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Windows 8 Won't Play DVDs Unless You Pay For the Media Center Pack
An anonymous reader writes "You may already know that Microsoft plans to sell Windows Media Center as a separate, paid pack, but now the company has revealed that Windows 8 will also stop default support for DVD playback. You'll only be able to play DVDs and Blu-rays if you upgrade to the Media Center pack. 'Acquiring either the Windows 8 Media Center Pack or the Windows 8 Pro Pack gives you Media Center, including DVD playback (in Media Center, not in Media Player), broadcast TV recording and playback (DBV-T/S, ISDB-S/T, DMBH, and ATSC), and VOB file playback. Pricing for these Packs, as well as retail versions of Windows 8, will be announced closer to the release date. To give you some indication of Media Center Pack pricing, it will be in line with marginal costs.'"
In a comment, Microsoft's Steven Sinofsky elaborates: "(marginal is small, honest, and we just haven't determined the final prices yet based on ongoing work but we are aiming for single digit dollars but we don't control the truly marginal costs). We wanted to include Media Player for everyone without everyone incurring the cost even if they don't even have an optical drive."
Now I've got to pay for every damned little thing in the OS too.
What's next, is there going to be an extra $5 charge every time I change the BIOS settings? A $2 charge by the firmware when I add RAM?
It's like government. No politician has the balls for raise taxes openly and directly, so instead you get a million nickel-and-dime fees and surtaxes to annoy the shit out of you at every turn.
Just raise the price of Windows if that's what you need to do, MS. I'd much rather a Windows license go from $100 to $120 than to have a window popping up at every turn saying I need to pay for some expansion pack if I want this-or-that little feature to work.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
The headline is trying to incite a backlash, but this is a reflection of the decline of optical drives and the rise of tablets. Apple has also gone down this path by not including optical drives in the MacBook Air. I don't find myself that concerned since it's literally been years since I watched a DVD, and all my movies are digital.
Presumably, the expense that was previously included in the cost of Windows will not be in Windows 8. I say "presumably" because I'm sure Windows 8 will still inexplicably cost over $100 or whatever.
"Sufferin' succotash."
I'm sure that Microsoft will be generous and actually pass on these savings to the consumer, right? I mean, they wouldn't just cut out a feature to save some money and then keep that money for themselves, would they?
VLC
Are they going to ban VLC and other 3rd party players?
If not, I'm happy not to have to pay for those licences as a part of my Windows licence
Vendors will supply their own software to play them with the added crap that comes with windows. System Builders will use readily available codec , and tablets without DVD drives wont need it any way. XP did not come with a way to play DVD's unless you purchased software so this is not much of a change.
I mean it's expected (not welcomed but expected) behaviour from M$, but won't everyone just install vlc anyway?
Nothing to see here really...
First!
Looks like Cyberlink and Creative will be able to sell their DVD player software again finally!
Why not just download the VLC player? It's already much better than almost any alternative; I don't see why anyone would pay for Microsoft's crappy media center.
Now I know that DVD is an as-good-as obsolete format (my computers do without optical drive for the better part of the last decade), but simply dropping DVD play-back support from your mainstream distribution that sounds a little premature to me!
LMFAO!!!
If anyone said back in the mid 90's that Microsoft would ceed the cell phone market to Android and Apple, hemorage market share on the desktop and lose browser dominance they would be labeled a lunatic. Or Steve Ballmer.
If I have to upgrade to Windows 8 (which I don't plan on doing), then I'll just wait until there's a suitable version of the Combined Community Codec Pack for Win8. Really, paying for media playback is just lame.
The OS won't play DVDs in Media Center-- because it's not included. MS said that they were confident that the PC DVD-playing software market was sufficiently full.
Windows 8 will still play DVDs with third-party-software. There's no reason to have such an inflammatory article.
Windows 8 is the one we skip right?
And even if it wasn't, I pirate my copies anyway.
"We wanted to include Media Player for everyone without everyone incurring the cost even if they don't even have an optical drive."
Yes, those people in Ethernopia upgrading to Windows 8 will certainly appreciate those "single-digit" dollar savings.
Meanwhile, the rest of the [non-apple non-linux must-use-for-my-office] lemmings will be screaming their heads off in frustration.
New Coke. All over again.
Microsoft... you shoot yourself in the foot more times than the rest of us want to. Thank you.
E
"So these two Dothraki and a Klingon walk into a bar..."
'nuff said
Unless they lower the price drastically from Windows 7 Professional, I'm starting to see a class action law suit forming. Removing features and charging the same or more isn't going to make a lot of people happy. Especially features people are considering 'basic' at this point, like DVD support (we forgave XP for not having it out of the box because DVD was still a relatively new and emerging thing 2001... but in 2012? c'mon...).
It has forever been the most resource intensive and least functional media player. I've been turning folks on to VLC for years. The most common comment: "It works for eveything! No searching for this codec or that one."
On top of all the VLC comments above... if you want a *Free* media center alternative... XBMC is the way to go.
