Microsoft Ends Windows Media Player on the Mac

plugin by zxd · 2006-01-12 19:38 · Score: 0, Flamebait

Is the plugin made by microsoft?

Re:plugin by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-12 19:42 · Score: 1, Informative

Is the plugin made by microsoft?

No, hence the name Third party plugin

More to follow by harris+s+newman · 2006-01-12 19:39 · Score: 0, Interesting

You will see microsoft pulling all support for Apple out in the near future, due to the fact that Apple will be competing with them in the near future in the OS market.

Re:More to follow by aussie_a · 2006-01-12 19:56 · Score: 4, Funny

You will see microsoft pulling all support for Apple out in the near future

Apple fans have taken to the street to celebrate this development.
Re:More to follow by dvhh · 2006-01-13 01:23 · Score: 1

No more office/msn messenger in the next month ?
Re:More to follow by generationxyu · 2006-01-13 03:35 · Score: 1

Really, the only thing they offer us is Office. iWork is going to have to get pretty damn good before that changes, so it'll be a while. Pretty damn good, by the way, means reading and writing Office files at least as well as OpenOffice does, but hopefully better, and having all the necessary features of Office. So far a spreadsheet is the most notably lacking offering. Maybe iWork '07?

--
I mod down pyramid schemes in sigs.
Re:More to follow by tsaler · 2006-01-13 05:05 · Score: 1

If they added a full-fledged spreadsheet application to iWork then they could pull support for Office and I for one would be quite happy about it. I prefer Word to Pages for some things, of course, but I think if Apple was really trying to make iWork compete with Office (as far as I am concerned, when Jobs is using time in his keynote speech to reassure people that Office works in Rosetta, they're not competing products) then they would do a heck of a job.
Re:More to follow by doggo · 2006-01-13 08:00 · Score: 1

I miss Claris/AppleWorks.

The main complaint I have about the Office suite is that it's too feature-ful. And unintuitive. Too helpful, in an annoying way, and the actual help files are more confusing than helpful. Claris' word processor was relatively simple, so you could get on with writing your document and not spend %20 of your time fighting it's auto-formatting and trying to find things in the menus.

I think modularity would improve the whole office suite paradigm:

Start with a basic word processing application, then for more complex or specialized word processing, include modules that can be turned on and off. You do medical writing, you add the medical writing module and it gives you... I dunno, a latin spellcheck? Same thing for law, finance, scholarship etc. In fact, make the whole suite modular, and sell the modules separately.

I would like to have a great word processor, but I don't necessarily need a presentation application. Or you may need a spreadsheet that's really capable, but can get by with a simple word processing application like Textedit or Wordpad. Extrapolate this with all of the Office parts, database, e-mail client, calendaring, etc.

Office gets pirated so much because it's so damned expensive that the average home user can't afford it. If you have a small business, sure, you can write it off, but who needs to spend almost $500 to write letters?

I know there are a plethora of solutions out there of various levels of quality and compatibility, but the real life truth is: Microsoft Office is the standard for business documents and business collaboration. Even where I work in academia, your colleagues expect you to send your documents in Word, or Excel, or Powerpoint formats.

I also know that MS has done some of this with their "Standard" & "Professional" packages, but it still misses the point.

But that's the main problem with the whole Microsoft product line. They want to do everything up front. Ship a system with all the bells and whistles turned on. Look where it got them in the security sphere.

Oh dear! by nano2nd · 2006-01-12 19:39 · Score: 5, Funny

I've had a mac for two years and I didn't know Windows Media Player for mac even existed!

--
G4 Hackintosh

Re:Oh dear! by DurendalMac · 2006-01-12 20:52 · Score: 1

Oh, it does, but it's crap. It'll play .wmv files that VLC and MPlayer wont, but there's no optimization whatsoever and it has a lot of pain in the ass quirks.
Re:Oh dear! by freedom_india · 2006-01-12 20:59 · Score: 2, Funny

You forgot to mention that WMP crashes on its starup most of the time.
But you have colorful skins to choose from when it starts and runs!

--
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
Re:Oh dear! by alphasubzero949 · 2006-01-12 21:18 · Score: 1

"But you have colorful skins to choose from when it starts and runs!" That's if the skins don't crash the player first.
Re:Oh dear! by TTimo · 2006-01-12 21:19 · Score: 5, Interesting

Windows Media player for Mac was a joke anyway. Very buggy, playback would stop/hang randomly. It's been there, and broken for years .. if only the format was open enough for others to implement working codecs.
Re:Oh dear! by ThePhilips · 2006-01-12 21:54 · Score: 1

I wonder if that would hint Apple to licesning Windows Media for Mac OS from M$.

P.S. Thou, I think that's impossible, due to Apple's policies on QuickTime: ability to play files created with older version of QucikTime. M$ likes to drop stuff as they wish. Apple somewhat cares more about customers' experience.

P.P.S. I keep that WMP for Mac on my iBook - sometimes I'm getting WMV files from Wind0ze people. But, Thanks God, many now came back to DivX/XViD with MP3/AAC packaged as AVI or OGM. So most of the time it works now ;-)

P.P.P.S. I beleive, WMP for Mac always had the "Beta" moniker. Thou I think we can hardly call that "being released". Anyway, VLC is better. It would be good, if one day it will support WMV9 - but otherwise it is not something that I miss much. Anime fansub groups release DivX which plays with no problems by all players ;-)

P.P.P.P.S. "Our focus really is in delivering the best experience to Windows customers." Then M$ has to drop that crap called Windows Media and license and bundle DivX. That's my best experience on Wind0ze.

--
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
Re:Oh dear! by commodoresloat · 2006-01-12 22:00 · Score: 2, Funny

you obviously don't watch nearly enough porn.
Re:Oh dear! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-12 22:10 · Score: 3, Funny

P.S. it's not really a postscript if it makes up 99% of your post.
Re:Oh dear! by pomo+monster · 2006-01-12 22:18 · Score: 3, Interesting

Whaa...? But I watched the whole keynote. Is there more?
Re:Oh dear! by tsa · 2006-01-12 22:38 · Score: 1

Exactly. Good riddens I say.

--
-- Cheers!
Re:Oh dear! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-12 23:20 · Score: 0

Don't worry, you weren't missing much. I installed it on my old (pre OS X) Mac and it would refuse to play just about everything, claiming bandwidth issues. And these files were on a RAM disk.
Re:Oh dear! by CvD · 2006-01-12 23:21 · Score: 3, Interesting

Unfortunately it was the only way to play a lot of WMV files. VLC and MPlayer do not correctly play a lot of these files. I hope that I will be able to in the future. There are a lot of .wmv files floating around, and it would suck not being able to watch them on a Mac.

Cheers

--
The Official Steve Ballmer Webpage
Re:Oh dear! by Ucklak · 2006-01-13 00:14 · Score: 1

All the more reason to stop using the format.

It's what Microsoft wants. For everybody to use their platform becaue their platform will only support what they throw their weight behind (then drop to change to something else)

--
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
Re:Oh dear! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 01:15 · Score: 0

So it's like quicktime on windows?
Re:Oh dear! by Lars+T. · 2006-01-13 01:19 · Score: 1

Well, yeah, like the MS guy in the article said: "Our focus really is in delivering the best experience to Windows customers."
Not that I think the WMP is that good on Windows either.

--
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Re:Oh dear! by Lars+T. · 2006-01-13 01:22 · Score: 1

No, it's like WMP on Windows, just even more so. Likes to crash and controlls are useless.

--
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Re:Oh dear! by timeOday · 2006-01-13 01:53 · Score: 1

there are a lot of .wmv files floating around, and it would suck not being able to watch them on a Mac.
As a Linux user, yeah, not being able to reliably watch .wmv's does kinda stink. What with video really taking off at all the online news sites recently, it's a bummer having it fail half the time when you hit the "watch" button.
Re:Oh dear! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 01:55 · Score: 0

His made up 100% of his post, not 99%.
Re:Oh dear! by eclectic4 · 2006-01-13 02:02 · Score: 2, Interesting

"Unfortunately it was the only way to play a lot of WMV files."

To verify what "a lot" means, it does not mean most. "Most" WMV files play just great in VLC, the vast majority in fact. The only ones that will not play are ones using WMV3. For those I use Windows Media Player for Mac. So, the only ones that will not play on the Mac are the WMV 10/DRM'd videos (as far as I can tell, and I use this stuff daily). Big freakin' deal. If MS wants to shoot themselves in the foot by not paying a dev a weeks pay to port it to Mac, then fine. This Mac user couldn't care less... It is strange, though, that they would literally cut 4.5-5% (and growing) of the market for what should take a week to port to the Intel Macs (at most). Seems more like a defensive move on MS's part... strange indeed.

--

"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
Re:Oh dear! by csp · 2006-01-13 02:08 · Score: 1

Microsoft got the Windows Media 9 codec published as SMPTE standard 421M. You'll likely need a patent license, as with MPEG-4 and most other codecs, but aside from that on alternative implementation is possible.
Re:Oh dear! by sebi · 2006-01-13 02:08 · Score: 3, Informative

Oh, I'm not actually using the format since it is so bad. Doesn't mean that I don't want to. Unfortunately Windows Media is the only format MLB offers their archives in. Fortunately Real is a working alternative for live broadcasts (and it works surprisingly well) but in the off-season I am pretty much hosed with my mac. The first time I heard of this third-party plugin I was quite enthusiastic, but it didn't work. I just tried again and it still doesn't work for the one thing I need it.

It's a shame, really, since it's such a nice service in theory, but what can you do? Now that WMP on mac is dead I can hope that baseball gets its act together and starts offering the archived games in an alternative format. Real would be enough, but of course I'd be happy with quicktime too.

--
Hank! White!
Re:Oh dear! by eclectic4 · 2006-01-13 02:10 · Score: 1

...BTW, Flip4Mac will play the WMV files via QT and in browsers, so this truly is a non story...

--

"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
Re:Oh dear! by Kadin2048 · 2006-01-13 02:15 · Score: 2, Insightful

Unfortunately though, there are a lot of WMV3 codec videos floating around out there. I'm not sure why, perhaps it's the default codec used by something, but I'd guess that 60-70% of the WMV files I've come across lately have refused to play in VLC. And they're not DRMed files either, just random stuff I've had sent to me.

The real problem in my mind is why people are encoding their content with such a stupid format, given the vast number of better alternatives. I pretty much delete anything that gets sent to me in a format that I can't read, and so far my life hasn't suffered for it. But it is frustrating -- it recalls a time when people started sending ASF files around instead of AVIs, for no particular reason that I could decipher.

I'm not sure how we do it, but we need to try to educate users that WMV3 isn't a codec that's acceptable (or even usable) for a non-insignificant number of users. If the elimination of official Microsoft support for Windows Media Player on the Mac makes this fraction bigger and more noticeable, then all the better. Mac users are a notoriously noisy bunch given their marketshare, maybe the web site operators will get a clue and pick a different codec (Divx, etc.) in the future.

If that happened, not only Mac users but also Linux users (and any other platform besides Windows) could also stand to benefit. WMV3 doesn't do a damn for anyone except Microsoft.

--
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Re:Oh dear! by Rude+Turnip · 2006-01-13 02:37 · Score: 1

Argh, beat me to the punch! Someone please mod this guy as either funny or insightful.

--
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Re:Oh dear! by Seanasy · 2006-01-13 02:40 · Score: 1

Yeah, but it'll crash your browser as often as not. I jumped on Flip4Mac when I heard about it on Digg and immediately deleted WMP. The first WMV I viewed after installing played smoothly in QT then promptly crashed Safari. Grrrrr...
Re:Oh dear! by OneSeventeen · 2006-01-13 02:44 · Score: 1

Windows Media player for Mac was a joke anyway. [...]
Don't you mean:
Windows Media player was a joke anyway. [...]

And why is Microsoft advertising Features of Mac OS anyway?

--
"Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed." -C.S. Lewis
Re:Oh dear! by badasscat · 2006-01-13 03:02 · Score: 1

All the more reason to stop using the format.

Unfortunately, it is one of the more technically competent and compatible formats out there (being an extended version of MPEG-4), and it has a pro-level encoding app available for download from MS that also happens to be free. A lot of people would love to use it if not for boneheaded decisions like this. I'll explain...

It's what Microsoft wants. For everybody to use their platform becaue their platform will only support what they throw their weight behind (then drop to change to something else)

What Microsoft wants and what they're getting out of this are two different things.

MS initially wanted Windows Media to be a universal format. The strategy was to make it the web streaming format of choice. That's still supposedly their strategy.

Unfortunately for them, if 85% of the world uses Windows, to a web developer that means only 85% of the world has easy access to a real WMV player. (The Mac player is so bad now that it almost doesn't count, and flip4mac is payware.) Contrast that with something like Flash Video, which is almost completely cross-platform - it has Windows, Mac, even an official Linux player, and it streams as well or better than any other format.

All I can conclude from this is that they think Windows itself is so compelling with WMP built in that they no longer care about whether or not people use the wmv format on the web. Because as it stands, only idiots use wmv for web use (unless it's one of several options). And yes, I mean you, CNN.
Re:Oh dear! by dhoffman · 2006-01-13 03:21 · Score: 1

"flip4mac is payware"

The new 2.0 version of the player is now free. Probably prompted by the MS referral. They figure they can get enough revenue from the upgrades.
Re:Oh dear! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 03:34 · Score: 0

mplayer-plugin, dude. You can watch any video you want in-browser in linux just fine (except, last I checked, a few QuickTime varieties). But wmv's are a cinch.
Re:Oh dear! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 03:54 · Score: 0

In his case, P.S. meant "Pretentious Sarcasm", not "Post Script."
Re:Oh dear! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 03:57 · Score: 0

"What's the price?"

"Oh, it's free."

"How do you make any money on it?"

"Volume!"
Re:Oh dear! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 04:16 · Score: 0

Didn't you mean:

Windows was a joke anyway. [...]
Re:Oh dear! by timeOday · 2006-01-13 04:21 · Score: 1

mplayer-plugin, dude. You can watch any video you want in-browser in linux just fine (except, last I checked, a few QuickTime varieties). But wmv's are a cinch.
No. I have the mplayer plugin, which sometimes works, kinda-sorta.
Re:Oh dear! by Fordiman · 2006-01-13 04:22 · Score: 0, Flamebait

Real is shit. WMV is shit. Quicktime is shit.

Tell 'em to go with mpeg-4 low bitrate. It's about the only useful format these days.

And while you're telling 'em, tell 'em to go with matroska as the container.

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Re:Oh dear! by Fordiman · 2006-01-13 04:26 · Score: 1

WMV3 is what Windows Movie Maker s(p|h)its out.

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Re:Oh dear! by blackmonday · 2006-01-13 04:35 · Score: 1

The Sirius radio feeds are all Windows Media. I found WMP to be a higher quality product on the mac than on Windows.
Re:Oh dear! by Basehart · 2006-01-13 04:36 · Score: 1

I was in the process of searching for some player/format usage metrics to help determine whether or not to continue producing a QuickTime version of a video based marketing tool I produce, and after this news I realize now that if there's any format I need to drop support for it's Windows Media.

Apart from the fact I like the video quality of the H.264 codec I use for producing video for QuickTime, I also prefer the whole process of creating it. The ease with which I can add interactive content and also control the way in which the playback mechanism functions.

With Windows Media Video it's the usual nightmare getting things to work. The support site at Microsoft is total gibberish, with more dead ends than an abandoned innercity freeway project, and the many and various technologies that Microsoft make available to enable its product to become actually useful are so difficult to figure out I never bother using any of them.

So the metrics I'm looking for now are "how many PC users have an iPod, or use iTunes" (which means QuickTime is already installed) and "how easy is it to install QuickTime if it isn't already present" which is easy. I did it just now on a PC I only run Microsoft apps on. About 15 seconds.
Re:Oh dear! by AndyG314 · 2006-01-13 04:38 · Score: 1

is there an mplayer port for mac? mplayer handles wvm's fairly well, and thats what I use on linux.

--
If it's dead, you killed it.
Re:Oh dear! by terevos · 2006-01-13 04:40 · Score: 2, Insightful

Uhh.. Quicktime IS mpeg4 (H.263) unless you're using their new stuff which is H.264
Re:Oh dear! by squiggleslash · 2006-01-13 04:48 · Score: 2

I can't agree with all the dissing of the Mac WMV player here.
It's a simple, light, client, that's spyware free and whose only bullshit is a "skin" selector. Unlike QuickTime it supports all of the basics in the box (the basic, "free", QT client doesn't even support full screen mode - and no bullshit please from the Apple apologists about how you can write AppleScript hacks to do this, given the absolute spitting contempt you'd have for anyone else's product that requires you launch an external script you've obtained from a third party to have that product do something that should be built in in the first place), and it's not nagware.
It does exactly what it's supposed to do. Any faults with "optimization" you complain about certainly haven't been noticed here on my ancient 800MHz TiBook.
Funnily enough, RealOne on Mac is likewise. An excellent bare-bones-but-does-everything-necessary-and-no-bu llshit client. I've only ever used it on Mac and GNU/Linux, so I get awfully surprised when I hear Slashdotters whining about it being a spyware bloat-fest. Well, apparently it is, on Windows.
WMV on Mac is better than QuickTime on Mac. It shouldn't be, but it is. It does what it's supposed to do. Performance is excellent. The only complaints I've ever had is that it's not as up-to-date as the Windows equivalent and that the format itself, like QuickTime, like Real, is an undocumented DRM-fest. But as a client, it's excellent. Its absense on the Mac platform (and worse, the fact we have to access WMV files via Apple's awful QuickTime client) is sad indeed.

--
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Re:Oh dear! by JourneyExpertApe · 2006-01-13 05:00 · Score: 1

Windows Media player for Mac was a joke anyway. Very buggy, playback would stop/hang randomly. It's been there, and broken for years

You know, the words "for Mac" are really superfluous there.

