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Microsoft Media Television Operating Systems Software Windows

MS Launches Video Download Service 194

Posted by Zonk from the videos-on-the-dl dept.
renderhead writes "According to ZDNet and many other sources, Microsoft has launched a new video download service for playing back television content on Windows Mobile devices. Partners include CinemaNow, MSNBC.com, and TiVo. According to another article from ployer.com, the service will require Windows XP, Internet Explorer 5 or higher, and Windows Media Player 10 or higher."
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MS Launches Video Download Service More

MS Launches Video Download Service

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  • Tried it (Score:5, Informative)

    by BoldAC ( 735721 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @11:27AM (#12100753)
    Here the link:
    http://www.msnvideodownloads.com/ [msnvideodownloads.com]

    If it's anything like their current web-based service [msn.com], each free 2-3 minute clip will be preceded by 1 30 minute commerical and 10 seconds of Microsoft ad space.

    Plus, it looks like you'll have to sign in with passport.

    If you sign-up for the free service, you'll have to agree to "INSTALL THE MSN MUSIC ASSISTANT"

    To download videos from MSN Video Downloads, you need to install the Microsoft Music Assistant (the same technology that the MSN Music Service uses), which will download video content and automatically put it into the My Video folder on your computer.
    This will take about 20 seconds on broadband, or several minutes by modem. When you click Install, an installation dialog will appear. Click Yes to accept the MSN Music Assistant and proceed.

    To download videos from MSN Video Downloads, you need to install the Microsoft Music Assistant (the same technology that the MSN Music Service uses), which will download video content and automatically put it into the My Video folder on your computer.
    This will take about 20 seconds on broadband, or several minutes by modem. When you click Install, an installation dialog will appear. Click Yes to accept the MSN Music Assistant and proceed.


    On the positive side, it does look like it will have a bunch of stuff from FOOD TV. The more Alton Brown I can get, the better!
    • Excpet the article says you have to pay an annual $19.95 subscription for this. And SOME free content is available too.

    • Re:Tried it (Score:5, Informative)

      by BoldAC ( 735721 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @11:30AM (#12100799)
      preceded by 1 30 SECOND commerical... sorry...
    • Give me content from the Sci-Fi channel (Battlestar, Stargate), and I'm there!

      Where's the list of content?

      • List of content (Score:3, Informative)

        by jangobongo ( 812593 )
        The following programming will be available on MSN Video Downloads according to this AOL news article [aol.com]:

        -- MSNBC.com. News and business headlines updated throughout the day, as well as segments from "Today"

        -- BreakTV. Behind-the-scenes footage and exclusive interviews television's hottest celebrities

        -- COOKIE JAR Entertainment Inc., a global producer and marketer of children's entertainment, offering children's programs such as "Paddington Bear," "Animal Crackers" and many other popul
        • -- MTV Networks

          Any chance of accessing their whole music video library, a la the videos played on VH1 Classic? If I could download a buncha music videos from the 80s and such, I just might pay for it.

      • Re:Tried it (Score:5, Funny)

        by Trelane ( 16124 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @12:08PM (#12101235) Journal
        Step 1
        Build mythtv box
        Step 2
        Record a show (manually or automatically)
        Step 3
        Use nuvtranscode (or whatever the name is; my box died a quite while ago) to export to divx/mpeg2/mpeg4/whatever
        Step 4
        Place final video on SD/CF/whatever card (or on your webserver)
        Step 5
        Enjoy videos on your palm, laptop, or whatever, without commercials (if you've removed 'em) or drm crap to get in your way
        Step 6
        Try to get momentum behind a mythfrontend port/server version to make steps 3-5 reduce to "5) Attach your webserver (with proper auth, natch) to your mythtv server and enjoy your shows wherever you go without commercials (if you've {auto,}removed them) or drm crap to get in your way"

        • Re:Tried it (Score:2, Insightful)

          by ignipotentis ( 461249 )
          Step 7: Finally admitting that you are a geek and have no problem wasting your time doing what you should be able to do from over the counter solutions.

