Playsforsure logo
Starting in 2004,
Microsoft PlaysForSure was a certification given by
Microsoft to portable devices and
content services which had been tested against several hundred compatibility and performance requirements. These requirements include codec support, DRM support, UI responsiveness, device performance, compatibility with
Windows Media Player, synchronization performance, and so on. PlaysForSure certification was available for
portable media players, network-attached
digital media receivers, and media-enabled
mobile phones. The PlaysForSure logo was applied to device packaging as well as to
online music stores and online video stores.
In 2007 Microsoft rebranded and scaled back "PlaysForSure" into the subset
Certified for Windows Vista.
Microsoft's
Zune works only with its own content service called Zune Marketplace, not PlaysForSure. Microsoft announced that as of August 31, 2008, PlaysForSure content from their retired MSN Music store would need to be licensed to play before this date or burned permanently to CD, although this decision was later reversed. With the exception of Windows Media Player, all of the PlaysForSure offerings are made or run by 3rd-party companies, while Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division develops and markets the Zune.
The Zune and PlaysForSure music are both Certified for Windows Vista, yet the Zune cannot play PlaysForSure music purchased from the MSN Music Store. This unintuitive rebranding has been met with some criticism .
Overview
There exists many tests to obtain PlaysForSure certification. The most commonly referenced requirements include the ability to play files encoded in
Windows Media Audio or
Windows Media Video format with
Windows Media DRM digital rights management, used by
Windows Media Player versions 10 and 11. For this, portable devices must implement
Janus (WMDRM-PD), and network-attached devices must implement an interface to
Cardea (WMDRM-ND). However, other important requirements include time to synchronize a device with a PC, UI performance (time between pressing "play" and hearing music), gapless playback, and so on.
Content providers who offer PlaysForSure-certified audio
Content providers which formerly offered PlaysForSure
- Musicmatch Jukebox (closed)
- Wal-Mart Music Downloads (switched to MP3)
Content Providers who offer PlaysForSure-certified video
Although there exists a PlaysForSure certification for video, and there are a variety of PlaysForSure-certified portable and network video players which could play PlaysForSure-certified video, were it offered, no online store currently offers video which is certified to play on all PlaysForSure video players.
Hardware Vendors who support PlaysForSure-certified media
Software which can stream media to PlaysForSure devices
- Mezzmo commercial home entertainment software designed for Windows, Sony PlayStation 3 (PS3) or Microsoft Xbox 360. It allows to organize, share and stream the photos, music and video files. Free Mezzmo Player is included in the package.
- TVersity is a free application supporting a variety of formats, including vob-files, enabling streaming of DVD-movies which is not currently possible through Windows Media Player. (Their self-proclaimed goal is to "serve any media to any networked device doing all the necessary conversions to overcome the limitations of any given device".)
Criticisms
A 2005 court case strongly criticised the wording of a
Microsoft licensing agreement related to portable devices. The license prohibited makers of portable devices compatible with Windows Media Player from using non-Microsoft audio encoding formats. Microsoft indicated that the wording of their license was poorly written due to an oversight by a junior Microsoft employee. Microsoft quickly amended their stringently worded license agreement at the judge's behest.
In a possibly related decision,
iriver dropped support for
Ogg Vorbis from their latest H10 portable music player (no longer available in retail) in order to market it with PlaysForSure certification. iriver has since added support for Ogg Vorbis (up to Q10), as well as a non-PlaysForSure service,
Audible, to their Clix line of portable media players, which remain PlaysForSure-certified.
A stir accompanied the release of the
Microsoft Zune when it was revealed that the Zune is not compatible with media from PlaysForSure retailers. Purchased or subscription Zune Marketplace content, however, should work with other PlaysForSure capable applications and portables. This functionality is not officially supported by Microsoft since it is outside of the Zune Ecosystem.
See also