--
If you can read this sig, you're too close.
Re:Oh dear! by derflammenhund · 2006-01-13 05:06 · Score: 1

It might have been better ideologically speaking, but (unfortunately) microsoft's ideas about not including crap didn't help the fact that it takes forever for playback to restart after a scrub through windows media 9 files and that closing the window quits the program. That and the absence of a way to scrub with the keyboard (Yes, the shortcuts are there; No, I've never once encountered a video that can use them) means that I loathe the thought of using WMP for anything, even if it means keeping mplayer and VLC around.
Re:Oh dear! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 07:27 · Score: 0

>...Quicktime is shit.
>
>Tell 'em to go with mpeg-4 low bitrate...

That is QuickTime, dipshit!
Re:Oh dear! by shotfeel · 2006-01-13 07:39 · Score: 1

I disagree on the performance. WMP has way more trouble keeping up without dropping frames/freezing than QT in my experience. And trying to fast-forward or "scrub through" video with WMP has always been pretty much useless (unlike doing the same in QT Player).

As a client, WMP has always been my last choice. Your pont about no full-screen without buying the Pro version is indeed a point off for Apple though.
Re:Oh dear! by shotfeel · 2006-01-13 07:45 · Score: 1

Doesn't WMP play H.264? It is an mpeg standard IIRC, not an Apple standard, so I would assume WMP would handle it, but I could be wrong.
Re:Oh dear! by shotfeel · 2006-01-13 07:51 · Score: 1

Based on my experience with the Mac port of mplayer, it handles all but the most recent WMV (WMV9?) format just fine. IOW its just the new stuff that's the problem.
Re:Oh dear! by imyourfoot · 2006-01-13 07:54 · Score: 1

Yep. I generally prefer VLC, but I keep MPlayer around for the odd file or two that VLC doesn't handle quite right.
Re:Oh dear! by shotfeel · 2006-01-13 07:54 · Score: 1

Yeah, normally they just crash WMP...
Re:Oh dear! by Enrico+Pulatzo · 2006-01-13 08:05 · Score: 1

I agree with your assessment of Real (especially the basic player v. 10--quite nice) but Windows Media Player for Mac has a ton of faults that aren't worth overlooking.

The first is that it was never updated, so all outstanding bugs remain outstanding.

The second is it works quite poorly as a plugin in web browsers. There are many occasions where WMP just disappears for no reason other than it's a crappy product.

The third annoyance I've got with it is that you can't properly fast-forward or rewind. At least those controls work well within Quicktime.

From the sound of it (complaining about nagware) you're not using Quicktime 7. Give it a shot.
Re:Oh dear! by olddotter · 2006-01-13 08:23 · Score: 1

Windows Media player for Mac was a joke anyway. Very buggy, playback would stop/hang randomly.

Oh so its just as good as MS software for windows. Cool.

--
Think Deeply. ...
Re:Oh dear! by legirons · 2006-01-13 08:49 · Score: 1

"Windows Media player for Mac was a joke anyway. Very buggy, playback would stop/hang randomly."

Our focus really is in delivering the Windows experience to customers...
Re:Oh dear! by Farmer+Tim · 2006-01-13 09:55 · Score: 2, Informative

the basic, "free", QT client doesn't even support full screen mode

The free client also doesn't support file conversion and export...barbaric, I know, but that's just the method Apple use to encourage some to pay for it.

You could of course try one of the free alternative players that do give you full screen:

Echidna Movie Viewer (296KB) http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/6068
Fullscreen Movie Player (926KB) http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/11670
LittleView (208KB) http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/20230
Movie Time (176KB) http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/14774
Nice Player (672KB) http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/15136
Playlist Player (202KB) http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/9442
PresentMovie: (14KB) http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/7534
QT Full Screen (92KB) http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/19158
QTAmateur (77K) http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/18278
QuikTime FS (17K) http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/16959
Xinema (1MB) http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/10767

And that's just the search results from one site, I'm sure there are more out there. You could trash the QuickTime Player and relace it with any of those, because unlike Real and WMV, QuickTime codecs are available to any software that uses the relevant APIs (which is why these programs are so small: the codecs are already in the OS, so they just contain interface components. They'll even play WMVs if you have the third-party codec installed).

WMV on Mac is better than QuickTime on Mac. It shouldn't be, but it is. It does what it's supposed to do. Performance is excellent.

I don't know about you, but for me "performance" means being able to jump forwards and backwards on the timeline and see more than black screen (the third party WMV codecs for QuickTime can do this, why can't Microsoft manage it?); even my old VHS has a functional "fast forward" button. I'd take that over the minor inconvenience of a tiny fraction of my screen being taken up by window edges any day (not that its really an issue for me, since I do use the export features of QTPro its worth paying for it). And I can't say I'm impressed by WMP's audio at any data rate.

--
Blank until /. makes another boneheaded UI decision.
Re:Oh dear! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 10:36 · Score: 0

The free client also doesn't support file conversion and export...barbaric, I know, but that's just the method Apple use to encourage some to pay for it.

No standard players convert/export files, while every serious one except for Quicktime does do fullscreen. This comment is far from witty, or sophisticated, or whatnot.
Re:Oh dear! by Swift2001 · 2006-01-13 11:01 · Score: 1

"WMV on Mac is better than QuickTime on Mac." My mama had a term for this. When I said something really stupid, she would look at me and say, "Are you out of your cotton-picking mind?" Aside from its necessity if you want to watch video on the web, it's a huge annoyance. I now use Flip4Mac, so I can open almost all Windows Media files in Quicktime.
Re:Oh dear! by Swift2001 · 2006-01-13 11:08 · Score: 1

Don't trash WM Player. It gets a new icon, but it's still around, and you need it.
Re:Oh dear! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 12:12 · Score: 0

And it performs similarly on Windows, from what I can remember. I was once hanging out with this polish DJ and he was playing some tracks on a new version of windows media player. It would hang ever half hour or so, and need to be re-opened. He didn't seem to mind, it was expected behaviour.
Re:Oh dear! by Fordiman · 2006-01-13 12:33 · Score: 1

correction: Quicktime _the container_ is shit. Go with mkv.

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Re:Oh dear! by toddestan · 2006-01-13 13:06 · Score: 1

You could of course try one of the free alternative players that do give you full screen:

I think you missed one: Windows Media Player for Mac. Sure, not my first choice either, but it does work.
Re:Oh dear! by mr100percent · 2006-01-13 19:05 · Score: 1

Try the new update. The old version crashed or something under the latest Quicktime 7.0.4 update.
Re:Oh dear! by Farmer+Tim · 2006-01-14 08:37 · Score: 1

It may come as a shock to learn that for some of us file export is actually more important than full screen.

And as for wit and sophistication, I claim neither since it was merely a slightly sarcastic observation of Apple's marketing strategy (its not very clever mistaking sarcasm for wit, you know)

--
Blank until /. makes another boneheaded UI decision.
Re:Oh dear! by Farmer+Tim · 2006-01-14 09:41 · Score: 1

I think you missed one: Windows Media Player for Mac.

No, I specifically left WMP out because of the two quality issues I cited: (1) It can't jump form place to place on the timeline without leaving a black screen (even though flip4mac for QuickTime can), and (2) the audio is IMO uniformly terrible (my high frequency hearing is very good, and I want to keep it that way; 10 minutes of WMP audio and I feel like someone has jammed spikes in my ears). The former is completely unacceptable to me in an on-demand media player, the latter is just plain unacceptable.

Also, since you hadn't noticed, I was deliberately listing players that use the QuickTime architecture to play a variety of formats; last time I tried, the only formats that WMP could play were WMV and WMA (I've never been able to get it to play anything else, but I'd be interested if your luck is different).

The point I was making is that if your biggest gripe about the QuickTime Player is that you have to pay for full screen, then there are plenty of free, small footprint (which WMP is not) players that will do the job. Some of them even have better performance than the QTPlayer; try some, you will be pleasantly surprised and find it a worthwhile exercise.

Sure, not my first choice either, but it does work.

Can't shuttle, horrible audio, hit-and-miss recognition of format versions (depending on whether or not Microsoft sees fit to keep the Mac & PC versions concurrent, which is not my experience)...that sounds like the Windows definition of "it does work". Are you sure you own a Macintosh? ;)

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Re:Oh dear! by Squirrelgirl · 2006-01-20 11:20 · Score: 1

QT comes with any installation of iTunes for PC and you need QT to look at video trailers on Apples trailer site to name a couple reasons why users might have QT already. :)

Symbiotic relationship? by BadAnalogyGuy · 2006-01-12 19:40 · Score: 5, Insightful

The whole relationship between Apple and Microsoft has been weird to me. I figure its a symbiotic relationship like a dead tree with a fungus. Why Microsoft was supporting a competitor at all is up for discussion. Seeing as how WMP wasn't really a money maker in the first place, it makes sense that they drop development.

Re:Symbiotic relationship? by zonker · 2006-01-12 20:01 · Score: 0

stranger still that microsoft would announce this during macworld. nice work guys, way to be passive-aggressive assholes...

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Re:Symbiotic relationship? by mike518 · 2006-01-12 20:06 · Score: 0

but by this standard why bother making it for windows either... i mean nobody buys windows for all the great apps you get (because you dont really get any) -- and i dont see how it was making them money seeing as how they have no music store or anything. Besides companies like HP have been bundling things like musicmatch, itunes/quicktime and rhapsody. WMP cant even defaultly play half the media thats out there without codecs. No, i think the reason was less about money (which also may have been a role though) and more about that no one on the mac used it.. i tried to download it once and it never worked (i think it was giving me an old OS9 "executible" ). I personally use VLC which is typically what i find on apple based machines. Still i agree Apple should natively have software (preinstalled) that can play a freaking .avi file.

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Mike
I heart the RIAA & MPAA, im sure its mutual...
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-12 20:13 · Score: 1, Funny

I figure its a symbiotic relationship like a dead tree with a fungus.
A nicely subtle bad analogy. Of course it can't be a symbiotic relationship if the tree is dead.
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by DA-MAN · 2006-01-12 20:16 · Score: 1

Still i agree Apple should natively have software (preinstalled) that can play a freaking .avi file.

The only thing that "Windows Media Player" for the Mac can play is unprotected WMV.

QuickTime plays avi's just fine.

--
Can I get an eye poke?
Dog House Forum
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by DK_LA · 2006-01-12 20:22 · Score: 2, Insightful

Why Microsoft was supporting a competitor at all is up for discussion.
One word... antitrust.
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by kiddailey · 2006-01-12 20:27 · Score: 2, Interesting

I never considered it weird myself and actually kind of enjoyed it for some twisted reason. What is weird to me though is that it feels like they're dropping things left and right. I realize it's only two products thus far, but IE and Windows Media Player for Mac have been around for quite some time.

Is the rest of the Mactopia line going to be on the chopping block next? Is Microsoft gearing up for an all-out "platform-warm" with Apple and planning to remove their presences from OS X completely?

Seriously...

VirtualPC will probably become obsolete since under OS X/Intel it will just be a crappy additional (and somewhat unrequired) layer.

Apple is almost building an Office Suite with Pages, Keynote, Mail and iCal. Will Office matter on OS X in the coming years?

That really only leaves Messenger and Remote Desktop, which aren't even the big players for the MS MacBU. Will be interesting to see what happens.
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by sumdumass · 2006-01-12 20:35 · Score: 2, Insightful

The relationship comes from a point of time where there was competition for a default format.

A media company going with real, quicktime or WMPs is making a big investment. One of the concerns actualy was "could everyone wanting to view our content actualy do so". Quicktime, the answer was yes becuase it run on apple and windows. Microsoft needed to show some of the same for thier product. Now that most comercial grade media encoders/ editers can produce in more then one format, it isn't as important. Actualy, windows movie maker probably solidified it. Now, with all the DRM content being pushed, WMP's formats will have some what of a push.

I'm currious if this will hurt microsofts sales in thier DRM tech. It seems that if a company was going to pay for protection, they would want to make sure all thier clients could access it. Mac having a noticable market share, might be the system of choice for those willing to pay for DRMed content and i don't think this pluging allowed that.
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-12 20:36 · Score: 0

Seeing as how WMP wasn't really a money maker in the first place, it makes sense that they drop development.

Well, it was supposed to be a money maker. There's DRM protected content out there for sale which is not readable by the current version of Windows Media Player for Mac, even though Microsoft promised support 'real soon now' for the past two years.

I can see Microsoft conceding that Quicktime (yes, mp3 and AAC) is winning the audio format wars thanks to the iPod, but I couldn't forsee them giving up on video so quickly. The Mac market is small compared to Windows, but it's not insignificant in terms of consumer spending and content purchases.

I think this move makes Windows Media a lot less attractive as format for content providers.
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by somethinghollow · 2006-01-12 20:49 · Score: 3, Funny

At the MacWorld San Francisco keynote, the head of Microsoft's Mac Business Unit said they pledged to keep making Office for at least five years. That should give Apple plenty of time to make a decent office suite.
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by man_eleven · 2006-01-12 21:08 · Score: 2, Funny

I wonder if Microsoft is anticipating a larger Apple market share with the introduction of Intel Macs, and are positioning themselves for a dual-boot status?
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by alphasubzero949 · 2006-01-12 21:41 · Score: 1

Of course it can't be a symbiotic relationship if the tree is dead.
Hence an antibiotic relationship. Wait a minute, I think I just stumbled on the cure.
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by drsmithy · 2006-01-12 21:57 · Score: 1

One word... antitrust.
In that little antitrust trial they had a while back, Microsoft and Apple weren't considered competitors.
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by Bert64 · 2006-01-12 22:04 · Score: 1

Well, VirtualPC also runs on windows, and behaves similarly to vmware when it does (virtualization rather than emulation).

On the other hand, theres tools like qemu coming along that work just fine on OSX, and there's no reason vmware couldn't be ported to OSX/x86.

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Re:Symbiotic relationship? by Salvo · 2006-01-12 22:37 · Score: 1

But Mac users are in their own little Niche.
Media Companies realise that their content is being also being mirrored in official Apple channels, and Mac users would rather use those channels than 'Aftermarket' Channels.
That is one reason why Bigpond Music and Napster supply in WMP formats, and don't bother with a Mac solution. Even if they put in the extra effort to supply their product in a Mac Compatible format, Mac users would still prefer iTMS due to it's Ease of use and Integration.
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by anticypher · 2006-01-12 23:48 · Score: 5, Insightful

Doesn't anyone remember when Apple was doing really badly at the end of 1997, when Steve Jobs came back as "not the CEO, just a consultant"? Apple was doing very poorly because they, like every other OS manufacturer at the time, were locked out of every distribution channel by M$'s aggressive (and later, ruled illegal) control of >95% of the retail market place.

The MacWorld of 1998 had Jobs introducing Gates on stage, and they announced that M$ would make a US$150 million investment in Apple, buying US$75M of non-voting stock at twice the price (IIRC, AAPL was at $11/share, M$ paid $22/share). The deal also included a patent portfolio swap, where each has unlimited access to the other's patents royalty free. M$ agreed to support a fully functional version of office on the mac for at least 10 years. Apple agreed to drop its support of the anti-trust case. There were a bunch of other details in the deal which made the business rather unsavory, but both companies desperately needed each other at that moment in time.

Since then, it was obvious who really got the better end of that deal. Apple has unlimited access to every patent M$ owns or licenses from other companies. Apple can out-innovate M$ at every step, and never has to worry about a patent challenge in the courts. Jobs learned his lessons when dealing with Gates, and certainly made sure Apple couldn't be too screwed over by M$ later on. Now, with Apple rising on a whole raft of good, trendy, high-margin products and a completely independant distribution chain, and M$ floundering in a sea of troubles, it looks like Jobs is getting his revenge.

the AC

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Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by hey! · 2006-01-12 23:58 · Score: 3, Funny

I never considered it weird myself and actually kind of enjoyed it for some twisted reason.

You mean, like the feeling you get when you dress up in women's clothes?

**ducks**

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Re:Symbiotic relationship? by hey! · 2006-01-13 00:09 · Score: 1

I don't think it's all that inexplicable.

Everybody has to live with Microsoft, but Apple comes as close as an IT company can to not doing so as possible. Microsoft is a conservative company that waits for others to take the bulk of the innovation risks, so it watches Apple very closely.

Seeing as how WMP wasn't really a money maker in the first place, it makes sense that they drop development.

WMP is NOT about making a profit. Otherwise it wouldn't be free on the majority of desktops in the world. It's about becoming the landlord of the music delivery business and charging rent to anybody who wants to go down the pike.

This would be the fabled cash cow; MS could just sit back and watch the dollars roll in, just like the glory days of the 80s and early 90s.

This is kind of what Apple has done with iTunes and their music store. Once you decide to live in that particular country, you're using iTunes to manage your iPod, and you're not ever going to use anybody else's music store, and you're going to send them their cut of the track price without even thinking about it.

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Re:Symbiotic relationship? by adolfojp · 2006-01-13 00:16 · Score: 1

Like the last blue lightning of a storm in may BadAnalogyGuy strikes again. :-P
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by jimbolaya · 2006-01-13 00:49 · Score: 3, Insightful

Mac users would still prefer iTMS due to it's Ease of use and Integration.
Apparently, so would most Windows users.

--
There ain't no rules here; we're trying to accomplish something.
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by Kadin2048 · 2006-01-13 02:25 · Score: 4, Informative

QuickTime plays avi's just fine.

Er, no it doesn't.

It's not really Quicktime's fault, but has something to do with either how AVI deals with MP3 audio tracks, or how people put MP3 audio into them. I've never been entirely clear.

But the great majority of Divx AVIs that you download (theoretically, or so I'm told, by some guy down at the 7-11 who knows such things) will not play in Quicktime "off the shelf." You'll get a black screen and no audio, or sometimes you'll get video and no audio, or desynced audio and video.

The fix is to run them through a little program called "Divx Doctor," which takes the AVI as an input and produces a Quicktime MOV file, either standalone or as a pointer to the content of the AVI, that you can play with. They work just fine.

Or you can just play the AVIs as-is in VLC, which also has the benefit of supporting playlists and some WMV codecs.

Quicktime technically has the ability to play AVIs, but it's a useless feature because of the way that 90% of the ones you'll find online are put together (Divx video with MP3 audio).

--
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by nurb432 · 2006-01-13 03:23 · Score: 1

This relationship is slowly ending. Piece by Piece.

