Having seen the ads on telly recently for Channel 4 On Demand, i was intrigued to find out how it worked, how much it cost, and so on, so i visited the site and was disheartened, but unsurprised, to find that the system uses desktop software, and that there is no mac version. This happens all the time, even in this day and age where Apple seems to be taking over the world. Having noticed a "find out more" link beside the statement that the software was not mac compatible, i clicked, only to see the most annoyingly stupid statement i have seen in a while about mac compatibility.
Will you offer 4oD for the Macintosh?
Unfortunately not at the launch of 4oD.
This
is an industry-wide issue caused because the accepted Digital Rights
Management (DRM) system used to protect online video content, which is
required by our content owners, is not compatible with Apple Mac
hardware and software. The closed DRM system used by Apple is not
currently available for licence by third parties and there is no other
Mac-compatible DRM solution which meets the protection requirements of
content owners. Unfortunately, we are therefore unable to offer 4oD
content to Mac users at this stage.
Is this even true? I honestly don't think it is. What is this 'accepted' system? WMV? Please god tell me it is not. I honestly thought that Channel 4 was a little more forward thinking than to allow the more tech-savvy, computer-as-media-center-accepting, digital life living computer users to go uncatered for. But no. They want to cripple our media as much as possible, which means using a Windows only system which is clearly a big steaming pile of crap. I am saddened.