http://www.techradar.com/news/computing ... ck-1078934

Shouldn't affect too many people I reckon, but there you go...

Only everyone thinking of buying a PC as a media centre from now on.....

Jon

It's all BluRay these days anyway, isn't it?

I'm wondering how many people that actually is

Even the people I know running legit or pirated pro Windows versions use VLC or iTunes for their media, though that's on more traditional desktops and laptops...

I suppose OEMs will just start bundling Cyberlink PowerDVD again, but I know a lot of people who watch DVDs on their laptop etc which this would affect - not that Windows Media Player is very good with DVDs anyway.

Does anyone really still use DVDs? I guess there are some, but it's a dead technology. The kind of people who want to watch DVDs are the kind of people that have an actual physical DVD player plugged into the TV, like my grandmother,

I have quite a large collection of DVDs.

I watch them on my TV through my XBox 360.

OK that's a little more hi-tech than a DVD player, but still you don't need to care if Windows supports them

I wonder if Microsoft would like a slice of epic with that fail?

Well no. But of an odd decision though. If you have the hardware why restrict the software?


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Legal reasons no doubt. DVD support has come and gone in the past too.

They do actually say in the article:


Basically, they think that only a minority of customers actually use DVB/DVD playback but all customers are having to pay for it.

I don't like their decision but it's one I agree with tbh.

They do actually say in the article:


Basically, they think that only a minority of customers actually use DVB/DVD playback but all customers are having to pay for it.

I don't like their decision but it's one I agree with tbh.[/quote]
ah, didn't read it. Makes sense though.


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No, if you buy the Media Center extension, you can play DVDs.

We are back to how Windows was up until and including Windows XP.

It is only Windows XP Media Center, Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate and Windows 7 Home Premium, Pro and Ultimate that have ever been able to play DVDs.

WIndows XP Home and Pro could never play DVDs, neither could 2000, 95, 98 etc. And the Vista Home Starter and Vista Business versions couldn't play DVDs either.

The fact that nearly every major OEM used to deliver either PowerDVD OEM or one of the other OEM versions pre-installed means that most people never noticed the fact.


I do, I have well over 1,000 DVDs. But VLC and Windows Media Player are useless, I rarely have time to watch a DVD in one sitting and neither can remember where I left off, when I put the machine in sleep mode, they both restart at the title sequence!


Money. It costs Microsoft a few quid per copy of Windows to license the DVD technology, which in turn costs the user a couple of quid more per copy of Windows they buy, whether pre-installed or boxed. When a large majority of their users no longer use DVDs - or have machines with DVD players installed, look at tablets, Ultrabooks etc. the trend is moving to machines without DVD players for a growing number of devices. That means those users are giving good money away for a facility they could never use.

That is, of course, assuming that Microsoft does drop the price of Windows 8 accordingly...

One report I read, when this was first announced a couple of weeks ago (that Media Center would be an add-on for those that needed it), was that less than 6% of users ever used Media Center. That means that 94% of users never used the TV Tuner codecs they had paid for. DVD was also always a part of Media Center, which is why it also disappears and we are back to the same situation we were in with Windows XP.

Weird though. Apple remove the hardware but leave the software in place (all macs still get the DVD player app, even mac minis and macbook airs) while Microsoft take out the software but you'd assume the majority of PC's will still ship with a DVD/Blu Ray drive installed, at least for a while.

Yet Apple is the one of the two that actually sells digital download movies... (I know MS sell them on the XBox but I don't think you can access those on a PC).

It might make sense in the US where Netflix/Hulu have gained large markets, but I don't think it will in the rest of the world. There are probably very few countries in the world where the domestic broadband network is able to support general downloading of media like HD films. The important question though is as discussed - if not many people use PC's as DVD players, then it 's a good cost cutting measure to drop it.

Jon