Now that microsoft doesnt need competition to keep them out of court, they really dont care.

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---- Booth was a patriot ----
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by PeeweeJD · 2006-01-13 03:29 · Score: 1

Why Microsoft was supporting a competitor at all is up for discussion.

Someone else said anti trust, but I think its another reason.

How about the fact that there are still millions and millions of macs out in the wild (with a large % being "connected" type people). If they didnt support macs to even the smallest degree they would be forcing their customers (the people with windows machines) who wanted to encode video that could play on macs and PCs to use another format, usually having to pay a fee to a competitor for Quicktime Pro/Real/Divx or whatever?

Doing a crappy job of porting WMP to macs sounds like good business to me.
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by greed · 2006-01-13 03:56 · Score: 1

Don't forget that, in 1995 and 1996, Apple made some of the crappiest low-end machines of their existence. Look up the Performa 5200/5300 and 6200/6300 family, googling up "road apples" should help.
Having shit low-end machines means anyone "just trying" a Mac gets a horrible user experience ever, slow machines, unstable software, and so on. And then they buy something else for their next box.
And those low-end machines weren't that cheap, either.
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 04:12 · Score: 0

Hmm. Does that mean Apple is already, by extension, a licensee of Burst's IP then? How would it make any sense for Apple to sue Burst for infringement, if that's the case?
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by macmaniac · 2006-01-13 04:14 · Score: 1

I've found that installing a combination of the 3ivx plugin (3ivx.com) and the latest Divx/Mac software works fine for most of the avi-mp3 ones. Those that don't _tend_ to work fine in VLC.
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by Krusty+Da+Klown · 2006-01-13 04:19 · Score: 1

I have good luck playing just about everything with my Quicktime setup:

In my /Library/Quicktime I have the Flip4Mac, OggVorbis, DivX 6, 3ivx, FFusion and AC3 components.

One problem had been the fact that people were encoding their DivX files to use WMA audio which quicktime couldn't handle before Flip4Mac. There was another problem I had in the past with audio but I think upgrading the 3ivx (or maybe it was DivX, I forget) component may have been the solution.

At any rate check to see if you have the same components installed as I do.
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 04:30 · Score: 0

Apple has unlimited access to every patent M$ owns or licenses from other companies
This is the plan, keep MS and Apple as the only two with licenses to all patents. This way, two proprietary vendors are on "equal ground" (although MS still won't disclose all APIs and has closed file formats etc) and MS can claim they are not 100% monopoly. Also, this way only the proprietary vendors have access to the patents and not hobbyists or start-ups.
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by Fordiman · 2006-01-13 04:30 · Score: 1

It's actually due to Quicktime's inability to handle a variable bitrate audio stream in an avi container (which is a hack of the AVI 'spec'; it was never designed to handle variable streams, as AVI was built before variable-rate mpeg audio came on the scene)

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Re:Symbiotic relationship? by Durandal64 · 2006-01-13 04:35 · Score: 1

Microsoft and Apple don't really have a relationship. The Mac Business Unit at Microsoft, which is basically its own little independent unit, and Apple have a relationship. The MacBU aren't the ones responsible for Windows Media Player on OS X.
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by Fordiman · 2006-01-13 04:38 · Score: 1

Darwine will probably supplant VirtualPC on intel macs.

Meanwhile, iWork, with a little code-borrowing from Openoffice and kOffice could easily make MS Office useless.

And, yes. I see it too. The first shots are being fired.

I thought this would happen back when the Intel move was announced. Jobs knew hackers would get OS-X to non-apple machines, and he still knows it. Sure, he'll make some noise now and again, but it boils down to this: he WANTS it. Once the 'bought and patched' user base is large enough, he'll be able to take on Gates' stranglehold on the PC world directly.

And Gates knows it. Neither side wants to say anything, but OS-X has the firepower to blow windows out. Once the market conditions shift in the right way

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Re:Symbiotic relationship? by Queer+Boy · 2006-01-13 05:06 · Score: 1

Why Microsoft was supporting a competitor at all is up for discussion.

Because over and over again (Google it) Microsoft has said that the MacBU is one of its most profitable units.

--
Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by tapo · 2006-01-13 06:24 · Score: 1

Actually, that was Macworld Boston 1997, where they agreed to five years, not ten. As a matter of fact, it can be viewed here.

--
"Joy is contagious," he said, peering into the microscope.
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 06:53 · Score: 0

All that access to each other's patents, and we STILL can't get cross-format compatibility for digital music? I mean really, I just want a good alternative to the iTunes Music Store, or the ability to play iTMS music on non-iPod players or Windows Media Player.
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by PCM2 · 2006-01-13 06:55 · Score: 1

Apple was doing very poorly because they, like every other OS manufacturer at the time, were locked out of every distribution channel by M$'s aggressive (and later, ruled illegal) control of >95% of the retail market place.
Uh huh. That's a fairly simplistic assessment, don't you think?
If you're correct, however, then thank goodness that Apple got access to that retail channel before it came out with the iMac, the iPod, G4 and G5 Power Macs and Powerbooks, and Mac OS X. Otherwise it would have been doomed!
Wait, where have I heard that before?

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Breakfast served all day!
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by ZackSchil · 2006-01-13 09:39 · Score: 1

This is absolutely false. Grab the Mac Quicktime codec from DivX.com. It replaces Quicktime's AVI importer with its own and everything works perfectly. Add this to the fact that you'll need the DivX codec to play these things in Quicktime anyway and your argument falls to pieces. If you're using 3ivx to play DivX movies in Quicktime, you're insane. Their decoder sucks.
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by mmeister · 2006-01-13 11:44 · Score: 1

VirtualPC will probably become obsolete since under OS X/Intel it will just be a crappy additional (and somewhat unrequired) layer.

This tells me that you don't understand what Virtual PC does. Even without the emulation part, Virtual PC will be very useful to run that specific Windows app inside of the Mac OS.

And before you go there, dual-booting may be possible, but it isn't practical. It's overly complicated, requires much more configuration and means you have to completely leave the Mac environment. Thanks, but no thanks. I don't want that just to run a couple programs.
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by LSD-25 · 2006-01-13 11:51 · Score: 1

VirtualPC will probably become obsolete since under OS X/Intel it will just be a crappy additional (and somewhat unrequired) layer.

Virtual PC will still be useful on Intel Macs. In the future, you'll be able to boot Windows on an Intel Mac, but virtualization software lets you use your Mac and Windows applications at the same time. Remember that Microsoft sells Virtual PC for Windows for just this purpose, to run Linux, DOS or another version of Windows.

I don't even like rebooting my PowerBook into OS 9 just to play X-Wing. (It doesn't work in Classic. It looks like they are writing directly into video memory, which Classic can't emulate.) But WINE on the Mac might turn out to be better than Virtual PC.
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by DA-MAN · 2006-01-13 12:29 · Score: 1

Quicktime technically has the ability to play AVIs, but it's a useless feature because of the way that 90% of the ones you'll find online are put together (Divx video with MP3 audio).

AVI is a container. The AVI Container works fine with Quicktime. The DivX codec is not supported by Apple w/ QuickTime. If, however, you go to http://www.divx.com/ and download the Mac Codec, all works fine. This is the same procedure you have to do in Windows to get Windows Media Player to play DivX (or you can use one of many codecs that support DivX).

I've never had an issue playing any kind of avi in QuickTime on my iBook.

--
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Dog House Forum
Re:Symbiotic relationship? by Kadin2048 · 2006-01-17 03:56 · Score: 1

I stand corrected insofar as to the necessity of using Divx Doctor anymore; I was not aware of Divx 6 or that it replaced the built-in AVI handling of Quicktime and fixed the longstanding VBR-MP3-in-AVI problem. That's quite a codec.

However as a limitation of Quicktime itself it still stands, and it was quite true up until Divx 6 was released. (And is still true if you use 3ivx or an older video-only Divx codec.) So really the credit should go to the Divx people and not to Quicktime.

Regardless, I'm glad to hear that the problem has finally been solved.

--
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Huh? by NoMoreNicksLeft · 2006-01-12 19:40 · Score: 5, Funny

Our focus really is in delivering the best experience to Windows customers.

So now they're going to buy all windows users a free mac?

Re:Huh? by alphasubzero949 · 2006-01-12 20:57 · Score: 1

"So now they're going to buy all windows users a free mac?*"

*Full screen access to video content requires a $29.99 fee.
Re:Huh? by ericdano · 2006-01-12 21:01 · Score: 0, Troll

No no, they are going to continue to provide Windows users lots of bugs and expolits and other things to patch. Oh the joy.

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Closed Formats by ozmanjusri · 2006-01-12 19:40 · Score: 2, Interesting

If Microsoft is not prepared to support their products on competitor's operating systems, they should not be allowed to develop closed formats, APIs or interfaces.

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"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."

Re:Closed Formats by Moridineas · 2006-01-12 19:43 · Score: 4, Informative

Lucky you! http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/play er/flip4mac.mspx. They've provided a way to keep watching.
Re:Closed Formats by aberkvam · 2006-01-12 20:14 · Score: 4, Informative

The Flip4Mac components not only provide a way for Mac users to "keep watching", they actually allow Mac users to watch Microsoft Video formats that the Microsoft Product never did. The most obvious example is that there was no good way for Mac users to watch Windows Media 9 Standard videos (WMV3) before the Flip4Mac components came out. (Windows Media Player, VLC, and MPlayer OSX would all choke on them.) Now Mac users can watch them, preview them in the Finder, import and export them, etc.
This is actually a huge upgrade and great news for Mac users.
Re:Closed Formats by Halo1 · 2006-01-12 21:37 · Score: 1

Plus the fact that Quicktime can scale video using other algorithms than just doubling the pixels. Scaling up video in Windows Media Player for Mac looked horrible.

And you can now export WMV files to any other format supported by Quicktime, yay!

I agree this is a major improvement! But I hope they or Apple can quickly fix the bug that makes the Quicktime Player of Quicktime 7.0.4 crash after closing a Windows Media File (worked fine in 7.0.3). And support for the asf format would be nice as well (I still have some files which play in Windows Media Player for Mac but not with Flip4Mac, even if I rename them to .wmv).

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Re:Closed Formats by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-12 23:52 · Score: 1, Informative

The crash in Quicktime 7.0.4 is fixed by the update at http://www.flip4mac.com/wmv_download.htm (Flip4Mac 2.0.1). It seems to be just an update, so you need to get and install Flip4Mac 2.0.0 from Microsoft first.
Re:Closed Formats by bwy · 2006-01-13 00:40 · Score: 1

If Microsoft is not prepared to support their products on competitor's operating systems, they should not be allowed to develop closed formats, APIs or interfaces.

That is spot-on. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. I use my two weeks vacation every year to travel to Redmond and protest with signs out in front of their office. You see, I own an Amiga 500. It beats the shit out of anything you guys on here probably use. Microsoft isn't supporting Windows Media Player on my platform. Most of the signs I hold up say things like "Burn in Hell you non-Amiga supporting pieces of shit."

If I've heard you right, and I think I have- I'll get started on making you a sign. See ya in April! (God it's nice to know I'm not alone any more!)
Re:Closed Formats by damneinstien · 2006-01-13 00:58 · Score: 1

From the Microsoft (tm) site, it can't play DRM restricted files.
Re:Closed Formats by Megane · 2006-01-13 01:37 · Score: 2, Funny

The most obvious example is that there was no good way for Mac users to watch Windows Media 9 Standard videos (WMV3) before the Flip4Mac components came out.
The latest WiMP for Mac would play WMV3 video just fine... as long as they were in a supported container type like a .wmv file. What it couldn't do was play WMV3 video in a .AVI wrapper, because .AVI was "too old" according to the error message. If you've had problems playing WMV3 it's because you've been downloading videos off the internet, where people these days have an fondness for encoding to WMV3 in .AVI files. (Don't worry, they'll be moving up to H264 inside .MKV files soon enough to screw you again.)

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Re:Closed Formats by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 11:54 · Score: 0

(Don't worry, they'll be moving up to H264 inside .MKV files soon enough to screw you again.)

Actually H264 in .MKV works fine in VLC and MPlayer, so I hope they do!
Re:Closed Formats by Megane · 2006-01-17 15:19 · Score: 1

Actually H264 in .MKV works fine in VLC and MPlayer, so I hope they do!
Sure, it works great... if you've got at least a 2GHz processor!
If you don't, you're SOL. My poor 1.3GHz Duron can't handle H264 video without pausing.

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#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }

Umm... by MaelstromX · 2006-01-12 19:40 · Score: 1

Isn't something missing from the summary? Such as the qualifier, "for Macintosh" after "Windows Media Player"? I realize that the article is in the "Apple" section but it would sure be nice to be accurate when reporting such things, lest anybody draw the incorrect conclusion.

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audioLibre - freedom of music

Re:Umm... by SausageOfDoom · 2006-01-12 20:32 · Score: 1

Oh good, I thought it was just me. It's all well and good saying it's in the title, but I (like many others) skim read and got 'Microsoft Ends WMP'. I guess whoever wrote the post probably assumed that anyone reading it would already be in the apple section.

Getting back on topic, last month they pulled IE mac, wonder what it'll be next month. I can understand Microsoft producing Office for Mac - they are predominantly a software company after all, and where there's a market they can make money. But I can see why they'd drop IE mac - that's not bringing in anything apart from bad publicity.

If they want to 'sell' WMA/WMV to content encoders, the important thing is having the ability to play it on as many platforms as possible - mac WMP isn't making them money directly, and never will. This plugin is win-win for everyone concerned - Microsoft can ditch mac WMP without limiting the market for WMA/WMV, the plugin producer can cash in on a pro version, and Mac users don't get left out in the cold.

They shoot themselves in the foot by KiloByte · 2006-01-12 19:41 · Score: 4, Interesting

Actually, it's a bad decision for Microsoft. Since they won't be able to claim that their evil DRM works for everyone (they silently ignore Unices), judges/govt monkeys will be more likely to see that DRM as something wrong. Also, the unwashed masses are more likely to trip into it as well, thus increasing the public awareness.

Ahh, good. Anything bad for WM* and friends is great news for us.

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The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

Re:They shoot themselves in the foot by toddbu · 2006-01-12 20:06 · Score: 5, Insightful

Actually, it's a bad decision for Microsoft.
There's another reason as well. If Microsoft's actions limit the number of people who can view the files, there will be more of a push by consumers to get web sites like CNN.com that use Windows Media exclusively to support more formats. I think that Microsoft's hope is that this will keep people from migrating away from Windows, but I think it will have the opposite effect.

--
If you don't want crime to pay, let the government run it.
Re:They shoot themselves in the foot by rolfwind · 2006-01-12 20:11 · Score: 4, Interesting

There's another reason as well. If Microsoft's actions limit the number of people who can view the files, there will be more of a push by consumers to get web sites like CNN.com that use Windows Media exclusively to support more formats. I think that Microsoft's hope is that this will keep people from migrating away from Windows, but I think it will have the opposite effect.

I never understood why so many sites have their video on a dumbass proprietary format. Do the PHBs mandate this, or are the webmasters/otherTechiesinvolved so clueless not to use a free/open format? Not everybody has windows or wants the hell that is real-player.

Is it bandwidth savings? Are the proprietary formats superior?
Re:They shoot themselves in the foot by Henriok · 2006-01-12 20:11 · Score: 1

"Actually, it's a bad decision for Microsoft. Since they won't be able to claim that their evil DRM works for everyone"

Microsoft's DRM stuff never worked in Windows Media Palyer for Mac.. so this fact has been a reality for several years.

--

- Henrik

- when the Shadows descend -
Re:They shoot themselves in the foot by minuszero · 2006-01-12 20:30 · Score: 1

at least some DRM files never previously worked in WMP 9 for OS X anyway...
Re:They shoot themselves in the foot by alphasubzero949 · 2006-01-12 20:38 · Score: 2, Interesting

Not to mention, more and more web sites require WMP in order to view/listen to their content. Some of those sites even deploy ActiveX and lock out non-Windows users all together.
Re:They shoot themselves in the foot by Tim+C · 2006-01-12 20:46 · Score: 1

Since they won't be able to claim that their evil DRM works for everyone (they silently ignore Unices), judges/govt monkeys will be more likely to see that DRM as something wrong.

That's wishful thinking, I'm afraid. The content industry is pushing very hard for DRM, and something as trivial as only being viewable on ~95% of home desktop computers won't worry them and therefore it won't worry the judges.

Besides, as long as MS don't make it impossible for competing DRM solutions to exist and work under Windows (and I can't see how they could) they can have no quarrel with it - after all, the various trials haven't had a problem with WMV or even with WMP itself, just with WMP being bundled in such a way as to try to close out competition.

--
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Re:They shoot themselves in the foot by Aqua+OS+X · 2006-01-12 21:24 · Score: 1

Agreed, this was pretty dumb.

Although, I totally understand the need to stick-it to the competition, they've just cut official support for the second largest consumer desktop OS, and an OS that is heavily used by those of us who work in new / digital media.

Unless they really reach out to this 3rd party, this is an incredibly dumb move. Annoying the new media designers is not the best way to get your file formats and codecs recommended as a potential solution to a project :/

--
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Re:They shoot themselves in the foot by RahoulB · 2006-01-12 21:37 · Score: 2, Interesting

It does work - I listen to football (soccer) commentaries that I have to pay for - in WMP formats. They were extremely dodgy on the Mac (had to use the Classic player, not the OSX one), despite the claims that it was supported, so I cancelled my subscription (as did quite a few other people I know).

Next season, they announced they had improved their Mac support - and while still WMP, whatever they had done works fine in the OSX player
Re:They shoot themselves in the foot by oztiks · 2006-01-12 23:33 · Score: 1

Yeah, I think it goes down the with vfat patient (and enforcing the patent) as being overall "silly" moves on their part. Pulling out of such things causes their grip on standardization to lessen and people will start to think "whats the point to support an ms product if it doesn't get supported else where?" with recent successes from competing os' now coming into the desktop pc playing field you'd think that they'd want to keep people using native versions of their application sets and file types to entice people to go back to ms as being standard and common place.

