From Engadget. WHY DRM SUCKS!
It's almost a given that battery life claims from manufacturers tend to be inflated. Whether you're using a digital camera or digital audio player, chances are your
batteries aren't going to last quite as long as the manufacturer would
like you to think. But it turns out that there may be a hidden culprit
lurking inside your MP3 player, sucking the juice out of your batteries
at a faster pace than you even realized: PlaysForSure DRM.
According to tests conducted by CNET, strong DRM "not only slows down an MP3 player
but also sucks the very life out of them." CNET found that the extra
processing power required to check licenses and decode protected tracks
could cut battery life by as much as 25%. In tests conducted on a
Creative Zen Vision M, CNET was able to get 16 hours out of the player
when listening to generic MP3s. When they switched to protected WMA
tracks, battery life plummeted to 12 hours. Other PlaysForSure players
had similar results. And iPod users aren't off the hook either: when
playing tracks protected by Apple's FairPlay DRM, CNET found that iPod
battery life declined by 8%. So, what can you do to maximize battery
life? Short of moving to France
batteries aren't going to last quite as long as the manufacturer would
like you to think. But it turns out that there may be a hidden culprit
lurking inside your MP3 player, sucking the juice out of your batteries
at a faster pace than you even realized: PlaysForSure DRM.
According to tests conducted by CNET, strong DRM "not only slows down an MP3 player
but also sucks the very life out of them." CNET found that the extra
processing power required to check licenses and decode protected tracks
could cut battery life by as much as 25%. In tests conducted on a
Creative Zen Vision M, CNET was able to get 16 hours out of the player
when listening to generic MP3s. When they switched to protected WMA
tracks, battery life plummeted to 12 hours. Other PlaysForSure players
had similar results. And iPod users aren't off the hook either: when
playing tracks protected by Apple's FairPlay DRM, CNET found that iPod
battery life declined by 8%. So, what can you do to maximize battery
life? Short of moving to France
