Vista 32 won't support HD Playback

[Kytro]

APC Magazine » Microsoft cuts ANOTHER feature: full HD playback in 32bit Vista goes

Microsoft revealed today that no 32-bit versions of Windows Vista will be able to play back “next generation high definition protected content” (translation – studio-released BluRay and HD-DVD movies).

What this means is the only way to get this content is to download it, or copy it without it's DRM. What the hell? This is pratically begging people to copy content

[motivez]

Yet another reason not to use Vista.. that copy protection will be cracked if it isn't already.

[R-Type]

Don't count on it being fatally cracked anytime soon. It's multilayered. The latest cpus/memory controllers' anticircumvention logic (TPM) along with crypto chips for the video card and display must be present in order to play back protected HD content. Since it's probably not the address space or processing power that's the issue, I'm going to assume that amd64/EM64T provides instructions that can blackhole address ranges of 'trusted programs' like HD playback software so that keys cannot be extracted from ram while they are executed (how DeCSS was created iirc).

Honestly, I don't think HD is compelling enough to replace half the hw in my system for, nor even worth it to buy a new tv. Hollywood should spend less money on protections and more on unique talent/content that is actually interesting to watch. High res is nice, but if the content sucks, who cares? Would any of you start playing Daikatana today just because you could run it at 2048x1536@300fps? That, along with the abrogation of my rights, subjected to a now for-pay system (tivo vs self-owned unrestricted recording device) where I am STILL subjected to the whims of the provider, really ruin the value proposition for me. They can have it as far as I'm concerned.

[Kytro]

I was specifically talking about video playback in windows media player.

You sound like you are talking about High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP).

That isn't secure:

from wiki:

Cryptanalysis researchers demonstrated fatal flaws in HDCP for the first time in 2001, prior to its adoption in any commercial product. Scott Crosby of Carnegie Mellon University authored a paper with Ian Goldberg, Robert Johnson, Dawn Song, and David Wagner called "A Cryptanalysis of the High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection System" [1]. This paper was presented at ACM-CCS8 DRM Workshop on November 5, 2001.

The authors conclude:

"HDCP's linear key exchange is a fundamental weaknesses. We can:

* Eavesdrop on any data
* Clone any device with only their public key
* Avoid any blacklist on devices
* Create new device keyvectors.
* In aggregate, we can usurp the authority completely."

Around the same time that Scott Crosby and co-authors were writing this paper, noted cryptographer Niels Ferguson independently claimed to have broken the HDCP scheme, but he chose not to publish his research due to legal concerns arising from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act [2].

The most well-known attack on HDCP is the conspiracy attack, where a number of devices are compromised and the information gathered is used to reproduce the private key of the central authority.

[R-Type]

My point was to explain why microsoft made the decision, not to analyze the protection.

[JaJae]

64 bit version will? I've heard they're going back and forth on this issue with the two different versions. I've heard them saying they were and weren't for both releases.

[Kytro]

I Believe 64 was going to, more secure or something.

In any case, it won't matter - resticting people's choices is only going to make them more likely to take the free and easy and working choice

[abalysan]

he he

[ballz2wallz]

what the...

[Kytro]

Lol

[avsp]

if this is the first piece then maybe we should have somekind of 'coming of age' party ritual fingy or summat

[motivez]

Well well, our first forum ban.

Congrats, spammer!