There Can Be Only One...
Now they can;t be sued but Dvd software companies for antitrust because they give are away there dvd software for free. The courts kept telling microsoft not to bundle apps with there operation systems... so now they are finaly listening.
All the movies I've watched on my PCs/iPhone/Amazon Fire have either been via Netflix or video files of ripped disks I already own. And when I did (occasionally) watch DVDs on my PCs I did it via VLC.
All of the content we've watched off of a DVD were played using our home theatre system; I can't imagine there's too much penetration of media PCs.
Sanity.html - Error 404 not found
I'm glad Microsoft is pushing the racket costs through to the consumer. The DVD licencing group is just a shakedown, and it's great to let users opt-out of their shenanigans. Linux distributions have been doing this for a long time with mp3 codecs (for example). Savvy users can get around it, but it's also very simple to pay a nominal fee to appease the intellectual property bandits.... if you want to support their practices.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
If Microsoft bundles software, that's bad.
If Microsoft doesn't bundle software, that bad.
Is everything Microsoft does wrong by definition?
-Dave
Media Center is a POS anyways, so I'm glad it won't be bundled. VLC is all you need. Good luck selling this bundle to grannies.
Or do they mean the underlying functionality won't be there so not even a third-party app like VLC will be able to play DVDs?
Their days of getting royalties on every single copy of windows sold are counted.. Remember that HD-DVD vs Blue Ray war? MS was behind HD-DVD, and sony won with its blue ray.. I wonder if MS would have done the same thing if HD-DVD was not abandoned? I think they are simply pointing the middle finger to sony in that move..
Perhaps this will boost interest in desktop Linux?
But can VLC do what M$ wants $$ to enable? IF so, M$ might as well give DVD playing away free.
Does the guy understand what marginal cost means? The cost to Microsoft of including a few extra megabytes on the install media (or on the disk of a machine sold with Windows) is zero. It only costs them extra to include the media stuff because of their own marketing contortions where they decided to package and sell it separately. If they just included it by default, the marginal cost would be nothing. There are upfront costs (also known as sunk costs) involved in writing the software in the first place, but marginal cost is the cost of producing one extra copy. In software, as in movies or music, that cost is either zero or something very close to zero.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
I know that in general, Windows comes subsidized on computers, and you can bet your ass that manufacturers aren't going to put non-media-enabled versions on there. If the DVD drive doesn't work right, the people who sold the computer are going to get the flak, not the guys who made the mysterious "Operating-System".
The people who will pay for this are the companies who do volume licensing, as usual.
This does actually make some level of sense, the reason being, Microsoft has to pay to license the required codecs for playback of DVDs, Blu-rays, HD-DVDs, etc... when they bundle them with Windows (think H264, for example). This does result in a price increase to the cost of every Windows license. Media playback is one of the very few areas of the Windows operating system where Microsoft has to pay a per-license additional cost for the inclusion of this extra code (I can't think of any others, but I'm sure other Slashdotters may have insight here).
So, why should everyone have to pay the extra fee for these codecs if they have no interest in using them? I can't even remember the last time I watched a physical Blu-ray or DVD on a computer, and when I do watch media, I do it through VLC Media Player. And, after all, this isn't a DRM restriction, go and install VLC Media Player, or ffdshow, or whatever you please, and you can get many/all these codecs via 3rd-party for free. So, honestly, who gives a damn?
The marginal cost of electronic distribution is a few cents. If that's really what they're charging, why bother?
I really dislike Microsoft, I have no need for windows anything, but I dislike MPEGLA even more. As far as I am concerned, its good news that they will no longer be recieving license fees automatically from Microsoft.
They removed something I haven't used in 10 years!
Dear Microsoft:
No love
No respect
Go away now
I get what they're doing and it makes sense, but you're going to end up with a lot of angry consumers who don't understand why their DVD drive doesn't work; or maybe they don't have one built into their computer but plug one in, and a dialog box says "Please deposit $5".
If anything, they should make the DVD version the standard, and let savvy folks downgrade and save the cost if they want.
In a comment, Microsoft's Steven Sinofsky elaborates: "(marginal is small, honest, and we just haven't determined the final prices yet based on ongoing work but we are aiming for single digit dollars but we don't control the truly marginal costs).
I'm sure these costs will be right in line with the marginal amounts they charge consumers for Windows Recovery media.
I've never heard of DBV-T/S I presume you mean DVB-T/S
Charge to enable use of the ctrl, alt, and delete keys
Microsoft is shooting itself in the foot. Like when they tried to sell IE separately from Windows, this is doomed to fail. They will go through all the trouble and expense to package a media center software bundle and no one is going to buy it. There are too many other options out there for them to do this. In order to maintain their dominant position in the OS market they need to include products into the base OS that people are moving towards and then capitalize on those trends.
What they are doing here is following the trends of the major airlines. Those airlines which charge for every little thing as a separate convenience fee. Those same airlines which are going bankrupt every few years.
