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iluvmymactoo · Oct 16, 2005, 04:52 AM

Anyone had any experience using Flip4Mac to watch wmv on QT?

Considering the cost I thought I'd ask for user experiences first.

angelmb · Oct 16, 2005, 05:42 AM

Under my experience it works great. Please note that I am talking about the $9.99 WMV Player component.

Diggory Laycock · Oct 16, 2005, 05:56 AM

Works well here.

viruscool · Oct 16, 2005, 06:14 AM

Does this codec allow QT to play the latest WMV files, like WMV HD and WMV3 the files that only Windows Media Player 10 can play?

iluvmymactoo · Oct 16, 2005, 08:33 AM

Originally Posted by viruscool

Does this codec allow QT to play the latest WMV files, like WMV HD and WMV3 the files that only Windows Media Player 10 can play?

Good question I sent them an email to ask and I'll let you all know what they advise.

GENERAL_SMILEY · Oct 16, 2005, 10:21 AM

I've run into some .wmv files it won't play, but the Microsoft Windows Media Player will, (which was pretty annoying as I only got it so I could edit the movie involved in the first place.)

I got the info on the movie in WMP, it says it is Windows Media Audio 9, and Windows Media Video V8, if that helps.

Janaka Cooray · Oct 16, 2005, 10:48 AM

Originally Posted by GENERAL_SMILEY

I've run into some .wmv files it won't play, but the Microsoft Windows Media Player will, (which was pretty annoying as I only got it so I could edit the movie involved in the first place.)

I got the info on the movie in WMP, it says it is Windows Media Audio 9, and Windows Media Video V8, if that helps.

I've got the Flip4Mac Player - how do you get WMV files which it wont play to launch in Windows Media Player instead?

swamibooba · Oct 16, 2005, 11:55 AM

I've been using Flip4Mac (just the player) for a few weeks now and it's going far better than I expected. There are a few files, typically ASF files, that have severely distorted video, but everything else is gravy. In fact, it seems that the video quality is much better than what Windows Media Player outputs.

I particularly like the fact that scrubbing is much more real-time than the several-second delay in WMP.

As for problems, I don't like that there's no contextual menu on WMV files to save or export the files as there are for QuickTime files, but it seems like this is more of a QT user interface issue. Also, since I installed Flip4Mac, DivX files are little more unstable, especially large files. But these are minor compared to the huge leap in usability I get with WMV files. I just wish Microsoft would add support for DRMed files so I can use the movie download services.

To get the unplayable files to launch WMP, just right-click and open them with WMP, and they should switch over to WMP as the default application. At least, that's what's happening on my system.

Uncle Skeleton · Oct 16, 2005, 01:50 PM

Originally Posted by GENERAL_SMILEY

I've run into some .wmv files it won't play, but the Microsoft Windows Media Player will, (which was pretty annoying as I only got it so I could edit the movie involved in the first place.)

I got the info on the movie in WMP, it says it is Windows Media Audio 9, and Windows Media Video V8, if that helps.

That's not about codecs, since F4M plays WM8 (and 9) and WMA9 for me all the time. I know it doesn't support DRM content, but I thought macWMP had the same limitation, so that doesn't explain it.

Uncle Skeleton · Oct 16, 2005, 02:00 PM

Originally Posted by swamibooba

I've been using Flip4Mac (just the player) for a few weeks now and it's going far better than I expected. There are a few files, typically ASF files, that have severely distorted video, but everything else is gravy.

Ditto for me. The only thing that hasn't been mentioned is that it seems to take a few seconds to open a movie. For like a 350 MB movie it can be up to about 15 seconds to open. Also scrubbing is noticably slow on large frame size movies (like you might wait 5 seconds for a full frame 640x480 movie), but it's nowhere near the 5 minutes you'd have to wait for WMP to scrub, so I'm not complaining, just commenting.

As for problems, I don't like that there's no contextual menu on WMV files to save or export the files

Are you talking about the browser plugin? Anyway, this is by design. The "player only" version does not support saving or exporting (from the browser or from QTPro). That's how they sell the other version.

iluvmymactoo · Oct 16, 2005, 05:38 PM

Originally Posted by swamibooba

..... As for problems, I don't like that there's no contextual menu on WMV files to save or export the files as there are for QuickTime files.....

But can you not just save or download the original file from where ever you are sighting it ie: the website it's at?

swamibooba · Oct 16, 2005, 10:22 PM

Originally Posted by iluvmymactoo

But can you not just save or download the original file from where ever you are sighting it ie: the website it's at?

Well, yeah. But if the file is embedded into a page I'll have to open the page in Firefox and open up the "Page Info" window to save the file. Hmm, I just realized that with Flip4Mac, I could just open the URL in Safari and save it then. Hee!

I understand that it's probably specifically designed not to be saved, but 90% of the time the files I want to save are created to be shared, not hoarded. And the Flip4Mac can't play any of the DRMed files anyway, so why bother?

GENERAL_SMILEY · Oct 17, 2005, 05:10 AM

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton

That's not about codecs, since F4M plays WM8 (and 9) and WMA9 for me all the time. I know it doesn't support DRM content, but I thought macWMP had the same limitation, so that doesn't explain it.

Well the footage I've got isn't DRM'd, and your right it will play other WM8/9 content, even in FCP. So I guess it is just not quite as consistent as macWMP. Means you can never guarantee it will play properly in Quicktime, which is annoying, but still better than a kick in the teeth.

OAW · Oct 18, 2005, 03:54 PM

The Flip4Mac WMV Player component works great for videos that are stored locally on the machine. That is, they will open up in QT and play just fine. There is the occasional or maybe even rare file that it won't play like that (usually if it has DRM or some obscure codec) but that is more than offset by the much greater playback performance (particularly with respect to "scrubbing") than Windows Media Player.

Having said that, the plug-in (which allows you to view WMV files in the Safari) for this product has gotten progressively worse with each release. We are on the version 1.0.2 and it can't do some things that version 1.0.1 could, which couldn't do some things that the initial 1.0 release could. As it stands now, the plug-in will generally work fine for WMV files that are embedded in the webpage (e.g. "embed src=www.somesite.com/somevideo.wmv"), but if the webpage uses scripting to dynamically serve up the video it typically does not work. See the thread I started over at their support forum for more details ...

http://www.flip4mac.com/fusetalk/for...&enterthread=y

As a workaround for this, I have set my preferences to always bypass the plug-in and always launch the movie in QT. That seems to be the only way to make it semi-functional for these "dynamic" situations.

OAW