Will Vista Kill GBPVR?

[bdgbill]

This document has been knocking around the net for a while. This morning I actually sat down and read it and got good and freaked out. I had heard that Vista had a lot of DRM but had no idea how extensive.

I cannot see how GBPVR will be able to make the transistion to HD with Vista (at least not in N America).

I am going to take very good care of my XP discs.

[capone]

The good news is I think Vista wouldn't run well on on your specs anyway, and that's a compliment in this case.

Just about every time windows has tried to step directly in the path of public opinion or interest w/ a security measure, they have gotten out of the way. They are having a hard time lately finding their center, and I don't think they'll want to get in between people and their TV for long (and in today's culture, god help anyone who does).

[K.S.]

nope, i don't think vista will break GBPVR. it will rather break the neck of m$ & hollywood together. they can't seriously think to get away with that bullshit. i'm just wondering how long it will take for class action

[sub]

Will Vista Kill GBPVR?...
I cannot see how GBPVR will be able to make the transistion to HD with Vista (at least not in N America).

Maybe. I guess we'll have to wait and see. To be honest, I dont think it changes things too much.

Under Vista GB-PVR users will still be able to do all the stuff they currently can, including HDTV - whether its Australia's DVB MPEG2 HDTV, or US 'over the air' ATSC HTDV, or unencrypted QAM cable HDTV via OnAirGT or HDHomeRun (BTW, this device now has BDA drivers and looks pretty good).

Things a little more fuzzy around new technologies like CableCard or HD-DVD/BluRay. The details on CableCard are still very murky, and very few details available, but it'll possibly be usable by GB-PVR if you record with the DVR-MS mux option - which will likely come with whatever DRM etc limitations Microsoft impose.

HD-DVD/BluRay support is looking a little more painful given Microsoft has decided these will not be implemented using Directshow. Without Directshow components available, chances for playback of these directly within GB-PVR are limited. I can always have GB-PVR run WinDVD or PowerDVD for playback of these if no better alternative eventuates.

...but the recent release of the backuphddvd and backupbluray software, the prospects for this may have improved. Users are now able unencrypt these movies to their hard disk for play. I have no doubt we'll see directshow filters for playing these very soon (probably via ffdshow etc). As unprotected content, it wont suffer from resolution reduction or other tricks Vista might apply to protected content.

[nitrogen_widget]

I really don't see a need or reason to move to vista right now.
If i'm going to beef-up my system I want all that horsepower to encode video or play games.
Not run the OS.

[pcostanza]

I'm still testing the cable card tuners for MS and can't say much except that DRM is alive as far as the cable card is concerned. I think that stinks too!

[nitrogen_widget]

I honestly do not see myself ever using cable again.
for me Directv has been better than cable ever could be & maybe it's just me, but Time Warner just seems interested in pissing off the customers they aquired when they bought Adelphia.

But then i'm not going to go HDTV until there are more HD channels than there are SD channels.

I'm technologically stubborn that way.

[stu8080]

Sub - Do you see any potential advantages of running GBPVR on Vista? (assuming you have had a chance to play with it!)

Unless there are some good reasons i doubt i will upgrade my HTPC to Vista until MS stop supporting XP (surely a long way into the future). Especially since HDTV in the UK is pathetic at best at the moment, and like Nitrogen_Widget i wont be going HDTV until the number of channels available at least match SD channels!

Also, Vista's DRM relies on compatible hardware i believe? motherboards and graphics cards which are not even available yet - who is to say that manufacturers will even produce these components - let alone consumers purchase them? - Will a Vista patch result in some back tracking in the future?

[sub]

Do you see any potential advantages of running GBPVR on Vista? (assuming you have had a chance to play with it!)

No advantages spring to mind, but I've not spent too much time on Vista yet - just long enough to make changes so GB-PVR would work with it. My development machine is in need of rebuild in the near future, so I'll probably try Vista for a while on that machine. I'm guessing I'll have more of an opinion of it after that...

[sub]

Actaully I've just read an article that makes me think Vista may have some useful advantages for media playback. See http://www.microsoft.com/technet/technet...px?pf=true, particularly the comments relating to Multimedia Class Scheduler