Microsoft’s plan to secure 4K movies

It’s a typical Saturday night in 2016, and a couple has decided to sit down with some popcorn and watch the latest blockbuster on their brand new 4K monitor. The movie begins to start, but wait, why is the movie playing in boring standard-definition?

No, it’s not a nightmare, its Microsoft. They are working with chip vendors Intel, AMD, Nvidia and Qualcomm to protect Hollywood’s movies from piracy as they travel through your PC. The technology is called PlayReady 3.0.

Microsoft little plan also involves them dangling promises for consumers, like: “Buy a Windows 10 system with PlayReady, and you’ll be able to view all the latest movies in 4K.” Pay attention if you have an older PC, because without Microsoft hardware DRM technology, you may only be able to watch lower quality version movies!

But, what exactly is 4K and what does it mean for you?

4K is an up-and-coming video technology that promises a better quality picture when you’re watching movies or TV shows.

The term 4K actually means the resolution of an electronic display. The display could be anything, from the screen on your TV to your iPad or laptop. The resolution is referring to how many pixels there are in that display.

In the near future, when we will be able to watch 4K, it will be an extremely high resolution, that’s why it is sometimes known as “Ultra High Definition”.

So, now that we know what 4K is, does not having PlayReady 3.0 mean that we can’t have 4K?

It’s true that movie piracy is a really big problem. Studios in Hollywood take many steps to protect their content, but any kind of weak link in the chain can lead to a security breach.

Older generations of PCs used to use software based DRM technology. The new hardware based technology will know exactly who you are, what rights your PC has and it won’t ever allow your PC to unlock content so it can be ripped. It is still a mystery how PlayReady 3.0 actually does it though. 

The benefits for you aren't really clear, but apparently PlayReady 3.0 PCs (and there users) could be trusted with exclusive Hollywood content. If you’d like to have early releases, like a movie that is playing at the cinema right now and you want to have access to it on your Windows PC, then it might become available to you if you have a high bar for content protection. Or, if you want to support 4K quality video, or a UHD quality video, which is protected content on Windows, that demands a higher bar – and that bar is defined by hardware based content protection.

So far, Microsoft has painted a very unrealistic picture of PlayReady 3.0 as the PCs answer to piracy. But if you are someone who watches streamed videos, you should know that it’s not so simple. Consumers still watch many, many movies on their PCs – especially children!

It seems like watching 4K video could turn out to be a real pain and while Microsoft and Hollywood try to stop piracy once and for all, it’s not clear whether consumers will even buy in.

For all the paranoia the industry has about securing content, some argue that Hollywood is trying to stop something bad from happening when it has already happened!

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Written By: Christine Romans
CopyWriter at The Computer Guyz Cape Town