Microsoft Relaxes Media Center Copy Controls
Software giant eases up on its controversial plan to limit what users can do with digital video on their PCs.
Matt Berger, IDG News Service
Microsoft is easing up on its copy protection technology in the upcoming release of its Windows XP Media Center Edition operating system and will allow users to record TV shows onto CDs and DVDs and play them back on a range of devices.
Microsoft's special-purpose entertainment operating system, which will be available later this month initially on PCs from Hewlett-Packard, will feature software that combines several digital media applications into a single user interface.
It includes special software that allows users to control applications by using a remote control. With it, users can watch DVDs, listen to digital music, and view digital photos and video. It also comes with a DVR (digital video recorder) application, similar to the one popularized by TiVo, that allows users to watch live television on their PCs, pause and rewind live programs, and record them on a hard-drive, CD, or DVD.
Customer Concerns
The company had originally designed the software to allow users to record TV programs for playback only on the PC on which it was recorded. After taking heat from customers over these strict copy protection features, Microsoft said this week that it's shifting its plans. When the final version of the operating system is released, users will be able to play their recorded TV programs on any number of media players, according to Tom Laemmel, product manager with Microsoft's Windows EHome Division.
The Media Center software records TV programs in the industry-standard MPEG-2 (Moving Picture Experts Group) format and allows them to play back on any media player that supports that file format, Microsoft said. One catch is that the MPEG-2 files will be tagged with information that identifies them as files created in Windows XP Media Center Edition. Therefore, while the files will play in any media player that supports MPEG-2--such as RealNetwork's RealPlayer--those players will have to be tweaked in order to recognize Microsoft's unique tags.
"It is an MPEG-2 file, but it doesn't look like one," Laemmel said.
When the final version of Windows Media Player 9 is released later this year, it will be tuned to identify and play the files. Other media player makers will have free access to Microsoft's technology so they can tune their players to recognize the files as MPEG-2. "It's up to the other companies to decide whether they want to support the file type," Laemmel said.
In addition, the company will allow broadcasters to use an encryption technology from Macrovision to prevent TV programs from being recorded. Currently only a few content producers use the Macrovision copy protection technology, Microsoft said.
