A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection

[lmgava]

Two hours well spent on reading this.

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

[LocutusofBorg]

thank you !

[estimablesir]

I don't understand the video playback quality degradation. What does it mean that it degrades quality of video playback when "premium" content is present.

If I'm not misinterpreting it, doesn't that apply only to DRM protected content? So far I've been very satisfied with Vista which runs beautifully on my machine.

In terms of "cost", any modern PC can run vista. A modern OS for modern computers.

[lmgava]

I don't understand the video playback quality degradation. What does it mean that it degrades quality of video playback when "premium" content is present.
If I'm not misinterpreting it, doesn't that apply only to DRM protected content?

The idea of MS is ALL content will be premium content.
One step at a time.

"Protecting all of this precious premium content requires a lot of additional technology. Unfortunately much of this is owned by third parties and requires additional licensing. For example HDCP for HDMI is owned by Intel, so in order to send a signal over HDMI you have to pay royalties to Intel, even though you
could do exactly the same thing for free over DVI (actually you could do it better, since DVI is provides a higher-quality link than HDMI)."

"So if you're using an expensive new LCD display fed from a high-quality DVI signal on your video card and there's protected content present, the picture you're going to see will be, as the spec puts it, slightly fuzzy, a bit like a 10-year-old CRT monitor that you picked up for $2 at a yard sale "

So you have a nice DVI out on your GeForce 8800 Extra Plus Platinum Overclocked Edition capable of 1600x1200.

You have a 100 inches LCD display capable of 1600 x 1200.

You connect both through DVI, trying to see the "premium content" you have *bought*.

You'll see a rescaled 800x600 image (or something like that), because Vista doesn't trust you, your DVI-D, 15-pin D-Sub, S- Video, and component video connectors.

Your HW would be capable of do what you have paid it for, but Vista won't let it.

Useless upgrade time. Until some policy change again.

Maybe with a service pack.

Or maybe because your video driver is caught leaking premium content.

So far I've been very satisfied with Vista which runs beautifully on my machine.

Yes, that's the problem. Looking after today.
The article is talking of the (not so hidden) probable tomorrow.
It's in place.

In terms of "cost", any modern PC can run vista. A modern OS for modern computers.

I rest my case.
Good luck.
To me (us, the others) too.

[lmgava]

And this is only the tip of the iceberg, it's only what will be possible in software.

If the trusted computing concept will pass with its hardware implementations, there is no limit to how they could fuck up your brain.

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html

The incedible thing, the most dreadful, is HOW the content industry is influencing, guiding, BENDING the technological development.

Most of the decisions doesn't have technical merit.

Quite the opposite. They are technical nonsense. But are the most lucrative for a small group of people.

But, hey, it's for your security.

Bend.

[estimablesir]

we shall see. As long as my x264 encodes look good, and they do on vista, even to my picky eyes... I'll be satisfied. There will always be ways around things.

I don't believe the image is resized, it does something even worse. With premium content, Vista downsamples, and then upconverts the signal making it look like crap. We'll see if the tech savvy community will tolerate that.

[Kinlaadare]

I do hope so... there will be solutions to get round that sh**.
Trusted computer. Yeah! Who trust who? Me trust my computer? Not with a little protections outside it. And now my own computer doesn't trust me anymore. bah!

This is what they call trusted computing.

[blackcobra]

AI at its best..

[estimablesir]

here is a detailed rebuttal of that article

http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2007/01/20/windows-vista-content-protection-twenty-questions-and-answers.aspx

[lmgava]

here is a detailed rebuttal of that article
http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/wi...d-answers.aspx

Ergh, maybe you didn't read THAT article, after all.

It was already linked there.

"In mid-January 2007, Microsoft responded to some of the points in this writeup. Some of the material was new and interesting (for example clarifying just what actually gets revoked when a driver revocation occurs), other parts seem more likely to have come from Waggener Edstrom (Microsoft's PR firm) than Program Manager Dave Marsh (The Inquirer wasn't too impressed by it either). I've updated the body text based on some of the clarifications, but for things that aren't directly relevant to the main text (which means the PR-spin items) I'll comment on them here. The important technical clarifications that affected the main body of the writeup are (1) exactly what happens when a driver is revoked, (2) what happens when a tilt bit triggers, and (3) which portions of the output are affected when content degradation takes place. The content-protection specifications were previously somewhat unclear about these various consequences of the protection mechanisms, so it's good to have this clarification on exactly what occurs.

Since the portions that I'll comment on here are PR-related rather than technical content, the following section is an attempt to respond directly and try and unravel the PR spin. The technical comments have been integrated into the main body of the writeup."

