Viiv vs. "Viiv Ready"

The great thing about the Viiv platform is that system manufacturers have clear guidelines in terms of the chipsets and CPU configurations they can play with. So it's quite straightforward to put together a system which is "Viiv ready", and there are already quite a few out on the market.

But be wary. There are more requirements to a machine meeting the Viiv prerequisites than just the hardware specs. They must also have Windows XP MCE and DRM hardware/software, and it seems that not all of the systems currently available are sporting the DRM chips yet.

And as already mentioned, you can't buy MCE off your own initiative while remaining within the legal bounds of the license - MCE is OEM only.

So, a proclaimed "Viiv Ready" machine without an OS is not really ready at all. It just happens to use the right chipset/CPU combination to warrant a shiny Intel sticker. And even if you circumnavigate the MCE licensing problems you'll still find yourself locked out of DRM-protected content.

Not much fun.