If Microsoft had some good leadership, it should exploit the touch interface trend, the social media trend, and the cloud trends without touching current features. If they want to stem the Apple tide, they should be pushing features that Apple has been reluctant to include on their OSs that the majority of people have been asking for.
Granted - this is still a bullshit change. But in implementation it won't end up significantly diffierent from how things currently are.
it's not like your bottom line is suffering.. you're only making (net) $2 BILLION A MONTH *
* FY2011
Or in other words, frack Windows Media Center...
Old joke. An interviewer asks a potential new programmer a question, "If you could be any piece of software, which would you be?"
"Windows Media Player, " the interviewee responds, "I like to be left alone."
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
I'd be happy if Microsoft made sure that you could play all bluray discs and were responsible for maintaining that program. Playing blurays on PCs is a real problem right now and I'd be willing to shell out a flat fee for something that works for all discs and will continue to work for all disks.
Why does everyone say vlc? Is this really /.? After all, mplayer is the only way to go. VLC is like emacs, obese with features most people willl never use, but mplayer is like vim, doing only what it needs to do but easily extensible to do what YOU need to do, as well as being more powerful at the expense of a shallow learning curve.
That's okay Microsoft, I don't need to be able to play a DVD to rip it.
No. If they included DVD playback as an optional/free addon, no big deal. Starting a trend of paying for common features which have previously been included, and charging for a "premium" OS sets a nasty precedent and will likely leave a bad taste in the mouths of many.
I guess that means Microsoft media center will no longer take control away from the programs that I actually want to use rather than the microsoft crap. heh...
/* TODO: Spawn child process, interest child in technology, have child write a new sig */
I have no empathy for Windows users. They are self-made suckers, ever mocking and deriding GNU/Linux, a powerful free OS that they should all have switched to years ago. Now the poor little lambs are whining about how their corporate overlords keep fleecing them! Oh, woe to the poor little babies!
Free yourselves from tyranny instead. Only buy games that run on GNU/Linux. Demand that the major game labels make the transition. Better yet, grow up and stop wasting so much time playing games. Get a life. Create wealth and culture instead of just consuming it. Use Scribus, Gimp, and Inkscape instead of Photoshp. Use PostgreSQL instead of Oracle, Use gcc, python, or perl instead of .NET or Visual Studio. Use Firefox or Chrome instead of Internet Explorer. Use LibreOffice instead of Microsoft Office. If you're not willing to change, then just grab your ankles and shut your eyes really tight. Just like you always have. Suckers.
...but in this instance, they're making the right decision.
Long ago, Microsoft would drive entire markets out of business with a particular tactic. Every time some innovative software developer produced something new and useful enough to create a whole new market (or sub-market or whatever you want to call it), Microsoft would barge in, create a similar product, and offer it for free with their operating system.
Countless innovative software companies were driven out of business this way. Whole markets dried up and blew away. I and many others lambasted Microsoft for stifling innovation in the software market by doing this, and I still think those complaints against Microsoft were valid. So now people are whining at Microsoft for doing precisely the opposite? Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
So you'll have to take the extra step of installing a free piece of software to perform the same function, a function that is becoming increasingly irrelevant in this new world of digital streaming. You'll survive.
I find it highly ironic that you are whining about not getting something for free given the rightist drivel in your sig.
I fully expect that Windows 10 will include a micropayment system that requires you to enter your credit card information and pay a small fee every time you log in, print a document or send an email. Running non-Microsoft software will require additional licensing because such software is usually associated with either piracy, illegal hacking or deviating political views. If you don't have a valid credit card, you're probably a terrorist anyway.
Time flies when you don't know what you're doing
if the marketdroids at Dell or HP have the brains to cut a deal and license VLC for automatic inclusion with their other crapware and allow theircustomers to give MS a great big middle finger.
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
Thank motorola and Google. Motorola is trying to get money from every copy of Windows sold. So now Microsoft will have to either increase the costs of windows, eat the cost and pay motorola, or remove the software and sell it...
Motorola: http://www.dailytech.com/Windows+Xbox+360+Could+be+Banned+in+Germany+as+Patent+War+Continues/article24592.htm Google demanding WP7 apps be removed: http://www.wpcentral.com/content-infringement-complaints-google-and-windows-phone-marketplace
Who had designed "PlayBack devices" dialog in Win7, why a user has to manually switch outputs? Please enable simultaneous playback in Win8.
Windows ME and Vista are looking like perfectly polished products next to this hot potato.
My browser of choice is IE and I have my.msn.com as my main home page. On that page I have Slashdot right in the middle. If it weren't for messing up my home page I would take out Slashdot in a heartbeat simply because of the constant Microsoft bashing. It seems like Microsoft can do nothing right according to the jerks that post anti-Microsoft messages here. Of course Microsoft makes mistakes - all corporations do but by and large they do great work. I don't like Apple. I don't like Google and there are others I don't like but I don't constantly bash them here. You like Apple - GREAT - it's your choice and I applaud you for making it. You like Google - same thing but for f... sake STOP with the constant barrage of Microsoft bashing. That's MY choice.
