Play Windows Media in Quicktime
by Volker Weber
With Windows Media® Components for QuickTime, by Flip4Mac, you can play Windows Media files (.wma and .wmv) directly in QuickTime Player and view Windows Media content on the Internet using a Web browser.
These components are way better than the dreaded Microsoft Windows Media Player. Until now you had to buy them, but now there is a free version available for download from Microsoft. Flip4Mac hopes to sell you upgrades for the full product which lets you edit and export Windows Media files in Quicktime.
Update: After upgrading Quicktime to 7.0.4 you need to also upgrade Flip4Mac to version 2.0.1 to fix crashes when closing the player.
Comments
It's interesting that Microsoft supports ways to open its pretty much closed video format to its competitor's platforms.
I'm wondering if they are just being nice, or if they want to establish their video-container even further...
I think they're trying to spread their codecs..
Has anyone managed to get this thing working for web playback?
It does play the CES Gates webcast just fine for me. I mean, it tries to. In contrast to the MWSF Jobs keynote it sucks badly. And I am not even talking about the content.
Theyare yanking WMF support for the Mac completely and pushing you to this tool as a stop gap. Could end up with new MS codecs not working on the Mac. Unless Flip4Mac keep current. Will it still be free then?
More...
Doesnt seem very stable to me. I often get QT crashes at the end of playing the WMV file.
Andy,
the crashes are related to the latest QuickTime update (7.0.4). Just update to the new Version of Flip4Mac (2.0.1).
