Chris Lanier has an excellent response to the ongoing discussion over HDTV in Windows Media Center Edition 2005. I don’t agree with 100% of what he’s written, but I agree with most of it, and I think most of our disagreements are based on market approaches more than technical facts. I’ll have more to say about this later.
I was really, really disappointed by Thomas Hawk’s response, however. I though this remark in particular was a cheap shot:
According to Chris, Vista will change everything and finally give us, through our savior DRM, the closed box within an open box and the HDTV that I and others crave along with it.
Thomas is grossly misinterpreting Chris’s argument. To characterize Chris as advocating for “our savior DRM” is insulting and wrong.
Thomas is not alone. Chris has taken a bunch of arrows in the past few months from people who can’t seem to get past their emotional response. They keep ignoring the most essential fact: The DRM is already there in the encrypted cable or satellite signal. Any company - Microsoft, TiVo, the Myth TV community, or any third party - has to deal with it.
The satellite companies have no mechanism of any kind to allow third parties to access the encrypted data stream. None. TiVo cut a deal with DirecTV to build DVR hardware into DirecTV’s set-top box, but DirecTV sells those boxes and owns those customers. TiVo just collects a few dollars per subscriber for supplying the back-end services.
Cable companies have an umbrella organization (CableLabs) and a technology (Open Cable Application Platform) that third parties can implement to get their technologies into the encrypted data stream. Getting certified by CableLabs means you’ve successfully met their requirements for maintaining a secure data path that can’t be copied.
The implication of the sarcastic remarks aimed at Chris is that he is in favor of selling Windows users down the river by advocating that DRM be imposed on our wonderful free digital world. In reality, Chris is explaining what technology companies like Microsoft have to do to play successfully in the modern media universe. You might not like that universe, but that’s the one we live in.
2 comments ↓
I, personally, didn’t take Thomas’ comments as sarcastic. The fact of the matter is that (in Thomas’ words), DRM will be our savior.
The content is already protected as I keep saying and as you have said here. Microsoft wants to open up new opportunities in their products and in the connect home in general. Windows Media Rights Management (aka Microsoft’s DRM) plays a huge role in adding these new opportunities that we just don’t have today. PVP-OPM (et al.) allows the content onto the PC while staying protected.
We can live without DRM, and that means this content will never be allowed into our PC’s. We can live with DRM (and everything it brings, which I have covered before) and open up a whole new world.
I think when people start to see all of this play out, they will be happier with what DRM can do for them. It’s not going to make people see DRM as their savior, but it will better allow them the features and scenarios they have been demanding for years now!
Chis Lanier
Didn’t mean for the comment to be sarcastic at all. I was merely emphasizing the fact that Chris has spent quite a bit of time promoting his view that the DRM which will accompany Vista should be seen as a good thing and not a bad thing. I think most people’s initial response to DRM is universally bad. I think Chris has spent time trying to educate people and challenge us to perhaps look at DRM in a different way. Most people see DRM as evil I think. I believe that Chris on the other hand sees DRM as an enabler that will get the content providers to the point where they need to be to unlock the true potential of high def and other rich full digital media experiences.
As I’ve read Chris’ posts I think he is asking us to look at the greater good to DRM (that without the content owners will never get to a point where we’d ever see their content on our PCs). Chris has taken a lot of heat for his views on this matter. While the term savior might not have been the best choice of words, I used it to emphasize the point that Chris sees DRM as a necessary component to bringing us something great. An opinion not shared by many others.
It certainly was not meant sarcastically though or as a cheap shot.
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