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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."
Remember back when XP didn't include codecs for DVD playback? it's back to the same situation. It all comes down to licensing. MS is just passing the codec cost down to the end user. I suspect it's related to the Motorola lawsuit that is going on. BTW, Corecodec is $13 USD so modest fee would be something like that. Also, for those of you ABMers, complaining about paying $199 USD for a OEM Windows license + modest fee for CODECs, you have no ground to stand on. You can say, will go install Linux. If you look at how much time it takes to install Linux compared to Windows and reinstall everytime there's an update, you are really not truly saving any money. Question is, how much is your time worth? For those who are unemployed, it's kinda expensive. For those computer engineer's, it's equiv to 4 hrs of work. if it takes Linux 4hrs longer to install vs. windows, its' not cost effective.