Continue in the article.

[estimablesir]

I never said I read the whole thing, I skimmed through it. Here's what most people don't understand because they're too busy blaming Microsoft for everything:

With respect to the HD content being downsampled UNLESS you have an HDCP compliant video card. That isn't Microsoft's choice, that's a standard dictated by the movie industry. They want encryption of the HD signal END TO END...so the choice is this. Either Microsoft complies, or he doesn't fully support the new HD formats. Yeah...sucks doesn't it. Read this article. Microsoft isn't really such a bad guy out to alienate the people willing to make the company money.

This guy says it all in that vista forum I posted

"Microsoft had no other ways to implement HDCP on windows without adding that DRM mess. And obviously in the living-room battle against Apple it would have been a bad idea for them to not include hd-dvd and blu-ray playback."

Blame the MPAA and RIAA for pushing DRM filth onto your computer, not Microsoft.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060214-6177.html

[lmgava]

>>Blame the MPAA and RIAA for pushing DRM filth onto your >>computer, not Microsoft.

They don't write software, and they don't make hardware.
The sell songs and movies. But they are trying to bend the world to their needs.

I prefer to blame every one taking part in this that's bending to 90 degrees to them, not only them.


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Microsoft is only doing this because Hollywood/the music industry is forcing them to.

We were only following orders has historically worked rather poorly as an excuse, and it doesn't work too well here either. This could also be taken as an example of the Dank defence. The Dank defence, as reported by former Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Grosso, was used by someone who was picked up carrying a shotgun in a park at night. With six previous violent crime convictions on his record, he explained his presence in the park by saying that a man called "Dank" had held a gun to his head and forced him to carry the shotgun. When the police turned up, "Dank" ran away, leaving him holding the bag (or at least the shotgun). As the Assistant U.S. Attorney puts it, "the jurors chose not to believe the defendant's story". In Vista's case, we're being asked to believe that Hollywood is holding a gun to Microsoft's head and forcing them to cripple their flagship product and inflict all manner of pain on their business partners and customers, and Microsoft has no choice but to comply.

I choose not to believe the defendant's story. While it's convenient to paint an industry that sues 12-year-old children, grandmothers, families with no computer or Internet access, and even tries to sue the dead, as the scapegoat, there's no Dank holding a gun to Microsoft's head to force them do this. The content industry is desperate to get its content onto PCs, and it would have been quite easy for Microsoft to say Here's what we'll do with Vista, take it or leave it. We won't seriously cripple our own and our business partners' products just to suit your whims. In other words they could make it clear to Hollywood who's the tail and who's the dog.

Here's an illustrative story about what can happen when the content-industry tail tries to wag the dog. About 10-15 years ago, music companies told a bunch of NZ TV stations that they had to pay fees in order to screen music videos. The TV stations disagreed, saying that they were providing free advertising for the music companies, and if they didn't like that then they'd simply stop playing music videos. So they stopped playing all music videos.

After a few weeks, cracks stated to appear as the music companies realised just how badly they needed the TV channels. One of the music companies bought an entire prime-time advertising block (at phenomenal cost, this wasn't a single 30-second slot but every slot in an entire prime-time ad break) just to play one single new music video.

Shortly afterwards, music videos reappeared on TV. The details of the settlement were never made public, but I imagine it consisted of a bunch of music company execs on their knees begging the TV stations to start playing music videos again and let's please never bring this matter up again.

It's the same with Microsoft, the content industry needs them as badly (or more badly) than Microsoft needs the content industry. Claiming that they're only following orders from Hollywood is a red herring if Microsoft declined to implement this stuff, Hollywood would have to give in because they can't afford to lock themselves out of 95% of the market, in the same way that the music companies couldn't afford to cut out their primary advertising channel. The more likely motivations for why Microsoft is doing this are given in the Final Thoughts section (link here)

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html#thoughts

[estimablesir]

The RIAA and the MPAA would glady cut off their own foot rather then fold like a cheap camera, even if Microsoft decided not to support their DRM infected content. They've been slicing limbs off ever since they began suing individuals.
There would be no sense in Microsoft fighting DRM, because he knows most consumers don't even know what DRM is. DRM is part of the BluRay/HD specification. Most people are going to be playing Blu Ray and HD Discs on their TVs, not on their computers. Meaning, Organizations like the MPAA choose which platforms they will market their products to. Platforms, that will of course, support DRM. They couldn't care any less if they alienated PC users. They wouldn't relinquish their DRM because Microsoft choose not support it.

Remember that big organizations are customers too, and if they want a platform designed to support DRM, Microsoft will do it.

[arisma]

More info about DRM.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=429#