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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.
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.
"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..."
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...).
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
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?
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!
Somewhere PowerDVD is wringing it's hands and cackling madly in it's secret lair.
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.
Charge to enable use of the ctrl, alt, and delete keys
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.
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.
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
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....
Looks like it. So far it hasn't offered anything remotely compelling over Windows 7, and it brings an interface redesign that causes fits of rage. A repeat of Vista looms. That's part of the problem with Microsoft: Once they have an OS that is just what their user want, they feel compelled to redesign big parts of it in order to remain 'cutting edge' and innovative. Something has to change, and if there is nothing broken that needs fixing they'll go ahead and break what already works.
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.
freeware like vlc player. there problem solved. fu microsoft.
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.
WMP wasn't always the worst. Remember RealPlayer and Quicktime?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
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
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.
Well this is a great boon for VLC.
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..
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
... 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.
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
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.
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 just described Apple as well. I know I'll take "troll" labeling for this, but it's true. Each new edition of OS X ends up removing or altering functionality in such a way that it cripples people and forces them to stick with older versions of the OS. The upcoming 10.8 should be a good example of that. They're all racing to blur the gap between tablet and desktop operating systems, even if that means that they should dumb down or radically alter the interface. I wouldn't be surprised if there is never a Mac OS XI, instead merging into a universalized iOS.
But on the other hand, change is ongoing. It's just the same to me that they remove out-of-the-box DVD capability. Tablets and many modern computers don't even have optical drives, so the software would be dead weight. Given the cost-imposed storage limitations of SSD's, I'd prefer to trim out all of the superfluous legacy software. It would have been nice if MS could have retained the DVD capability as a downloadable feature, similar to how they removed bloat from Win7 but made it accessible for free (package manager style) to those who still wanted it.
Either way, I guess commercial OS developers need to guarantee their job security somehow. =)
/* No Comment */
You can't share assemblies between the express and non-express versions.
http://saveie6.com/
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?
Yes.
Not on countries that recognize software patents.
Rethinking email
I beg to differ; I have found CCCP to be indispensable.
/* No Comment */
WMP still isn't the worst. Remember RealPlayer and Quicktime?
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
Those things are still around!? 8-(
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
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.
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 ----
One more reason to switch to Mac. Way to go Microsux.
One way to prevent Windows 8 acceptance.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
I use VLC but then again I don't claim to be normal. Who here is actually normal?
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.
Tablets and many modern computers don't even have optical drives, so the software would be dead weight. Given the cost-imposed storage limitations of SSD's, I'd prefer to trim out all of the superfluous legacy software.
You believe that removing stuff like DVD decoding keys/codec driver will do anything to trim down Windows? We're talking of an OS which install files don't fit on CD and has really insane HD space requirements, considering they are only for the OS and a little amount of mostly inferior bundled software.
Debian, Ubuntu and most other linux distributions can be installed from single CD (though some, ie. Debian, provide also extra CD's and/or DVD's for more additional programs) and I don't understand what in the world justifies the enormous size and space requirements of Windows. Even though Windows has features missing from default installation of most distros, they can't take up that much, they could not even if we forget that most distros also have stuff windows does not by default. And really, any distro targeted for common modern computers needs only a fragment of space from CD for Linux OS environment (kernel, user space, desktop and software like those which are bundled in Windows), but usually still use the rest for "some extra", which usually includes the top FOSS alternatives for full office suit, image manipulation, media playback and management, etc.
To give an example of my experience that might explain why I can't accept the bloat of Windows space needs as anything close to reasonable, or even "sane for maybe B-class SW company", I had this quite modern HW setup I assembled myself (and kept upgrading like I've done for ages) from '08 to last summer. The only major part that was same during that time was a hard disk, which was an old 10GB one my school threw/gave away which I picked up year before building this system. I originally took it for use in some older hardware I have, but knowing my tools I chose to have it to host OS & programs on a new system. Of course I had a fileserver already in place to host my work, media and such files, with just my audio collection having several times of it, I never imagined to have all my files on this 10GB piece that would have made me jealous in late 90's - but I had all the software, except few Win/DOS apps I still ran with DosBox (DETH, my favorite DooM level editor, and fork for ZDooM engine, ZETH) & wine (WinTex for DooM WAD-file access for other resources like graphics), and bunch of non-pc games, mostly C-64 floppy/tape images. To be fair, Wine, DosBox and the emulators to run them, as well as later installed windows programs were on that 10GB too.
I did not have the full disk available for all this either - I partitioned it with 2GB swap partition.
I never ditched that system. In matter for this example the machine is gone but in matter for what I use as one of two main desktops it's still in use, but has a 30GB disk I installed debian freshly - though, unless you count the casing, everything else has been replaced which makes it physically a different system. I did copy most configuration files from the old installation though, and run the same software.
To be fair, I started with Debian minimal installation and started with only basic Linux/GNU environment plus Debian packet management software (only the basic CLI tools) and started installing whatever I needed by hand until I had a simple desktop setup with nothing extra and missing even some basic features and after that only installed/configured something when I needed new tools or a feature I had not needed before. I could have started with debian default install, but I would have eventually ran out of space - when I changed HD I chose to reinstall, not because I was not happy with the OS in large, but because minor stuff I had not bothered to configure, like automatic adding/removing mount points for removable media, etc. - I figured that I would sooner get them by running default install with all regular stuff in pla
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.