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High-Quality HD Content Can't Easily Be Played by Vista
DaMan1970 writes "Content protection features in Windows Vista from Microsoft are preventing customers from playing high-quality HD audio/video & harming system performance. Vista requires premium content like HD movies to be degraded in quality when it is sent to high-quality outputs, like DVI. Users will see status codes that say 'graphics OPM resolution too high'. There are ways to bypass the Windows Vista protection by encoding the movies using alternative codecs like X264, or DiVX, which are in fact more effective sometimes then Windows own WMV codec. These codecs are quite common on HD video Bittorrent sites, or Newsgroups."
Better known by it's the Executive Executive Summary:
The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history [Note A].
This should be required reading for people wanting to use Windows Vista for their media center
Blah blah sig blah blah blah irony blah blah
As usual this is information being spun in to anti-MS FUD. Here's the deal: As some content providers are paranoid, particularly big media, new HD systems are coming with the ability to "close the analogue hole" they always like ot talk about. The method is to downsample information over non-encrypted outputs. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray can both do this, though as far as I know none of the discs set the flag to have them do it yet. If they do, what happens is you get HD out over HDMI or DVI, but only if your display supports HDCP. If it doesn't, or if you use the component outputs, you get something that is right around SD.
Ok well Vista supports the same thing. It's MS's bid to get content providers to use and support their stuff. They can have Vista check and if the output isn't encrypted, downsample the output (or refuse to play as well I believe).
Now is that mandatory? Of course not. It is only if the format is one that supports it, and if the content itself has the flag set to do that. So your own HD content is fine, and anyone else's unprotected HD content is fine. This is just for the media companies, who are paranoid.
So same kind of deal with HD-DVD and what not. If this bothers you, simply refuse to buy and use media that is so protected. It doesn't stop unprotected media from working fine. The DRM support they added certainly isn't what I'd call useful, but it doesn't affect you unless you want to play DRM'd media. Now while you might think that it makes it worse, consider that what is going to happen is that they just won't release it for platforms that don't support this. So it isn't a situation of Vista having DRM on the media and other platforms not, it is a situation of the media only playing on platforms with proper DRM.
My advice is just to refuse to purchase the protected media. Eventually they'll either sell unprotected media or just go out of business.
I'm glad we have people like you looking out for other people, dude.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
You know, if you're going to make such wild claims about something you at least should have the ability to back them up. How can this guy be considered a big shot if he puts out blithering bullshit such as this?
For the record, I assure you of the following:
1. You can play HD content on Windows Vista w/o DRM in full HD resolution. This includes:
a. AVI/DIVX/XVID/X264/VC-1/WMV/QT 720P/720I/1080P/1080I videos
2. You can record your own HD videos from various utilities and have them play in Vista fine. With my tests I have done Fraps, and I assure you the resolution is *never* downscaled. (Keep in mind, PCs have been doing HD resolution for years)
3. The only downscaling that could occur is if you attempt to play legally purchased, legally licensed content obtained with all of the proper reasons but one of your devices does not meet the HDCP standard. This includes:
a. Blu-ray/HD-DVD movies that you legally purchase in the store that have the downscaling bit enabled.
Now, yes--I agree, the stuff is assenine. The downscaling or non-playback or whatever it does is only affecting the non-pirates. There are more than enough movies on the internet to download in all sorts of resolutions and formats for playback. Matroska containers seem to be the dominant format at the moment.
What I'm trying to point out here is that this man's assertion is a load of rubbish. I think people should at least USE the product they are criticizing before doing so.
Is the article really saying that ALL HD content, regardless of if it is indicated to be copyrighted or not, is degrade? IE if I take a video with my HD camera, I can't play it on Vista? It sounds like the article is saying that...but...wow
Yes this is one of the things he is trying to say. And sadly is one of the biggest indicators that he is full of crap.
Who gives idiots like this guy a stage when they don't even understand the subject themselves?
From our tech lab, I can confirm that NONE of what he is saying is true. From everything about HD Audio being downgraded, to non flagged HD content EVER being down sampled. He is either lying for a reason or really has no personal experience whatsoever.
Even the sugggestion that the problems with powering down/suspend/hibernation have to do with DRM or HD protection is insane. 99% of the power down issues have to do with the switch to ACPI S4 in Vista or problems with USB drivers (USB drivers are NOT even part of the HDCP scheme in Vista).
As for the CPU running at 100%, that is a new one. In fact if you have a new video card and run either type of HD Content from VC1 or MPEG4, your GPU handles most of the work, and your CPU might hit 30% if you are using NVidia as they don't seem to be offsetting as much of the decoding as ATI does.
This whole article is crap, and full of crap. We have too many test systems and have ran too many of these types of tests and have to date not found ONE issue even close to what people like him try to use to scare people about DRM in Vista. Sounds plausible, but simply it is just NOT true.
Even when the 'protected content' flag DRM issue was raised with Vista Media center, our test found that it was a specific Flag from a couple of cable companies, on a couple of channels marking them as PPV even though they weren't. Which would have have affected even a TiVO box, and was not a Vista issue whatsoever. But the press made it seem like Vista's evil DRM was at play.
I guess that since we can't expect real journalism in the mainstream regarding world issues, it is also too much to expect any journalism in the tech idustry.
Why would sites report this person's claims without proof of concept, or at least testing it for themselves?
Shameful, and yes I know SlashDot is anti-MS, but even here people can have some level of technical understanding and actually want to be informed of what is right and what is made up for press.
This DRM Vista crap has to truly stop at some point. 99% of it is myth.
You're muddling things again.
DVI-D: A digital interface that may or not be encrypted with HDCP. I once owned a HDTV tuner/scalar that encrypted the output of the scalar. On the other hand, my DVD player doesn't encrypt its DVD output.
HDCP: an encryption scheme that prevents people from hooking up bog standard computer displays to a device that uses HDCP. The video output tends to look like digital snow when viewed on such a monitor. Hook up an HDCP compliant monitor, and it works. The encryption algorithm is breakable, see ed felton's blog
HDMI: A digital interface that combines video and audio. Must support HDCP, though unencrypted signals can be sent. A simple dongle is used to convert a DVI port into an video only HDMI port.
BTW, a number of devices, including the PS3 and the lower end HD-DVD players now expect their users to have both receivers and and televisions with HDMI ports-- those devices lack "5.1" RCA jacks.