HD DVD/BD Will Destroy Your Vista PC?

[joshd2012]

In all its efforts to corner the market in next generation digital distribution, Redmond's own Microsoft seems to have possibly choked its new flagship Windows Vista too much with copyright protection. In a recent article submitted by Peter Gutmann, a medical imaging specialist, the author argues that Microsoft has made its newest OS far too cumbersome for the mass market and will eventually lead to the demise of its own DRM practices. Mr. Gutmann states that the way in which Microsoft has locked down Vista in hopes to keep copyright infringement of the latest HD-DVD and Blu-Ray technologies to a minimum will only succeed in forcing users to buy faster hardware to cope with the degraded performance of Vista.

http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/8281.cfm

[jabbertrack]

So these processes are running full time even when no Blu Ray or HD-DVD media is being played?

Because that's the only way your title makes sense

[Sanborn]

Come on, seriously? That article is a bunch of random whining slapped together. Does this not happen EVERY time a new MS OS comes out?

They are attempting to relate the DRM constraint of HD formats to higher requirements of the OS?

[hmurchison]

No worries.

I'm a Mac user

[raaj]

Originally Posted by joshd2012

http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/8281.cfm

That was a great doomsday title for the thread !!

It's getting dangerously close a new MS product launch. Less than a month to go.

Let the FUD slinging begin.

My Mac OSX running on an Intel Core2Duo 1.8GHz MacBook with 1.25GB RAM literally crawls if I try to use anything other than a web browser and an Adobe Reader. My two year old Dell Inspiron 8600 with a Pentium M processor running XP is faster than that by a mile. Talk about a bloated OS.

[Innerloop]

This is interesting, especially in light of the key exposure found in PowerDVD recently. Its going to be increasingly difficult for PC software vendors to fully protect their decryption systems from attack like this on an open system like a PC.

It does seem like a valid concern - if MSFT is committed to building a fully secure system that won't permit the sort of attack that compromised the AACS keys as happened this week, they are going to have to build an OS that is a lot less user-friendly to program in.

My first software job was working on secure Unix systems used to process classified information, and let me tell you, these systems were the MOST user-hostile systems you've ever experienced. Things users take for granted like the ability to see what processes are running on the system, or even viewing a hierarchy of files on disk suddenly become security risks and the user finds they really can't get anything done.

Videogame programmers are already waging this battle, trying to prevent various "sniffer" programs from piggybacking on their MMO data-streams to provide additional data to the player, or examining in-core memory to extract hidden data from a game. These techniques have been perfected by the user base from these games and can now be applied to sniffing for keys or even raw data from a DRM-protected movie. These programs that un-protect iTunes content also seem to work by intercepting the unprotected data stream as the music plays, and dumps the data to an unprotected file.

To make this impossible Vista will have to be slower, delayed further, and less user-friendly than people are accustomed to.

[amirm]

Well, I can confirm that none of the Vista capabilities are used in HD DVD/BD players. Ironically, if they had used them, the current attack that is being discussed, may have been a lot harder to do.....

Anyway, these articles are really misinformed as has been nicely noted here. There are new facilities in Vista to comply with requirements of things like AACS. But it is up to application developers to decide to use them or not.

[Rob Zuber]

Amir, can you point to any official Microsoft response to the Gutmann article?

The full article is here:

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut00...vista_cost.txt

[amirm]

Originally Posted by Rob Zuber

Amir, can you point to any official Microsoft response to the Gutmann article?

The full article is here:

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut00...vista_cost.txt

I don't have an official respone yet but there is one in the works. My informal response is up above.

[rlsmith]

Microsoft has a terrific record of supporting both old and new capabilities in their systems. I am still supporting a 15-year-old DOS application that is still running in a number of hospitals. The customers keep upgrading the hardware but the application just keeps running.

I am confident that the DRM requirements will not adversely impact the performance of Vista; if there are problems I am sure Microsoft will respond, they always have.

Let's start giving ALL of these manufacturers a break.

[vurbano]

So just stay away from Vista. And from my Beta and RC1 experience, thats good advice.

[c.kingsley]

You make purchase decisions from experiences with beta software?

[ottscay]

Nah, I'll install VIsta approximately 14 minutes after my free upgrade arrives from Dell. It's half of the fun. If it works well on my core 2 duo 4 gb ram machine then I'll start purchasing more licenses for my older hardware (Vista is a real hardware spec hog). Unless of course one of my hardware upgrades makes MS try to turn off my OS, in which case there will be a cracked version on my computer (it hasn't happened yet, and MS made some good changes to their licensing policy, so I'm hopeful). Companies, like people, deserve the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.

