In a particularly Microsoft-ish move, Amir Majidimehr (VP of Consumer Media Technology Group at Microsoft) managed to try to deny an earlier report that another feature had been cut from Vista, yet admit that consumers may not get the feature that is supposed to be there. This is according to an article from The Inquirer posted today.
I try to take anything from The Inquirer with a grain of salt (sorry, but the NAME always manages to make me slightly nauseous). In this case, though, I have no doubt at all about the story. Unfortunately, it’s all too plausible and something we’ve heard over and over coming from the direction of Redmond.
Anyway, the story is that whoever submits the content gets to decide what codec is required to play said content and that Microsoft has no control over that. So, if the motion picture industry decides that only 64-bit codecs will be allowed to decode and play its content, then Microsoft is not going to argue with it or provide any (hypothetical) 32-bit codec capable of playing said content.
Yes, you’re quite right, this has all the earmarks of a huge WIMP-out by the folks at Microsoft. The only question we’re still waiting on is: If some third party makes such a codec available, will Vista play it or refuse?
It’s a good question and one I’d love to see an answer to!
[tags]microsoft,windows vista,mpaa,windows media player,32-bit codecs,64-bit codecs,wimp[/tags]