Who cares about DVD support in the OS. Lots of free programs will play/rip you DVDs.
But what is a good free alternative for using your box as PVR/DVR.
Media Center gives you free DVR software to use with a tuner, and includes free(and reliable) program guide updates.
I use it every day.
Though I already think Win8 is a joke anyway, so Win7 forever....
not including wmp is not the worst thing ever. most codec packs come with their own media player anyway, and almost all of them are better than wmp. if customers are going to complain about something I wish they'd pick something truly annoying. how about not opening the source code for directx and/or unsupported windows versions?
The only thing which will boost interest in Linux is a killer feature you can't get anywhere else.
Unintended, probably, but still one more nail in the coffin of the concept of Owning Physcial Things, instead of merely renting access to the Content Lords property... in perpetuity. All touted on the backs of efficiency and convenience.
I never guessed Windows 7 version I would ever own.. but its not bad.
freeware like vlc player. there problem solved. fu microsoft.
Buy Apple now beat the rush !
Slashdot is infested with a ton of MS haters. No matter what MS does, they find a way to spin it as a bad thing.
Also in this case, many of them don't understand the licensing behind things. They'll download a program for Linux that decodes MPEG-2 and the like and figure that means it is all free. It isn't, legally you have to pay a license fee for it. While you as an individual will probably get away with not, MS will not they have to pay.
I find it weird that much of Slashdot was so actively on the bandwagon that cited having Internet Explorer installed on Windows computers was some kind of evil monopoly, but thinks that it's absurd that Windows Media Player DVD playback capabilities have been lumped into a Media Center add-on package. This is what the "M$"-bashers have been demanding for years - that Microsoft doesn't force their non-essential products as parts of the OS or its default installation.
This is asinine penny pinching. Windows typically sells for around $200 or more.
Does MicroSoft seriously think people make purchasing decisions based on a 1% price difference? Who the hell are they kidding -- they're not going to discount the price of Windows 8 by that $1-2 in royalty fees that's saved, they're just going to gouge their customers for an extra dollar or two.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
However, isn't Linux skating by under the radar with regard to DVD/MP3/$PATENTED_FORMAT playback right now? If this move does spur a massive migration to desktop Linux, I can see a little Microsoft birdie whispering in **AA's ear that those evil, nasty repositories are serving up patent-violating software. For some of the US-hosted repos, it may pose a problem.
Can't you just download VLC instead, and get proper, region-free DVD playback?
Except the have to pay fees for each DVD enabled copy of Windows. I'll give you one guess as to how VLC does it for free...for all of the "usually need a license" codecs.
MPC-HC is something you can reasonably argue for, but anyone who recommends codec megapacks needs to be slapped upside the head.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Bad old Linux! Bad ffmpeg! Bad mplayer! Bad mencoder! Bad DeVeDe! Bad Handbrake! BAD BAD BAD! Well, you know, except that they work really well.... and the cost is. The cost. Dammit they are free! Bad old Linux! Don't you Linux users start harping about how everything you have is free and how well it works! We don't want to hear it! Shut up about all your free software! How can it be any good if its free?!? Its just like sex, its, its. Oh shuddup!
What's new? Microsoft has been de-bundling software to push more expensive SKUs for awhile. Last year, my friend was very upset that that his new Windows 7 desktop no longer had support for additional languages, he would have to get the Ultimate Edition. It's a very annoying de-bundling for some people because it's a feature that's been there for at least Win95. "Upgrading" to the Ultimate Edition is not exact cheap, plus he would lose out on the extended support of his "Pro" version. I just dropped by his house recently, saw a new iMac. Microsoft pushed him too hard to extract extra money and they pushed him to Apple. His logic was that it cost pretty much the same for a new all-in-one Win7 with Ultimate or an iMac, and he's tire of dealing with Microsoft's bs.
For Windows 15, all we would get is a "C:\" at startup. You want a graphic interface, pay for that part. Oh, connecting to anything else besides the authentication server, gotta pay for that too. Printing, that's going to cost you.
To buy media center means that you will probably have to purchase through the MS app store .. this means you will have to both create and login to a windows live account and ultimately may end up needing to be logged in to access the media center app.
I haven't seen a DVD in years thanks to Netflix andHulu streaming, and software downloads.
In one aspect I totaly agree to pay more for multimedia to Microsoft(especially for bluray read-write support) is because LG/Cyberlink bullshit me since 4 years since I bought my DVD/HD-DVD/BLURAY reader and writer. They fucking sucks so (too-)much! If Microsoft finaly provides, at last, at least, non-mafia bluray multimedia, I prefer pay to them (Microsoft-) mafia instead paying to CyberCrime's PowerDVD etc... Cyber-Fuck pissme off EVERYTIME I install their mafious-software.