I think this is the start of the common usage of ms specific products to become less important with such things as file formats, fs types, etc and will just open the door for new contenders in the future.

Overall a good move in the scheme of things because it means that it gives other people the chance to come up with innovative systems.
Re:They shoot themselves in the foot by 16K+Ram+Pack · 2006-01-13 00:08 · Score: 1

Is there an open streaming format?
Re:They shoot themselves in the foot by Pecisk · 2006-01-13 00:24 · Score: 3, Insightful

For Windows Media usage, it is clearly because Windows Media Player is aviable on every Windows box, period. It is cleary because of that. Also server support is very important - Windows Media Services offerings are quite effective (disclaimer: I love Ogg Vorbis/Theora and what Fluendo try to do) and Real Server was quite only solution for any streaming.

Streaming is technically very demanding from server software, so actually it is quite understandable that CNN or BBC uses Real and Windows Media to stream - because these formats are which have popular and usable players and their server parts.

--
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
Re:They shoot themselves in the foot by Dolda2000 · 2006-01-13 00:25 · Score: 1

Is there an open streaming format?
Most definitely. OGG, Theora, Vorbis and Speex (obviously ;) are all streamable. There is also Icecast, which is a GPL server implementation for streaming these protocols over HTTP (Wikipedia page).
Re:They shoot themselves in the foot by SlamMan · 2006-01-13 01:01 · Score: 2, Informative

Quicktime format is open, as long as you use an open codec in it. I personally like MMPEG-4 for my streaming work.

--
Mod point free since 2001
Re:They shoot themselves in the foot by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 01:01 · Score: 0

Most definitely. OGG, Theora, Vorbis and Speex (obviously ;) are all streamable.

Neither Windows Media Player or QuickTime support these formats and codecs, so they'd might as well be proprietary. I'm not about to tell users that they have to download VLC to view our content.
Re:They shoot themselves in the foot by dr.badass · 2006-01-13 01:15 · Score: 1

Are the proprietary formats superior?

Yes, actually, but that's not always the reason sites use them. There are far more tools that natively support Windows Media or QuickTime than anything else, and a far greater installed base on the client side. OGG, for example, definitely has neither. What good would it be to use OGG if it meant asking people to download yet another program or codec?

--
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
Re:They shoot themselves in the foot by Sentry21 · 2006-01-13 01:20 · Score: 2, Interesting

It's practicality. They want their content easily accessible to the masses, so they need to use a format that's going to be supported by most people already. Hence, Windows Media. *everyone* has WMP, so it's the obvious solution. Forcing people to download something to listen to your content is impractical, and reduces the number of people watching your media.

Now, however, Quicktime is getting a lot more popular. Everyone with iTunes has Quicktime, and every Mac user as well. It's not popular enough that it's practical to use, but it's getting there.

As to why they don't use open standards? Because there's no simple way to stream XviD/Ogg streams to the masses. Forcing people to download a CODEC isn't any more practical than forcing them to download another player, and I haven't seen any drop-in solutions for streaming either of those formats or any other.

Personally, I wish people would start streaming H.264, and then everyone wins (not to mention it's great compression and great quality).
Re:They shoot themselves in the foot by Dolda2000 · 2006-01-13 01:29 · Score: 2, Insightful

Neither Windows Media Player or QuickTime support these formats and codecs, so they'd might as well be proprietary. I'm not about to tell users that they have to download VLC to view our content.
Neither should you have to. What's preventing you from simply offering both? Also, the OGG, Vorbis, Theora and Speex codecs are all available as DirectShow filters with a Windows installer from Xiph.org, so users don't have to leave WMP just to view content.
Re:They shoot themselves in the foot by kylner · 2006-01-13 01:35 · Score: 2, Interesting

I know from my experience where I work, any Board videos that are offered online are done so through a third party company. They have a turn-key solution that integrates the printed Board agendas with the video and allows you to navigate through the video playback based on linkages within the Agenda (html format).

When I first viewed the demo I wasn't thrilled because it utilized functionality that at the time was unique to WMP for Windows and that wasn't yet supported within WMP for Mac. As far as I know there were no similar products (somebody else was lead on the project) that used Quicktime. Several months after the demo MS finally updated WMP for Mac to have some level of feature parity with the Windows version so the turn-key solution became cross platform. Not to mention that there's a pretty heavy bias towards Windows and such within the IT department here.

My case, prior to the WMP update was that since we are a local government entity, bound by Florida Sunshine laws and such, that if we were going to make something like that available we should at least do what we can to make it available to everyone and not limit it to Windows users.

I've used the Flip4Mac plug-in and it works, to a degree. It's been kind of hit and miss with the media files I've opened and if it doesn't include the scripting functionality that is available within current and future versions of WMP for Windows, then solutions such as the one we use for our online Board meetings will never be cross platform.
Re:They shoot themselves in the foot by NeoSkandranon · 2006-01-13 01:58 · Score: 1

Having the user go download and install any kind of software just to view your content is generally a poor design decision.

--
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
Re:They shoot themselves in the foot by badasscat · 2006-01-13 03:17 · Score: 1

As to why they don't use open standards? Because there's no simple way to stream XviD/Ogg streams to the masses. Forcing people to download a CODEC isn't any more practical than forcing them to download another player, and I haven't seen any drop-in solutions for streaming either of those formats or any other.

Flash Video is as close as you're going to get to that, and it's what a lot of the more modern sites are starting to use (Flash Video itself is pretty new - I believe Flash 7 was the first version to support it). Google Video, for example, uses it for its embedded videos - click one and see, though be sure to set the video size to "original" as the stretching they do by default seriously degrades the real quality of the format. Adobe/Macromedia claims a 97% penetration rate for Flash itself across all platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux), and I don't disbelieve this - ignoring the Slashdot "I won't browse with anything but Lynx!" crowd, I haven't met anybody who didn't have Flash installed, and most major manufacturers now preinstall it.

So if you've got Flash installed, you can play Flash video. And it's really the best totally cross-platform solution, with quality equal to any of the other formats.

I agree totally that forcing people to download a codec or player to view video is not a good idea. But the vast majority of people already have Flash and it is basically OS-agnostic. (Yes, it is proprietary - some people here will just have to get over their hangups about that when it comes to video.)
Re:They shoot themselves in the foot by frankie · 2006-01-13 03:37 · Score: 1

If you're considering an MP4 codec, you should also use the generic MP4 file format, which is similar but not identical to Apple's MOV format. Compliant MP4 strikes the best balance of cross-compatibility and compression/quality; they're supported out-of-the-box by nearly every recognized major media player (QT, Real, Xine, etc). The one notable exception is WiMP, which intentionally omits MP4 capability to promote lock-in, and requires 3rd party plugins.
Re:They shoot themselves in the foot by poot_rootbeer · 2006-01-13 03:56 · Score: 1

I never understood why so many sites have their video on a dumbass proprietary format.

Okay, you tell me what video format sites should adopt that:
1. streams
2. has affordable, easy-to-use authoring tools available
3. has ubiquitous browser support
4. is not a dumbass proprietary format

I'll wait.
Re:They shoot themselves in the foot by Bo'Bob'O · 2006-01-13 04:17 · Score: 1

Financial Incentives.
Re:They shoot themselves in the foot by Queer+Boy · 2006-01-13 05:19 · Score: 1

I never understood why so many sites have their video on a dumbass proprietary format.

Because their content is copyrighted and on paper it looks better to use a proprietary format where they can add watermarks and such. An open format has too many options of being tampered with, which is part of the POINT of open formats.

--
Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.
Re:They shoot themselves in the foot by kidcharles · 2006-01-13 05:39 · Score: 1

What pisses me off is that even PBS's Frontline can only be watched online as streaming WindowsMedia or RealPlayer video. So much for "public" television.

--
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
Re:They shoot themselves in the foot by GWBasic · 2006-01-13 10:07 · Score: 1

Keep in mind that Microsoft is fully supporting the ability to play WMV on Mac through Quicktime. This is actually an ideal situation. In the long run, it's bad for the customer if each video file has to played in its own proprietary player. (This is why Real is failing, no one likes using their player.) Looking towards the future, the computer user won't have to worry about what format the video is encoded in because it will "just work" in his or her player of choice.
Specifically, assuming that WMV's revenue comes from the purchase of the encoder, this is even better for Microsoft. They can advertise that, by encoding in WMV, the viewer won't have to download a special program to view the video.

--
No, I will not work for your startup
Re:They shoot themselves in the foot by toddestan · 2006-01-13 13:43 · Score: 1

Okay, you tell me what video format sites should adopt that:
1. streams
2. has affordable, easy-to-use authoring tools available
3. has ubiquitous browser support
4. is not a dumbass proprietary format

I'll wait.

I don't know of any that can even do 1-3, let alone all four.
Re:They shoot themselves in the foot by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 13:49 · Score: 0

"Like any other company, we have business priorities. Our focus really is in delivering the best experience to Windows customers"

Isn't this essentially an admission that they illegally tie software to the Windows operating system, just like they were accused of doing? "Sure, you can use our proprietary music and video formats, but only if you use Windows."
Re: They shoot themselves in the foot by Dolda2000 · 2006-01-13 14:12 · Score: 1

Indeed, that's why I said he should offer both.
Re:They shoot themselves in the foot by Squirrelgirl · 2006-01-20 11:52 · Score: 1

The Norwegian state broadcasting uses WMV as well but encoded to work with the (now defunct) WMV for Mac. Their radio stations are available in open standard (as far as MP3 is an "open standard") that works well in iTunes. I emailed them about it and they explained that its because using WMV, "the majority of end users don't need to install software to make it work". Since this is the state TV channel though they have a mandate to make sure their stuff plays on as many platforms as possible. In an interview, unfortunately I don't remember the source now, a representant from NRK said the only problem they had with using Apples video standard was the lack of DRM that they needed on some programs (like sports and movies with copyright).

I've been using the Mac non-stop-- by Mrs.+Grundy · 2006-01-12 19:41 · Score: 2, Funny

since the SE and I didn't know windows media player was available--and I didn't care. The void they are talking about must be very small? It's a little like reading an announcement that MS Access is no longer available for the mac. Have I been missing out? Is that where all the good free porn is?

Re:I've been using the Mac non-stop-- by MuckSavage · 2006-01-12 20:08 · Score: 2, Funny

Is that where all the good free porn is?

Not all, but why limit your porn choices?
Re:I've been using the Mac non-stop-- by Krach42 · 2006-01-13 00:23 · Score: 1

Yeah, it is pretty small. Most MWVs can be played elsewhere. I basically used WMP just to stream my music from certain web radios that didn't support anything but WMP.

Of course now, I know that VLC plays those, so um... that was useless.

Only thing left is a plugin viewer for ZDF.de media streams. Flip4Mac should do that fine.

--

I am unamerican, and proud of it!

WMP never part of MacBU by Henriok · 2006-01-12 19:41 · Score: 4, Informative

Windows Media Player was not a product that MacBU made, it was sorely lacking in almost every respect and laughing stock of the entire Mac community. It won't be missed. The QuickTime plugin Flip4Mac is better in almost every respect and enabled transcoding to the plethora of formats that QuickTime offers. However.. the free plugin does not enable a Mac user to encode WMV. You'll have to pay for that.

One interessting thing here is that Flip4Mac licenses technology from MS that MS now are paying to get back :)

--

- Henrik

- when the Shadows descend -

Re:WMP never part of MacBU by zonker · 2006-01-12 19:57 · Score: 0

i smell a lawsuit brewing. this is just the sort of thing that got them in antitrust trouble with the gov't last time...

of course you might say the same about apple not playing nice by letting anyone and everyone in on the ipod game. however i think this is of a slightly different magnitude given the difference in market share.

--
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
Re:WMP never part of MacBU by Stan+Vassilev · 2006-01-12 22:55 · Score: 1

"Windows Media Player ... was sorely lacking in almost every respect and laughing stock of the entire Mac community. It won't be missed."

Same can be said about QuickTime on Windows. This sorry excuse for a media player takes ages to start, and sometimes instead of starting crashes, or hangs my browser (Firefox). Won't be missed but I still have to use it because of the exclusive QT content on apple and some other sites.

Oh well, I believe MS is making a mistake but it's their thing. For one, this makes Flash the lightest and most cross-platform compatible video player.

At less than a megabyte download and swiftingly fast, it delivers not only vector/bitmap/text/font/sockets/scripting/effects and so on and so on, but also support for mp3 loading and Sorenson & VP-6 videos (including non-rectangular with 8-bit alpha channel or clipping mask).
Re:WMP never part of MacBU by lawyer+boy · 2006-01-12 23:25 · Score: 1

I have QuickTime Pro, and when I downloaded F4M, I also got the encoder without paying any additional fee to F4M (I have both Flip4Mac WMV Export.component and Flip4Mac WMV Import.component in Library/QuickTime). It's possible that I purchased the full version of F4M a while ago and forgot about it, but not likely. Does anyone know if QuickTime Pro users automatically get the encoder? This is really strange.

Anyway, I pulled a short .mov that I had been working on, and sure enough, Quicktime gave me the option of encoding in .wmv. I tested it and it seemed to create a .wmv fine.

As for why someone would want to do this, try sharing PowerPoint presentations with Windows users. For the most part, you can't get .mov files to play inside of PowerPoint for Windows. Yes, you can use .mpg or .avi, but this is a nice alternative that seems to encode fast and result in a decent quality video in a small(ish) file size.
Re:WMP never part of MacBU by Henriok · 2006-01-12 23:32 · Score: 1

QuickTime is A LOT more than the QuickTime Player. Apple isn't stopping anyone from building a better player.
QuickTime har supported everything you just said Flash does for ages.. they incorporated text layers in 1992, sprites and vectors a couple of yeas later. Scriptability, transparency has been there along, and so forth.. Damn shame there's no really good tools for buildning great QT content (sans simple movies) and Apple really shoud (years ago) have opened up much more of their architecture..

--

- Henrik

- when the Shadows descend -
Re:WMP never part of MacBU by Stan+Vassilev · 2006-01-12 23:53 · Score: 1

"QuickTime har supported everything you just said Flash does for ages"

Yea... That's funny right, cause if you didn't know it has embeded Flash 5 player in it among other things.

And by everything do you also mean robust JIT compilator, sockets, XML parser, full OOP programming environment with type checking/classes/interfaces and all the other niceties.

BTW, half assed feature addition does not a nice product make. Flash has a solid (well slightly less solid in the last few version but still solid enough) authoring environment and ecosystem of authoring products, as well as light footprint (unless you missed that Flash is like 800kb in flash 8, how much is QuickTime? Like 15mb or something?) and much faster interactivity / startup / light on resources.

And it doesn't crash my firefox every time I open flash video/applet in it.
Re:WMP never part of MacBU by bloodstains · 2006-01-13 00:50 · Score: 1

"Windows Media Player ... was sorely lacking in almost every respect and laughing stock of the entire Mac community. It won't be missed."

Same can be said about QuickTime on Windows. This sorry excuse for a media player takes ages to start, and sometimes instead of starting crashes, or hangs my browser (Firefox). Won't be missed but I still have to use it because of the exclusive QT content on apple and some other sites.

The difference is, QT is relatively nice on a Mac, whereas WMP sucks no mater what platform it's on.
Re:WMP never part of MacBU by laird · 2006-01-13 01:10 · Score: 2, Informative

"half assed feature addition does not a nice product make"

Actually, the QuickTime platform has had very nice interactive capabilities for many, many years now. Where Apple has lagged has been in authoring tools, since the company that dominates the authoring tools market (MacroMedia) decided to promote their own format rather than QuickTime, tools from other companies were only "OK", and Apple never released a first-class QT interactive authoring tool of its own.

--
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
Re:WMP never part of MacBU by dr.badass · 2006-01-13 01:26 · Score: 1

The QuickTime plugin Flip4Mac is better in almost every respect and enabled transcoding to the plethora of formats that QuickTime offers.

No it doesn't. The free version only lets you watch. It does not support transcoding from WMV to any other format. For that you need the $30 "Import" version.

--
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
Re:WMP never part of MacBU by dr.badass · 2006-01-13 01:30 · Score: 1

Does anyone know if QuickTime Pro users automatically get the encoder?

You get the component, yes. You don't get the license that enables you to use it.

Anyway, I pulled a short .mov that I had been working on, and sure enough, Quicktime gave me the option of encoding in .wmv. I tested it and it seemed to create a .wmv fine.

It creates a file, yes, but that file contains nothing.

--
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
Re:WMP never part of MacBU by Stan+Vassilev · 2006-01-13 02:31 · Score: 1

If you could support that with facts it wouldn't be bad. There are threemajor player - QT, Real and WMP. The onyl one I have good streaming/playback experience with is WMP. Real used to be good, before they bloated it and riddled it with adware.

WMP has only been improving since. Oh and guess what, you don't have to BUY a pro version to run in full screen (like QuickTime)? How cool is that eh?

I bet Mac users think fullscreen playback is some sort of extremely hard to do feature worth paying for.
Re:WMP never part of MacBU by bloodstains · 2006-01-13 05:57 · Score: 1

There are threemajor player - QT, Real and WMP. The onyl one I have good streaming/playback experience with is WMP.
I too settle for WMP on my PC's. It is the best out there that I have found, but I still think it's a piece of junk.

WMP has only been improving since. Oh and guess what, you don't have to BUY a pro version to run in full screen (like QuickTime)? How cool is that eh?
This is irritating, and why I said "pretty good". Ironically I can't get my WMP on my PC to go truly fullscreen.

I bet Mac users think fullscreen playback is some sort of extremely hard to do feature worth paying for.
I bet all Windows users like to make sweeping generalizations. Oh wait. I am a Windows user and I don't
Re:WMP never part of MacBU by Genom · 2006-01-13 07:04 · Score: 1

It creates a file, yes, but that file contains nothing.

