Vista and DRM

[zimmk2vgc]

Vista is out soon, and as you have probably have heard about, it will support this thing called Digital Rights Management, or DRM. I was wondering, can anyone tell me hos this would effect the way I play media on a computer?

[Kent]

Digital Restrictions Management is how people plan on keeping you from playing music and using media files that you supposedly didn't purchase.

While I'm not sure how, exactly, it will pertain to a previous library of music one may have, however, it may require re-ripping of them. Depends on how effective they really make it.

[HUnewearl_Meira]

VioletSkye just linked me to a good article on this subject (http://www.pcstats.com/artvnl.cfm?articleID=1871).

The short of it is that Windows Vista is going to be very picky about the hardware you use to play your media with. If it doesn't support certain DRM (Digital Rights Management, not Restrictions) features, it will either greatly reduce the output quality, or refrain from outputting anything at all. It's also far more restrictive to video than to audio.

All things considered, I suspect that while Windows Vista will have these things, Windows Vista SP1 likely will not. That's enough to prevent way too many people from switching from Windows XP.