117ny302bxv howdy - spot on.
yellowdog, let me make an educated guess. SunnComm & BMG / Sony expected Apple / iPod compliance prior to the Foo's release, thus anticipated MM5. BMG / Sony elected to use MM3 knowing that THIS VERSION they could issue a work around for those requesting it
Our club researcher managed to get a call in with the industry researcher today and was able to get some insight on some of the issues I raised with him. Our club guy gave me a quick call earlier this afternoon and this is how I understood what he told me. I had asked him to ask about Apple compatibility and BMG's decision to not use MediaMax V5 on high volume releases.
He wasn't aware of the V5 release decision, but his take is that it relates to Apple compatibility and the 'shift key'. He thinks MediaMax V5 is like CDS300 in that the 'shift key fix', added with V5, requires some sort of disguising of the normal CD audio, making the CD unplayable in a Mac.
This is no different to a Windows PC, because the normal CD audio also cannot be played there either. You can only play the Windows Media files that are generated on the fly (or were on the disk in the earlier releases). The way around this was for Apple to allow Apple Fairplay files to be generated on the fly and these could be played on the Mac, just like the Windows Media files could be played on a PC. When Apple held back on allowing this to happen, that plan was put in jeopardy.
He believes BMG are paranoid about playability after some earlier bad experiences with Midbar, the company that was bought out by Macrovision. This is why (HE THINKS) BMG are holding back going with V5 on the "high profile" releases. EMI on the other hand are more willing to trade off playability for a more rigid security.
He was asked about his previous comment that MediaMax had no technical advantage over CDS300 and yet CDS300 was incompatible with MACs, but MediaMax was compatible. The answer was much the same. He said CDS300 will be compatible with MACs when Apple changes its policy. He does not think MediaMax V5 is compatible with MACs either, without the Apple agreement. He thought that the earlier version of MediaMax was only compatible with MACs because they simply appeared to a MAC as a standard CD. They didn't offer any protection on a MAC and the users could rip and play the CD to their hearts content (the normal CD audio bit). He thought this a gaping hole in the security and didn't see that making MediaMax technically superior. He said something about a version of Windows Media was available for a MAC and maybe that would allow the WM files on the CD to be played (accessing the extras etc), but he thought MAC users would be contemptious of anything to do with Windows Media, so that would offer them little.
So in his opinion, MediaMax (pre V5) allows playability on a MAC but gives no protection there and CDS protects against ripping on a MAC but will only be playable when Apple allows.
AI
