Want to Play DVDs in Windows 8? Then Pay Up!

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[citation][nom]poxenium[/nom]Why don't they just ship an FBI agent with every PC?[/citation]
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL Someday my friend someday it will happen.
O and thanks for making me Laugh hard due to your comment!! haha
 
[citation][nom]timaishu[/nom]Are they saying it cannot play DVD movies or DVD discs? If its for movies, I could care less, if they are saying it straightup wont read DVDs(like for games) then they just made a terrible decision and lost a sale from me.[/citation]
Just dvd movies. It's just like XP - you can read files, install games and software, etc from a DVD, but you had to install a 3rd party codec or program to watch DVD movies.
 
Just another reason to skip Windows 8... I'm pretty sure they won't actually give you a lower price anyway, keeping the extra for more profit. Windows 7 (and it's MUCH better, VERY usable UI) FTW!
 
[citation][nom]livebriand[/nom]Just another reason to skip Windows 8... I'm pretty sure they won't actually give you a lower price anyway, keeping the extra for more profit. Windows 7 (and it's MUCH better, VERY usable UI) FTW![/citation]

Having to pay up a little if you want to use WMP to watch movies is a reason to not have Windows 8? I didn't know people cared about WMP that much, especially since there are better, free alternatives, such as VLC (which has been mentioned in almost every comment on this article). The only serious problem with Windows 8 is Metro and that's only a problem for the lazy and the stupid. Anyone who actually cares can do some work-arounds. Other than Metro, Windows 8 is better than 7 (at least in my opinion). Even then, Metro isn't THAT bad. It's reactions are often way overboard. Come on guys, it's not two-girls-one-cup (don't look it up if you haven't already, you will almost undoubtedly regret it and yes it is almost unanimously considered to be that bad).
 
[citation][nom]CoolBOBob1[/nom]http://www.legitreviews.com/news/13019/[/citation]
Well... this is quite funny. MS and Apple was on smearing campaign against WebM codec and their main argument was that H.264 has clear legal framework because the MPEG-LA patent pool and WebM is not safe. But now this crap. At the same time I am not 100% sure that listed patents are part of the H.264.
Thank you for the link, but base on the language there is something fishy there.
 
[citation][nom]JOSHSKORN[/nom]No, that would be YouTube. It's not that hard to rip video/audio off of YouTube. Well, I guess now Google owns YouTube, so, it's not Microsoft's problem, it's Google's.[/citation]

Technically, it's easy to rip audio/video off of anything. Just get a program that records all audio that the computer is playing (doing it this way can retain the audio quality that could be lost be using a recording device that doesn't record through the wire instead of through a mic that listens to the audio being played through speakers) and get a program that records all video that is played on a specific part of the screen (or the entire screen if you have it full-screened). Now, you can rip anything that your computer plays whenever you want

I'm not advocating illegal usage of this, just saying that it's pretty easy no matter what the companies do.
 
I find it hilarious that so many find this as bad. They are the FIRST ones to bitch about the bloated OS in the first place. MSFT is doing the right thing for no other reason than to streamline to footprint of the OS. Especially in light of the many 3rd part decoders out there. I am glad to see there are some out there that see the reality and value in what they are doing.
 
[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]Having to pay up a little if you want to use WMP to watch movies is a reason to not have Windows 8? I didn't know people cared about WMP that much, especially since there are better, free alternatives, such as VLC (which has been mentioned in almost every comment on this article). The only serious problem with Windows 8 is Metro and that's only a problem for the lazy and the stupid. Anyone who actually cares can do some work-arounds. Other than Metro, Windows 8 is better than 7 (at least in my opinion). Even then, Metro isn't THAT bad. It's reactions are often way overboard. Come on guys, it's not two-girls-one-cup (don't look it up if you haven't already, you will almost undoubtedly regret it and yes it is almost unanimously considered to be that bad).[/citation]
Well, it's certainly not an encouragement. The thing is, the metro interface feels like it was designed for a phone or tablet. That's fine on a phone or tablet, but.... my 35lb desktop computer isn't one of those. I shouldn't have to use workarounds here. Why would I be willing to pay extra for DVD capability when that was included for no extra charge before and I'm almost certain that they won't reduce prices because of it, pocketing the money instead?
 
[citation][nom]SAL-e[/nom]Well... this is quite funny. MS and Apple was on smearing campaign against WebM codec and their main argument was that H.264 has clear legal framework because the MPEG-LA patent pool and WebM is not safe. But now this crap. At the same time I am not 100% sure that listed patents are part of the H.264. Thank you for the link, but base on the language there is something fishy there.[/citation]DVD is not H.264 (it's actually MPEG-2 for video), and licensing it for use in Windows costs MS a big chunk of coin. This has NOTHING to do with H.264 vs WebM - at all. If they completely switched gears and supported WebM 100% (bad idea - it's an inferior format compared to H.264) that would do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to help them with the licensing fees for DVD - which again, has nothing to do with WebM.

