It's becoming well known that the best upgrade you can do to a vista system is to install XP
Based on the quickly-increasing need for Vista's proactive security features in today's world, I disagree

As an interesting case in point, it's estimated that about half the maliciously-coded websites that are attacking people's computers, are now
normally-safe sites which have been compromised (ref:
http://www.securityfocus.com/brief/667 ). Another modern hazard is
"malvertising." Vista in its default configuration gives you a fighting chance against this stuff.
Microsoft reports that Vista's substantially outperforming WinXP in security matters, with some real-world metrics to consider here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsvistas...23/windows-vista-security-one-year-later.aspx Fewer vulnerabilities, more mitigation, far fewer infections IRL.
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, is all I'm sayin'

Not many of the "Vista sucks" bandwagoneers seem to be aware of the effort that's been put into security, at a time when we have increasing need for it. For those who'd rather run WinXP or Win2000, I particularly encourage them to review their security gameplan, and I made
a page with suggested security steps to help with that (those tips apply to Vista as well, of course). Firewall and antivirus software isn't enough, IMO.
Trying to give a highly technical presentation with high speed video and motion capture/ CGI on a large screen just doesn't work with vista when you can't even play the video you authored yourself (with very expensive equipment).
The DRM aspect is not my specialty, but unless you are deliberately putting DRM into your own content when you create it, directly or indirectly, you shouldn't be hitting the reduced-resolution issue, AFAIK. Maybe some investigation is in order. The goal of HDCP-enforced DRM is for the content to be unable to play at designed quality on anything but a fully-compliant system, so if it won't play back on Vista because your Vista system has non-compliant hardware, then by design it shouldn't play back on any other OS with non-compliant hardware.