Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Microsoft strikes deal for cable-ready Media Center PCs

...and even more evil DRM...

Elizabeth Montalbano writes in InfoWorld:

Microsoft Corp. Wednesday edged one step closer to its vision of offering a complete home digital entertainment system through PCs running Windows XP Media Center Edition OS. The company revealed a deal with a cable television consortium that will allow PC vendors to offer digital-cable-ready Windows Media Center PCs by next December.

Microsoft has been working with Cable Television Laboratories Inc., a nonprofit cable-research consortium, for two years and now the technology partners have developed technology specifications for adding support for a CableCARD module on Windows Media Center PCs, said Justin Hutchinson, group product manager, Windows Client Division at Microsoft.

Microsoft and CableLabs also have documented final approval of Windows Media Digital Rights Management (DRM) as the content-protection technology in the PC CableCARD module so Media Center PCs can receive one-way digital cable content from digital cable providers without the use of a set-top box, he said.

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