Comments on: Vista 7 Does Have Battery Issues (Microsoft Lied) and Microsoft Gives “MVP” to Man Who Loves “to Argue Against Linux Fanatics”

By: Yuhong Bao

Yuhong Bao — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 01:40:23 +0000

Well, I am fine with words, in fact I often I find reading MSDN and TechNet blogs very interesting. What IMO is important is verifiability of the information. For example, the issue with verclsid that was discussed on Raymond Chen’s blog can be easily verified by debugging the issue yourself.

By: your_friend

your_friend — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 03:46:50 +0000

Someone as smart as you are, Yuhong, should be able to work out that a 32 bit, 2 GHz processor should have no problem handling both a CD audio stream and a network stream at the same time. A CD audio stream is two 16 bit streams sampled at 44,100 times per second. There’s room for about 100,000 such streams in 2 GHz, though memory may lag a bit. A Gigabit ethernet network is 1e9 bits per second. A 33 MHz processor should be able to keep up with that. Osterman’s assertion that Vista’s “multimedia rendering path” could be overwhelmed by a CD or network stream can only be based on Vista’s massive waste of both CPU and bandwith on DRM. Gutmann claims that this DRM includes the encryption used for the “secure path” between hardware components, encryption used by processes for communications, indirect only hardware access and “trip bits” designed to shut the system down on voltage fluctuations that might indicate the user has tapped a wire to make a recording.

All of Windows’ user hostility carries a power price that is blindingly obvious. People carry cell phones and portable media players that work all day. iPod is said to suffer about a 33% reduction in battery life due to DRM features in AAC, but even this is trivial next to the waste of Vista and Windows 7. In order to give users decent battery life, laptop makers add secondary computers that use ARM and GNU/Linux to access user media and networks. How much more obvious can Microsoft’s failure be?

That hardware makers avoid reasonable designs, such as iPad, with free software is a good indicator of Intel and Microsoft’s grip on the OEM and retail market. Users are lining up in droves to get iPads, which is basically a $200 picture frame with a touchpad and OSX instead GNU/Linux. Makers like Sharp were able to deliver the same experience eight years ago but were driven from the US market and hardware makers still complain about Microsoft’s dominance and how it keeps them from offering reasonable hardware with GNU/Linux.

By: Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Dr. Roy Schestowitz — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 01:04:33 +0000

“Sometimes” and “excerpts”.

By: Yuhong Bao

Yuhong Bao — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 00:57:54 +0000

Of course.

By: Yuhong Bao

Yuhong Bao — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 00:53:09 +0000

Yea, MS does show code excerpts sometimes:
http://blogs.msdn.com/sdl/archive/2009/07/28/atl-ms09-035-and-the-sdl.aspx
(and yes I have verified by disassembly that these are accurate and even provided a binary patch in the comments.)

By: Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Dr. Roy Schestowitz — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 22:20:42 +0000

If a medium is DRM laden, there is not much you can do.

By: Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Dr. Roy Schestowitz — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 22:19:04 +0000

As the saying goes, “show me the code.” All these people do is use words. Spin is ambiguous, code/maths is deterministic.

By: Yuhong Bao

Yuhong Bao — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 22:09:37 +0000

Can you say in detail why? Perhaps some quotes?

By: Yuhong Bao

Yuhong Bao — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 22:07:01 +0000

And the funny thing is that HD DVD is better that it allows DRM-free replication with full feaures, unlike Blu-Ray.
http://boycottnovell.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/irc-log-16092009.html

By: your_friend

your_friend — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 22:04:17 +0000

There are no technical details in Osterman’s excuse making, but there is a nifty car analogy. That kind of writing from high level Microsoft employees leaves me less than convinced that Vista or Windows 7 will ever be fixed.

By: your_friend

your_friend — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 21:57:14 +0000

It should be possible to play high definition movies, but they will have to first be taken out of obnoxious containers like Blu-Ray. The Beagle Board, for example, already does this and has very low power consumption. There are many reasons but no excuse for the poor performance of Windows 7 and Vista.

By: Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Dr. Roy Schestowitz — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 21:53:09 +0000

Blu-Ray is for suckers. I would rather have media I can keep and can access later from other devices.

~480²px Ogg Theora is very light on the CPU.

Remember that part of rejecting Vista is to do with rejecting the copyright cartel for its draconian demands.

By: Yuhong Bao

Yuhong Bao — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 21:51:03 +0000

And Larry Osterman detailed what exactly led to this particular problem.

By: Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Dr. Roy Schestowitz — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 21:49:18 +0000

Clearly it needs more work then.

By: Yuhong Bao

Yuhong Bao — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 21:41:11 +0000

“While GNU/Linux is able to deliver multimedia on ARM processors at a price of 5 watts, ”
Can it play Blu-Ray?

By: Yuhong Bao

Yuhong Bao — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 21:35:17 +0000

Yea, I have read it too, and have seen some of these issues discussed on other sites like AnandTech too.

By: Yuhong Bao

Yuhong Bao — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 21:33:58 +0000

“One ought to ask why previous versions did not have this problem.”
Because MMCSS is new in Vista. In fact, audio was completely rewritten in Vista, and yes part of it is to support DRM.

By: Yuhong Bao

Yuhong Bao — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 21:32:26 +0000

“People at Microsoft did this because their obscene DRM checks and media encryption leave little processor time for things users actually want. ”
Really? Even if that was true, it would be a different issue from what Larry is talking about.

By: Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Dr. Roy Schestowitz — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 21:32:05 +0000

One ought to ask why previous versions did not have this problem. A sincere answer would say that the software was released in poor form.

By: Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Dr. Roy Schestowitz — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 21:29:34 +0000

I beat you to it by two minutes, it seems. And we appear to have both cited exactly the same paper/author.