August 3rd, 2005
Alert! Windows Vista Won’t Like Your Monitor
By David Johnston
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
Microsoft has recently announced that the next version of Windows, due out in late 2006, will be named Vista. For all of you who’ve been following the development of Longhorn, this is it (well, it will lack a few of the planned features such as WinFS at launch). You can read the original RealTechNews coverage of the announcement here.
Getting down to business, Microsoft has decided to make Vista even tougher on DRM (Digital Rights Management) in order to prevent piracy. The new DRM “features” of Windows Vista require that your monitor be compatible with something called Digital Content Protection. When you are trying to play a digital video file of any kind, Vista will check to see whether or not your monitor is HDCP compliant. If it is then you’re fine and everything plays just like you would expect. However, if your monitor is not compliant with HDCP Vista will make the picture fuzzy. The problem with this is that there are currently very, very few monitors that support the standard. In fact, you can be fairly certain that any monitor you have (or are about to buy) does not have this feature. So, if you thought you were going to just upgrade your OS–or even your computer’s internals–you may be sorely disappointed when you find that your digital video files refuse to play without distortion. I’m sure the monitor industry and the MPAA are loving this, but I doubt the consumer will find it quite as appealing.
Source: The Inquirer
Lockergnome's Tech News Watch says:
Chances Are Windows Vista Won’t Like Your Monitor
Microsoft has recently announced that the next version of Windows, due out in late 2006, will be named Vista. Getting down to business, Microsoft has decided to make Vista even tougher on DRM (Digital Rights Management) in order to prevent piracy. The …
August 3rd, 2005 at 2:12 pm
IsamuM says:
Having just bought two new monitors and setup a dual monitor system, this is ANOTHER REASON for me to NOT move to Vista when it comes out.
Call me stupid, but I just don’t see how this move contributes to DRM. It hurts legitimate users who have non-compliant monitors, but people who buy/use pirated video are okay if they have a compliant monitor? Something is seriously screwed up with this logic.
This is really just another reason to move to Apple OS X or Linux.
August 3rd, 2005 at 4:48 pm
robman says:
give it a week and someone will hack it and fix it. it’s msoft thay talk security but there will be a million holes in it.
August 4th, 2005 at 4:07 am
DanUK says:
I too have bought 2 new acer 17″ flat screens and they are not DRM “compliant” so i wont move to longorn ether
August 4th, 2005 at 4:51 am
David Johnston says:
I have to wonder who’s going to be the first to invent a “fake” monitor device which plugs into your graphics card and just repeats the signal minus the DRM stuff, but looks like a compatible “monitor” to the system?
August 4th, 2005 at 8:07 am
Stan says:
At the very bottom of this notice it says:
Source: The Inquirer
I don’t believe everything I read, especially rags at the Krogers checkout!
If this is legit, it’ll be in the news elsewhere very soon. I googled “Digital Content Protection”, DRM, “Microsoft Vista”, and more and nothing comes up, not even the Inquirer article!
Don’t believe everything you read. Not on the toilet walls in the bus station or on line.
August 4th, 2005 at 9:49 am
Mel says:
who cares about what vista will require. Most probably when it comes out (if it can even ship) ms will be on its way to becoming irrelevant with the advances in Macintel platforms and desktop linux alternatives and I for one, will not miss a single second of my time spent on world’s most expensive beta version software called windows.
August 4th, 2005 at 10:30 am
microsofthater says:
this kind of behaviour just leads to one possible conclusion
SUPPORT PIRACY.. STEAL AS MUCH AS YOU CAN.. HELP OTHERS DO THE SAME AND SAY A BIG FUCK OFF TO GREEDY CORPORATIONS.
cos really.. I’m not willing to give anyone money to take my rights as a consumer from me.. I’ve bought over 600 dvd’s and over 2000 music cd’s but the SECOND i can no longer use them fairly.. its 100% piracy for me
August 4th, 2005 at 4:46 pm
David Johnston says:
Stan, maybe you’d know that the Inquirer is not the only source to publish this information. They just happen to have the article that prompted me to write this story. Since you don’t seem interested in doing any research yourself (http://news.google.com/news?q=HDCP+windows+vista&hl=en&hs=hhg&lr=&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&sa=N&tab=nn&oi=newsr), but would rather criticize others, I’ve done it for you:
http://informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=167101058
You can also get this information straight from the horse’s mouth if you like reading MS’s dry writing style: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/winhec/tracks2005/w05_mediapcarch.mspx
Maybe next time you think something might not be true, you’ll get the actual facts to back up your opinions. Have a nice day
August 5th, 2005 at 6:22 am
Anonymous Coward says:
I wonder if Stan ever figured out The Inquirer is not The Enquirer?
March 24th, 2008 at 10:04 am