At the moment, premium content played in Windows XP - and most other operating systems, for that matter - is "vulnerable" in a number of ways. Even if the software side of the equation is secure, in many cases these measures can be circumvented. The lowest-common-denominator attack is the "play and record" attack, where a user plays the premium content and then plugs the outputs of the computer - audio and video - into a recording device. The upcoming Windows Vista will include Protected Video Path Output Protection Management (PVP-OPM), a system which essentially allows content to contain flags determining what protection is required on the outputs of a PC. If these requirements are not met, those outputs will be blocked. So for example, you could conceivable download a movie which requires High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) encryption for the display adapter; if you don't have a compatible display/video card combination then you basically won't be able to watch the video. HDCP has been around for a few years, but many LCD monitors and projectors do not support it. HDCP requires DVI.

At first this sounds pretty close to DRM Hell. It is easy to imagine a scenario where an unsuspecting consumer buys a video and is then completely unable to watch it without buying a new monitor. Although this is certainly bad news, it is important to remember that this is an optional feature of video playback in Windows Vista and most content providers will probably avoid such heavy-handed measures as most computers currently in existence do not support HDCP - or even DVI for that matter.