http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/10/drm-and-battery-life-no-real-effect-after-all/ Engadget Comments for DRM and battery life: no real effect after all? http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/10/drm-and-battery-life-no-real-effect-after-all/http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/10/drm-and-battery-life-no-real-effect-after-all/Apr 10th 2006 12:55PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/04/10/drm-and-battery-life-no-real-effect-after-all/http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/10/drm-and-battery-life-no-real-effect-after-all/
Plus your rechargeable li-ion battery is a huge variable and inconsistency across tests. After only one test of the battery it is not in the same state and cannot be used for to test a different variable. If you wanted to test a player with a rechargeable battery you need to have one brand new player per variable, in this case 2.]]>Apr 10th 2006 12:58PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/04/10/drm-and-battery-life-no-real-effect-after-all/http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/10/drm-and-battery-life-no-real-effect-after-all/Apr 10th 2006 1:03PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/04/10/drm-and-battery-life-no-real-effect-after-all/http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/10/drm-and-battery-life-no-real-effect-after-all/
Like the guy said above one sample? At least Cnet's study while not iron clad had a little more validity.

What this does show is that DRM'd music has an effect on battery life. Sure glad I still buy CD's and just burn them to my player. Maybe that's why I couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about over the ipods battery life. ]]>Apr 10th 2006 1:08PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/04/10/drm-and-battery-life-no-real-effect-after-all/http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/10/drm-and-battery-life-no-real-effect-after-all/
This "test" was simply propaganda showing how easily tests can be skewed, and how lacking most sites testing capabilities are.]]>Apr 10th 2006 1:14PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/04/10/drm-and-battery-life-no-real-effect-after-all/http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/10/drm-and-battery-life-no-real-effect-after-all/
the CNET study was comparing apples and oranges. not just a bit short of iron clad but not even in the same country as iron clad.]]>Apr 10th 2006 1:17PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/04/10/drm-and-battery-life-no-real-effect-after-all/http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/10/drm-and-battery-life-no-real-effect-after-all/Apr 10th 2006 1:28PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/04/10/drm-and-battery-life-no-real-effect-after-all/http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/10/drm-and-battery-life-no-real-effect-after-all/
Then, take into account that the higher battery drain will skew the discharge rate. It's impossible to say how much without extensive testing, but it's conceivable that it could affect it as much as the 8% reported for the iPod.

So no Bill, I'd say the backlight being on was pretty important.

And this is ignoring whether the device itself performs efficiently on non-drm files since it has a processor capable of handling drm that might be fully powered. If the DRM support weren't there at all, there could be a sizable power saving.]]>Apr 10th 2006 2:08PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/04/10/drm-and-battery-life-no-real-effect-after-all/http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/10/drm-and-battery-life-no-real-effect-after-all/Apr 10th 2006 3:23PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/04/10/drm-and-battery-life-no-real-effect-after-all/http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/10/drm-and-battery-life-no-real-effect-after-all/Apr 10th 2006 4:30PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/04/10/drm-and-battery-life-no-real-effect-after-all/http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/10/drm-and-battery-life-no-real-effect-after-all/Apr 10th 2006 5:10PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/04/10/drm-and-battery-life-no-real-effect-after-all/http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/10/drm-and-battery-life-no-real-effect-after-all/Apr 10th 2006 6:19PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/04/10/drm-and-battery-life-no-real-effect-after-all/http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/10/drm-and-battery-life-no-real-effect-after-all/Apr 10th 2006 9:45PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/04/10/drm-and-battery-life-no-real-effect-after-all/http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/10/drm-and-battery-life-no-real-effect-after-all/How so? They didn't even bother to use the same codec in their study.
I believe the whole point of the DAPreview test was to point out that the Cnet tester wouldn't have seen such a big difference in battery life, had he used the same codec for the unprotected file that he used for the DRM'ed file. Instead, the Cnet guy compared WMA DRM to MP3, which is about as fair as running a fuel economy comparison between a Dodge Viper and a Toyota Prius.]]>Apr 11th 2006 12:46AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/04/10/drm-and-battery-life-no-real-effect-after-all/http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/10/drm-and-battery-life-no-real-effect-after-all/
Now I'm not saying that I LIKE the idea of DRM. However I think we should concentrate on the actual harm and social implications of DRM. More fear mongering about it simply gives the trolls more stuff to whine about.]]>Apr 11th 2006 10:04AM