They would still be forced to either continue paying, or drop support. Dropping support is a no-brainer since people can just hop on the App Market and snag a free third-party program that dodges licensing fees!
[citation][nom]Marfig[/nom]The license fees reasoning stings like a bee. A bee we had a chance to kill, but didn't when we had the opportunity.I'm referring of course to the WebM alternative that would have most likely free users and service providers alike from incurring in licensing costs, directly or indirectly.[/citation]Again, WebM and/or H.264 have nothing to do with DVDs, and WebM support doesn't "free users" from anything. If MS wants to continue to support DVD playback, they would need to continue to pay licensing fees. It doesn't make sense when most users don't use their PC to play physical media, and there are freeware alternatives that dodge the licensing.

So just let them drop support, and if you play DVDs, snag a freeware third party player - there are tons of them. VLC is probably the most popular because it's dead simple to use. Even you could use it, despite the fact that you don't understand the issues at hand.
 
We at Tom's know our way around a computer, and it doesn't affect us one bit. But it may affect the rest out there as many don't know about VLC, MPC, or many other free DVD players softwares.
 
I bet 5 dollars the support will still be the but will merely be disabled. A crack of two and it will be up and running again. Microsoft hates to get rid of things. Heck you can still find the Windows 3.1 file manager exe in Windows XP (can't remember if program manager was still there).

Also, what about Windows Media Center? That was just dealt a crippling blow. Can't think of a use for it now as I'm not an old person who plans on putting people through picture slide shows of my last vacation.

So lets tally it up. Microsoft kills "live", kills start menu, cripples its media player, and proceeds to call it all progress. Great job Microsoft. Keep hacking of your own fingers and toes.
 


What is the point of that? Without running it in XP compatibility mode, installing and using VLC will work without problems on Vista and 7. It will work on 8 as well.
 
More people discover MPC or VLC; the possibility of a lower costing operating system comes into play.

It's a win-win from my point of view. A few extra minutes of our time and we've regained the functionality multiple times over.
 
MAC is so much better. I have everything at my finger tips. And yes DVD playback. Microsoft needs to take the thumb out of there butts and give what the consumer needs. Screw Hollywood they are nothing but a bunch of greedy jerks. So go Mac and you will never go back.
 
[citation][nom]boobosmith[/nom]MAC is so much better. I have everything at my finger tips. And yes DVD playback. Microsoft needs to take the thumb out of there butts and give what the consumer needs. Screw Hollywood they are nothing but a bunch of greedy jerks. So go Mac and you will never go back.[/citation]

Prepare to be flamed. It's probably going to happen.

I won't flame, but I will explain why most of us won't turn to Apple.

1.) Most of us don't want to shell out for overpriced Macs. We would be getting less performance for our money and that is a huge turn off for enthusiasts, gamers, and tech savvys in general.

2.) Macs aren't ideal gaming platforms because they have even worse game support than Linux does, and that's saying something. Games are important to most of us.

3.) Macs also lack support for a huge amount of other software, or at least lack support for the best and/or free versions.

4.) Macs are often compared to toys next to computers with Windows (as is Windows 8's Metro, but that's another story) because they offer a more simplified and "dumbed down" experience. Some people like it, some people don't.

5.) Many people don't approve of Apple's business tactics and refuse to buy from Apple on principle.

6.) Apple's customer support is usually worse than that of M$, OEMs, and there are fewer online places to get it. Apple often doesn't like to help many of their customers when they have problems, especially if it involves Apple needing to do anything to help solve the problem. Apple seems to dislike helping even more than that when it involves Apple needing to pay for something (such as a replacement for a defective machine).

7.) Although Macs have fewer malware samples, they are still a less secure system than Windows and the malware attacks on Macs seems to either be growing, or older attacks are just becoming more obvious; they more out in the open. This is improving far better than the other problems on this list (almost purely because of third party anti-malware companies getting in on Mac security, not because of Apple actually getting off of their @$$ and doing something reasonable about it).

8.) OSX doesn't support as much hardware as Windows does. A lot of people can get pissed when their hard drive or their WiFi adapter and/or router don't work properly (although this is not the case for every WiFi adapter, hard drive, and router, it is the case with many).

I think that if I tried, I could find more problems, but I also think that this is enough to get the point across while trying to have an unbiased argument. Macs do the trick for some people, but I think that their market share tells us that they don't do it for most people.

M$ is unwilling to waste their money on royalties that aren't really helping the majority of it's customers and even for those whom it does help, there are free alternatives, so there's little point in M$ paying for these royalties. There's no problem with M$ dropping DVD movie support in WMP, well, at least I don't think there is. That also seems to be the common consensus here.

By not supporting DVD movie playback in WMP, M$ IS saying screw Hollywood (if they are all who receive money from M$ in royalties for this feature).
 
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