), but it still had the full quality as I am used to seeing. I think this argument has become extreme about potential, but not actualities. Is anyone right now in this forum not able to watch their DVDs on Vista and know that they are otherwise running DRM compliant specs? That would be where the argument should be directed at - as a technical support issue or on a political website complaining to Congress. Otherwise, MS is just following current laws as has been suggested they should by many very technical computer regulator advisory groups.

You are playing a DVD which is 480i. All of the concern is about HDCP for HD-DVD and BlueRay which is at 1080i/1080p. I believe that there are no HDCP video cards, so if you were using a BlueRay you couldn't play the movie. They may have the cards out by now but I think they are still trying to be "robustly compliant" with the HDCP mandate. If you want full information on what is being implemented read this

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

 

[pkellmey]

I am not completely sure - isn't DVD not fully 1080p compliant but 720p instead - so there should be no down-conversion, right? The only DVD that I personally know of that has extra security are Lucasfilms like Star Wars, but I have not tried copying those yet (my old DVD player will not even play them because of their extra security layers).

EDIT: I just saw Zorg's post, so as along as it is not being upconverted, there should be no issues, right?

 

[Ghost9]

i think at the moment it is a lot of speculation, but it's justified speculation. M$ is building in a way to completely control your computer. They may not initially express the control, but they are pushing a product on a society that has almost no choice in the matter and most are unsuspecting. Someday down the line when M$ decides to switch on the controls, people will start wondering why they can't do things, or watch things, etc etc. M$ is basically making the world cater to them, rather than M$ catering to the user. Any time there is no choice, it is a bad thing. I'm all for copyright protection, but this potentially goes beyond that. This is control of what the user sees and does. This is control over hardware companies forcing them to build a very specific way. This is control over software companies making them program a very specific way. What happens if someone wants to do something different? They're out of luck. If you want it to work on windows, do it our way. It's all about control.

I'd like to see linux get a boom out of this. I'd like to see them make it more widespread to the mainstream. easy to use and compatible with everything. but this would take commercial support, and I don't think they'll get it.

 

[MxM]

I am not completely sure - isn't DVD not fully 1080p compliant but 720p instead - so there should be no down-conversion, right? The only DVD that I personally know of that has extra security are Lucasfilms like Star Wars, but I have not tried copying those yet (my old DVD player will not even play them because of their extra security layers).

EDIT: I just saw Zorg's post, so as along as it is not being upconverted, there should be no issues, right?

I am not sure what you mean by complaint here, but DVD resolution are (taken from Wiki)

* PAL:
720 × 576 pixels MPEG-2 (Called full D1)
704 × 576 pixels MPEG-2
352 × 576 pixels MPEG-2 (Called Half-D1, same as the China Video Disc standard)
352 × 288 pixels MPEG-2
352 × 288 pixels MPEG-1 (Same as the VCD Standard)

* NTSC:
720 × 480 pixels MPEG-2 (Called full D1)
704 × 480 pixels MPEG-2
352 × 480 pixels MPEG-2 (Called Half-D1, same as the China Video Disc standard)
352 × 240 pixels MPEG-2
352 × 240 pixels MPEG-1 (Same as the VCD Standard)

As you can see, there is no 720p resolution here. 720p is EDTV, not SDTV.

 

[pkellmey]

This is control over hardware companies forcing them to build a very specific way. This is control over software companies making them program a very specific way. What happens if someone wants to do something different? They're out of luck. If you want it to work on windows, do it our way. It's all about control.

This is a bs argument, but in spirit I agree. Every OS has always controlled how their drivers/apps work. Mac, OS/2, Windows, even the beloved Linux has standards that have to be met. We may want flexibility, but that limits stability/performance and everyone knows this. This is a potential issue, but not a real one.

And as the recent posts are showing, it is not a full DRM issue, but and HD-DVD/Blue Ray compliance and the way they use DRM that should be the focus of the current debate.

 

[MxM]

i think at the moment it is a lot of speculation, but it's justified speculation.

There is also alot of unjustified speculations that simply contradict to MS License terms.

 

[Zorg]

Again I will ask you, Where is the version of Vista that doesn't have all of the DRM B.S in it.

I miss your logic. Why are you asking that? Why there should be Vista that doesn't have DRM thing?

So you read the article and of all of the sections below and you still have no problem with DRM/HDCP?

Disabling of Functionality
Indirect Disabling of Functionality
Decreased Playback Quality
Elimination of Open-source Hardware Support
Elimination of Unified Drivers
Denial-of-Service via Driver/Device Revocation
Decreased System Reliability
Increased Hardware Costs
Increased Cost due to Requirement to License Unnecessary Third-party IP
Unnecessary CPU Resource Consumption
Unnecessary Device Resource Consumption

 

[pkellmey]

Look at your list - they are all in comparison with an unrelated OS. That's like comparing Mac hardware support costs to Windows - you can't compare them directly. It's the same comparing a DRM compliant OS versus non-compliant. Extra layers cost extra in price and performance.

 

[Zorg]

Look at your list - they are all in comparison with an unrelated OS. That's like comparing Mac hardware support costs to Windows - you can't compare them directly. It's the same comparing a DRM compliant OS versus non-compliant. Extra layers cost extra in price and performance.

Not to be a prick but if you don't get it by now you never will.