Research claims DRM protection results in lower battery life on digital music players

Research claims DRM protection results in lower battery life on digital music players

If you are surprised to see that your MP3 player does not give a good battery life as claimed by the manufacturers, you can now perhaps blame the DRM technology loaded on the music files. CNet News conducted some tests on this philosophy and has reported that DRM technologies tend to eat away a lot of resources during music playback resulting in bad battery times for the user.

Their report claims that DRM poses an extra strain on the players as they periodically check that tracks are legitimate while they play them. And not surprisingly, one of the biggest offenders found while testing was the Windows Media-protected subscription music files.

CNet discovered that Creative Zen Vision:M battery life falls to 12 from 16 hours when playing Napster-provided, Windows-protected subscription files. Users can take out the best playback timings from their players by using unprotected MP3 files.

The news agency also stated that customers should take the company specifications as just estimates as many other factors tend to affect the life of the battery recharge.