          Face it, NO ONE BESIDES US will put up with the crap you listed above. It ISN'T easy.

          • A call to MythTV/gstreamer/apache/whoever hackers: (Score:4, Interesting)

            by Trelane ( 16124 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @01:40PM (#12102331) Journal
            heh.

            While true, it's a very good option for those in geeks' families, and hopefully the Free (not free) bug will spread, especially as all of the steps listed above get easier with time.

            Indeed, there's nothing prohibiting someone from taking mythtv code, shining it up, and selling it as a set-top-box + personal distribution server. In fact, I suspect people would pay TiVo for precisely that, provided they don't get sued out of the water. Or someone could set it up as a LiveCD, like they currently do, for free.... The main catch is the hardware,really, and that's getting better as more and more people adopt Linux. Given that lack of hardware/software support is entirely an intertia problem, and the intertia's changing, there's reason yet to hope for some real service.

            Indeed, if anyone from TiVo or others are listening, I bet people would be quite willing to pay to have remote TiVo interfaces so that they can monitor their TiVo and play shows back and watch them live, via TiVo's servers (for a nominal monthly fee, of course). This sounds kind of like what Microsoft may be doing, but with TiVo being merely a very minor cog in the Great Microsoft Video Wheel.

            Hopefully, we can convince MythTV and others to build separate frontends (not just the full-screen one) so that we can do things like I describe for free (playback, live TV watching, episode download, and remote control of the backends) as I describe. Given MythTV's backend/frontend separation, it seems like a very logical next step. I know I've wanted to watch some TV on my laptop in my office while working on some stuff. It'd be very convenient for, say, gstreamer to incorporate such a mythtv frontend functionality. Maybe someone from Apache could hack together a mod_mythtv....

      • Somebody told me about this software. It's called bittorrent or something. I don't know, maybe you should check it out. It might have something to do with what you want...

        :P

    • FoodTV huh? (Score:3, Funny)

      by ImaLamer ( 260199 )
      http://www.digitaldistractions.org/ [digitaldistractions.org]

      pay nothing...

    • DRM! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Winckle ( 870180 )
      Note: this installation may upgrade the Microsoft Digital Rights Management components on your computer. When you click install, a unique identifier and a DRM security file are sent to a Microsoft-hosted service on the Internet. The file is replaced with a customized version that contains your unique identifier. This increases the level of protection provided by DRM. no thank you, i'll pass!

  • Commercials? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dolo666 ( 195584 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @11:28AM (#12100767) Journal
    Microsoft has launched a new video download service for playing back television content on Windows Mobile devices

    What the detail page [msnvideodownloads.com] doesn't say is whether there are commercials in the video you are paying to download (we're paying them to sell us stuff?). Commercial-free television shows would be a huge feature, so if they did not include a statement about it, then you are paying to watch/download commercials. Yikes! If it *is* commercial-free, and they did *not* mention it -- what are we missing? I see TiVo is involved with this project, so I'm guessing it's commercial-free television. But I could of course be mistaken because nobody seems to be talking about it!

    • Re:Commercials? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      you are paying to watch/download commercials


      Just like with cable television!

    • Commercials vs. DRM (Score:2, Insightful)

      by rawyin ( 870144 )

      Cable TV is already starting to put commercials on most channels. When people don't stop paying for it in droves enough to cut into profits, it makes sense to their business. They don't particularly care. "Show me the money!" Right? This will likely happen over time with any Internet-based Video-On-Demand service.

      The same rule applies with DRM. The MSN Music Assistant controls DRM in your downloads from their services. This has caused problems [about.com] for some as one might expect (not particularly surprising.) H

      • Re:Commercials vs. DRM (Score:3, Informative)

        by Qzukk ( 229616 )
        Cable TV is already starting to put commercials on most channels. When people don't stop paying for it in droves enough to cut into profits

        Well, I tell you, as soon as my cable tv provider started showing commercials, I called up the other 30 cable tv providers and found one that was promising to never run ads in the premium channels, and I switched my subscription on the spot and never looked back. I even called around to get commercial-free versions of Food TV and Cartoon Network, so now I'm all set!

