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Page 10 of 10
Conclusion We're going to stop here doing our point by point take on this "Cost Analysis". We could continue more deeply and we'd be happy to entertain continuing it should the author wish to have an open discussion. The deeper this goes though (and the author does go on for several more pages, we sincerely suggest you read the article in it's entirety HERE) the further it strays from being a "Cost Analysis" of Vista, and more of an analysis of how utterly screwed up the whole arena of High Definition and Digital Rights Management happens to be. The author seems to be trying to assert that somehow Vista is the root of all of this, at least we think so. It's honestly hard to tell at times, as the overwhelming majority of the discussion in the article is about all of the complex interplay within the hardware industry, some aspects of which have little to do with Vista specifically, other than the fact that Vista machines may or may not be involved in the delivery of premium content. We're still in the early stages of media and hardware convergence here, and it's probably not an exaggeration to say it's somewhat of a train wreck at this stage in the game. Look, it's no secret that Microsoft, Intel, Sony and darn near every other hardware and software vendor on earth wants a piece of the HD and premium content pie. Nor is it a secret that the content industry is scared to death of anything they release not being "DRM Infected". The fact that the situation is a mess is less the fault of Vista, and more the fault of everyone involved. Microsoft Vista is sticking to the specifications and economic realities that currently exist, largely mandated by an industry it wants to be a part of. It's an industry that by anyone's estimation is headed for huge and unavoidable change. Are users rushing to watch BlueRay and HD-DVD movies, or streaming DRM infected content on their Vista desktops? It just doesn't look that way from this vantage point. Consumers may have bought tons of HD capable displays this past holiday season, but deployment of HD players is still a tiny trickle relative to this. And much of the reason behind this lack of interest has little or nothing to do with content protection mechanisms. Other DRM delivery mechanisms exist surely, but it's also very clear that consumers by and large are avoiding these services. Apple's iTunes is the one major and notable exception, and it's an exception because Apple has successfully found a balance that consumers can accept. If that weren't the case, Apple's wouldn't dominate the portable media market now would they? Are consumers being misled? To a degree certainly. But it's not just Vista. It's everyone involved. It's still somewhat of a daunting task to build a full high definition home theater system. The real snag is, this is NOT why average people are buying high definition displays. People are enjoying their up sampled DVD's on dirt cheap progressive scan DVD players, hooked to TV's that for the most part only support 720p at best, because this is a heck of a lot better than an old analog CRT television. And the prices are right. We've still got another year or two at least before all the pieces of the puzzle come together into one seamless system the average consumer can't screw up. Since high definition content is already cracked fairly wide open, by the time the average consumer actually cares about any of this most of the issues involved will already be mitigated. People like us and people like you are probably NOT average consumers, but people like us already know how to cope with most of these issues. I'm still not sure what fault this is of Vista's, apart from Microsoft playing in the same pond everyone else in the industry is playing in. Don't misunderstand us, this isn't a glowing-fan-boy-rendition of Vista-love. It's just that it's pretty obvious to us the situation regarding high definition content and so called premium content and the delivery mechanism involved are an industry wide issue. The author's less than clear implications (if you focus solely on the headline of his article) seem to be overwhelmingly pointing towards how content protection systems themselves are ultimately a detriment to all involved, and if that's the case, we wholeheartedly agree. The focus however does tend to drift away from a purely "let's look at the consumer" standpoint, to one only software and hardware engineers directly involved in the industries (or ones with too much evangelical free time on their hands) would even care about. These are problems endemic to the industry as a whole, and ones that obviously rankles his (and admittedly our) purist views of how things should be. Regardless, in our opinion, focusing on Vista, even though much of the article actually didn't focus on Vista solely, sort of misses the larger point, and leads us to wonder "why the headline?" We simply assert that Vista's content protection mechanisms are merely a symptom of an industry gone haywire as a result of genuine fear as well as greed, and not the root cause of anything that wasn't already painfully wrong to start with. Will there be negative opinions and experiences because of Vista and its content protection mechanisms? In all likelihood this is an absolute certainty. The social, moral, ethical, and legal considerations involved however are ones that will play out regardless of the impact of Vista on the desktop, if history is to be our guide. And with that, we'll go back to toying with Vista x64, Ubuntu 6.10 (Beryl makes Flip3D in Vista look like Quake on a S3 Virge), and see if we can get Schrodinger's Cat to drink some quantum milk. {mos_sb_discuss:5} Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites           
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