And also, If Windows become more an OS, not a bloatOS... They(Microsoft) will win all my diligences ( beside Linux & HaikuOS:-) )
Between the clash of worlds with their useless for desktops UI and taking away features included with previous versions what incentive do people actually have to even think about upgrading again? When you upgrade you are supposed to get something for your trouble and cash.. Instead we are loosing things and being annoyed. If I wanted to only view 1-2 apps on my screen at once I would not have purchased a high resolution monitor. Idiots. Fucking idiots...
TPB FTW
Well this is a great boon for VLC.
I'm sure there are folks out there who are upset that Windows won't play their 8-track collections either...
We wanted to include Media Player for everyone without everyone incurring the cost even if they don't even have an optical drive.
Translation: Windows just entered the Day 1 DLC bonanza.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
No, it thinks the patent licensing fees for the features involved go to Microsoft competitors, so it is trying to reduce the amount of money those competitors make distributing fewer units that require paying those fees. Separating out the features and making the consumer pay the licensing fees (that's virtually all of the involved "marginal cost" to Microsoft of the features) is likely to be a fairly effective way of doing that.
This strikes at the very heart of Microsoft's problem with consumers. Who the hell wants to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for a PC that can't do the job of a $20 DVD player from Walmart?
Since the very first release of Windows XP, Microsoft has been fucking up enormously in the eyes of every user that has ever tried to do something as simple as watching a DVD. And for what? The $1.25 it costs for the MPEG license?
And now they're going to offer this "feature" as an additional purchase that you can make? I guess that's better than where they sat with Windows XP (just a "Sorry, you don't have teh right softwarez" error) because they are at least offering to fix the problem. But any slim monetization they manage to work up with this scheme will hurt them 100 times worse on their bottom line, as consumers will continue to avoid *anything* as bad as Microsoft. Just go look at the new Windows phone -- it may have some compelling features in there somewhere, but who the hell wants to trust Microsoft with their personal devices any more?
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
lol use VLC >.
Unless you also have to pay for Silverlight, Netflix streaming will work just fine.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has now divorced (a measure of) media player capability from the core OS. Isn't this what all the anti-trust suits were trying to accomplish, with the Europe's K/N/KN versions?
I suppose the Videolan client (VLC Player) will run on Windows 8? Then maybe we don't need to buy Media Center.
May 25, 2018 Microsoft has new plans to charge 10 cents per mouse click on Windows 14
If I already bought Win 7 and I don't intend to use it again after upgrading or clean installing to Win 8, why should I have to re-buy the right to play DVDs. Will I have to buy that right again and again and again? This model makes no sense.
goin long XP firewalls...
... I can just buy a $69 BluRay player that plays blurays, DVDs, and does online streaming, and then MSFT can go eff themselves.
WebTV was way ahead of its time.
Shut up cause the sh*t is starting to pile up.
Most of you don't pay for DVD's anyways, you download it from TPB and then watch it on VLC. Almost every negative criticism about this is just people bitching about something they never use just because Microsoft and Windows was mentioned.
F*ck, Apple isn't even putting optical drives in their stuff anymore.
A few years ago Microsoft got slammed for building too much stuff into Windows so they have slowly been pulling out content that can otherwise be obtained in about a hundred other different ways instead of having to bundled into the OS.
So, shut up all of you. If you want to watch DVD's on your PC get VLC or many, many, many alternatives. Otherwise download the movie, stream from Netflix and dozen's of other services, or just sit there and curb your desire to dump more sh*t on something you know damn well does not affect 99% of the people reading this.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Because you laughed at Richard Stallman, when he pointed out that this kind of thing is what happens when software freedom is ignored.
"Ahh! I see you're in that indeterminate Schrodinger state where - oh, uh
Sinofsky can apologize all he wants ... every word he says, I hear as this low, background chant saying "RMS was right, RMS was right ...".
"Ahh! I see you're in that indeterminate Schrodinger state where - oh, uh
Better than sucks, still doesn't mean !sucks.
Let's be fair, here...ya'know, Ubuntu is probably not going to play my DVDs and Blu-Rays either. That is, until I insert a disc for the first time and it prompts me to download the necessary add-ons. Or, if I have installed VLC myself, I'm good to go.
Now, I know this is not a fair comparison because Ubuntu doesn't actually cost me any money, and since you have to pay for Windows 8--and then pay again for the "Media Center Pack"--it obviously must be MUCH, MUCH better, right?!?
Seriously, I never thought Microsoft would blow their dominance in my lifetime, but it's amazing how quickly they are burning through it.
:q!
So....I wonder how this will affect people who use their XBox 360s as media extenders. Considering how the new XBox iteration is not due out until well after the release of Windows 8, this may screw up the home entertainment setup of many people.
@Mindless Drivel: 100% of Twitter posts ever Tweeted.
This is an obvious move for MS and Windows 8. Windows 8 is being targeted as the 'tablet' windows platform. How many tablets have optical drives? Yes, zero.
In addition, who watches DVDs anymore anyways? I suppose there is still someone out there mad that MS doesn't have a tape player built into windows.
