I am a tech who fixes and installs services, There is no doubt that this technology will fall sqarely in my lap once released.

With all of the quirkyness of digital cable I will have to make this work in many houses that are incorrectly wired cause the *TECHIES* out there *THINK* they know how a house should be wired for Video data and voice.
I for one want strict standards on PCs using the cablecard 2.0 spec.

I want the same software and same configurations to be employed to cut down on training costs alone. After all cable tech are not payed what computer techs are and never will be..

UNLESS YOU WANT ALL YOUR CABLE BILLS TO GO UP TO PAY FOR THE INCREASED HOURLY RATES TECHS WILL DEMAND TO SUPPORT THIS.

Before you spout BIG BAD CABLELABS.
Put yourself in the shoes of the tech who has to come out to your house to fix your D.I.Y. HTPC.

Ide rather have a boilerplate PC that can be networked or have additional HDs added to it to have unlimited storage for premium HD content.

What makes you think that the consumer will never get “premium HD” without copy protection? The only people pushing that line are the people who, of course, have a vested interest in ensuring that it happens (i.e. Hollywood). But until the day that the legal copy protection mandate gets handed down from the USG, then the Hollywood hacks are simply bluffing their way into getting what they want. Your simple parroting of their party line merely makes it seem like you’ve already drank the Kool-Aid.

This was the point I tried to make in my first post; MS is perhaps the only commercial entity that could actually battle Hollywood to a standstill over this issue. You had the opportunity to engage with relatively senior MS personnel about their actions re: copy protection, and you chose not to do so. Why not? I can only assume that, despite your protestations to the contrary, you must not be particularly bothered by copy protection technologies. If that’s your position, then fine – we’ll just agree to disagree on that particular point. But at least have the intellectual honesty to tell your readers that the Allchin post/interview is a PR fluff job arranged by Scoble (who is, by definition, merely a PR/marketing mouthpiece).

And finally, please, please, please, stop it with the “poor old Microsoft is a just a pawn in this game” thing. That’s just downright offensive. In case you hadn’t realized it yet, MS is “…at the mercy of…” exactly nobody in this world, inlcuding the respective governments of the US and the EU.

Now could Microsoft fight Hollywood and make a box that records pirated cable TV or something, maybe, but they’d probably lose in court. And of course I’m not oblivious to the fact that Microsoft makes money selling DRM to Hollywood and that it might not be in their economic interst to oppose it.

I don’t like the DRM any more than you do but if you want the Sopranos and Six Feet Under in high def I’m afraid it’s not going to happen without it.

Apple makes very little money on itunes at this point, but by making itunes only compatible with the ipod, their making a lot of money.

Sorry, but when it comes to content, the media companies are the ones in charge, so Microsot and apple have to go along if they want to have content to sell.

This may all seem like semantics, but they are important semantics. The difference between Apple and Microsoft is an issue of licensing. Microsoft will license their DRM, Apple will not.

The ironic part of your argument is that both Microsoft’s encoding format and the DRM protecting it are proprietary. Thus Microsoft’s solution is LESS open and flexible than Apple’s.

As another user pointed out, your logic is flawed when it comes to “opening up” Apple’s DRM. The mere fact that Apple is successful does not morally or legally obligate them to license their DRM to anyone.

In fact, I am sure you are aware of the rumors that Microsoft is contemplating an entrance to the hardware side of portable music players. This is an acknowledgement of what Apple has long known. True customer loyalty and satisfaction comes from a complete end-to-end solution.

In the Microsoft world now, you buy a player from one company, plug it into a computer made by another, purchase music from yet another company and download it to the device using software from yet another. This sort of flexibility undoubtedly has its appeals—to some. However, it is far too complicated of a chain with too many points of weakness to work for the mass market consumer.

This is not a point that can be debated. If the WMA-based players were really better, cheaper and easier to use, why is the iPod so popular?

Therein lies the fundamental flaw in your logic, you claim that Apple has been too successful, thus they are “obligated” in some way to leave their successful business strategy and instead adopt open that neither the consumer or board of directors would like. Yet at the same time Microsoft may leave the strategy you tout and adopt Apple’s.

In the end I think all this debate stems from a bunch of Microsofties standing around scratching their head and wondering how the “little” and “unsuccessful” Apple and Google managed to make inroads on the Microsoft “monopoly.”