Vista - first impressions

The best thing I've read recently about Vista was from soundcard manufacturer RME's Matthias Carstens in this month's Studio Sound:

"We at RME have no reason to think that Wave RT (the new Vista low-latency audio driver) will ever be a serious professional audio solution simply because Microsoft is involved"

And despite trying to put a more positive POV the article seems to be based around difficulties, not answers. It seems that a major sticking block for a lot of soundcard manufacturers is the contract that you have to sign in order to be able to claim that your driver is DRM-compliant. Here's what David Hoatson from Lynx has to say about that:

"Hardware manufacturers must sign a 'contract' that says it is impossible to steal content using their device and driver. This puts all the legal burden on the hardware manufacturer if someone uses the device to steal content. Having to sign a contract to allow Sony to sue you for the acts of a rogue user doesn't seem appealing."

The article (and part 1 the previous month) is well worth a read - I suspect that it won't be up on the website for a while, but you never know...

Here's what David Hoatson from Lynx has to say about that:

"Hardware manufacturers must sign a 'contract' that says it is impossible to steal content using their device and driver. This puts all the legal burden on the hardware manufacturer if someone uses the device to steal content. Having to sign a contract to allow Sony to sue you for the acts of a rogue user doesn't seem appealing."

And some interfaces (as mentioned earlier in the article) cannot in any case meet those contract requirements without redesign.

Paul