Protected Video Path seems very ​consumer-​unfriendly

From Engadget.

This seems like a very consumer-unfriendly idea.

The successor to Microsoft’s rarely-mentioned COPP (Certified Output Protection Protocol), PVP-OPM (Protected Video Path – Output Protection Management) is the first play in Microsoft’s game plan to ensure that protected content stays protected. PVP-OPM performs two main functions. First, it detects the capabilities of the display devices attached to the computer. For instance, does the DVI LCD monitor that you’re using have HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection)? Second, it manages what, if anything, gets sent to those devices.

If you’re one of those rare people whose display is equipped with HDCP, you’re fine. However, in the world of computers, those users are few and far between. While HDCP has become the de facto standard for display copy-protection in televisions, its penetration in the computer display market would be pleased to merely be called anemic. Whether you’re plunking down money for one of the new ultra-fast LCD displays with 4ms response times or you’re becoming the envy of neighborhood with Dell’s UltraSharp 2405FPW widescreen display, you’re buying a monitor that won’t play nice with premium content in Longhorn.

So what will happen when you try to play premium content on your incompatible monitor? If you’re “lucky”, the content will go through a resolution constrictor. The purpose of this constrictor is to down-sample high-resolution content to below a certain number of pixels. The newly down-sampled content is then blown back up to match the resolution of your monitor. This is much like when you shrink a JPEG and then zoom into it. Much of the clarity is lost. The result is a picture far fuzzier than it need be.

That’s LUCKY?

This people people will have to buy new PVP-OPM compliant display hardware in order to avoid having Longhorn's display subsystem degrading its output.

This is why I'm not upgrading to Longhorn

But if I have to.... I'll be awaiting the Slashdot crowd to release a HDCP hardware emulator.

Besides, CRT pwnz LCD, if I purchased a movie, is it not my right to watch it on /my/ equipment?

W3bbo wrote:

Besides, CRT pwnz LCD, if I purchased a movie, is it not my right to watch it on /my/ equipment?

Not according to the MPAA, no.

Again, does that affect any video output? Will every video application being (I need to watch my language)ed that's to these annoying acronyms? What keeps applications like VLC doing their own thing? For example, instead of using DirectShow, implementing their own VMR? Or just using the OpenGL plugin that's in there, anyway?

I think your average consumer will be watching their HD content through a TV device with proper inputs.

And the geek types will be doing.. You know. Where the law permits. That leaves just the few countries where you have to buy a new display with the appropriate inputs.

Better start saving.

 

On reading this, my first thought was that this would only increase piracy. Based on star wars being leaked on the net, before it was only shown in the cinema, the contents will always become available through not legit ways.

By making the experience for a user who has actually paid for the content, less satisfactory than for the user who obtained the illegal version, is never going to help reduce the problem.

Well, Hollywood is forcing this... stupid hollywood.

Has it occurred to anyone else that this will help enforce an monopoly in both the monitor and graphics card market?

At the moment anyone who can produce a board that will spit out pixels can sell a consumer graphics card... In the future such companies which could be located in china will need to get permission (from who?) to receive the DRM code... WHO does decide who can have the code to place in their hardware? They are certainly not going to hand it out to everyone.

The same can be said for monitors. You will have a small handful of companies deciding which hardware vendors can or can not compete in the market by controlling who is "DRM Compatible". If for example ViewSonic joined this collection of vendors and Gigabyte wanted to join with their new range of monitors do you think ViewSonic would be happy about that? And what if Microsoft decided they wanted to move into monitors and graphics cards? 

PS - I know some short sighted idiot is going to reply with -- "But not many companies have the hardware to produce graphics cards so who cares" -- well buddy *I* care!

blowdart wrote:

Of course what's more interesting is the relentless enforcement of american DRM standards on the rest of the world

It sucks, and quite a lot of people think it's unfair in the US, but our courts are still finding in favor of the RIAA/MPAA.  The enforcement is simply that it's cheaper for the monitor manufacturers to make identical monitors for the whole world.  Although, I guess, if I can find my favorite tinfoil hat, I could speculate that these companies may be directly encouraged to not produce workaround models.

But, since we're chucking blame around like a midget at a New Zealand bar, then I'd like to point out that if the EU, China, or some other largish market demanded that this feature was not available, then you'd have an option. 

Also, the monitor manufacturers are mostly in Asia, so if they gave us the finger, the consumer would eventually rise up and demand the equipment.  That is if they didn't have more important things to do.

blowdart wrote:

DRMed content. So Media Player will enforce it. It'll probably be at the DirectShow level.

Again, how does that impact 3rd party players, that don't rely on DirectShow? Not to mention that every DRM format gets cracked.

It's OK, someone will revive the DVDShrink project & life will be good again.

Manip wrote:

At the moment anyone who can produce a board that will spit out pixels can sell a consumer graphics card... In the future such companies which could be located in china will need to get permission (from who?) to receive the DRM code... WHO does decide who can have the code to place in their hardware? They are certainly not going to hand it out to everyone.

Well, this situation already exists today. Most cards have an onboard hardware MPEG2 decoder and that must be licensed. This stupid protected video path crap will be just another thing they'll have to license (passing the cost to the consumer, of course)

We had a long thread about this a few months back.
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=66863

Guess not many people read the WinHEC presentations, can't believe its taken this long to show up on Engadget and /.

eddwo wrote:

We had a long thread about this a few months back.
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=66863

Guess not many people read the WinHEC presentations, can't believe its taken this long to show up on Engadget and /.

Hmmmm...Beer28 was pretty annoyed in that thread...He left a few days ago...suddenly it appears in /.

To begin with I found all of this totally outrageous. But now I realise that it all just adds up to one thing: I’m not buying it.

No way in hell I'm buying Longhorn is this goes in.

By the time Longhorn comes out, Ubuntu will be a credible desktop alternative to Windows. I'll use that, thank you.