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onlyone-jc · Oct 20, 2006, 06:12 PM

Does anybody know? Any Microsoft Mac beta testers out there?

It seems that Microsoft provide their Windows Media Player 9, but this only supports WMV2. Whereas, their latest Windows Media Player 10, supports both WMV2 and WMV3.

Will Windows Media Player 10 ever become available for OS X?

Thanks,
onlyone-jc.

besson3c · Oct 20, 2006, 06:31 PM

No, Microsoft has dropped WMP.

The WMV codecs are available for use in Quicktime though.

onlyone-jc · Oct 20, 2006, 06:54 PM

The codecs available for QuickTime (Flip4Mac) only cover WMV2 as far as I'm aware. The latest WMV3 encoding isn't supported by it, as far as I'm aware.

What are Microsoft replacing Windows Media Player with? Or, what have they replaced it with?

onlyone-jc.

TheoCryst · Oct 20, 2006, 06:58 PM

They haven't, basically. They "officially" support Flip4Mac, but that's it. Just like they did for IE:mac, they've stopped development of WMP for Mac.

Storyboy · Oct 20, 2006, 07:00 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

No, Microsoft has dropped WMP.

The WMV codecs are available for use in Quicktime though.

You want to download Flip4Mac WMV 2.1.0.33 - VersionTracker:

Works well for me!

Apfhex · Oct 20, 2006, 07:14 PM

Originally Posted by onlyone-jc

The codecs available for QuickTime (Flip4Mac) only cover WMV2 as far as I'm aware. The latest WMV3 encoding isn't supported by it, as far as I'm aware.

I don't know exactly what works and what doesn't, but the Flip4Mac site claims WMV3 support.

Flip4Mac is really the only option you have, though. It's by far the best WMV support on the Mac, better than VLC, certainly better than the last version of WMP (which never really worked).

Horsepoo!!! · Oct 20, 2006, 07:42 PM

Here's a list of Mac apps MS dropped:

Halo (it finally made it to Mac but MS had nothing to do with it other than giving someone else the OK)
IE ("the competition was too rough"...right)
Media Player ("we're too incompetent to make this app work correctly"...I agree)
VirtualPC ("we'd have to rewrite the whole thing to make this thing work on Intel-based Macs, boo-hoo-hoo, we'll let Parallels take care of this market"...perfect, VirtualPC sucked balls beyond version 3 and kept getting worse under MS' helm)

I hope they drop Office next so Apple can really get its ass in gear and release a sweet, sweet office suite.

analogika · Oct 21, 2006, 09:03 AM

They've pledged to continue developing Office for Mac for at least another four years.

Which is good, because no Office for Mac would mean instant death of the Apple option for a HUGE number of potential switchers.

Uncle Skeleton · Oct 21, 2006, 02:59 PM

WMP and Flip4Mac both support WMV3, but neither support DRM (there is no way to watch DRM'd movies outside of Windows)

Sometimes Flip4Mac stumbles, usually on an MP43 wmv file (or a corrupt wmv/asf), and I have to go back to WMP (or VLC)

Curiosity · Oct 21, 2006, 03:17 PM

If I try to play .wmv files with VLC, all I get is audio, but no video.

Uncle Skeleton · Oct 21, 2006, 04:46 PM

VLC doesn't support WMV3. If you play a .wmv file with WMV1 or WMV2 (or MP43 etc) codecs, you'd see video.

Franz · Oct 21, 2006, 05:24 PM

The nightly builds of VLC support WMV3 if i recall correctly.