    • So how long until the FCC jump or get pushed in to try to regulate the ratio of commercial time to content time on such downloads? And how long until someone tries bending that ruling to apply to ad-infested webpages?

  • backed by a trustworthy brand name (Score:4, Funny)

    by sdMMk ( 857216 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @11:30AM (#12100812)
    Sounds great - where can I sign up?

  • The Mask Comes Off (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @11:31AM (#12100820) Homepage Journal
    Now we see the truth behind all the corporate assurances that MS ownerships in MSNBC, ComCast cable and other media holdings is "just financial investment", or "just funding innovators". This is the beginning of MS leveraging a truly mass market monopoly. Combined with their DRM ubiquity in new DVD players, the MS octopus can now begin to squeeze the entire broadcast industry, and the world that depends on it for information, from its Internet lair.

    • Re:The Mask Comes Off (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bigtallmofo ( 695287 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @11:36AM (#12100885)
      Have you seen the ratings on MSNBC? Microsoft definitely is a monopolist on the computer desktop, but their cable news network is best described as an unmitigated disaster.

      • Re:The Mask Comes Off (Score:2, Interesting)

        by xtracto ( 837672 )
        Well, people said the same when Microsoft entered the console market with the X-box... and, to the webmail market... and btw, their webmail is also an "unmitigated disaster" and a lof of people likes it, also X-box is an time bomb, and a lot of people likes it, you see, United States citizens are known from other countries to have a use-and-throw culture so it does not mather that something is shitty as long as there is a new version within next 1 or 2 years, its okey! at the end It is cool to have the last
      • The mitigation is that the MSNBC holding positions MS for content plays like the one we're discussing. It's precisely the bad ratings that tell the story of the other benefits. Otherwise, MS is holding its stake for some kind of charitable benefit?

    • Re:The Mask Comes Off (Score:3, Informative)

      by Swamii ( 594522 )
      Nice consiracy theory and all, but FYI, MS has been trying to sell its stake [newratings.com] in MSNBC. They sold Slate magazine too, by the way.

    • Re:The Mask Comes Off (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      and what are the goverment going to do about it ?

      its really the beginning of the end for capitalism, unless you think these mergers /aquisitions can continue forever , what happens when there are 3 companies that own it all ? scrap it and start again ?

  • Weird. (Score:5, Funny)

    by bigtallmofo ( 695287 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @11:32AM (#12100830)
    I gave it a spin but the only thing I could see was some insane bald man screaming, "DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS!"

  • Philosophical question (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Darth Hubris ( 26923 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @11:32AM (#12100841)
    Technical issues aside, if you could install this on your OS of choice legally, would you?

    • Re:Philosophical question (Score:5, Insightful)

      by BridgeBum ( 11413 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @11:38AM (#12100914)
      I think there isn't enough information to answer that. If you put *all* technical issues aside...that is, no OS restrictions, no DRM restrictions, etc...then it would depend on the content and the price. Give me the right content for a reasonable price, and sure, I'd buy it from Microsoft.

      The catch is that the technical restrictions are part of the heart of the issue. If MS can force other decisions on you if you want to use their system, then that's part of the cost. The cost could be freedom, purchasing MS OSes at $100-200 a pop, and so forth. You can't separate the technical issues here and give a reasonable answer.

    • At least.. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ad0gg ( 594412 )
      you can run it on multiple portable devices, giving the consumer a CHOICE. You can't say the same about iTunes which locks the consumer into the iPod family. Microsoft allows manufactors to license their DRM, Apple refuses to license Fairplay to manufactors thus removing "the choice" from consumers. I'd pick Microsoft's DRM anyday over Fairplay because I know I can switch to a different device and my PURCHASED content will still work. I'll probably get modded flamebait or troll for pointing out the which
      • Apple refuses to license Fairplay to manufactors thus removing "the choice" from consumers

        Unless, of course, you count Motorola...