I used to be a big-time Microsoft basher. These days I could care less. If they want to charge for a Super Pro Pack or a Media Blowout Pack or whatever, go for it. I'm not obliged to buy or use their products, and I don't. Linux does what I need.
You can't share assemblies between the express and non-express versions.
http://saveie6.com/
before it became an Evil Entity (or even more evil), SCO sold Xenix.
If you remember, the software development pack for that was an extra charge too.
For a long time, people could bash Linux, with reason, as an operating system that couldn't even play a DVD out of the box. Pathetic. So what choices did the user have? Either download and install something that would play it illegally, as most did, or pay separately for licensed codecs. Now that Windows users face exactly the same choice, they will feel a certain deflation, a little at a loss, when they argue for the natural superiority of their operating system. It's an uncomfortable feeling, but ultimately healthy.
-Gareth
Or they may cancel your rights to play the media you bought especially for this computer because they think their new product will make them more money, even if you are willing to pay them a monthly fee to continue the service, as you've been doing for years.
Or, alternatively, you could install freeware that obviously will be developed that will play your media without the hassle of DRM or ransomware.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
There is no cost to bits, but there is a cost to managing different versions.
Hence, the marginal cost of this additional version is actually negative.
Therefore, if they are going to charge marginal costs then one version with the Media Center should be cheaper then the version without media center in the scenario where there are two versions.
AC
Yes.
Not on countries that recognize software patents.
Rethinking email
I beg to differ; I have found CCCP to be indispensable.
/* No Comment */
Love the last comment about 'paying for media center whether or not you have an optical drive'...What system today doesn't come with one? This just made my mind up..when the time comes to replace my system..I will buy a Macbook...
In America today you can murder land for private profit. You can leave the corpse for all to see, and nobody calls the c
I see a lot of people are upset with this, personally I say - It's about damn time...
I never use Windows Media Player to begin with, and I'm sure the community will have some Windows 8 open source alternative fairly quickly. Now my installation will never have to know the bloated touch of WMP.
Please, keep making it easier to convert people to Linux.
But... the future refused to change.
Why would anyone choose Microsoft's Media Center over XBMC?
Microsoft has proven they suck at just about everything.
XBMC is far better than any other media player Microsoft has ever released.
does it seem to anyone else that microsoft is trying make its OS entirely undesirable?
They're using their grammar skills there.
Books. They even work without electricity. (But at night you do need a candle).
THIS CODE IS YOUR CODE - you know what tune to sing it to
-- by Anonymouse Howard
This code is your code, this code is my code,
To California from the south of Finland,
From the GNU compiler, to the ELF binaries,
This code was made for you and me.
As I was trolling the threads on Slashdot,
Still bashing Microsoft, with lack of forethought,
I saw before me the new VLC,
This code was made for you and me.
This code is your code, this code is my code,
To California from the south of Finland,
From the GNU compiler, to the ELF binaries,
This code was made for you and me.
Downloaded sourcecode, unzipped the tarballs,
Dot slash configure, then run make-installs,
And all around me, my systems showed me,
This code was made for you and me.
This code is your code, this code is my code,
To California from the south of Finland,
From the GNU compiler, to the ELF binaries,
This code was made for you and me.
PSST, hey buddy- It's an OS.. that means OPERATING SYSTEM
It does not need to include a program for taking notes, playing music adding numbers, playing timesuck games, or sending email..
but it does.
IT IS AN OPERATING SYSTEM and that's what they are selling.. a DVD playing app would require Microsoft to pay a fee for the ability to play back dvds... if I can save 9$ a seat and not have dvd playback-- or pay9$ a seat where I need it- I'm good with that.
sure- they could figure that every license includes it, and raise the price 2$ per seat userbase wide--
ya know how everyone on slashdot gripes that TV channels aren't available alacarte from cable carriers?
well- this OS feature is available based on your preference..
You already pay hundreds if not thousands for your PC, why they hell cant they just include the 'minimal' cost of the license up front? ( last i heard, under a dollar.. )
Oh ya, to scam us even more.
Bastards. All of them.. And they wonder why we are pissed and pirate things.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I remember a time when companies tried to make the customer happy. Modern times it shows companies are going out of their way to ensure I will never buy another product from them. Taking features that were the standard and making it into a pay system. I guess pirated versions of windows 8 will include a media player for free..because some people are more interested in making people happy than insuring stock quotas.
Illiterate haters gonna hate.
First there was no support. Then other companies sprang up to fill the need.
M$ then gives it away for free. (maybe they say they cannot cut it from the OS)
Other companies die out.
M$ then starts charging for the item. (Profit)
This is how they have done it with a bunch of things.
One more reason to switch to Mac. Way to go Microsux.
One way to prevent Windows 8 acceptance.
This is A GOOD THING! If you don't have a DVD drive you won't have what slack dotters call the "Microsoft tax" on DVD media. So what is bad about that? Should they charge everyone the same price for those of us with Netbooks or other computers that don't have a DVD?
You whiners are a hoot.
