Another reason to not play DRM'ed songs on the go

[communist]

Turns out decoding DRM'ed songs drains the battery of mp3-players by up to 25% :eek:
But is it really so much of surprise considering the tracks are 'heavily' encrypted?! Good I didn buy any DRM-'encumbered' song / player nor will I *ever*.

So much for "Plays for shorter" ;)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/18/ms_drm_plays_for_shorter/
http://www.mp3.com/stories/3646.html&ref_id=&ref_type_id=8

[celtic_druid]

Why are they comparing DRM'ed WMA files to mp3's and not non DRM'ed WMA files?

[Revgen]

The issue is that people shouldn't have to keep recharging their batteries to play music that has DRM when non-DRM .mp3 files won't tax their players.

[foxyshadis]

AAC, WMA, and vorbis all require a lot more horsepower (and thus battery life) to decode, whether drm'd or not. Such is the downside of getting a lot more for your megs. I haven't cared about mp3 in 4 years, so I'd only be interested in a Fairplay vs plain AAC comparison, or c_d's suggestion.

[unmei]

yes from my experience vorbis could cost about 15% compared to mp3 on my (harddrive based!) iRiver, with no DRM involved at all.. A comparision between DRMed wma and mp3 really doesn't hold much value like that. It's a bit unfortunate because i think the point they want to make can most likely be made with a valid comparision (decoding DRM simply cannot be for free).

[Doom9]

I considered putting this in the news but at the end of the day, you'd have to exclude the decoding overhead of WMA and AAC versus MP3 to have a fair comparison.. without doing so, you have a void conclusion.

[shevegen]

Problem is, in the end, you as customer (all customers with ipod + DRM for example) will pay the bills for recharging. The question is why to support with your money, laws that f*** you?

From the perspective of a CEO, this is great. Buy shares of other companies, like energy giants. They will love it too, especially if more electronic devices demand more and more energy... ;)

[celtic_druid]

Well my iPod lives in my car so essentially it is petrol powered.