By ben 
Feb 4, 2007 12:09 pm
The next version of Songbird (0.2.5) will support Apple FairPlay and Windows Media DRM audio playback. Those features are already enabled in the latest nightly build and everyone is encouraged to give those builds a spin. If you’re on Windows you’ll need to have a new-ish version of Windows Media Player (probably 9 or newer) for protected WMA playback and QuickTime for Windows (probably 7 or newer) for FairPlay to work. On OS X you’ll only get FairPlay playback, sorry.
How does this work? We don’t hack out the encryption keys or anything illegal. Songbird supports multiple playback cores so we simply use Apple’s and Microsoft’s own playback engines to do the decoding for us. We use VLC for playback of most file types, but now whenever you play a protected WMA or M4P file we swap in the Windows Media Player or QuickTime core. Sounds easy, right?
Well, no. Not really. The world of DRM is a little (cough) unfriendly, so I figured that I should share some of the war stories and a few tricks for anyone interested in making DRM playback work in their own apps.
It seems both Apple and Microsoft are a little paranoid when it comes to debuggers. I fault Apple a little more than Microsoft in this case for reasons I’ll hit in a second. But be forewarned: using DRM software under a debugger may not work correctly (or at all), and documentation may be totally misleading. What happens? Well…
By Matt 
Nov 13, 2006 1:10 pm
Songbird can now announce tracks using the super sexy Growl notification system for OS X.
Yes, we need album art and global hotkeys before this is actually cool, but it was late, and I was killing time waiting for VLC to compile.
By Aus 
Sep 28, 2006 5:58 pm
Hi everyone!
It seems like we forgot to apply a slew of patches to our mozilla mac power pc sdk which definitely makes the ppc build less than pleasant to work with.
We’ve already fixed this issue and there’s a new installer for Songbird 0.2 RC1 Mac OS X ppc. However, if you downloaded RC1 shortly after it’s release, you might want to download it again.
Here’s how to determine if you should download it again:
- Go to Help -> About Songbird
- Look at the Build ID.
- Original RC1 Build ID - 20060926201339
- Revised RC1 (RC1.1) Build ID - 20060927174319
By roblord 
Jun 27, 2006 1:41 am
Eager birdbuilders, you may now build the bird.
Songbird’s public Subversion tree is open. Initial build instructions have been posted to the Songbird Trac. Developers may download the source via HTTP or BitTorrent. Please report bugs and post patches to Songbird Bugzilla.
Note that this our not-yet-0.2 source code release, which means it is not yet our 0.2 “Developer Preview” release as defined in our Songbird roadmap. The internal birdbuilder team will be substantially changing numerous APIs between now and the 0.2 launch. Eager Songbird extension authors should wait for the 0.2 “Developer Preview” launch.
Finally, Songbird not-yet-0.2 binaries are available for Windows XP, Mac OS X and Linux. We’ll frequently update the binaries to reflect the latest source changes.
Build the bird, play the Web.
Rob
Update: Songbird’s not-yet-0.2 has been Dugg! And Slashdotted!
By roblord
Jun 2, 2006 9:12 pm
It’s a newborn. It needs swaddling. It hasn’t even chirped yet. Installed from a .DaMaGe file, it’s Songbird on OS X.
What’s that you ask? No, it’s not available yet. But yes, that is stained Canadian Oak.
Soon Mac heads. Hold please.
