Bizarre DRM afoot in Windows 7

Robert Hallock 17 Feb, 2009 at 10:23am ET Article published in Tech

While Windows 7 has been receiving accolades, all is not sunshine and unicorns. Testing has demonstrated that Windows 7 arrives with bizarre DRM that prevents tasks users of XP may find ordinary.

With regard to media files, the days of capturing an audio program on your PC seem to be over (if the program originated on that PC). The inputs of your sound card are severely degraded in software if the card is also playing an audio program (tested here with Grooveshark).

At this time there is little else in the way of additional information, so we’re going to try and corroborate this finding today. We’ll report back later with what we uncover. Stay tuned!

Comments

17 Feb 2009 ~ 11:19am drasnor How does this affect voice chat?

-drasnor
17 Feb 2009 ~ 1:11pm chrisWhite Whoa, that's really lame! Will it break all the wonderful screencast software? Dang it, I hate DRMing crap. It just hurts the legit users (and I guess the casual guys). Like the hard-core pirates aren't going to have XP or *nix dual booting when they need to crack some DRM.
17 Feb 2009 ~ 1:23pm UPSLynx Seriously, if you can't direct record off the sound card, I'm not interested in Win7... though I'm sure I'd figure out a way somehow to do it.

Though I raise a few questions on the findings. There are no cited sources or pictures, they didn't explain What sound card was being used (if at all), and what kind of software, if they're able to do the same in Vista and XP...

Guess I'll have to try it myself on a test box.
17 Feb 2009 ~ 1:26pm Linc It's not that this specific issue is a deal-breaker, it's that it makes me wonder about Microsoft's intent. If they do stupid things like this, what ELSE is waiting for me in Windows 7's closed source code?
17 Feb 2009 ~ 1:45pm RWB Could this be the first, albeit small, in a long line of downsides to start appearing for Windows 7? Make windows 7 awesome, then add the drm into every nook and cranny just before release?
17 Feb 2009 ~ 2:22pm Bandrik This is horrible news. I use Audacity to record what's playing all the time. Great for a quick audio grab, or other things. Microsoft, bloody hell. What gives? I hope this is an easily-defeated DRM gimmick and nothing more.
17 Feb 2009 ~ 4:03pm Snarkasm OR maybe it's just something broken in the beta.

Who knows. If it sucks, it sucks. Work around it, stick with your favorite flavor, or go to a new OS.
17 Feb 2009 ~ 10:13pm zero-counter Wait and see...wait aaanndd seeeeee...
18 Feb 2009 ~ 1:21pm mas0n This would be pretty simple to circumvent for any of us with 2+ computers under the desk but would still be ridiculous. So ridiculous that I don't think even Microsoft would implement it as it prevents far too many legitimate operations. I'm going to do some testing of my own this evening.
18 Feb 2009 ~ 2:16pm MachineDog

drasnor wrote:

How does this affect voice chat?

-drasnor

This. Anyone know?
18 Feb 2009 ~ 2:24pm Thrax It shouldn't effect it at all. Voice chat programs don't use stereo loopback to record audio out through line in.
18 Feb 2009 ~ 4:59pm drasnor

The inputs of your sound card are severely degraded in software if the card is also playing an audio program

The way I read this is that audio input is severely degraded when there is sound being output. This is a classic voice chat scenario.

-drasnor
18 Feb 2009 ~ 5:08pm Thrax Alright, let me put it this way:

I know it to be false because I've used both Skype and Ventrilo on Windows 7.

They were attempting stereo loopback, which is quite a different dynamic than voice chat. This is what I'm looking into. They clearly misspoke.
18 Feb 2009 ~ 5:12pm MachineDog

Thrax wrote:

Alright, let me put it this way:

I know it to be false because I've used both Skype and Ventrilo on Windows 7.

They were attempting stereo loopback, which is quite a different dynamic than voice chat. This is what I'm looking into. They clearly misspoke.

Also by the sound of it they had shitty drivers, specifically on the stereo mix thing. So far the only hardware/software I know of that specifically has stereo mix removed is dell computers. I know that Dell Laptops don't have it actually, haven't checked the desktops.