[Jim_MDP]

What's with this? I'm hitting more and more (of course) WMVs with the "sorry, this file...etc." error message. I'm up to the second with WMP/Real/QT player, and it seems there just isn't a Mac version of this codec.

I don't know how new it is so I understand a Mac port may be coming. Yes? Or has Redmond screwed us?

Please, any info? This has gone beyond frustrating.

Thanks.

[Nap]

It was probably WMV version 9 video. The sound plays in the most recent WMP for Mac (v7.12 in OS9) but the video will not. Given that M$ is bowing out of browser production I have to wonder if they will bother with a newer WMP version that will play v9 video.

[Jim_MDP]

From what I've found, yes it's the "9" that's the problem.

But I don't get audio either. It's usualy video links I'm talking about, but now that you mention it, there is a webcast archive (audio only) that's unavailable to me. The keeper of the archive has just started posting .mov versions as well (three times the size and poored audio quality?) but I don't think ha's going to go back and convert the older ones (weekly webcasts).

I'm not in A/V so my questions may be naive...

Are WMV/WMA/WMP codecs only out of Redmond?

Since this will be the codec of choice more and more in the future (till 10 comes out ,I suppose), are we screwed?

[Nap]

Originally posted by Jim_MDP:

...Are WMV/WMA/WMP codecs only out of Redmond?

Since this will be the codec of choice more and more in the future (till 10 comes out ,I suppose), are we screwed?

There is no guarantee that it will be any different with version 10. Also, MicroSoft seems to keep a tight rein on their streaming media codecs as far as converting to other formats go. I know of at least one Windows product that used to transcode ASF video to other avi formats but the developer was forced to remove that part of the code in his product. Cleaner, the very expensive media product, will encode in WMV but will not transcode. There may be products that will do it but they are not widely available, and no, I don't know what they are.

[dazzla]

Have you given mplayer a try?

http://fink.sourceforge.net/pdb/package.php/mplayer

They've got WMV9/WMA9 support:

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design6/info.html

I don't get my PowerBook 'til next week so I can't give it a try

[Jim_MDP]

Actually, now I've found WMV3s that won't work. Or are they the same?

No, MPlayer doesn't work (even the new X 2b5), VLC-no joy. I'm not a coder, so I can't figger how to build ffMPEG (uh..."makefile" ???).

For grins I've got 10.2.6 dev tools as well as X11 loaded (but haven't learned any useful *nix yet, so that's going nowhere.

Hmmm.

[Uncle Skeleton]

yes, WMV3 is the codec MS markets as WM9. I would expect that when MPlayer claims support of it, it means that in the Windows version, MPlayer is able to use the WMP libraries to display WMV3 content in MPlayer's app. I'm pretty sure the open-source community is only part way through WMV2 and not anywhere to speak of on WMV3 (IOW the mac version won't have this feature). But I would love to be proven wrong. Same for Real Video above v1 I think.

[istallion]

Originally posted by Nap:
There is no guarantee that it will be any different with version 10. Also, MicroSoft seems to keep a tight rein on their streaming media codecs as far as converting to other formats go. I know of at least one Windows product that used to transcode ASF video to other avi formats but the developer was forced to remove that part of the code in his product. Cleaner, the very expensive media product, will encode in WMV but will not transcode. There may be products that will do it but they are not widely available, and no, I don't know what they are.

Windows media encoder can't transcode, but it can convert windows media to raw video/audio. You can then use your encoder of choice.