      • So burn your iTunes music to CD and rip it. Problem solved. Yawn.
      • If there were such thing as a standard, non-proprietary DRM (I know; fat chance). Would it make it more palatable? It would be nice if there were no such thing as DRM of course. Official, non-purchased studies seem to indicate it's not necessary but politicians can be bought unfortunately.

        This started out as a question about the idea of MS on another platform, but kind of morphed into the idea of DRM at all.

  • Anti-trust bait? (Score:5, Funny)

    by J Barnes ( 838165 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @11:33AM (#12100854) Homepage
    Why do they persue and advertise these as minimum requirements? Microsoft Windows XP required, Microsoft IE required, Microsoft Media Player 10 required...what no Microsoft stock requirements?
    • WMP 10 requires XP, and WMP 10 requires IE (so it can host an embedded browser for DRM license delivery, etc.).

      I asked Microsoft about this, and apparently the primary reason for WMP 10 requiring XP is that they didn't want to delay its release by testing on older platforms.

      They didn't entirely rule out making it available at a later time, so if enough people scream ...

  • Microsoft needs content now. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by LaughingLinuxMan ( 872028 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @11:35AM (#12100868) Homepage
    A delivery system without decent content is an empty bowl. Microsoft should spend some of those billions for a content firm like Viacom or Time Warner. LLM
    • the sad part is, they might. Not only that, but they also have MSNBC, which they can virtually get anything out of, AND make ads for their service once it quits the alpha stage and is ready for the commercial beta-testing MS makes us used to as (once) customers...
    • Don't go giving them ideas...Sheesh!

  • I use MythTV (Score:5, Interesting)

    by drewzhrodague ( 606182 ) <drew@zhroda g u e .net> on Thursday March 31, 2005 @11:36AM (#12100884) Homepage Journal
    MythTV is great -- plays shows I record, DVDs, and even plays TV shows downloaded from the Internet (via mPlayer, which still blows my mind). KnoppMyth [mysettopbox.tv] is easy to setup and install, and works with even old misengineered equipment.

    I say this becasue I don't do Windows anymore, and my life is easier for it!
    • i agree - its still a pain in the arse to setup DVB (im using the cvs version from about 2 weeks after 0.17 was released), but once its setup its a mazing (dvb is broadcast in mpeg2 so if youve got the space, there's no need to transcode, therefore hardly any CPU is used for recording).

      Its nice to look at night and think "ooh! two episodes of the simpsons were recorded today, i'l watch them".

      Its on my desktop though, so i just use mplayer for downloaded video's
    • My grandma used to be a maid.
      She would clean everything.
      Then one day, she said that she wouldn't do windows anymore.
      It became a trend and today few maids clean windows.
      Window cleaners to the dreaded work.

      I use to do lots of maintenance on the PCs at work and home.
      But now I don't spend time cleaning out viruses and spyware.
      Why?

      Because I don't do Windows anymore, and my life is easier for it!
      You should too.

  • requirements... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by peter_gzowski ( 465076 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @11:42AM (#12100957) Homepage
    Or, I could hop on over to any number of torrent trackers, which require any OS, any bittorrent client, and any media player. The television industry could compete with free, but it seems that they don't want to.

  • Why God? Why?? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by M.C. Hampster ( 541262 ) <M.C.TheHampster@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Thursday March 31, 2005 @11:46AM (#12101005) Journal

    From the ZDNet article:

    Microsoft said subscribers will be able to select content such as sports clips, news headlines and music videos from the MSN Video Downloads Web site

    Is there some rule that states any mobile video must consist of sports clips, news clips and music videos? (Verizon, I'm looking at you with "VCast"). Seriously, everytime legal downloads of video content are discussed on cell phones or from the internet, these three are always mentioned. Well, I don't watch any of that. Does anyone really want to just watch sports clips on their mobile device? I enjoy sports an all, but I don't want to pay just to see a few clips. And music videos? I guess that's to cater to the teen crowd.