It has some to this.
Have gnu, will travel.
It doesn't matter, just use one of the free DVD players that several other people provide. DVD players came late to Windoze, so it's not surprising that it's gone. While it may be nice to have it included with the OS, the Operating System is just that, an operating system. We complained that we want to use something other than IE, and we got it, so expecting minor stuff like a DVD player from MS is silly. (oh shit, I'm an Apple fan-bouy defending MS)
There was an unknown error in the submission.
Mr Softy giving me another reason to keep using xp :)
And what a load of bullshit. Stop being such a shill for corporate greed and check your history. MS is by no means a victim in this situation, it was their own actions that brought this on.
Just so you know, MS makes more money off Android phones than they do off their own phones. Why? Because they abused their position to extort money out of companies like HTC and other Android manufactures.
So now that MS is getting back what they've been dishing out, someone like you comes along and naively tries to blame Google and Moto for something that is completely MS's own decision. Oh, poor MS... Yeah RIGHT.
That lawsuit has nothing to do with MS's decision to charge for DVD playback, it's called greed; and given the mentality of the populous of our society -- especially the younger crowd -- they know they can get away with it.
My immediate reaction to the story title was that MS was actively going to prevent DVD playback unless you'd paid for Media Center. Good that thats NOT the case.
I think I head of then once.
This headline is class-A trolling.
VLC media player devs already stated that VLC for windows 8 will play all codecs, dvd/bluray/vob and all those included with media center pack for absolutely free.
They've already tested VLC on windows 8 and it works beautifully.
So if you do upgrade to windows 8 keep in mind you don't have to buy the media center pack to play dvd's, bluray's, vobs and such. Just download VLC media player for Windows 8
Hell Microsoft should take it to the next level! Strip the OS to the barebone sell that for dirt cheap or even give it away and make everything else that not the OS modular with micro-transaction. Customers will get a snappier experience because Windows won't run so many useless shit in the background and likely a hell of a lot secure! On top of that Microsoft would make even more money because pirated copies will generate as much micro-transaction than legit. More to the point if you give the OS away you don't even have piracy problem. Give away the razor and sell the blades if it good enough for BIC it good enough for Microsoft.
Windows 8 could force users to dress up as a clown and ride a unicycle in order to use the file browser for all I care, I sure won't be upgrading. Windows 7 is the last time I waste money on MS useless OS.
Windows 7 had a pretty warm reception, but I can't really understand why. To me it feels like Windows XP with a new lick of paint, some presumably good work done under the hood (don't need to restart as much to install programs or even drivers) and some misguided attempts to make it more useable to idiots that just serve to confuse and irritate long time users. Of all the stock software in Windows, the only thing I used often was Explorer, and now that's broken in Win7 due to oversimplification.
I just hope that linux continues to get more and more support from game developers so that I can eventually leave it behind for good, because I sure don't want to move to Mac (mainly for reasons of cost and lack of choice).
Didn't the EU force Microsoft to unbundle this stuff from Windows anyway? Maybe it's just good version control, which was very messy in Windows 7. Besides, not including all these licensing and patent issues limits their legal exposure. If anything, I think this demonstrates a further ratcheting up of the patent warfare climate. I don't blame them for wanting to take some cover, even if they might be grabbing some more ammo back there, rather than trying to pacify the situation. I think they're very sensitive to patent encumbrances which media is fraught with, and this can only simplify their potential legal headaches.
It's far easier to kill a $7 add-on than it is to redistribute the court-ordered fixed install set for your flagship product. I imagine all they need to charge is the DVD/h.264, etc. license fees, plus insist on WGA validation as they did for WMP 11, and they can call it a win.
I won't pay for Windows. Sorry, guys, you over reached.
Some distros purposefully exclude software that is covered by a patent. Users of Fedora or openSUSE have to go to a third party repo if they want to play MP3s or DVDs. Canonical and Debian maintain non-US repos for those in countries where software can't be patented. The small players tend to ignore this stuff, but there are so many of them that the legal fees of going after them would be staggering.
This is also a good reason to compress your media with free codecs, less mess with patents.
The Linux community needs to consolidate and get a marketing department. Microsoft is really dropping the ball dumbing down each new version of Windows to never-touched-a-computer- before levels. I don't want Win8. Win7 was bad enough. If the Linux people could step up and put out a really good release and get the laptop manufacturers to back it they could really step up in this era. Most users are simple and just want to click on an icon and have whatever come up on the screen. Linux could excel in this while having less malware than Win and less cost than Apple. Linux is way better tech an OSX, it's time to put Apple to shame for being the cheesy media whores they are by producing something better, cheaper and ugh "friendlier". I don't mind editing a text file to change my settings,but most regular people are really confused by that sort of thing. Makes me fear for the future of humanity.
The DVDin my tower came with Power DVD software which plays any DVD including the BR's I own. So WIndows won't come with default software to play DVD's? Ok. Every DVD drive that you can buy, or windows box system you buy, comes with tons of software that will. Who the hell has a system with ONLY the OS installed?
