Ok, looks like Microsoft doesn't exactly have anything to do with this - they're not making a decoder, so it's the decoder-makers that have to play ball with the studios.

http://www.apcstart.com/site/dwarne/2006/08/1147/we-were-wrong-abou...

#31, Will the Vista Starter and Home Basic edition be available in both versions? I was under the influence that they weren't, but that's based on old info. Even so, I can't imagine most people who want to play HD content getting anything less than Home Premium.

I doubt most people who have the money to afford HD-DVD or Blu-ray will gripe too much about having to shell out a little extra for a 64 bit version of Windows. And by the time these formats are within the economic reach of the average person, I'm sure MS will have provided an update to the 32-bit versions, either by their own agenda or a growing number of complaints from consumers.

I sense a bootable 32-bit linux distro in the future with the ability to play back these darned formats...

As detailed in the Blue Pill exploit, usermode apps can get access to the raw hard disk device. You can then force a signed driver (eg null.sys) to be swapped out to disk, where you can hack it, then call into it and it will run your unsigned code.

http://blackhat.com/presentations/bh-usa-06/BH-US-06-Rutkowska.pdf

So limiting HD DVD and Blu-ray playback to 64bit Vista is pointless, since you can hack signed drivers

Look folks get a clue its not ms fault that the media companies are retards. Ms cant provide the feature because they arnt allowed to because they refuse to limit 32 bit windows to signed drivers. Remember alot of stuff we use need or we WANT to use unsigned drivers with em.

One more reason not to care about HD-DVD or BlueRay.

Does this means that Omega Drive wont be able to provide "alternative" drivers for vista? bummer.

64-bit MS OS = PITA to find perpeherial drivers, otherwise they work a little better then their 32bit counterpart.

Why does the MPAA/RIAA vainly fight a battle they cannot possibly win? They need to focus on making content that makes mainstream feel it is worthwhile to invest. You are not going to do it with price gorging at box offices or media formats that make some lame excuses.

That'd be a show stopper right there.

I'm going to laugh after these companies try their hardest to avoid pirated videos and then they show right up on the torrent sites.

Pirated HD movies in H.264 or whatever codec will be the net fav then... I wonder how big they will be? The standard is now 700MB so I'm guessing 2GB or so...

sony and electronics dont belong in the same sentence, sony is not an electronics company, they are corrupt media company that makes their own players, sorta like an oil company that makes their own crappy cars

i too strongly sense the hand of sony here

im thinking m$ might as well kill off 32-bit vista now, since next to nobody will buy it knowing that it "only" has dx10 and some eye candy

Idiots at microsoft.... well thats fine, since one can disable the dumb as rocks signed driver model requirements anyways.

second, who say i need a driver to decode ... its in sofware unless i am trying to use my GPU for acceleration. so all that needs to be done is build a piece of sofware that decodes on the fly or passes data dorectly to the driver.... especialy since this is already done on the 2003/xp varients.

I'd love to see 32-bit be left in the dust, but don't know that this is the best way.

anyone who ponyed up for one of those expensive laptops with a core duo and an hd dvd or blu ray drive is gonna be PISSED

yah thats a good point... whats MS goona do for those poor souls who bought the non 64 bit core chips ?

and you wonder why there are pirated versions...seems like the easiest way to go.

Wait a minute...who the hell uses MS crapware to playback movies anyway? PowerDVD all the way!

Anywhoo, I'd rather wait for the newer formats coming out next year...i guess.

And here's yet another example of the perversity of the Big Media cart dictating to the Consumer Electronics horse: it's Sony Pictures/Records (among others) who want to make sure no hacked drivers enable "leakage" of their copy-protected assets, which directly screws Sony Electronics customers who have bought Sony computers with Blu-Ray drives.

anyone who ponyed up for one of those expensive laptops with a core duo and an hd dvd or blu ray drive is gonna be PISSED

Are there any 64-bit Celerons? They'd probably be too slow to decode this stuff well anyway, but I'm just curious if they exist.

I'm not so sure that everything is rosy for desktop users, either. Will there really be good driver support for 64-bit Vista? Is MS *really* going to make 64 bit mainstream? I'll believe it when I see it.