To those that only know Blu-ray, this was one of the first tastes consumers had of real HD content on a DVD.
System Requirements basically meant you had to have a dual core at the time where everything was a Pentium 4 Hyperthreading phase…
Also, it was the first taste of what was to come for “always online” DRM.
You see, not only did you have to install this relic:
It also had to combine that with the DRM schemes of this ANCIENT player:
And it didn’t work with anything newer because the DRM scheme was SPECIFIC to Windows Media Player 9 Series, AND it relied on a remote license server that if it ever went down, would render the discs useless to play in HD.
It’s now 2019, this disc released in 2003. The license server must have LONG shut down after Blu-ray won the war vs HD DVD.
So unfortunately, it’s an encrypted relic with no possible way to decrypt the WMV files that made it one of the first consumer ways to watch HD content. And this was also BEFORE HDCP was as widespread.
This was early DRM and some of what it carried forward still holds true today.
It will be nearly impossible to decrypt those files nowadays because the licensing server has fully shut down. But hey, you have a physical (albeit encrypted) relic of the first attempts at High Definition in the home.
Remember also this was the era of these kinds of PCs… just keep that in mind before you say modern HTPCs are good enough, because olden day HTPCs were pretty much everything back then:
And this was basically Steam Big Picture Mode before it’s time:
Then Microsoft got stupid with accepting DRM in free over-the-air broadcasts called the “Broadcast Flag”
DRM never changes, and never ceases to amaze how far it will go. From relics to now, it’s just as annoying.