    When will I be able to legally download an episode of 24? Or some other show that I actually watch? I don't want snippets of video here and there. I want to watch a freakin' show. I guess I'll stick to torrents when I forget to program my VCR.

  • XP and IE5? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sumdumass ( 711423 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @11:47AM (#12101011) Journal
    i thought that XP came with IE6. IE5 being a requirement kind of makes you think that it will work on older OS's but they restricted it for some other reason.

    Maybe i'm missing somethign and the windows mobile devices only use IE5 or somehtign. I wonder how long before someone has a hack to let it work with WIN98 or somethign.

  • Incrementally better? (Score:4, Informative)

    by rpdillon ( 715137 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @11:53AM (#12101076) Homepage
    This looks like another one of those cases where it seems like it's a good idea, but when all is said and done, it is not actually offering a product that is incrementally better than TV as we know (and use) it.

    Downloading content leaglly sounds good, but it looks like it has a subscription price, and they'll be adding commercials to the front end of things. It also requires Windows, which cuts out a decent portion of geeks who are the type to be early adopters (like me).

    Sure, it offers digial timeshifting, but this is something we already have with a TiVo and MythTV, the latter without any DRM of subscription fees.

    I don't know...it looks like it has some advantages, but too many of the same old problems to be "the next big thing" in TV.

  • You forgot something... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by M0nkfish ( 620414 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @11:54AM (#12101084)
    "...the service will require Windows XP, Internet Explorer 5 or higher, and Windows Media Player 10..." ...and a United States billing address.
  • Sounds like a new advertisement channel... ...AND NOTHING ELSE!

  • TiVo? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AstroDrabb ( 534369 ) * on Thursday March 31, 2005 @12:00PM (#12101153)
    The post says:
    Partners include CinemaNow, MSNBC.com, and
    TiVo
    It then says:
    the service will require Windows XP, Internet Explorer 5 or higher, and Windows Media Player 10 or higher.
    Exactly where does Tivo fit into this? Tivo is Linux based. Does anyone know if Tivo developed a DRM enabled WMP player that runs on Linux?
    • It just means they suckered Tivo into getting involved in some way, just to get the brand recognition. Apparently Tivo hasn't been paying much attention to what happens to companies that do this or somehow naively believes they'll be treated differently.

      Once Microsoft has sucked out all the juices, they'll leave the dessicated husk behind.

    • Re:TiVo? (Score:4, Informative)

      by jangobongo ( 812593 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @12:35PM (#12101564)
      I think that it is Tivo's TivoToGo transfers [tivo.com] that's being referenced. TivoToGo is a service that allows people to download content to their PC, according to the web page. One needs to be a Tivo subscriber to use this service. From there, its just a jump to the portable device.

      Not all shows are available though. They've included this caveat on the TivoToGo web page:

      Not all shows may be eligible for transfer from your TiVo box to your computer. Programming providers may restrict or limit the ability to record, display, view or transfer any particular program using a variety of copy protection mechanisms.
  • Apple has the color iPod, many people say it's the perfect way to store and show video clips. Apple claims that the processor in the iPod is not powerful enough to display video, and sits on their hands.

    Microsoft brings out their VD service, and for once beats Apple to the party. Yes, the MS offering only works on WinCE devices, will probably be DRM (no sharing video clips!), and require payments over time. Not to mention the advertisements before the clips (I, for one, am tired of our advertising overl

    • Just because they're first doesn't mean that they will succed (though granted, they have quite a bit of money to throw at this adventure).

      Look at Apple and the Newton. I loved my newton, I kept it until it literally fell apart (the concrete floor might have had something to do with that) and still they got trumped by Palm and Palm by PocketPC.

      So, just because they're out there already with something like this doesn't mean they are going to succed.

      On the other hand, the download film market seems to be pi
    • Apple wasn't 1st by a long shot into the mp3 player market either. That didn't stop them from dominating it.
    • Microsoft brings out their VD service

      This time, when someone says "Microsoft's products gave me a virus", they really mean it!