Actually...I just ran a quick test. Converted a little Daily Show clip. Seems to play back just fine.
Re:WMP never part of MacBU by Lord+Flipper · 2006-01-13 20:51 · Score: 1

I bet Mac users think fullscreen playback is some sort of extremely hard to do feature worth paying for.
I realize you're just a troll, but, were you a born idiot, or did you go to school for that? And here's a safer bet: You got your head up your ass. Put your allowance on that one.. Meanwhile, who in their right mind wants to watch shitty audio-tracked, butchered aspect ratio wmv files on a Mac? Shit dude, strike three on shit for brains, eh?
Re:WMP never part of MacBU by Stan+Vassilev · 2006-01-13 21:06 · Score: 1

"I realize you're just a troll, but, were you a born idiot, or did you go to school for that? And here's a safer bet: You got your head up your ass. Put your allowance on that one.. Meanwhile, who in their right mind wants to watch shitty audio-tracked, butchered aspect ratio wmv files on a Mac? Shit dude, strike three on shit for brains, eh?"

It's called sarcasm (regarding full screen).
You'll do yourself a favor and relax a bit, who wants "heart attack caused by overly intensive slashdot post replies" on their thumbstone.
Re:WMP never part of MacBU by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-14 07:35 · Score: 0

Actually...I just ran a quick test. Converted a little Daily Show clip. Seems to play back just fine.

Try encoding a clip longer than 30 seconds. You'll find, mysteriously, that you only get a 30 second file out. You do not get the encoder for free. You do not get the encoder for free. You do not get the encoder for free.

RTFA you idiots! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-12 19:42 · Score: 0

The plugin is free. Sheesh. Buncha fucking idiots, can't be bothered to RTFA.

This is actually good for users by Dark_Nova · 2006-01-12 19:44 · Score: 5, Interesting

Provided that Microsoft keeps licensing this plugin and giving it away for free, this is good news for Mac users. The plugin is a much better option than Windows Media Player, allowing you to play Windows Media files in a nicer GUI.

Microsoft probably didn't want to update Media Player to be a universal binary, so decided upon this option. They are distributing the plugin on their website for free, so this is a win-win situation.

Re:This is actually good for users by tholomyes · 2006-01-12 20:22 · Score: 1

The previous free version of the plugin worked marvelously, but it would only let you play the first half of any given movie file; this is great news, considering how prevalent WMVs are.

--
When did the future switch from being a promise to a threat? -C. Palahniuk
Re:This is actually good for users by Conanymous+Award · 2006-01-12 21:16 · Score: 5, Funny

They are distributing the plugin on their website for free, so this is a win-win situation.

What? I thought this is a Win-Mac situation!
Re:This is actually good for users by commodoresloat · 2006-01-12 22:32 · Score: 1

yeah I really am thrilled about this announcement - I didn't know flip4mac existed; after reading this article I installed the plugin and will never use WMP again. Watching WMV videos in quicktime player or vlc is awesome. And now videos play directly in browser windows. This is light years ahead of WMP ever would have been; I don't blame them for dropping this.
Re:This is actually good for users by grouchomarxist · 2006-01-13 08:50 · Score: 1

For me playing Windows Media using the plugin will cause QT Player (or any other app) to crash when the window is closed. Other than that it works better than Windows Media Player.
Re:This is actually good for users by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-15 00:20 · Score: 0

Are you using the new version? There was a bug fix a day or so ago to fix crashing in certain situations.

Its free by cmdrbuzz · 2006-01-12 19:45 · Score: 2, Insightful

The flip4mac plugin is free from microsoft here
But to import the files into other programs, rather than just watch them, you need to purchase flip4mac.

Re:Its free by MuckSavage · 2006-01-12 20:06 · Score: 1

Ahh. Just saw that. Rock on.

Flip4Mac offered from Microsoft by Moridineas · 2006-01-12 19:45 · Score: 2, Informative

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/play er/flip4mac.mspx

Check out the page. It lets Quicktime play wmv. I don't believe it's originally made by MS (not sure) but they are distributing a basic playback version for free. There's a more advanced version that lets one edit video streams as well. This is very cool, and better than dealing with the WMV player for Mac... Almost as annoying as Quicktime client for windows. Any way--mac, windows, linux/*bsd...I use mplayer or vlc. The odd wmv is the only thing I use wmv for, and this appears to solve that need.

Re:Flip4Mac offered from Microsoft by erwinh · 2006-01-12 20:35 · Score: 1

and this plugin is crashing with Quicktime 7.04 (the latest). But Flip4Mac as annouched that it will work with version 2.0.1.
Re:Flip4Mac offered from Microsoft by aarku · 2006-01-12 22:42 · Score: 1

Just FYI... QuickTime Player crashes when you close a .wmv with QuickTime version 7.0.4. Whuuupps.
Re:Flip4Mac offered from Microsoft by larryj · 2006-01-13 04:09 · Score: 1

Everyone can thank me. I bought Flip4Mac a week or so ago after trying the trial version for several weeks so of course that triggered this announcement. At least it was only $10.

--
What if the Hokey-Pokey really is what it's all about?
Re:Flip4Mac offered from Microsoft by Lord+Flipper · 2006-01-13 21:01 · Score: 1

I'm using the Flip4Mac 1.2, QT Pro 7.0.4, OS X 10.4.4, no QT crashes at all with any wmv files, all exporting to .mov files, no probs. I don't understand where the issue with the numerous, reported crashes is arising. Not saying they don't exist, they must, why else would many report them, and the company come out with the update statement, but for some reason they aren't happening here. Strange.

look me in the eye.. by Combas · 2006-01-12 19:48 · Score: 1

..and say "Windows Media Player" and "http://www.pandasoftware.com/virus_info/encyclope dia/overview.aspx?idvirus=57265delivering the best experience" in the same sentance without flinching.

WMP is a steaming pile.

I feel so sure about that statement Im not even going to bother to qualify it.

Let me bust out the eyedrops. by Phariom · 2006-01-12 19:49 · Score: 1

Considering that WMV, ASF, and ASX files--incidentally the only worthwhile (and I use the word loosely) formats that a Mac user might need to view--are the only plusses of even bothering to download the bloody port in the first place, I'd say not much has been lost here. Oh noes! No crappy quality pr0n for me! Besides, if I really get desperate enough to watch something in WMV format, I'll just download and compile a copy of Mplayer with the Windows Media patches.

Microsoft really needs to stop offering my fellow Apple geeks and I stuff. We don't want it. We don't need it. We don't buy it. Period.

Re:Let me bust out the eyedrops. by Slashcrap · 2006-01-12 21:40 · Score: 1

Microsoft really needs to stop offering my fellow Apple geeks and I stuff. We don't want it. We don't need it. We don't buy it. Period.

Dear Phariom,

Thank you for sharing your views with us. We have taken them onboard and will be cancelling Virtual PC for the Mac immediately.

Thanks again,
Microsoft
Re:Let me bust out the eyedrops. by Phariom · 2006-01-12 22:34 · Score: 1

One word: Sweet.

If I need to use a PC app, I'll buy a freakin' PC.
Re:Let me bust out the eyedrops. by Krach42 · 2006-01-13 00:48 · Score: 1

Microsoft really needs to stop offering my fellow Apple geeks and I stuff. We don't want it. We don't need it. We don't buy it. Period.

Yeah, I'd say the typical attitude is, go and do your thing on your mac, when you run into that brick wall of some stupid Windows user that won't accept anything but a proprietary MS format, then you load up Carracho and go hunting.

Many Mac users don't see the point in paying $250 for MS Office for Mac even, unless they regularly interact with Windows users.

--

I am unamerican, and proud of it!
Re:Let me bust out the eyedrops. by bloodstains · 2006-01-13 00:57 · Score: 1

I got a copy of office for mac 2004 through a special licensing agreement through my employer for the cost of media ($19.95 I think) and I can count the number of times I've used it on a quadriplegics limbs. Worst. Investment. Evar.
Re:Let me bust out the eyedrops. by Krach42 · 2006-01-13 01:44 · Score: 1

I got a copy of office for mac 2004 through a special licensing agreement through my employer for the cost of media ($19.95 I think) and I can count the number of times I've used it on a quadriplegics limbs. Worst. Investment. Evar.

Heh... yeah, I bought Office + VPC for around $60 through my employee discount. I use VPC just because I like emulators, and also the significant use recently is because the only way to login remotely to my work is through Windows, and I have one of those lovely jobs that is essentially on-call, so I gotta be able to get on from home.

Of course, I also bought two copies of Windows expecting to use one of them. Then I realized I don't use Windows, and I ended up giving them out for Christmas 4 months later.

It's amazing how after just 5 years of use, I've managed to get so accustomed to not using MS programs that my store discount is practically worthless.

--

I am unamerican, and proud of it!

Uh Huh by SuperKendall · 2006-01-12 19:51 · Score: 1

You will see microsoft pulling all support for Apple out in the near future, due to the fact that Apple will be competing with them in the near future in the OS market.

Well, perhaps after the five years are up that they agreed to develop Office for...

I do think Microsoft perceives Apple as a serious threat in online video and that's why they are dropping all support there. However it may not matter if ITMS and Google are the central source to go for most video content (well, whenever Google gets aorund to suppoerting the Mac for paid content - they just lost a sale today because of that).

Perhaps it will drive more people to use Divx as a common video codec.

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley

Re:Uh Huh by balloot · 2006-01-12 20:07 · Score: 2, Interesting

Apple is keeping fairly quiet about it (I assume to keep Microsoft as happy as possible), but the iWork apps have slowly become very useful tools. Keynote is a very useful program which puts together beautiful presentations - I would actually rather use Keynote than PP. Pages is a little behind MS Word at this point, but it it much better than OOo, especially in the ability to read the .doc format.
Re:Uh Huh by 16K+Ram+Pack · 2006-01-13 00:33 · Score: 1

Thanks for that. I'm considering my Mac option (currently on Windows). Pages looks decent in terms of UI.
To me, it doesn't matter if it's "not Word". It matters that it can help me efficiently produce documents (like letters, technical documentation). My requirements are probably around the formatting that Office 6 could give me.
Do you know how they do compatibility? Is it by reverse-engineering?
Re:Uh Huh by Fordiman · 2006-01-13 04:08 · Score: 1

Meh. Screw DivX. Go with FFMPEG's implementation of Mpeg4 using FFDshow. It's faster, can be more complete or more compatible, depending on how you configure it, and can be done from the command line without skew errors.

--
110100 1101000 1101000 1100110 0 1101111 1101000 1100011 1
Re:Uh Huh by dishpig · 2006-01-13 05:51 · Score: 1

For another Mac Word alternative, take a look at Mellel http://www.redlers.com/

Imports and exports Word documents, is fast for large documents, has excellent formatting and organization options, fairly inexpensive. I'm goofy about it.
Re:Uh Huh by DroppedPacket · 2006-01-13 06:37 · Score: 1

Just as a data point for you, I use Pages for some work. It isn't as "feature rich" as Word, but the interface is a lot better. That said, you do need to be prepared to be totally dependant on the inspector palette to get anything done in Pages. It takes getting used to. I'm still not fully comfortable in it. (That said, I've despised MS Word since version 1.05.)
Output formats include Word (which seems to always work for me) or PDF (output files sizes may not be optimized), HTML (I haven't tried)
I think $71 for Keynote & Pages (on Amazon) is pretty decent, but I may skip this year's upgrade since there is no discount for previous users.

--
I am not a resource! I am a free man!

Hold back the crowds! by interactive_civilian · 2006-01-12 19:51 · Score: 1

Henriok informatively said:

However.. the free plugin does not enable a Mac user to encode WMV. You'll have to pay for that.

And if you listen very closely, you can hear the hoards of Mac users who need this feature rushing out to pay for it!

Err, or maybe that is just the sound of paint drying...

But seriously, good on the developers of Flip4Mac! They have done an excellent job. There appear to be some stability issues, especially with QuickTime7.0.4, but otherwise, I think it does an excellent job and for me it can even handle the occasional files that MPlayer and VLC cannot or at least cannot handle well (audio sync problems and such). Good stuff. :D

--
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks

Re:Hold back the crowds! by Nermal6693 · 2006-01-12 21:40 · Score: 1

If you're having stability issues under QuickTime 7.0.4, try updating to Flip 2.0.1. I haven't done any exhaustive tests, but it hasn't crashed once since updating :)

Excellent... by CoolMoDee · 2006-01-12 19:55 · Score: 3, Interesting

During my entire Mac using experience (3 or 4 years now), Windows Media Player on my mac would work for about a week. Then it would suddenly stop working. The only thing that would get it working again was a fresh install, which of course I wasn't going to do, since MPlayer plays wmvs nicely. Oddly enough though, the upgrade to 10.4.4 made WMP work..once. Then a friend linked me to the quicktime plugin. Thus far it works great. Best move microsoft has made in a long time...

--
Jisho - A Japanese English German Russian French Dictionary for the rest of us.

Re:Excellent... by greg1104 · 2006-01-12 20:53 · Score: 4, Funny

> During my entire Mac using experience (3 or 4 years now), Windows Media Player on my mac would work for about a week. Then it would suddenly stop working. The only thing that would get it working again was a fresh install

Remarkable. I had no idea the Mac port was such a faithful translation of the Windows version.
Re:Excellent... by tsaler · 2006-01-13 04:20 · Score: 1

I haven't had the problems you've experienced on my Mac. I have had the problem that a lot of people have made reference to, which is that videos will stop playing half way through, or the buffering stinks, etc. Either way, I read this story this morning, deleted WMP, downloaded Flip4Mac, and we'll see how it goes. I'm looking forward to not having to clear those AOLTemp.html garbage files from the trash every time I reboot, too.

yes but... by Kildjean · 2006-01-12 19:55 · Score: 0, Flamebait

Who needs WMP for Mac when we got VLC, which is also free and works..

--
Nom de dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d encule de ta mere.

Re:yes but... by Kris_J · 2006-01-12 20:10 · Score: 1

Who needs WMP for Windows when we've got VLC, which is also free and works? Who needs WMP for Windows when we've got mplayer, which is also free and works?
Microsoft would do better to collapse their product lines back to the stuff that actually makes a profit. If they want to make a better experience for Windows users (or whatever their wanky statement was) they should focus on a small, tight, modular, fast Windows without all the bloat. As I type this I don't think I have a single Microsoft program open, just Windows.
Re:yes but... by tholomyes · 2006-01-12 20:26 · Score: 1

Everyone who want to view a WMV3 format video file that isn't running Windows, that's who. It's widely used.

--
When did the future switch from being a promise to a threat? -C. Palahniuk
Re:yes but... by Alioth · 2006-01-12 20:40 · Score: 1

It doesn't work for WMV3. Unfortunately, WMV3 seems to be the default video format for short clips. I have not received a short video clip in any other format recently. Why both Apple and Microsoft can't just settle on standard MPEG-4 that anyone can play instead of duplicating effort and inventing proprietary formats, I don't know. Oh, yes I do - Microsoft are making sure they don't lose their monopoly!

--
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Re:yes but... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-12 21:20 · Score: 0

Apple does use standard MPEG4.

In addition to the older MPEG4 standard they also produce standard MPEG4 part 10 (AKA h.264 or AVC) in Quicktime 7.

Wasn't WM for Mac a result of a lawsuit? by balloot · 2006-01-12 20:01 · Score: 1

Perhaps I am mistaken, but didn't MS make Windows Media for Mac because an antitrust lawsuit in the EU forced it upon them? If so, how could they just stop making it?

Re:Wasn't WM for Mac a result of a lawsuit? by heatdeath · 2006-01-12 20:17 · Score: 3, Interesting

No, it's not directly a result of a lawsuit. I'm sure that about 90% of their motivation for doing this was so that their lawyers could argue that they weren't trying to leverage the windows monopoly; but now it seems that the name microsoft doesn't bring to mind the evil connotations it once did, thanks to bill gates starting a 50 billion dollar foundation. =P

I'm not saying this is his motivation, the publicity seems to have really payed off. =P I predict we start seeing more of this. (i.e. no more full-blown office-on-mac - just converter software)

--
I'm sorry. The number you have reached is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again.
Re:Wasn't WM for Mac a result of a lawsuit? by Nermal6693 · 2006-01-12 21:47 · Score: 1

I predict we start seeing more of this. (i.e. no more full-blown office-on-mac - just converter software)

Apple and Microsoft have just entered into an agreement where Microsoft will continue to make Mac versions of Office for at least five years. They have announced some sort of converter for the latest Windows version (XML or something - not sure, I don't follow Windows) but will continue to make the full suite for at least five years.
Re:Wasn't WM for Mac a result of a lawsuit? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 12:29 · Score: 0

At Microsoft's development pace, that means Mac should get what, one more version of Office?
Re:Wasn't WM for Mac a result of a lawsuit? by Nermal6693 · 2006-01-13 14:35 · Score: 1

Yeah, probably.

this works by wardk · 2006-01-12 20:01 · Score: 1

I am now able to see a .wmv file I could not view yesterday.

finally someone got windows stuff to work. they should farm out windows itself eh?

go telestream!

WMP, I'd rather eat glass by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-12 20:02 · Score: 2, Funny

"has had no plans to update or improve Windows Media Player"

MS hasn't *improved* WMP since version 2 :-)

Re:WMP, I'd rather eat glass by Duckz · 2006-01-12 21:42 · Score: 1

personally, I think WMP 6.4 was about the best version ever released.

--
Todd

No big deal by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2006-01-12 20:02 · Score: 2, Interesting

So they've decided it doesn't make sense to continue development of a free (to us) piece of software on a platform that is in the decided minority when it comes to desktops. Makes sense to me. They've even pointed us toward a third-party solution that'll continue to allow us Mac users to watch Windows media - granted, it's one that many of us have already heard about.

So why is Microsoft behaving more or less reasonably as of late? Are they losing their guerilla edge in middle age? Lord knows it hasn't been (US) government pressure.

--
#DeleteChrome

It's not Office.....yet by FaasNat · 2006-01-12 20:03 · Score: 0

Hopefully this won't mean down the road Office for Mac won't be killed off in such fashion and we be forced to use products that just import/export Office documents.

