So it would appear that Channel 4’s new video on demand service doesn’t work on a mac either.

Their excuse is quite spectacularly pathetic:

“This is an industry-wide issue caused because the accepted Digital Rights Management (DRM) system used to protect online video content, which is required by our content owners, is not compatible with Apple Mac hardware and software. The closed DRM system used by Apple is not currently available for licence by third parties and there is no other Mac-compatible DRM solution which meets the protection requirements of content owners. Unfortunately, we are therefore unable to offer 4oD content to Mac users at this stage.”

When they say “the accepted”, what they mean is “the one we chose to use”. Which is another way of saying “We decided not to support the Mac. Tough”.

When they talk about “The closed DRM system used by Apple” they are just spouting spurious nonsense to try to confuse the issue. Apart from anything they are completely ignoring the fact that all such systems on the Mac are built on top of Quicktime, which would quite happily allow Channel 4 or anyone else to support their own DRM if they could be arsed. Which they can’t.

Idiots. <p style="font-size:10px;text-align:right;">Tags: channel4, video, drm. stupidity</p>