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Microsoft’s Windows 10 doesn’t just implement DirectX 12 or combine the GUI styles of Windows 7 and Windows 8 — it also implements a new DRM system for video and audio content. The low-level details of how that system functions are still unknown, but one thing we do know is that the PlayReady 3.0 system is based on and requires hardware DRM. Microsoft is positioning this as a necessity for 4K content, which could have significant impact on which Windows 10 PCs can play protected streams and which cannot.

Microsoft has kept some aspects of this system semi-secret — the public talk given at WinHEC about hardware DRM protection in Windows 10 cuts off just after the topic comes up — but we found the unredacted slides from the same presentation online. They don’t tell us everything, but we can draw some conclusions from what’s been published to-date.

Microsoft PlayReady already controls content protection in Windows 7 and Windows 8 PCs. It’s designed to be portable and cross-platform, which means PlayReady 3.0, like the other components of the Windows 10 ecosystem, will be available on both phones and laptops / desktops.

PlayReady 3.0 supports multiple languages and all Windows development models (think Metro vs. Windows Desktop).

This is rather interesting. According to Microsoft, “Roadmaps are in place with AMD, Intel, Qualcomm, and Nvidia.” A roadmap, however, is typically something that a company uses to talk about its future, as opposed to a plan to support a new framework with existing products.

It’s possible that AMD’s Secure Technology initiative already includes the necessary hardware capability to support PlayReady 3.0. Certain AMD APUs now ship with a Cortex-A5 processor integrated on-die to provide additional security capabilities and system-level authentication. AMD has never explicitly identified PlayReady 3.0 or 4K DRM as part of the security processor’s portfolio, but it has noted that the chip can handle secure video streaming.

Intel has supported hardware DRM since 2011 with its Intel Insider program, which prominently supported the UltraViolet movie service. (Intel strongly disputes the allegation that Insider is a DRM system). It’s not clear if any movie service ever required Insider’s hardware DRM — UltraViolet will operate on AMD PCs, as well as older Intel systems that lack the feature.

Meanwhile, both AMD and Nvidia have always supported features like HDCP, so presumably we’ll see support for this additional level of encryption debuting in upcoming GeForce and Radeon cards — assuming it isn’t baked in already, waiting to be switched on.

Windows 10 and the 4K gap

Let’s be clear: Microsoft isn’t requiring that movie studios use PlayReady 3.0 in order to display 4K content on Windows PCs. The pitch, rather, is that by providing a hardware DRM solution, movie studios will be more inclined to release high-resolution content and allow streaming to PCs and other 4K-capable Windows products.

If your PC is powerful enough to play back a 4K-encoded video under Windows 7, it’ll still be capable of doing so in Windows 10 — provided the file or stream doesn’t use PlayReady 3.0 in the first place. If it does, end-users may find themselves paying 4K prices, but only allowed to watch in 1080p, if at all. One slide above notes that HW-DRM “Cannot degrade video quality in GPU with HW robustness” implying that there’s no way to stream a degraded 4K stream, either.

Without knowing more about the roadmaps in question and the state of the underlying hardware from the four named vendors, we can’t predict how this will pan out for consumers. While it may not be an issue when Windows 10 ships, it could quickly become problematic for anyone who wants the freedom to watch their own legally purchased content — certain systems will fall below the supported gap and will have to be upgraded before they can handle the content.

Between Secure Boot changes and now this new hardware DRM requirement, Windows 10 is shaping up to be the most locked-down version of the operating system ever shipped. Microsoft may not be responsible for locking down the content, but the movie industry never met a user-hostile feature that it didn’t love.

Microsoft’s push to include new video quality options and better support for high-end content now looks more like a cynical attempt to grab user rights and leave Windows 8.1 users and below stuck at 1080p. We’ve reached out to multiple companies on this topic and will update this story if we hear back from them.