I may be the only one, but I really love installing new OSes and learning their abilities, tweaking them, etc. Probably part of my early adaoption nature. And one of many reasons why I detest Macs (that and, you know, paying more money for less power).

[raaj]

Originally Posted by ottscay

Nah, I'll install VIsta approximately 14 minutes after my free upgrade arrives from Dell. It's half of the fun. If it works well on my core 2 duo 4 gb ram machine then I'll start purchasing more licenses for my older hardware (Vista is a real hardware spec hog). Unless of course one of my hardware upgrades makes MS try to turn off my OS, in which case there will be a cracked version on my computer (it hasn't happened yet, and MS made some good changes to their licensing policy, so I'm hopeful). Companies, like people, deserve the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.

I may be the only one, but I really love installing new OSes and learning their abilities, tweaking them, etc. Probably part of my early adaoption nature. And one of many reasons why I detest Macs (that and, you know, paying more money for less power).

Yeah, talk about a ripoff !!

Want black color instead of Kleenex White? It's a $200 upgrade for the color option and a measly upgrade of 40GB in HDD size.

Enzoy !!

[ewitte]

Originally Posted by raaj

That was a great doomsday title for the thread !!

It's getting dangerously close a new MS product launch. Less than a month to go.

Let the FUD slinging begin.

My Mac OSX running on an Intel Core2Duo 1.8GHz MacBook with 1.25GB RAM literally crawls if I try to use anything other than a web browser and an Adobe Reader. My two year old Dell Inspiron 8600 with a Pentium M processor running XP is faster than that by a mile. Talk about a bloated OS.

Its already been released for OEM and MSDN. Three out of our 10 techs have already converted. I'm running the final release right now.

[hmurchison]

Originally Posted by raaj

Yeah, talk about a ripoff !!

Want black color instead of Kleenex White? It's a $200 upgrade for the color option and a measly upgrade of 40GB in HDD size.

Enzoy !!

Yeah I'm feeling so taken advantage of with Macbooks</sarcasm> . I get a World Class Operating System, a solid bundle of application including iLife, DVI out, Powered Firewire, solid design and freedom from %99 of spyware and virius. Oh yeah ..that's a true ripoff.

Originally Posted by ottscay

I may be the only one, but I really love installing new OSes and learning their abilities, tweaking them, etc. Probably part of my early adaoption nature. And one of many reasons why I detest Macs (that and, you know, paying more money for less power).

Hmmmmmmmm Apple uses the same Core 2 Duo chips that everyone else is using. Please get up with current events. For a minute there I thought you were going to bring out the time tested "Macs are good for graphics" LOL


Vista looks to be a good OS and frankly with 4-core procs coming I'm not too sure I'm worried about the whole "performance" issue.

Of course I'll happily be running 10.5 Leopard by summer 2007 which has damn near everything Vista has and more. But I like to stay cross platform so I'll have Vista running somewhere.

[raaj]

Originally Posted by ewitte

Its already been released for OEM and MSDN. Three out of our 10 techs have already converted. I'm running the final release right now.

Yes, of course. I was talking of the "for joe public" "retail release", which was reported to be slated towards the end of January.

[ewitte]

Originally Posted by raaj

Yes, of course. I was talking of the "for joe public" "retail release", which was reported to be slated towards the end of January.

Thinking just like Nvidia. I really wish they would put out a 8800GTX beta driver for a card that was specifically designed for DX10 (which goes with Vista).

[pabster]

FUD, FUD, and more FUD.

Vista runs faster than XP on the same hardware. Sounds like someone is either using an early pre-release build full of debugging code, or looking to make a name for themselves by scaring consumers.

[Ken H]

"?" added to topic title.

[mikemorel]

Originally Posted by pabster

FUD, FUD, and more FUD.

Vista runs faster than XP on the same hardware. Sounds like someone is either using an early pre-release build full of debugging code, or looking to make a name for themselves by scaring consumers.

Peter Gutmann, a medical imaging specialist

joshd2012 - have you got anything better than a medical imaging specialist? What's next - your neighbor Joe the Sanitation Engineer? Come on man you can do better than that, no? How ridiculous is this thread...

[Rob Zuber]

The reaction of the technology press to the Gutmann article shows how grossly incompetent they are. It's all reported in sensationalist language about Vista being "doomed" and other such nonsense. This is why I look forward to Microsoft's response, since I might actually learn something. Heaven forbid the tech press do some real analysis.

[Rob Zuber]

Looks like Microsoft has responded to the Gutmann article. I haven't read through it yet:

http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/wi...d-answers.aspx