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Re: good technical look at the problems Vista content protection will cause

__/ [ Lefty Bigfoot ] on Friday 22 December 2006 19:44 \__

> Tim Smith wrote
> (in article <12ooclo82fgl35b@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>):
> 
>> <http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt>
> 
> "...Vista requires that any interface that provides high-quality
> output degrade the signal quality that passes through it.  This
> is done through a "constrictor" that downgrades the signal to a
> much lower-quality one, then up-scales it again back to the
> original spec, but with a significant loss in quality.  So if
> you're using an expensive new LCD display fed from a
> high-quality DVI signal on your video card and there's protected
> content present, the picture you're going to see will be, as the
> spec puts it, "slightly fuzzy", a bit like a 10-year-old CRT
> monitor that you picked up for $2 at a yard sale.  In fact the
> spec specifically still allows for old VGA analog outputs, but
> even that's only because disallowing them would upset too many
> existing owners of analog monitors.  In the future even analog
> VGA output will probably have to be disabled.  The only thing
> that seems to be explicitly allowed is the extremely low-quality
> TV-out, provided that Macrovision is applied to it.
> 
> The same deliberate degrading of playback quality applies to
> audio, with the audio being downgraded to sound (from the spec)
> "fuzzy with less detail".
> 
> Amusingly, the Vista content protection docs say that it'll be
> left to graphics chip manufacturers to differentiate their
> product based on (deliberately degraded) video quality.  This
> seems a bit like breaking the legs of Olympic athletes and then
> rating them based on how fast they can hobble on crutches."
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> U G H.  No, thank you.

Bad, bad Vista. badvista.org.

Microsoft expects people to 'upgrade' and get these splendid 'features'. More
and more freedoms are being conceded to favour the vendor and punish the
user, unconsentually.

Who do You Trust with Your Computing?

,----[ Quote ]
| Helios was speaking out against trusted computing (TC) and Digital
| Rights Management (DRM) that is humming softly at the hardware and
| software level inside YOUR computer right now. That's right! Chances
| are, it's already made it on a chip on your and my motherboards...but
| it's there. Soon, if what can happen does happen...we'll all be so
| very unhappy at being told how we can and can't operate our PCs.
| 
| Some of you may be asking, "what the heck are you talking about?
| They can't tell me how I can use my computer inside my own home".
| Unfortunately, that statement is false. DRM chips are already on a
| majority of motherboards and even built into some processors (viiv 
| anyone?). All it takes is a flip of the switch and you'll do what
| Microsoft or any other company that wants to manage your rights
| for you tells you to do whether you like it or not. That is, ofc
| ourse, unless you use Linux :)  Linux has always been about
| choice...we choose to compute in ways WE want to...not ways
| that are defined for us.
`----

http://linux-blog.org/index.php?/archives/176-Who-do-You-Trust-with-Your-Computing.html

-- 
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