--
There's never enough when you have too little

Re:It's not Office.....yet by kalleh · 2006-01-12 20:49 · Score: 1

Roz Ho, the Mac BU General Manager, made a commitment during the MWSF keynote to develop Office for mac the next 5 years.
Re:It's not Office.....yet by Octorian · 2006-01-12 23:34 · Score: 3, Insightful

I hope Office for Mac is continued for as long as possible. Why? For some people, who are lucky enough to be able to use Macs as "work computers", it is really the *only* reason we are able to do so. The need to have "really good and mostly seemless" compatability with Windows MS Office users is practically a requirement, and no, OpenOffice does NOT fit the bill. Some day I hope to have a job where I don't have to care about office suites at all (MS Office or OpenOffice), but those days are not hear yet.

Basically, the Mac provides something that Linux currently cannot provide. It is a platform that software vendors recognize enough to willingly support as an end-user platform. Also, in the laptop world, it has 100% compatability and support with *all* the hardware features of the laptops on which it runs.

Even if I did eventually switch to a PC laptop, and tried to run Linux on it, I'd pretty much have to pay for something like CrossOver Office just to be able to use the darn thing.

If only MS (and everyone else) would realize that MS Office is an even more difficult monopoly on the buisness world than Windows itself... If somehow pigs flew and MS decided to make MS Office for Linux, two things would happen: 1. We'd all flame it while praising OpenOffice. 2. Those of us trying to use Linux as a work desktop would actually try to buy it in droves.
Re:It's not Office.....yet by linuxfanatic1024 · 2006-01-13 08:05 · Score: 1

I hated MS Office. Why do you say OpenOffice is so bad? I've had no problems, even with M$ Office compatibility, and my girlfriend hasn't either. Or are you referring to pointy-headed bosses who think only Microsoft makes good software?

--
Microsoft-free since March 28, 2004
Re:It's not Office.....yet by AnyoneEB · 2006-01-13 08:26 · Score: 1

On OS X, OpenOffice requires either X11 which does not even attempt to integrate with Aqua or NeoOffice/J, which no one seems to like.

--
Centralization breaks the internet.
Re:It's not Office.....yet by Octorian · 2006-01-13 09:04 · Score: 1

I'm not saying OpenOffice is bad. In fact, I only use OpenOffice at home and for my own non-work purposes, and think it is decent at getting the job done.

What I'm saying is that OpenOffice is nowhere near as seemlessly compatable with MS Office for Windows as MS Office for Mac happens to be. While it isn't the major things you see when you run into the average simple files, more advanced features do break, have font issues, don't get formatted correctly, etc. (heck, I just opened up a document that shows change and comment bubbles in MS Word. OO.o 2.0 shows changes in-line, and does not show comment bubbles)

I'm also still hoping to someday see an Aqua-native OpenOffice 2.0 for the Mac. (NeoOffice/J feels like a kludge to me, but at least OO.o 2.0 runs in X11)
Re:It's not Office.....yet by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 19:47 · Score: 0

Buy it??? ...where's the torrent?

Quicktime crashes? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-12 20:05 · Score: 0

I installed this plugin, and every time I close a movie (quicktime window), quicktime crashes. This is especially bad since it also crashes all finder windows which are currently displaying a movie preview as well as any other quicktime windows that were open.

Has anyone else experienced this and found a solution?

Re:Quicktime crashes? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-12 20:27 · Score: 0

The solution is to update to v.2.0.1, which fixes the conflict with QuickTime 7.0.4. ;)

Microsoft and Steve Jobs by surfdaddy · 2006-01-12 20:07 · Score: 1

I was watching Steve's keynote. One of the MS VPs comes on stage and talks about the 5+ year committment to the Mac for MS Office. Yet MS is dropping WMP. Strange, eh?

The real killer was that only 10 minutes after MS comes on stage to talk about support for Apple, Steve runs a commercial on the Intel switch. It talks about how all those years Intel's chips had so much potential, but they were stuck running on "boring little computers". Now, of course, they're in Macs!

Kind of a snuff to Microsoft! You need to see it if you haven't already.

Re:Microsoft and Steve Jobs by cmdrbuzz · 2006-01-12 20:19 · Score: 1

The Windows Media Player application on OS X was written by the Windows Media group in Microsoft, rather than the Mac Business Unit (who Roz Ho, in the keynote, is the manager for)
Microsoft Office on the Mac will continue for at least another 5 years. Its not MS being generous, its just that the software makes a huge bucket of cash for the MBU.
Re:Microsoft and Steve Jobs by barryp3403 · 2006-01-12 23:45 · Score: 1

Won't windows run native on the new Intel Macs soon making the whole windows support for Mac almost a moot point?

Cute Microsoft Joke by gbobeck · 2006-01-12 20:08 · Score: 5, Funny

"Our focus really is in delivering the best experience to Windows customers."

I never knew what the sound of hot coffee comming out of my nose and splattering all over my monitor and keyboard sounded like until I saw that quote.

--
Navicula hydraulica plena anguilarum est. Omnes castelli tuus nostri sunt. Ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta.

Re:Cute Microsoft Joke by wilburpb · 2006-01-12 21:12 · Score: 1

Yeah, if WMP is Microsoft's idea of the penultimate software experience, then I feel really sorry for Windows users.
Just think, the lone intern that was responsible for the Mac version is now free to write crappy software for Windows. hahahah. Suckers!
Re:Cute Microsoft Joke by gbobeck · 2006-01-12 21:47 · Score: 1

I always thought Microsoft used an army of Mole Men to write their software.

--
Navicula hydraulica plena anguilarum est. Omnes castelli tuus nostri sunt. Ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta.
Re:Cute Microsoft Joke by dangitman · 2006-01-12 21:52 · Score: 1

Yeah, if WMP is Microsoft's idea of the penultimate software experience, then I feel really sorry for Windows users.
If WMP is considered by microsoft to be the "penultimate" software experience, then what comes next? Will computer users be "raptured" and simply disappear after the next, and final software experience?

--
... and then they built the supercollider.
Re:Cute Microsoft Joke by NickFortune · 2006-01-13 01:54 · Score: 1

Our focus really is in delivering the best experience to Windows customers
I don't think they meant
We intend to deliver the best possible experience to windows customers
I think they meant,
of all the experiences we deliver (whatever that means) the best of them will be those which we deliveer to users of the Windows operating system
Doesn't actually mean that the windows experience will be good, just a promise that on a Mac it will be even worse.
Once you decode the spin, the rest is easy

--
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!

Quicktime is no better by nighty5 · 2006-01-12 20:09 · Score: 4, Interesting

I own a PowerBook, and for me to have basic functionality in video support, you have to pay for it.

Basic functionality like Full Screen support, what the?!?

I just paid $AUS4,000 for a system and now I have to pay another $AUS45 to watch something in full screen?

Apple might be all funky and groovey, but they really bleed every cent out of you for any added features.

This stuff should be stock standard.

On my god, mod me down - I've just flamed Apple!

Re:Quicktime is no better by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-12 20:12 · Score: 1, Insightful

Dude - just get a quicktime pro code from Serialz like everyone else. Every quicktime install has pro features just waiting to be unlocked
Re:Quicktime is no better by atroc · 2006-01-12 20:25 · Score: 1

I agree, which is the reason I won't be getting a Mac anytime soon.

--
Friendly fire isn't!
Re:Quicktime is no better by CoolMoDee · 2006-01-12 20:46 · Score: 1

While I don't agree with apple making fullscreen movie watching a Quicktime Pro only feature, but maybe they are doing it to cover license costs of being able to encode into all sorts of formats that apple doesn't own? As well as the legitimate editing features?

--
Jisho - A Japanese English German Russian French Dictionary for the rest of us.
Re:Quicktime is no better by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-12 20:48 · Score: 0

Let me get this right, you won't be purchasing a whole new computer (prob a few thousand dollars) because Quicktime asks you to buy Quicktime Pro in order to license the encoders and watch movies in fullscreen.
I don't think Apple should try the fullscreen trick but I do agree with the change for encoding for the patent licenses and stuff
However, Windows Media doesn't come with a DVD decoder, that has to be supplied by someone else before you can watch DVDs.
It seems that if your basing the purchase of a Mac on the Quicktime Pro issue, you really need to chill out. Talk about overkill.
Re:Quicktime is no better by gnasher719 · 2006-01-12 21:28 · Score: 2, Interesting

''I own a PowerBook, and for me to have basic functionality in video support, you have to pay for it.

Basic functionality like Full Screen support, what the?!? ''

I can play videos in full screen in my Macintosh without any problems, without having to pay any money for it.
Apple ships all Macs with a free video player. It is called iTunes.
Re:Quicktime is no better by dangitman · 2006-01-12 21:54 · Score: 5, Informative

I just paid $AUS4,000 for a system and now I have to pay another $AUS45 to watch something in full screen?
No, you definitely do not have to pay $45. Just play the video in iTunes, or mplayer, or VLC. Who told you that Quicktime was the only was to play videos?

--
... and then they built the supercollider.
Re:Quicktime is no better by nighty5 · 2006-01-12 22:07 · Score: 1

Who told you that Quicktime was the only was to play videos?

I didn't know iTunes can play videos in full screen, I will give this a try - thanks!
Re:Quicktime is no better by dreamer-of-rules · 2006-01-12 22:21 · Score: 1

I believe that you can also use the calculator, no joke. But you're right about Apple and the upselling-- didja see the demo of iWeb?

--
Everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts.
Re:Quicktime is no better by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 01:55 · Score: 0

Add the following AppleScript to your Scripts menu:

tell application "QuickTime Player"
present front movie scale screen
end tell
Re:Quicktime is no better by Lars+T. · 2006-01-13 01:55 · Score: 1

QT Amateur. QuickTime is more than just a Media Player. Infact the player that ships with it is just some sort of demo for what can be done with QT.

--
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Re:Quicktime is no better by fivefifty · 2006-01-13 02:16 · Score: 1

Just run the following AppleScript (in Script Editor) to play a quicktime movie full screen: tell app "QuickTime Player" to present first movie
Re:Quicktime is no better by djm · 2006-01-13 02:31 · Score: 1

You can show a movie full-screen using QuickTime Player (without Pro) by clicking on a short AppleScript.

Type these 3 lines into /Applications/AppleScript/Script Editor.

tell application "QuickTime Player"
present movie 1
end tell

Then Save As, choose File Format Application, and give it a name something like "Present Current QT Movie.app".
Then open a movie in QT Player and double-click on that app you just made to show it full-screen.

Or you can drag & drop a movie onto an application made from the below AppleScript, name it something like "Present Named QT Movie.app". Then QT Player doesn't need to be opened first.

on open fileName
tell application "QuickTime Player"
open fileName
present movie 1
end tell
end open
Re:Quicktime is no better by psymastr · 2006-01-13 02:45 · Score: 1

Unbelievable... Apple sure seems like a MS wannabe.

--
Improve at backgammon rapidly through addictive quickfire position quizzes: www.bgtrain.com
Re:Quicktime is no better by leoguy8022 · 2006-01-13 02:55 · Score: 1

What? You never tried this script http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/mac911/2005/08/ful lscreen/index.php You can watch fullscreen videos in Quicktime without paying a dime. Personally, I think mplayer isn't as good as quicktime in video playback. You can't seek to any position in video as easily as in Quicktime. Also, in QT you can pause the video and use your mouse-wheel to loop the interesting bits as many times as you want. Makes my pr0n viewing experience more enjoyable, especially considering the fact that you can use one hand :-)
Re:Quicktime is no better by Dephex+Twin · 2006-01-13 02:59 · Score: 1

There is something you can do to play them fullscreen in Quicktime. You can write a one or two line AppleScript and put that in your dock or Scripts menubar icon and click it when you want full screen. I am at work so I can't look at the exact syntax but I think it was something like:

Tell Application "Quicktime" to present movie 1 scale screen

But I might be off on that...

--

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -- Carl Sagan
Re:Quicktime is no better by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 05:13 · Score: 1, Informative

The Quicktime application itself is the only thing locked out -- the underlying API for playing back video and such is not. For example you can download NicePlayer, which will utilize Quicktime and allow you to play back video full screen and such, without needing you to pay for a Quicktime pro key. Since it uses the Quicktime APIs, it fully supports the use of flip4mac for playing back wmv. It also provides a pluggable back end so you can download separate plugins if you'd rather use something like Xine to render the video. NicePlayer even plays back DVDs, and it has a far better interface than both Quicktime player and DVD Player.
Re:Quicktime is no better by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 05:50 · Score: 0

Surfer's Serials:

http://www.serialz.to/serialbox.html

Corrected version of the editorial by this+great+guy · 2006-01-12 20:10 · Score: 1

Here is a corrected version of the editorial:

Adam Anderson told News.com, 'It's basically a business decision for Microsoft. Like any other company, we have business priorities. Yeah you see because and customer satisfaction and software features are clearly not #1.

Who cares? That's why we have MPlayer... by nvrrobx · 2006-01-12 20:12 · Score: 1

I'm looking forward to the possibility to use MPlayer + the Win32 codec pack on my MacBook.

WMP for Mac couldn't play back the most recent WMV codec anyhow. Quite irritating.

Great news by skinfitz · 2006-01-12 20:13 · Score: 1

This is great - WMP for Mac is abysmal - especially when attempting to play a clip as it's downloading - Quicktime has the most elegant way of doing this I've seen where the grey bar indicates how much of the clip has been downloaded while you are watching seamlessly unlike WMP's 'buffering....buffering....' crap that it does, (usually before it stops responding).

I have not tested Flip4Mac yet but if it basically lets us play WMV and behaves just like Quicktime, I'm a happy man.

I hope they stop support for Windows Messenger next - that's crap too.

Re:Great news by iKillCellphones · 2006-01-12 22:57 · Score: 2, Insightful

WMP for Mac is abysmal - especially when attempting to play a clip as it's downloading - Quicktime has the most elegant way of doing this I've seen where the grey bar indicates how much of the clip has been downloaded while you are watching seamlessly unlike WMP's 'buffering....buffering....' crap that it does, (usually before it stops responding).

Whoah there. I think you're mistaking a Faststart (Quicktime) movie with a streaming (WMV) movie. The two are entirely different methods of delivery - don't blame the player (and your connection speed) for a decision that the webmaster made! A streaming Quicktime movie will buffer just as annoyingly, given the right circumstances.
Re:Great news by Malc · 2006-01-13 04:08 · Score: 1

How they present things is rather moot. Neither have a good user interface. On that point they're both abysmal.
Re:Great news by skinfitz · 2006-01-14 07:05 · Score: 1

I'm not confusing anything - I'm talking about a straight forward http link to a movie file - WMV is complete crap at dealing with this.
Re:Great news by skinfitz · 2006-01-14 08:19 · Score: 1

...oh and it's 'streaming' sucks too.

What ??? by this+great+guy · 2006-01-12 20:14 · Score: 0

Will someone think about those who need WMP vulnerabilities for Mac OS X ?

Re:Lame by yobjob · 2006-01-12 20:19 · Score: 0

The Windows Media videos here don't strike me as particularly crappy.

--
Czech language for absolute beginners

Are you Sirius? by mntbighker · 2006-01-12 20:20 · Score: 2, Interesting

WMP9 is the only thing that will allow you to listen to Sirius radio streams. Flip4Mac actually prevents WMP plugin from working with Sirius. I wish Apple would make iTunes work with Sirius so I could listen through my Airport Express.

Re:Are you Sirius? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 08:50 · Score: 0

Are you nuts? If anything serious should be making a plugin for quicktime, not the other way around. Especially since apple sells music too.

Safari crashes by skinfitz · 2006-01-12 20:21 · Score: 2, Interesting

Just installed Flip4Mac from the Microsoft download page, and while it works, Safari now crashes if I switch tabs or navigate away from the page after playing a clip.

I might try a reboot - can anyone remember how to reboot a PowerBook? It's been a while.

Re:Safari crashes by diamondsw · 2006-01-12 20:36 · Score: 4, Informative

Try upgrading to 2.0.1, just released. There was a crashing problem in 2.0 and Quicktime 7.0.4 when you leave the video (navigate away, quit Quicktime, etc).

--
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
Re:Safari crashes by cianduffy · 2006-01-12 20:51 · Score: 1

Move it to either side, or tap the side of the screen - the "Apple Sudden Motion Dectector" does a great job of turning mine off if I do that...
Re:Safari crashes by skinfitz · 2006-01-12 20:52 · Score: 1

Did that and no crashes now - thanks for the info.
Re:Safari crashes by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-12 21:32 · Score: 0

Apple Button in the top menu bar. "Restart..." Or just hit the power button.
Re:Safari crashes by kerrbear · 2006-01-12 22:04 · Score: 1

Just installed Flip4Mac from the Microsoft download page, and while it works, Safari now crashes if I switch tabs or navigate away from the page after playing a clip.

Yeah, well I just installed it an went to comedycentral to view some Daily Show clips. Every clip I tried to watch told me the URL was invalid. I was able to do it before with Media Player- although it always hung up halfway through and only played the audio. I was hoping that finally my dilemma of crappy playback would be solved, but apparently not.

Flip4Mac for free works for me! by lux55 · 2006-01-12 20:26 · Score: 1

I just discovered Flip4Mac the other day and just installed it to try it out a day or two ago. Microsoft striking a deal to give it away for free is great. Now I can play WMV files in QuickTime, which is a much better player on the Mac anyway.

--
putfwd.com - 1GB Free file storage with a twist

Re:Lame by MuckSavage · 2006-01-12 20:26 · Score: 1

Yeah. Have you ever used WMP for the mac?

When is an upgrade not an upgrade? by maggard · 2006-01-12 20:34 · Score: 4, Insightful

First off the player GUI isn't the important thing, it's the underlying architecture.

MacOS pioneered a ubiquitous universal media layer with QT and making the MS codecs part of that is just plain shu-weet. Most real users aren't all that concerned about how pretty or not the default player is, the big concern is getting the material in and out of any/all applications.

Now everything, from Pages to Word to whatever, will be able to embed, play, link almost every format.

Yeah, almost. Nope, not talking Real (is anyone?), rather the latest codecs from MS. I'm told by my video geekin' buddies that Flip4Mac, nifty as it is, is last year's code and can't handle the latest 'n greatest WMP 10 codes from MS. Anyone know the truth on this, done any testing?

However, more importantly, in spite of MS's promise at MacWorld last week of another 5 years of Mac Office (all of which is good profit) word is the black spot is on Mac projects and folks are being reassigned, contractors not being extended, the MacBU folks off in Sili Valley are finding their req's from the Redmond mothership are taking longer and loonggeerrrr to fill.

