Microsoft Answers Questions about the Windows Vista Content Protection

Microsoft has clarified the issues surrounding the content protection infrastructure introduced into Windows Vista. Through the voice of Dave Marsh, a Lead Program Manager responsible for Windows' handling of video, the Redmond Company has explained how Vista handles digital rights management and the role of associating usage policies with commercial content.

In this context, Vista's content protection mechanism will only be activated in accordance with the policy associated with the content being played. The content protection mechanism will only be applied to the protected content and will not affect anything else on the desktop. This is also valid for image quality constraints that will limit the resolution to 520K pixels per frame.

Marsh admitted that the Vista content protection capabilities will cause the increase of CPU resource consumption: "however, the use of additional CPU cycles is inevitable, as the PC provides consumers with additional functionality. Windows Vista's content protection features were developed to carefully balance the need to provide robust protection from commercial content while still enabling great new experiences such as HD-DVD or Blu-Ray playback."

Additionally, the operating system will enable applications to build high quality echo cancellation functionality even in the context of the content protection infrastructure. The content protection requirements for graphics drivers in Windows Vista will not involve a shift from unified drivers.

Microsoft will also work with affected IHV in order to deliver new drivers, as a part of Microsoft's involvement with protecting commercial audiovisual content via the renewal and revocation mechanism.

"Revocation only impacts a graphics driver's ability to receive certain commercial audiovisual content; otherwise, the revoked driver will continue to function normally. Adding new functionality usually introduces new complexity. In this case, additional complexity is added to the graphics driver, but that complexity comes with the direct consumer benefit of new scenarios such as HD-DVD or Blu-Ray playback," added Marsh.