Windows Media Player 9 for Mac OS X Available

corsa writes "I found Windows Media Player 9 for Mac OS X on Microsoft's site today. I downloaded it and have it running under Panther. It seems to play WMV9 files, at least the few I've tried so far."

Comments

Die, die, die

[Squozen]

WMP for OS X sucks, pure and simple. On a 1.25Ghz CPU with 1Gb of RAM running a fresh install of Panther, WMP 9 started struggling on a local file after 20-30 seconds, stuttering and skipping frames. Use VLC and hope that they integrate all the annoying Microsoft proprietary codecs soon.

Interestingly, RealPlayer isn't bad at all on the Mac. I held off on installing it for quite a while after seeing all the baggage that came with a Windows install, but it's pretty clean and seems to stream video well.

Conspiracy?

[ZxCv]

Maybe Microsoft is just out to get you. I installed this new version on Saturday, and while its interface could use some work, I found the media support to be a million times better than the last version of WMP for OS X. It not only played the files that the last version wouldn't, but several files that had audio or video glitches when played with the last version now played flawlessly. Perhaps your installation got screwed up? Try reinstalling it, and more importantly, deleting its existing files from ~/Library/Preferences before you reinstall (this second part actually fixed an issue on my friend's machine).

And, while VLC is great, I have still come across a number of files (Windows Media in particular) that it won't play correctly or won't play at all. My best solution has come down to keeping updated versions of QuickTime, RealOne, Windows Media Player, VLC, and Mplayer around. In my experience, this has been the only way to make sure I can play every media file I come across.