If so then there really is a sea change and the gentleman's agreement between MS & Apple seems to be coming to an end. Sure MS is gonna keep the Office stuff, heck most of it started on the Mac, makes money, and is a check-off item on procurement sheets requiring cross-platform.

But media, where Apple has traditionally been strong, where the iPod reigns, where his Steveness rules both a computer company and a production studio, where cross-platform for everyone has always been the rule, may be where the real break starts to happen. Apple has always been lazy about QT under Windows (heck QT Player still doesn't make use of Overlay, making it often a pain to work with) is MS now returning the favor and poisoning their own well?

Will next year the response to "I can't get this to play on my Mac" be "Install Windows Vista on it"?

--
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.

Re:When is an upgrade not an upgrade? by dancingmad · 2006-01-12 20:52 · Score: 1

nifty as it is, is last year's code and can't handle the latest 'n greatest WMP 10 codes from MS

If Comedycentral.com and cartoonnetwork.com are any indication, your friend is quite right.

--
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
Re:When is an upgrade not an upgrade? by VirtualWolf · 2006-01-12 22:25 · Score: 1

I'm told by my video geekin' buddies that Flip4Mac, nifty as it is, is last year's code and can't handle the latest 'n greatest WMP 10 codes from MS. Anyone know the truth on this, done any testing?

Aye, as far as I know, nothing on the Mac can play WMP 10 files.
Re:When is an upgrade not an upgrade? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 00:59 · Score: 0

Aye, as far as I know, nothing on the Mac can play WMP 10 files.
I know I'll get modded down for this, but what the hell.... what can play WMP 10 files on a Mac? VirtualPC
Works like a charm

Re: Sirius streams through Airport Express by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-12 20:35 · Score: 0

Will this help with the Sirius streaming?

http://www.rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/

It's not MS, and phones home to parent company by kiddailey · 2006-01-12 20:38 · Score: 2, Interesting

I installed it. Does a GREAT job with nearly every WMV that Media Player can't handle, but you'll still need WMP around for some files. I had something from TechTV that was all distorted with F4M but plays fine in the old player.

Anyway, it wasn't created by MS, but actually licensed from Telestream, Inc.. This can be verified by the press release from them, but also because the plugin actually phones home to FlipCenter.com when it is used -- probably for update checks.

Obviously, it's a little half-baked. I would have expected it to check for updates from Microsoft's site or not at all. The update checks can be disabled in the prefs, but I haven't yet verified that this is what it was doing and instead just blocked any outgoing requests from it period.

Re:It's not MS, and phones home to parent company by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-12 21:58 · Score: 0

Don't worry too much. Now that Apple is using Intel processors, there will just be wrappers for Win32 codecs to work in QuickTime.

business decision by penguin-collective · 2006-01-12 20:41 · Score: 3, Insightful

He misspoke; what he meant to say was:

"It's basically a business decision for Microsoft," Anderson said. "Like any other company, we like to leverage our strength in the market in such a way as to keep competitors out of the market. Call in 'monopolistic practices' if you like, but as long as we are going to get away with it, we are going to continue to do it."

Windows Media Player has been really important for the Mac because there are a lot of media out there that are WMF only.

However, we can hope that this will accelerate the move to open formats.

Three Letters by AoT · 2006-01-12 20:45 · Score: 4, Informative

VLC.

I love it to death. It does everything quicktime should do.

videolan.org

--
A blog about stuff.

Re:Three Letters by nighty5 · 2006-01-12 22:05 · Score: 1

Yes I have been meaning to give this a try - thanks for the heads up.
Re:Three Letters by biglig2 · 2006-01-12 23:00 · Score: 1

VLC is actually a very scary application.

Think about it - other media players only handle a limited set of formats and even then they often choke and complain that you haven't got the right codec etc. But VLC just plays everything. So either everything else is crap, or they've made some sort of a deal with Satan.

Examples:
I was having trouble watching the MacWorld keynote, for example, with Quicktime spluttering, and was about to give up when I thought "hang on, try VLC". Worked a treat. I also had a problem with a 1Gb MP2 file from my PVR that I needed to move to another computer - with no DVD burner avaialble. Messed about for a while, then tried VLC. Transcoded it down to 150Mb (quality was not an issue) and popped it onto a USB memory stick.

--
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
Re:Three Letters by AoT · 2006-01-13 01:15 · Score: 2, Informative

If playing to many formats is a bad thing then I should let you know that I have not managed to get it to play .wmv files.

Though, I have not tried to hard.

--
A blog about stuff.
Re:Three Letters by qwp · 2006-01-13 04:15 · Score: 1

Oh, And shall we mention that VLC http://videolan.org/ is open source?

Also note that they are very worried about the patent problems recently. http://www.videolan.org/eucd.html

Also all of their download sites are not in the U.S., I have thought about being a U.S. Mirror a couple of times, but figure there is good reason to not distribute it within the U.S.
Re:Three Letters by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 05:04 · Score: 0

Blame that on closed standards. Try getting Real media to play with VLC and see how far you get with that.

Ironically, even in Windows VLC will not play (most) wmv files unless you install WMP anyways, which kinda defeats the purpose of using it (at least for watching wmv files), not that it is forcing me to install WMP or anything or stopping use of VLC.
Re:Three Letters by EnsilZah · 2006-01-13 06:08 · Score: 1

The one problem i have with VLC is the web-plugin.
It loads, it plays and it's done.
I like quicktime the best for web-playback, You can wait until the whole file is down and not have to get all the buffering in the middle, you can replay it without redownloading (Windows Media Player) or refreshing the page (VLC).
Re:Three Letters by AnyoneEB · 2006-01-13 08:20 · Score: 1

VLC (on Windows XP) lets me play DVDs without the region code set on my DVD drive, so I assume it has DeCSS. That would be a good reason to not distribute it in the US.

--
Centralization breaks the internet.

Marketshare BS by alphasubzero949 · 2006-01-12 20:48 · Score: 2, Interesting

I've complained to web developers before about this and was given the usual canned marketshare/statistics crap. Some developers are just lazy and will flat out refuse to consider using more than one format.

Re:Marketshare BS by dangitman · 2006-01-12 21:41 · Score: 1

"Our research shows that 100% of visitors to our site, which uses Windows Media Format to distribute videos, choose to use Windows Media Format files when visiting our website."
This research shows a strong trend in themarket, and we should fund Windows Media expansion or be left behind.

--
... and then they built the supercollider.
Re:Marketshare BS by Midnight+Thunder · 2006-01-13 01:01 · Score: 1

Or as a friend once put it, what some companies think to themselves:

Looking at my server stats I see that only 10% of users are non-IE users. In that case I will concentrate on IE. The next month server stats indicated 5%, so was definetly right to concentrate on IE only. Next month 2%. Then they do end up testing on a non-IE browser and find out no one can view it on any other browser but IE. Certainly explains in the declines in non-IE based visitors.

This thinking can be applied to many web sites with the use of technologies that end up preventing certain users from visiting the website, because of compatibility issues.

--
Jumpstart the tartan drive.

Does it actually work? by dancingmad · 2006-01-12 20:49 · Score: 1

I "switched" in August of '05 and one of the things I've missed in Japan is watching Comedy Central and Cartoon Network. I thought that I would be able to watch the clips on their respective sites using my iBook.

Sadly no. WMP on Mac is a joke. It crashes or fails constantly. It simply did not work. So I stumbled across Flip4Mac before MS started distrbuting it and I thought my problems were all solved. Things seemed to begin loading...

But nothing ever plays. Not on ComedyCentral, not on Cartoon Network. Am I doing something wrong or, as I surmise, does it simply not work with streaming windows media files (and, thus since I can use VLC and mplayer to player any other kind of file) completely useless?

--
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)

Re:Does it actually work? by alphasubzero949 · 2006-01-12 21:30 · Score: 1

Comedy Central won't work at all. There are many users across the different Mac forums griping about it too. Perhaps going to the free support forum at Flip4Mac en masse and posting concerns there should get the complaint heard.
Re:Does it actually work? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-12 22:21 · Score: 0

I also tried ComedyCentral using Flip4Mac 2.0.1 (QTpro 7.0.4, OSX 10.4.4). The Daily Show does not work at all; it worked with WMP, but worked badly. I think this not a Flip4Mac problem, but abysmal site creation by CC staff using too much M$ integration. One area on the ComedyCentral "MotherLoad" delivers this message to non-Microsofties "We're sorry, but MotherLoad will only play on PCs with Windows XP or 2000/SP4+. Click below to make sure you launch our standard media player for video (except MotherLoad exclusives)." Go to ComedyCentral and complain. http://www.comedycentral.com/help/help.jhtml
Re:Does it actually work? by commodoresloat · 2006-01-12 23:16 · Score: 1

I think those sites use the WMP 10 codecs, which are not supported by this tool or by the WMP. They're just not playable on a mac (yet). But flip4mac does wonders with all the other wmv content out there as well as sites that stream (at least what I've looked at so far). It even (sorta) lets you download streaming videos as quicktime!

WMP and Quicktime both stink! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-12 20:57 · Score: 0

WMP stinks due to its horrid interface and massive size. Quicktime stinks because Apple thinks "fullscreen" is a feature used by professionals! Plus, as evil as Microsoft is, they still offer their media encoder for free while Apple considers it another "Professional" feature. My advice - dump both and get VLC!

Friday Night Fix works fine by Crono · 2006-01-12 21:00 · Score: 1

Really? I've had no trouble watching Cartoon Network's Friday Night Fix on my Macs, and I've tried it in both VLC and Windows Media Player.

Re:Friday Night Fix works fine by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-12 23:36 · Score: 0

Same here.

Competition regulations? by TangoCharlie · 2006-01-12 21:01 · Score: 5, Interesting

I've always suspected that Microsoft has kept some support for Apple going to counter-act any potential monopoly claims.

While Apple appears to provide a competing product Microsoft can always maintain that they don't have a complete monopoly and so are less likely to be the subject of calls to split them up.

This made business sence at Microsoft because Apple wasn't really a competitor... however, I believe Microsoft sees Apple to be an increasing risk (not "risc" ?!) and so is cutting back on Mac products which don't have a revenue stream.

If Apple's move to Intel has the effect of increasing Apple's market share expect Microsoft to withdraw Microsoft Office. Indeed, I expect Microsoft will be painfully slow to release an x86 native MacOffice at all.

We'll see.

--
return 0; }

Re:Competition regulations? by SmoothTom · 2006-01-12 22:04 · Score: 1

Yes. If Apple didn't exist, Microsoft would have to invent it.

For years Apple, as small a percentage of the desktop market as it was, was one of the few things that made Microsoft "Not a Monopoly."

--
Tomas
Re:Competition regulations? by walt-sjc · 2006-01-12 23:19 · Score: 1

That's all fine and good excpet for the fact that the legal definition of a monopoly for anti-trust purposes is not the same as a dictionary definition. You don't NEED 100% of the market to be a monopoly. MS is STILL a monopoly on the desktop.

So MS doesn't have to worry about being a monopoly, they have to worry [1] about abusing their monopoly power to harm competitors.

[1] Not really, since the DOJ refuses to do their job due to political reasons, and the jury is still out of the EU ("You must be more open. We really mean it. OK, well, we will give you ONE more chance. That's not enough? You need until 2045? We will see what we can do...")
Re:Competition regulations? by mjpaci · 2006-01-12 23:38 · Score: 0, Flamebait

The EU is using the same tactic against Iran just like it did against Saddam Hussein - ever increasing their scolding voice. I think the EU went as far as using Saddam's middle name! "Saddam Patrick Hussein, if you're not out of Kuwait by the time I count to three..."
Re:Competition regulations? by WiggyWack · 2006-01-13 03:34 · Score: 4, Insightful

If Apple's move to Intel has the effect of increasing Apple's market share expect Microsoft to withdraw Microsoft Office.

Why? Microsoft makes money on Office for Mac.

Everyone who buys a Mac is a lost sale of Windows for Microsoft. But Microsoft still has a chance to make a profit by selling Office to that Mac user. Why would they want to lose a Windows sale AND an Office sale? The profit to Microsoft for a Mac user buying Office retail is probably greater than the profit from an OEM copy of Windows anyway.

--
Macintosh humor! MacComedy.com
Re:Competition regulations? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 07:55 · Score: 0

expect Microsoft to withdraw Microsoft Office. Indeed, I expect Microsoft will be painfully slow to release an x86 native MacOffice at all.

In the keynote at MacWorld a Microsoft employee said that MS signed an 'official agreement' or something like that to provide updates and new versions of Office for Mac for at least 5 years.
Re:Competition regulations? by GaryPatterson · 2006-01-13 09:37 · Score: 1

Roz Ho, the general manager of the MacBU in Microsoft confirmed a formal agreement to produce Office for OS X for at least the next five years. This was during Steve Jobs' keynote speech.

Given that, they could be slow to release, but Microsoft has stated a number of times that Office for Mac is a very profitable line for them.

I don't think Microsoft will act as you think they will act.

Too bad... by timmerk15 · 2006-01-12 21:03 · Score: 0, Interesting

that this Flip4Mac disabled viewing of some WMVs on websites that WMP for the Mac could play.. I think it's because it can't h andle WMP v10 files or DRMed files.

--
Free stuff without getting the referrals? http://referralaccelerated.com

No more Media Player? by MoriartyBrian · 2006-01-12 21:06 · Score: 2, Interesting

Like anyone cares that there is no more WMP on the Mac...

I stopped using WMP a LONG time ago and switched to using VLC for my movie playback needs - Windows, Mac, Linux, *BSD, and BeOS... At least with VLC on an unsecured box I know what is in the file or stream I am trying to play, and hell, the view messages feature is one of the best damn tools ever included - I use it all the time to help my ignorant-of-such-things-as-codecs to figure out what codec they need to download and install.

I don't think anyone ever gave a damn anyways... One less piece of crappy software in the world now...

I swear to Gawd I'll go postal if someone on /. suggests that Microsoft open-sources WMP for the Mac...

--
That computer was worked on by an egotistical maniac with a revenge demon on his shoulder!

Re:No more Media Player? by maggard · 2006-01-12 21:50 · Score: 0, Offtopic

I swear to Gawd I'll go postal if someone on /. suggests that Microsoft open-sources WMP for the Mac...

I heard that George W Bush is advocating Microsoft open-source WMP for the Mac!
(Like nobody saw that coming!)
Was that a "George job"? Is it against Fed. law?

--
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.

Is Microsoft killing their own business by GhodMode · 2006-01-12 21:08 · Score: 1

hmmm... deja vu ... my previous rant

.Net Thing by thanextgeneration · 2006-01-12 21:08 · Score: 1

Maybe it's it's a .Net thing, since microsoft use it to create everything maybe they are just cutting ties with non .net based technology.

oh my! by Heembo · 2006-01-12 21:08 · Score: 1

First the final death of ie for mac http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2005/12/ 19/2142 and now this? Death of 3rd class software on an otherwise elegant system? It's like, Mac just shook off a few fleas!

--
Horns are really just a broken halo.

Quicktime Amateur by RahoulB · 2006-01-12 21:33 · Score: 1

https://amateur.dev.java.net/

free clone that uses the Quicktime APIs to a new client ...

A joke, I know, but... by pomo+monster · 2006-01-12 21:37 · Score: 1

tell application "QuickTime Player" to present front movie

Funny how often this comes up on a forum whose members pride themselves on being able to customize shit to their liking. Maybe AppleScript just isn't geeky enough.

Re:A joke, I know, but... by ichigo+2.0 · 2006-01-12 22:08 · Score: 1

I pride myself in customizing "shit" (I guess that would be windows in this case) to my liking and am geeky, but as I have never used a Macintosh computer my Quicktime experience is limited to the Windows version. Therefore it is not all that unlikely that someone would come in contact with this fullscreen limitation in the free Quicktime player, and not have even touched a mac.
Re:A joke, I know, but... by pomo+monster · 2006-01-12 22:15 · Score: 1

Oh yeah, I hadn't even considered Windows--sorry! (In my neighborhood, I think there's probably something like a 5 to 1 ratio in favor of Macs.) I suppose there's always iTunes. Given that iTunes is happy to present movies fullscreen for free, it's even stupider that QuickTime Player won't let you do it without a hack. *kicks Steve*
Re:A joke, I know, but... by Lars+T. · 2006-01-13 01:48 · Score: 1

I always wondered why nobody has written a QuickTime Player for Windows yet. There are a couple for Macs, e.g. QT Amateur
Ohh, I see, this is a "I don't know what QuickTime actually is" problem on the part of all those leet Windows coders.

--
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Re:A joke, I know, but... by Wordsmith · 2006-01-13 02:03 · Score: 1

Media Player Classic plays Quicktime files just fine, if you have the codecs installed.
Re:A joke, I know, but... by ichigo+2.0 · 2006-01-13 02:12 · Score: 0

There isn't an alternative to Quicktime on windows as such, because the .qt and .mov formats are proprietary, and reverse engineering them probably is illegal in addition to time consuming (the same applies to the .wmv & .rm formats). But there is Quicktime alternative, which is essentially a stripped down version of quicktime with only the libraries needed for decoding and some extra code to translate between the QT libraries and Windows, to allow QT media to be viewed with any player. I'm guessing QT Amateur uses the libraries included in Quicktime 7 to enable decoding as the page indicates it to be a requirement.
Re:A joke, I know, but... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 02:15 · Score: 0

Funny, Kaffiene and Xine seem to be able to play .mov files just fine...I guess it isn't that hard to reverse engineer.

Or maybe another lawsuit is coming from Apple.
Re:A joke, I know, but... by Lars+T. · 2006-01-13 02:33 · Score: 1

Who said anything about an alternative to Quicktime? Are you one of the leet Windows coders I talked about - those who still don't have a fucking clue what Quicktime is? Quicktime is basically a set of APIs, and a player (like QT Amateur) is one possible aplication that calls them - in the good old days there were a dozen, and most of them still work with the latest version of QT. Now start coding.