Ave Molech Setting
This is there classic tactics, they claimed certain windows files could only be read if you bought another one of there software packages another 100+dollars on top of the 120+ dollars you already spent to buy Windows. Then Open Office came out and that pissed them off. This is how they have been able to make there money, and stay a OS monopoly for years. There are several other thing you can get for accesses or using certain parts of Windows by downloading freeware, or open software, that they wanted to sell as a separate packages.
Why do you reinstall Linux?
Because once you tried that "upgrade in place" bullshit, and it toasted itself. So now, rather than take the risk that you're going to end up with a toasted system again, you back up all of your files before attempting an upgrade, then attempt upgrade, then reinstall after it toasts itself, then restore files, then spend hours convincing the piece of shit that it doesn't need to ask you for your password for every little thing, and a thousand other things that have to be reconfigured for any new Linux install.
Time after that, you realize that the part about attempting to upgrade is simply a waste of your time, and so you always do a fresh install.
What fucking planet do you live on where this shit works the way it is supposed to?
XBMC
From the article:
Microsoft says that Windows 8 will focus primarily on online and downloadable media, and it will support a variety of codecs right out of the box: H.264, VC-1, WMA, MP4, AVI, MPEG-2 TS, ASF, AAC, WAV, M4A, MP3, PCM and Dolby Digital Plus. “These decoders are optimized for system reliability, battery life, and performance, and cover all key playback scenarios for mainstream content” — the company says.
Microsoft still licenses the patent encumbered codecs such as MPEG-2 and H.264. What isn't licensed is the DRM required to playback encrypted DVD discs.
Boycott Microsoft ! They support CISPA (prev. PIPA/SOPA) - the law that will censor the Internet !
Microsoft is involved in manufacturering of biological weapons (gene targeting):
.
http://www.rosettabio.com/company/news/rosetta_microsoft
.
Bill Gates want to decrease Earths population by spreading deadly viruses that kill humans:
.
http://www.naturalnews.com/029911_vaccines_Bill_Gates.html
.
Video: http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=A155D113455FAC882A3290536575C723
.
Bill Gates is involved in projects that target sperms:
.
http://www.naturalnews.com/034834_Bill_Gates_sperm_infertility.html
.
Bill Gates do also support craetion of mosquitos that spread deadly viruses to human:
.
http://www.naturalnews.com/030940_Bill_Gates_Foundation_genetics.html
Thanks to DVD Jon... and Linux, FTW!11!11!
Srsly, if Windows doesn't work out of the box now, one of the barriers to Linux adoption is smaller.
First off before everyone keeps saying that MS is to blame for this, remember the release of the MacBook Air was the beginning of the UltraBook design. Its reinstallation media was a USB thumb Drive not a CD/DVD. Steve Jobs himseld said at the time that this was the beginning of the end for the optical drive. He was right. BluRay my have won the HD Video Disk battle but it lost the war to media streaming over the Internet. While an UltraBook uses the i7 and like CPUs its smaller lighter and has a longer battery life than a notebook with comparable features because it has fewer devices to power. Guess what they're selling and Steve Jobs was right.
Its an industry trend and why should MS incur the cost of paying a license fee to allow DVD playback on a device that has no DVD player. Stop harranging on MS and realize its an Industry trend and not one started by MS but by Apple.
I'd pay for it if it works as a well integrated alternative to XBMC or iRiver or similar. If it can produce an eye pleasing htpc experience, and pull movie and tv show profiles from open databases, support many codecs and has well support for Logitech Harmony and other remotes, then sure, I'd pay a bit for it. With the closed nature of the Boxee Box, I have urges to move to an HTPC with a quick interface, lots of eye candy and the ability to pull info from the TV DB and open movie DB.
The Fluendo plugin for gstreamer is commercially available (and has been for a few years):
http://www.fluendo.com/shop/product/fluendo-dvd-player/
It's a little more expensive at 20 euros...
But roughly speaking, this means Windows is at about the same level as Linux.
I use VLC but then again I don't claim to be normal. Who here is actually normal?
or you could use free software like VLC media player... it has its own codecs.. and works beautifully. if M$ is gonna do this in windows 8, then ill just stick with 7..theyre gonna lose a lot of customers and fans that way. It's like a 10$ DLC to add insult to injury of the 60$ game you just bought. Get over it M$, your just a big monopilized bully who cant stand not controlling everything. I guess you could crack the blu ray and just watch the .mkv files with a converter.. MAC OSX or linux anyone?
given how mature the pc industry is Any reasonable person would expect to be able to put a dvd/cd/bluray into a computer and have it play - wonder what the trading standards offficers will say when they get complains from consumers - or is this just a way to let manufacturers charge extra for crap ware 3rd party dvd players.
http://marksxp.mvps.org/WindowsXP/dvd/playback/dvdplayback.php
...one has to be really naive to believe that this would affect what end user pays for Windows at all, they will just get less for what they pay.
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.