    • Microsoft brings out their VD service, and for once beats Apple to the party.

      Being first doesn't mean you will be the dominant player. Apple wasn't the first MP3 player. Rio was and it has a small market share now. Sega beat Nintendo, Sony, and MS to market with their console and they are nowhere. MS current tactics seems to rely on being first but they don't pay attention to history.

  • Potentially worthwhile (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jackDuhRipper ( 67743 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @12:09PM (#12101244) Homepage
    From the summary and the concept, this could be a worthwhile service.

    Yes, it will be DRM-encumbered and feature at least its fair share of shite: either get over it or don't avail of the service.

    More signal, please, and less noise.

    I've spent less time with MSFT products than most (OS/2 -> BeOS/Linux -> FreeBSD and now predominantly OS X [with GNU tools all along for the past ~10 years]) and am no apologist, but give the friggin service a chance - OR DON'T - but having a way to easily* pay for, download and play worthwhile video content could very well be ... worthwhile.

    Peace, lux, and thanks -

    * - "easily" meaning I don't spend hours / days / weeks building, tweaking and searching for content i can "steal" / use without paying for / however you feel good about stating it.

  • Only one video I'm interested in... (Score:3, Funny)

    by cmburns69 ( 169686 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @12:14PM (#12101299) Homepage Journal
    I have lost the link, but the only video I'd be interested in downloading from Microsoft would be the one with Steve Ballmer running around the stage, yelling "I love this company!".

    If anybody has a link or torrent, please post it..!
  • 1) Windows Media Player device 2) Windows XP 3) Windows Media Player 10 4) The desire to pay $19.95 a year for content I can access via TV ( which I already pay way too much for and is much less restrictive in terms of possible uses ) or the internet ( as others have pointed out, some of this content is available online already ). Sure, I could get any and all of the above, but... compared to using my existing setup and a PSP to accomplish basically the same goal ( plus play killer games ), I don't see
    • "Sure, I could get any and all of the above, but... compared to using my existing setup and a PSP to accomplish basically the same goal ( plus play killer games ), I don't see the benefit, unless you're into supporting Microsoft."

      I don't quite understand. I do understand your situation: you lack the hardware, software, and already recieve the same content on another pay service to which you already subscribe. When I read, "I don't see the benefit", I understood that to mean just that--there is not benefi
      • When I read, "I don't see the benefit", I understood that to mean just that--there is not benefit for you and your situation. So, what I don't understand stand is "unless you're into supporting Microsoft". Who? The reader? One? Those referants might not have the same situation

        What I meant is that I don't see the advantage over using the a Windows Media Player device with this service over using a PSP with some other source of content. It's not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison, but I am somewhat impli

  • Media Players (Score:4, Funny)

    by Seanasy ( 21730 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @12:26PM (#12101465)

    Slightly OT rant: but why do commercial media players insist on looking so god-awfully ugly and breaking as many usability rules as possible. Apple has been, rightfully, taken to task about this for QT Player. And MS seems intent on outdoing them in terms of interface destruction. I hate WM9's interface but quickly reverted back to it after trying WM10.

    Does anybody like that glitz? Just because it's video do they think they have to copy TV aesthetics? You just shouldn't let the title designers for Channel 6 Local News near window decorations, IMHO.

    Thanks, I feel better now.

    • Re:Media Players (Score:3, Insightful)

      by TeknoHog ( 164938 )
      Does anybody like that glitz? Just because it's video do they think they have to copy TV aesthetics?

      I, for one, happen to like the following aspect of TV aesthetics:

      There are no user interface elements on the screen, because it is devoted to the video itself. There are buttons on the DVD/video player, the TV set, and the remote, but not on the screen.

      MPlayer [mplayerhq.hu] gets this right by not having a GUI in the first place. There is the keyboard somewhere below the screen, just like there's a DVD/video player

  • Seems like pre-packaged shows (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DamienMcKenna ( 181101 ) <damienNO@SPAMmc-kenna.com> on Thursday March 31, 2005 @12:28PM (#12101496)
    I tried it and it seems all of the shows are pre-packaged, you can't directly choose what you want it just queues them all up for you.

