WMV on Intel Macs

Video

April 11, 2006 - 3:00am

Question

how do i view wmv on intel-based mac pro?

Answer

Microsoft recently partnered up with another company to release Flip4Mac, allowing Mac users better support for Windows Media content. It works fairly well, but doesn’t yet support Intel Macs.

There are two hurdles. One is small, one is big. The 2.0.2 installer for Flip4Mac checks your hardware for Intelness and, if found, refuses to install. Any number of solutions will overcome this. Dig around in the pkg file and install it manually, or use Pacifist.

Secondly, it really doesn’t work on Intel hardware. There is good news, however, and it’s not just that I just saved a bunch on my car insurance. Apple provided QuickTime Player as a universal app, not just as native-Intel. This is good. Get info on it and tell it to run in Rosetta. This works for most of the WMVs I have laying around, but not all of them. My completely unfounded, unsubstantiated, rectally-generated expectation is that some of the codecs don’t mind Rosetta, while others do.

If it doesn’t work for yours, you can always try the nightly VLC for Intel builds.

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April 12, 2006 - 12:45pm

Enigma said

Flip4mac is a more complete solution which will allow webstreams and web content to be viewed in addition to local WMV’s.

However, an annoucment was released today for the first Universal Binary plugin to allow QuickTime to view WMV’s locally on an intel mac.

http://www.popwire.com/product_info.php?cPath=1&products_id=7

I have tested it out and it works great with WMV files.

April 13, 2006 - 9:00am

SlyGuy said

$50 is a little steep to play WMV

April 13, 2006 - 12:08pm

Enigma said

To view them it is free.

“This software is only available through download (about 20 MB). Without a license key it will limit your encoding time to 20 sec. To remove the limitations, please purchase a license key. Your license key will appear under “My Account” and “License Keys”.”

May 9, 2006 - 8:59am

HairyPotter said

google for mplayer and you will find the most perfect player I ever see. I don’t know a single format mplayer can’t play. Much more fast, trouble free than any program you may used. You can play DVD, open VOBs, mpeg, avi, mov, wmv, everything. AND IT’S FREE!

10 stars out of five to mplayer!

May 9, 2006 - 9:06am

JC said

first off… the Flip4Mac decoder is free. you only have to pay to get the encoder.

second off, mplayer has had significant trouble with the newer WMV codecs.

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