Chris Lanier's Blog

Yeah this is the reason I think IPTV with the extender acting as a tuner will be the next logical step for HD support. Provider is in control of the content, but you can still watch it seemlessly with mce setup.

Guns don't kill, people do. The copyright owners need to aggressively prosecute infringers and stop trying to control the technology.

I think the single biggest problem with the many DRM schemes may be that they have no way of knowing anything about the "fair use" provisions of copyright law.

Microsoft is used to fighting lawsuits :-) They should use MCE to be strong consumer advocate for new technology, even if that means picking a fight with the RIAA and MPAA.

New day, new DRM
When will they get a clue?
These digital restrictions do nothing but turn their products into useless piles of crap and alienate their customers.
Just like this Human Proof garbage.

If this is true, Microsoft just fell into last place in the race for control of the living room. Cable Companies, DirecTV and TIVO will all have have HD home media center devices that play premium content HDTV in the hands of customers early in 2006. If MCE has to wait for Longhorn, the race is over before it even begun.

> Here is the problem that everyone is not thinking of. Part
> of the reason Media Center doesn’t support anything more
> than OTA is mainly because of the rights management
> issues.

Everyone already knows this. Content companies want all content locked down into closed, encrypted pathways. Microsoft, neither an aggressive innovator nor a backer of fair use rights despite its status as an 800lb. gorilla, has chosen complete passivity and compliance. That's why Microsoft has already lost any chance to take control of the livingroom--the technologies which are ultimately successful are all initially disruptive technologies which violate the content industry's wishes on inception--the printing press, the phonograph, the TV, the VCR, the TiVo/DVR; all were shunned by mainstream content producers in the beginning and heralded as vehicles for theft and the destruction of the writing, then music, and then film, and then TV industries.

In the end, disruptive technologies always win, the content industry always grows because consumption increases dramatically even as cost per unit falls. And he who cow-tows to the status quo loses in the end.

A poor decision and a huge mistake. Microsoft had it set to launch the perfect storm, what with the XBox 360 streaming high def now and all.

It really is a disappointment.

I supose at this point the decision is irreversable?

http://thomashawk.com/2005/05/say-it-aint-so-joe-why-hdtv-support-in.html

There is the small chance that COPP (Certified Output Protection Protocol) could be used, it's already inplace in Windows XP SP2. It would protect the output to an external display using DVI-HDCP. That's the only hope to see it in an XP timeframe, but that leaves many gaps in the chain that would not be protected. I'm not sure if that would be enough to get it all to work. It's far from the "closed box".

We can hope that COPP would work and can be used, but I'm not holding my breath.

MCE 2005 even is not able to play all the official wmv-hd samples. I think the clips with drm activated are causing the stutter. (not so in mediaplayer - without mce running) sad is, that there is no way to tell ms or even to get ANY support as a dealer from microsoft for MCE 2005. funny is, that customers who bought a mce 2005 pc only to playback hd stuff suddenly accept the fact that not all is running as it should... imagine I would sell cars and the break doesn't work!

christian

I believe that CableCard is going to be delayed as much as possible by the cable providers. Why help something along that ultimately causes them to lose control? The cable companies will say that technical reasons, incompatibility, lack of standards, etc, etc is forcing them to delay CableCard to 2012. So even if Microsoft wanted to support it, I have concluded that the content providers are in control here and they have every incentive to remain in control and sell their own PVRs and leave it a closed solution.

What I wonder, is what would it take to have the DVI output from today's HD cable box be captured by a DVI-Input board and encoded?

Knox

Chris Lanier reports that Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE) won't be supporting CableCards anytime soon, which means no recording cable HDTV on MCE (Why HDTV Support in MCE Wont Change Until Longhorn Arrives). Why? Engadget succinctly explains (No...

Sergei-

I believe your premise is flawed. The TV and the Phonograph were heralded as platforms for theft? While some of those other mediums might have been seen as threatening other media, I don't think that is the issue with digitally distributed media. i believe the big content producers are dying to sell us their content in digital form, as long as they can make a profit. What's more, you left out a glaring counter-example to your "disruptive" technology theory. The most popular consumer product in history was the DVD player -- a media technology in which DRM was integral (if poorly implemented).

Microsoft isn't stupid, they see that DRM is the future. They know that content is their lifeblood and without it their platform is screwed. Why do you think that they bend over backwards to maintain compatibility with Windows apps? Apps are the content that an OS runs, and without that, you've got nothing. If OS X could run all the apps that Windows can run, you think they'd have a <5% market share?

I probably agree that content companies are excessively greedy when it comes to digital content. After all, you can't crow about the dangers associated with being able to make infinite copies of content at no cost, then charge the same for a digital album as for a physical CD. However, copyrights are about striking a balance between the free exchange of ideas and content producers being able to make enough money to produce more content. Some type of working DRM is going to be integral to this ideal in the digital world.

Chris,

Why won't they come out directly and say something?

Tom

It's hard to say, doing that would be very unMicrosoft like of them. IMHO they should of allowed one of the MS MCE Bloggers to make a posting about Media Center and CableCARD by now. Whether it be that they are planning on supporting it this year, or that they are not.

The biggest mistake on Microsoft's part was most likely the Engadget Interview with Gates. Until then CableCARD support has just been rumors based on a PC at CES that had a CableCARD slot. The community made the biggest deal about, and rightfully so. It's a big feature that would (or will) drive Media Center into more homes.

With Gates saying "Oh, will we get CableCARD support in Media Center, that's the whole idea...." it added more community speculation that we would be seeing support ASAP. It's now looking like that less and less true.

:(

Chris

It seems to me that most of Hollywood's concerns about DRM would be satisfied if the decryption takes place in hardware on the graphics card, rather than in the tuner card or CPU.

This seem to support the assumptions:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/D/6/5D6EAF2B-7DDF-476B-93DC-7CF0072878E6/BDA_protect.doc

When will you be able to plug a digital cable into your PC and record HDTV signals? It might be a lot sooner than you think. Maybe before the end of this year. I realize that's not the current conventional wisdom. Last month, Chris Lanier speculated that Windows-based Media Center...