Microsoft is responsible for paying the $2 license fee on software sold directly to consumers.

Apparently the license fee even extends to PCs sold without DVD players. If Microsoft were to include DVD playback support in Windows 8, every PC supplier who shipped Windows 8 systems would be required to pay the $2 fee for every unit sold - and they would owe it to MPEG-LA, not Microsoft. Where included in a PC sold to an end-user, the PC supplier is responsible for paying the royalty and where sold directly to the end-user and not in a PC, the software provider is responsible.' Update: A spokesman for MPEG-LA, the patent consolidator that licenses the MPEG-2 codec (and thus the ability to play DVD movies) has confirmed to me that 'nothing in our MPEG-2 License has changed recently.' He goes on to say, 'The royalty rate for MPEG-2 encoding and decoding products in our MPEG-2 License is $2 per unit, and there is no cap. Of course, Microsoft has better records on Windows sales than anybody, so I readily defer to their market share analysis - amazing that more than 80 percent of new consumer PCs are mobile.

Biz PCs are 40% (SFF, AIO) rarely optical drives.' PCs are 60%, moving to ultrabooks/tablets rapidly (80%+ are mobile). Microsoft provides a detailed description of its licensing woes in a follow-on FAQ: 'hen you add all this up and apply to all Windows PCs, it is an ongoing cost of hundreds of millions of dollars per year to the PC ecosystem, well over a billion dollars over the lifecycle of the operating system and yet by most predictions the majority of PCs will not even be capable of playing DVDs.'Īs soon as I read that, I got on Twitter and raised two eyebrows, tweeting: 'Sinofsky: 'By most predictions the majority of PCs will not even be capable of playing DVDs.' Huh?' It's awfully hard for me to believe that the majority of Windows 8 PCs won't be capable of playing DVD tweeted back: 'Cons. How did Microsoft get into this mess? It's all about licensing the MPEG-2 decoder. Microsoft assures us that the Media Center Pack pricing 'will be in line with marginal costs.' But it's highly likely that the jump from Windows 8 to Windows 8 Pro will be anything but marginal. Unless they can find some third-party software that'll fill in - perhaps from their PC manufacturer or from a USB DVD manufacturer. Customers who buy Windows 8 (and don't know enough to install VLC) will have to pay for the double upgrade to both Windows 8 Pro and Windows Media Center if they want to play DVDs.

Direct play windows 8.1