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DRM drains battery life

updated 02:00 pm EST, Fri March 17, 2006

DRM drains battery life

Digital Rights Management technology, such as Apple's FairPlay DRM used to protect tracks purchased from the iTunes Music Store, reduces battery life significantly on digital media players across the board. A recent CNET column compares various players from different companies, noting playback time while considering numerous factors such as backlight usage, track quality, and listening/viewing patterns. Music rented from Napster or Rhapsody subscription networks arrives in the WMA DRM 10 format, which "takes extra processing power to ensure that the licenses making the tracks work are still valid and match up to the device itself." CNET recently tested the Creative Zen Vision:M, which boasts a rated battery life of up to 14 hours or audio or four hours for video playback. Playing only MP3s, the Vision:M played for almost 16 hours, but upon playing back only WMA subscription tracks the player died just after 12 hours. Apple's iPod, by comparison, when playing only FairPlay AAC tracks, underperformed MP3 playback time by roughly eight percent.

 
Previous Comments

Not So Fast...

03/17, 05:00pm reply

Testing the iPod with MP3 vs. protected AAC isn't a very scientific test. Those are two different types of compression, probably requring different amounts of work to decompress, and I'd expect AAC to require more horsepower. Try it with protected AAC vs. unprotected AAC and see how much difference there is in battery life.

stevomac

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Mar 2006

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real world to me...

03/22, 02:37pm reply

90% of music owners have MP3s, 8% have AAC files (protected, ITMS), and less than 2% have Windows Media protected or otherwise. To me, comparing the DRM-clad AAC (Apple) vs DRM-clad WMA (Rhaspody/MS) vs the standard MP3 is about as scientific as it gets FOR THE END USER.

I also really dislike Apple's making AAC the defauly encoder. If DVD Players and Car Stereos worked with AAC unprotected, I wouldn't be so unhappy. However, I use what my Tivo, Pioneer headunit, and cell phone can play.

ibugv4

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jun 2003

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