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Microsoft/HP to Market Crippled Entertainment PCs
gustywinds writes "CNet is reporting that Microsoft and HP recently announced the details on their Media Center PCs that will be coming out this Christmas season (this used to be called 'Freestyle'). The big story is that these PCs will have anti-copying mechanisms built-in to them -- ie can't burn recorded TV shows to DVD, or even copy and play them back on other PCs. And they are going to be expensive... $1500 for the starter box. Sounds like this thing is going to be DOA. Lots of other PC-based TV recording products that aren't restrictive when it comes to copying stuff goes... Snapstream, WinDVR... And, of course, Hauppauge, nVidia and ATi have products too but their software is pretty lacking..."
sPh
Of course, by moving to a subscription model for the OS, which ties your media to your subscription fee, they can make sure that Joe Consumer forks over however much they want to ask for in subscription fees. Maybe I'm being paranoid, but I think this is where MS is headed with this.
You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are.
-- Colonel Adolphus Busch
That strategy might make sense as Microsoft attempts to attract Hollywood movie studios with its digital rights management and anti-copying technologies.
This is NOT DOA, because it is not about PCs or PVRs or multimedia control. It is a Proof of Concept to sell the Digital Rights Management of MS to the MPAA and RIAA. Then the MPAA and RIAA will then use their money to ensure that ALL PCs have a DRM built into them.
While we can whine and cry that "no machine we buy will!!!", It is a non-issue. Dell, Gateway, Compac/HP, etc. will continue to sell their millions of boxes to the various businesses, and Mom & Dad like always. Legislation will pass that requires DRM and those that do not have it will be marginalized as criminals.
This is not the war, this is just the start of the battle. MPAA/RIAA make be seeing they will never get another DMCA, so they need to control "just content". MS sees the opportunity to manage every piece of electronic data on the web. 95% of the OS market is child's play by comparison.
The way these things fail is if someone manages to circumvent it in the first few months in a way that every 12 year with a 56k connection can bypass it.
Easy use of your computer.
I am no MS lover, but your comment was definitly over-rated.
Their statement was actually quite apropos, though it should have contained a little detail.
As an anectdote, a friend of mine used Microsoft Windows Media Player to rip his music collection, and wondered why he couldn't play some of his music (he'd upgraded his video card IIRC). I showed him where to turn off 'digital rights management' and explained to him why DRM was newspeak for 'digital rights denial' and how the default settings of his OS were designed, deliberately, by Microsoft, to fuck him.
He was quite angry, and while he isn't ready to switch to GNU/Linux yet, he did download a free ripper and started reripping the music he could no longer listen to into OggVorbis format.
So yes, Microsoft is deliberately selling extraordinarilly crippled PCs to the average consumer, not only crippled by the limitations, bugs, and design flaws of their software, but deliberately crippled and broken in addition to all of that.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I would guess that this product is intended to fail.
That was the impression I got from reading the article, too. Consider this snipit:
This makes it sound very much like the primary motivation for creating this system is to make friends with the RIAA & MPAA. I think customer satisfaction is secondary to them. And remember, this is Microsoft we're talking about here. They have a monopoly on OSs. They can pretty much do what they want and the customers will be stuck with it. And Apple-heads and Linux-fans, please don't start screaming at me. I hear you. The problem is mainstream America doesn't.
GMD
watch this
And your typical college student surely has $1500 to toss around on a new computer.
**from the twisted dreams of MS's marketing dept**
Salesguy: And it's a lot like your current computer, but it does less and costs more.
College kid: And it's new and hip, right?
Salesguy: Absolutely.
College kid: Do you take cash?
*************
If I had ever had $1500 at one time while I was at college, I would have changed it into 20's and rolled around in it naked.
-B
I dunno...buying an overpriced, shackled, computer to watch and record music and (God help us) TV programs makes about as much sense as buying an overpriced TV to run your spreadsheets. Did the people running MS, HP, AOL, and all the rest have childhood fantasies about being movie moguls? This all smacks of a hangover from the late and unlamented flash-in-the-pan known as "convergence".
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
While browsing around, I found what appears to be a standalone unit that you can use to browse and record broadcast television, includes no DRM controls, includes a 19inch screen, a remote control unit, speakers, and is contained in ONE unit. It does not record the broadcast digitally but the medium it uses appears to be compatible with 1000's of other units and is cheaper then any memory stick or other removeable device I've ever seen. I imagine a device like this sitting next to your computer would be a more logical choice for only $169.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
"Digital Restrictions Management" is more accurate, and has the right letters at the beginnings of the words. :-)
I didn't coin this; it's been floating around for a while, I think. But we would do well to push this term into the mainstream.
The evaluation of an action as 'practical' . . . depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
They're not "crippled PC's"...
They're "differently abled operating systems"...
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
Have a look at this project @ SourceForge; Freevo
There are others, like DVR, MythTV, HomeDVR
And there are here and here
Really, we dont need another device - a PC will work for this...
So, lets assume that you'll get close to $2000 worth of computer for your money. My only question is: why?
Do I have to turn in my geek credentials because I don't find TV on the PC all that compelling? I love DVDs on my laptop, and streaming audio and video, but we already have devices that are perfect to watch TV on... they're called televisions!. They have a simple UI and crash far less often than Windows does. We've had a box under the TV recording shows for years... Why does this box have to turn into a full-fledged computer just because we want to record these shows digitally now?
I have a TiVo and love using it, precisely because it doesn't feel like a computer when I'm using it! (Of course, it is -- the fact that I can upgrade the HD and add ethernet myself doesn't hurt, either.) When I want to rot my brain watching TV, I want it to just work, and I don't want to have to feel like I'm using a computer.
I always thought that Convergence meant that all of your dedicated media devices (which may actually be computers, but with a simpler UI) could talk to each other and exchange information, kind of like what Apple is trying to do with its iPod. Microsoft thinks Convergence means that all of your dedicated media devices become computers, running the latest MS OS, and with all of the problems and complications inherent in that. Of course, we know who's most likely to win this one...
Of course, the sad thing is that by making dedicated media devices more like computers and stuffing them chock-full of DRM badness, we'll end up making the actual computers more like dedicated media serving devices, since the same OS will run on both. :(