    What I'd be willing to pay say $5-$10 per month for is access to say 5 hours of TV per week. One key show I'm craving is The Daily Show, but I don't want to pay $30/m for one show.

    Damien
  • Nothing is enough for them.
  • "the service will require Windows XP, Internet Explorer 5 or higher, and Windows Media Player 10 or higher"

    Why would Microsoft do anything else? There are no computers that don't have the latest Microsoft softwre on them.

  • In the not so distant future... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Ralph Spoilsport ( 673134 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @01:46PM (#12102393) Journal
    Family and friends are gathered around the 52 inch LCD screen they bought at Fry's for $199 last Xmas. It's cheap because the assembly job was outsourced to trained penguins who, as we all know, come from the Antarctic, not the zoo. But I digress.

    They are watching the Super bowl. The announcer is former QB Tom Brady, now somewhat late middle aged. He occassionally pops up in 2.5 D transparent windows that seem to float just in front of the screen. This glitzy spectacular is brought to you by:

    MICROSOFT "We're here to fuck ya little buddy!"

    and AMD "Keeping what's left of the American middle class Fat, Dumb, and Happy."

    and the TMZ Zinc Bushing Corporation / USgov "If you push something hard enough - It Will Fall Over!"

    They all settle in to what promises to be yet another route of the New Jersey Proles by the seemingly invincible Las Vegas Patriots, which is fine by this bunch - ever since they got their RFID tatoos, they see it as UNAMERICAN to support any other team BUT the Las Vegas Patriots!

    When a morbidly obese Britney Spears waddles out to sing the national anthem, their hearts leap with joy. The game proceeds uneventfully. The Patriots are destroying the Proles all through the first half. Fatalities are high - the Proles lost their QB in the first five minutes. Half time was glorious. A rousing and glittering tribute to the American troops who were killed in the invasion of Brazil earlier that year. This group had hardly a dry eye, as they all remembered Uncle Dick's last letter:

    Dear Loved Ones,

    Killing these idiots for their resources has gotten kind of stale and boring. Wish I was home watching televised sports like a good citizen. Still, if President Jenna Bush decides I have to walk across a mine field for the sake of Microsoft shareholders and Wall Street speculators, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Love you all-

    Your Stupid Uncle Dick

    In the third period, things get a little lively - the Proles come back and start pounding the Patriots. They are on the edge of their seats. Multiple 2.5 D windows are bursting all over - every angle is covered as the Proles go into the 4th quarter tied. There's a brief time out to hose the blood off the field, but soon, it's right back to the action!

    They're tied all through the 4th quarter, and it's down to the last few seconds of the game! The Proles are on the goal line of the Patriots! Spirits are running high - people all over the country are screaming at their screens! They set up for the final play.

    "Hut One! Romeo Tango Foxtrot Mike! HIKE!"

    The Proletarian QB takes the ball, takes a half step back, crouches and LEAPS INTO THE AIR! A Patriotic defender does the same! They're going to collide at the goal line - but will the ball cross the plane of the goal? all of the floating windows are covering his every move in excruciating detail! In mid air, he turns and

    Sorry. This device has performed an illegal opera

    BSOD...

    The screen turns bright blue. The group assembled grab the LCD Screen and heave it out the window as the entire country roars with anger at their blue screens of death.

    The grand children of Bill Gates are eaten in public.

    All Microsoft employees (a solid 7% of India) are given safe passage to nations of their choice.

    The penguins cry, because no-one knows who won the game...

    It was all virtualised.

    RS

  • MS-slashdot (Score:3, Interesting)

    by wardk ( 3037 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @01:54PM (#12102468) Journal
    wow, we're seemingly getting multiple MS press releases here on slashdot daily.

    I hope they are paying for all this advertising.

    (or are these subtle pseudo-DOS attacks on MS resources via the slashdot-effect? you guys are crafty)

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