--
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Re:A joke, I know, but... by Lars+T. · 2006-01-13 02:36 · Score: 1

Start here

--
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Re:A joke, I know, but... by Kadin2048 · 2006-01-13 02:59 · Score: 2, Informative

Research before you talk. The Quicktime file format is fully documented, and Apple's licensing is quite open. According to Digital Preservation, "Licensing by Apple appears to be limited to the software and other technology elements." The Wikipedia entry on Quicktime claims that the "the QuickTime file format itself [is] openly documented and available for anyone to use royalty-free."

If you want to be very sure, you could always ask Apple directly, via their Quicktime Software Licensing page (which is related more to bundling actual Quicktime software with products, and using the Quicktime and Apple logo). Their email address is sw.license@apple.com.

That said, here's the actual Apple documentation for the Quicktime File Format, from the developer site. I think this is what you'd want; in its introduction it reads "if you are developing a non-QuickTime application that imports QuickTime files or works with QuickTime VR, you need to understand the material in this book."

So basically, it's nothing like the situation with ASF or WMV at all. Apple has lots of reasons to want people to implement the Quicktime file format -- in digital cameras, third-party software, wherever. A version of it is used in the ISO spec for MPEG-4 video, as well. The more people use it, the more interoperable Macs become; to encourage that, the spec is open. Obviously there are licensing issues on the codecs themselves, but in terms of the container format there don't seem to be any deal-breaking restrictions. It's only if you wanted to use Apple code to play the content of the containers/streams, or use any of their logos that there'd be a problem.

--
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Re:A joke, I know, but... by ichigo+2.0 · 2006-01-13 03:37 · Score: 1

I mailed them, but I have a feeling their answer will not help me. I usually do think before I talk, but in this case I just assumed the worst and pointed my finger at IP rights. Unless you hear from me again, consider my point refuted or mail ignored by Apple. :)
Re:A joke, I know, but... by ichigo+2.0 · 2006-01-13 03:52 · Score: 1

I checked out some of the material on Apple's developer pages, and that API is used to incorporate quicktime playing capabilities in other applications (that's probably how QT Alternative decodes QT files)? I'm guessing one only needs to redistribute the QT DLL, as having to install QT to run a program dependent on the API would be annoying. I guess you have some interesting ideas for it, but I'm sorry to say that I don't really see the point beyond making an alternative to Quicktime.
Re:A joke, I know, but... by Fordiman · 2006-01-13 04:53 · Score: 1

"Quicktime Alternative"

Google it. It's a VFW Quicktime filter that lets you use QT like an AVI.

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Re:A joke, I know, but... by Fordiman · 2006-01-13 04:57 · Score: 1

No, seriously. What flavor of crack DO you smoke?

You're bundling Quicktime (the video for apple api) with Mov (the stream container preferred by quicktime).

I don't need another API for video. I have Xinerama on my Linux box and VFW/Directshow on my Windows box. What I need (and what has existed for nearly two years) is a well-written plugin for these APIs that will allow me to 1) view MOV-contained files and 2) contain streams in the MOV container.

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Re:A joke, I know, but... by Lars+T. · 2006-01-13 06:03 · Score: 1

And you still don't know what QuickTime is. It is not a "video" API.

--
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Re:A joke, I know, but... by Lars+T. · 2006-01-13 06:06 · Score: 1

And why would I want that? Google it - VfW is just a lame copy of QuickTime.

--
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Re:A joke, I know, but... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 07:41 · Score: 0

Oh yeah, I hadn't even considered Windows--sorry! (In my neighborhood, I think there's probably something like a 5 to 1 ratio in favor of Macs.)
San Francisco? Provincetown? Greenwich Village?
Re:A joke, I know, but... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-15 05:56 · Score: 0

I always wondered why nobody has written a QuickTime Player for Windows yet.

Because it is forbidden by His Billness:
MS tried to block Quicktime for Windows during 1997 and 1998. I doubt severely, given MS activities against the EU and elsewhere in regards to WMP, that there has been either a change of heart or of policy.

How? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-12 21:48 · Score: 1, Funny

"Our focus really is in delivering the best experience to Windows customers."

How? By making Windows better?, "No, by making alternatives worse."

Point for discussion by Slashcrap · 2006-01-12 21:51 · Score: 1

Which is actually worse - WMP for the Mac or Quicktime for Windows?

I've always assumed that Apple make their Windows apps deliberately bad. Is that the case, or does the free version of Quicktime suck that badly under OSX too?

Re:Point for discussion by GrahamCox · 2006-01-12 22:59 · Score: 1

QuickTime on the Mac is pretty decent, and has recently been rewritten (OSX 10.4) in a much more sensible and OS X- like architecture, leveraging OpenGL video cards and all that jazz. QT on Windows is a different proposition, since the original QT was heavily dependant on the QuickDraw and other Mac toolbox structures on to which it was layered. Therefore, QT on Windows includes a massive port of large parts of the Mac toolbox to Windows. That overhead is a thick layer which is probably not very efficient. It's also rather out of date now, as the old style toolbox (Carbon APIs) is probably not the best way to program OS X these days, even though it is still supported and will be for a long time.
Re:Point for discussion by JackAxe · 2006-01-12 23:25 · Score: 5, Interesting

First of all, I speak with experience, since I have 2 PCs in my office and 3 Macs and video work is part of my income.

Quicktime on the Mac is absolutely great mainly because it's so tightly integrated into the system and has sooo many years of development under its belt. The only drawback, is that if you want to save a video directly, go full screen, play back MPeg2s in it, or use it to export to other formats, you'll need to pay Apple $30 for the pro license. Earlier versins of QT did all of this for free. I own the pro license for both my Macs and PCs, so I'm not bothered by those deliberate shortcomings.

QT pro is quite uesfull for me on both platforms and for what it can do, at only $30, if you need these features, is a much better bargain than any other similar app I could find. Just to give you an example, there are some codecs that I still can not convert on my Mac, mainly the old Indeo formats. When it comes to my PC software, I'm cheap, so I didn't want to spend that much on an app that could convert these videos into a format I could edit, so I spent days looking for preferably a free convertor for Windows and checked out demos of apps that could do it for under $200. I finally found a convertor that actually worked, at just over double the price of QT Pro and its final result wasn't that great, with a noticable loss of quality from the original no matter how I tweaked its limited settings. I always export to a raw format if possible, so that I can keep any loss of quality to a minimum, since I'll be recompressing later on. Anyways, I ended up buying QT Pro, since it can export these f*ed up codecs and at only $30 it did exacatly what I needed it to do with the desired and predictable results. My only other option(s), would've been to spend $400 on Cleaner XL for the PC, or some other similar app. And from experience, PCs now days can be quite slow when compared to Macs for video work in general, mainly because of Windows, so the last thing I'd want to do is spend that much money on a comp that's much better suited for other tasks. (I'm probably going to tick of some ignorant Anonymous Coward with that comment.) I also own Cleaner 6 for the Mac, which is a complete POS!!! So I defintely didn't want to give Discreet at the time more money.

QT on the PC is good now days IMO, but just like iTunes it's a step down from its Mac counterpart. I personally haven't had any issues in the past couple of years, but I do recall when QT was complete crap on a PC and on older configurations and in some cases with newer comps, it still is.

Here's another case where QT Pro is actualy better than MP, at least version 10 and that's in Mpeg2 playback speed. This was the case last year, so if MS has released a fix, I haven't updated my PC in over 5 months. MP9 on the PC has never had an issue and it's what one of my clients used to view the mpeg2s I created for his company, before putting it on their propietory boxes for further testing. After the techs upgraded his system to WMP 10, I got a call asking why my latest video wasn't palying smoothly. Anyways, I hadn't changed my settings before compressing and had a set standard I had to encode each video to. I ended up bringing my Powerbook down, showed him it played fine, where as his 3.4 GHz was now chocking, and it wasn't until we finally tested it on another PC in his office that still was using WM9, that it was not longer my problem. To finish my ramblings, his company purchased QT Pro for his PC and sure enough it played just as smoothly as it had with WM9.

WMV on the Mac has never improved. It suffers from poor play back speed, where a VLC and MPlayer will hand the same WMVs perfectly. I own Flip4Mac, so that I can convert WMVs into friendly format for my video apps, but every other month or so, I'm running into new videos that it can't play. Then they update it, it works, then once again, I run into more WMVs that will not play on it.

IMO, WMV definitely sucks worse in this case, because even though QT is
Re:Point for discussion by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 00:43 · Score: 2, Informative

These are just my opinions of course. But I speak from experience. I'm all for open formats, but I personally like QT the best, since it offers soooo much for only $30 bucks. The other format I like that most Slashdot peeps would probably cringe at, is Flash's FLV. The quality with version 8 is just as good as QT an WMV in many cases. I see it as a great alternative and personly hope that it replaces WMV and even QT in some areas on the web.
Hell, no! How can you still advocate proprietary formats after your experience with Indeo? Flash uses the totally closed On2 VP6 codec. No idea if it still plays or converts to other formats 10 years from now, or on non-mainstream platforms. WMV is proprietary, but for the video codec (VC1) MS had to give up a large amount of control to get it standardized. At least, it plays out of the box on the largest amount of desktops around the world. QT has a pretty good penetration now, thanks to iTunes. The QT container format is Apple's, but the video codec is standard MPEG 4 AVC (aka h.264, I'm assuming they don't use Sorensen anymore). But for the long term the best format is of course MPEG 4 (AVC or ASP) in a standard MPEG 4 (.mp4) container file.
Re:Point for discussion by CrawlingEvil · 2006-01-13 01:35 · Score: 2, Informative

But for the long term the best format is of course MPEG 4 (AVC or ASP) in a standard MPEG 4 (.mp4) container file.
Actually, the Quicktime container format is open. In fact, you can download a document describing the format from Apple's Quicktime developer website. It's the codecs that may or may not be closed. In fact, .mp4 files are Quicktime files. They're just Quicktime files with the .mov extension changed to .mp4 and are limited to using the MPEG 4 codecs. I believe the MP4 container also drops some of Quicktime's more advanced features, like sprites, but I could be wrong about that one.
In general, the problem with computer video is that most codecs are embroiled with patents. It's pretty much impossible to create a free video player that supports all video formats, because a large number of codecs require royalty payments. In fact, by using VLC in the U.S., you're probably breaking the law. If you want to be legal with your use of VLC, go visit the FFMPEG web site. There you can find a section about which parts of the FFMPEG library are implementations of proprietary codecs and who you should contact to license those portions.
Thankfully, most of those patent holders aren't coming after VLC or FFMPEG. However, try using FFMPEG in a commercial product and see how long before the lawyers come knocking at your door.
Re:Point for discussion by Megane · 2006-01-13 01:46 · Score: 1

Flash uses the totally closed On2 VP6 codec. No idea if it still plays or converts to other formats 10 years from now, or on non-mainstream platforms.
.FLV plays just fine in VLC.
And as for Indeo, wasn't there an Indeo plug-in for the OS9 quicktime? That ought to be enough to transcode to something more open.

--
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Re:Point for discussion by British · 2006-01-13 02:15 · Score: 2, Interesting

Quicktime on the Mac is absolutely great mainly because it's so tightly integrated into the system and has sooo ma

Apple integration of qt into OS = good
MS integration of browser into OS = bad

Huh?

Mac users, don't shed a tear. WMP, IMO is bad for a number of reasons when you look at the competition. I gave WMP 10 an honest try on my work computer to keep a list of whatever MP3s I had on my system at the time. For some strange reason I get duplicates of the same song, in consecutive order. No way to easily clear that out either.

The GUI is a big mess in either version 9 or 10. They try to put too much on the screen at one time. Compare that to the nice and tiny Winamp.

I hate the seek-ahead/rewind. You don't see it in realtime like quicktime has.

In version 9 they introduced a slight delay of controls when you went to fullscreen mode. No longer is it instantaneous like it was in previous versions.

It's very wimpy when you try to play just-downloaded files, etc. If you as much as look as a .wmv file before trying to run it in WMP, it gives you some lame-ass excuse not to play.

I change the privacy settings like the error message said to, so i can see album info for tracks, and it still won't do it.

There's a freakin update every weeek it seems for it, yet it doesn't get any better.

Screw it, I'll use ITunes for MP3 management and winamp for quick play(ie play an mp3 without messing with the library)
Re:Point for discussion by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 02:54 · Score: 0

It's the codecs that may or may not be closed. In fact, .mp4 files are Quicktime files. They're just Quicktime files with the .mov extension changed to .mp4 and are limited to using the MPEG 4 codecs. I believe the MP4 container also drops some of Quicktime's more advanced features, like sprites, but I could be wrong about that one.
The .mp4 container is largely based on Quicktime .mov, but they are certainly not identical, and neither is a subset of another. I believe Qt is somewhat more advanced, but I don't think it will get much (if any) hardware player support. I'm glad to hear that the Qt format is fully documented, and the biggest problem was ideed the codec. Most Qt movies used to use the closed Sorensen for video compression, thankfully they've mostly moved to MPEG 4. Even though it is patent encumbered, at least the specs are open and there are multiple implementations, unlike Sorensen or VP6.
Re:Point for discussion by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 03:13 · Score: 0

> .FLV plays just fine in VLC.

Does it play VP6 encoded movies (used in Flash 8) or just older codecs? AFAIK, the only VP6 implementation comes from On2.
Re:Point for discussion by Wizard+Drongo · 2006-01-13 05:44 · Score: 1

If you want to convert Indeo to a modern format, for free, as I had to do the other day, boot up virtualPC (or in your case, a real pc) and get the indeo video codec for QuickTime For Windows. Works a charm. Click export and you can put it straight to .h264 with zero loss. Now, finding the damn codec, that's a fun game, have fun with the googling; I'd tell you where it is, but I can't remember since it was like 4am and 9 coffee's down when I found them, and since I'm paranoid, no history to go looking through. If you really can't find them, e-mail me, and I'll send you them. They are out there though. Just a shame the only ones that exist for PowerPC are quicktime OS9.

--
The truth shall always be free: Boris Floricic is Tron.
Re:Point for discussion by rob_squared · 2006-01-13 08:51 · Score: 1

Honestly, I like WMP...6.4. It comes with XP but you have to go to the program folder to even find it. Then install some codec pack and you're all set.

Then after a while I realized I used VLC more, plus it can play files that "need extra help" because they're incomplete.

--
I don't get it.
Re:Point for discussion by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 13:05 · Score: 0

Let me summerize:

2 PCs 3 Macs MPeg2s QT QT pro PC $200 QT Cleaner XL PC app PCs comp Cleaner 6 Mac POS!!! QT PC IMO iTunes Mac QT crap PC comps. QT Pro > MP 10 Mpeg2 MS PC MP9 PC mpeg2s WMP 10 Powerbook 3.4 GHz PC WM9 QT Pro PC WM9.

WMV Mac VLC MPlayer WMVs Flip4Mac WMVs apps, WMVs.

IMO, WMV QT Mac app MS's OS X. QT PCs HD. MS WMP Mac IE.

QT $30. peeps Flash's FLV. QT WMV WMV QT web.

Hope this helps clear things up.
Re:Point for discussion by toddestan · 2006-01-13 13:56 · Score: 1

Honestly, I like WMP...6.4. It comes with XP but you have to go to the program folder to even find it. Then install some codec pack and you're all set.

You might like Media Player Classic, which is basically an open source rewrite of WMP 6.4. It can play a wide variety of files, including ones that you have a codec installed for but other players like Winamp and Zoom player still like to choke on. Media Player Classic and VLC are two must-have programs for any Windows user if you ask me.

AppleScript workaround by trolleymusic · 2006-01-12 21:54 · Score: 0

Just put the following in an applescript file in the Quicktime apple scripts directory:

tell application "QuickTime Player" to present front movie

It plays the movie as fullscreen just finey, you can access it from the script menu in quicktime

--
"damnit, trolley I want in your signature." - Elburrito

I wonder what would happen if..... by plusser · 2006-01-12 22:13 · Score: 1

Apple stopped supporting Windows....

Would this mean that iPod users would have to replace their PCs with Macs?

The only real winners here are Real Media - move along please, there is nothing to see here, move along.....

Re:I wonder what would happen if..... by akhomerun · 2006-01-12 23:47 · Score: 2, Interesting

"winnners" and "realmedia" are not words typically used in the same sentence.

Why can't we all just use MPEGS and AVIs, and forget about movs and wmvs. there's no point to proprietary video codecs when there are so many open alternatives that are free and oftentimes superior (MPEG4 H.264 comes to mind)

Come on, it's not like Linux where when you switch to it it's really hard for n00bs, they are just video files!

And of course on that note, VLC rocks.

That's a feature, not a bug by commodoresloat · 2006-01-12 22:15 · Score: 5, Insightful

However.. the free plugin does not enable a Mac user to encode WMV. You'll have to pay for that.

"Decode" is the only thing anyone in their right mind should be doing with WMV.

Re:That's a feature, not a bug by anothy · 2006-01-13 02:01 · Score: 1, Troll

nah, there's other sane things to do to WMV files.

transcode and delete come to mind...

--

i speak for myself and those who like what i say.

My BS meter cant take anymore.......... by Jackie_Chan_Fan · 2006-01-12 22:21 · Score: 1

"It's basically a business decision for Microsoft. Like any other company, we have business priorities. Our focus really is in delivering the best experience to Windows customers."

Yeah right... like they've been doing such a great job at it with windows media player on the PC for the last 10 years.

Infact they've done such a great job of it, most people use Itunes, winamp or media player classic these days.

Way to go Microsoft. You suck again. Shitty Vista, Shitty Media player... Shitty UI, Shitty Security... yet constant press releases about how they're focusing on improving everything... What really has improved since MS has said this before in the past 10 years?

Apple is beating the shit out of Microsoft. The real motives behind this move is the MUSIC STORE that MS just announced. MS wants to shift the focus away from Apple and towards PCs running WINDOWS, and not PCs running OSX.

MS is hanging on a thread here boys. Vista is looking duller by the moment and APPLE keeps getting cooler. Hell they even stole our hardware.

The reality is that in the coming year, there wont be a difference between a MAC and a PC hardware. The real difference will be the os.

Apple is playing for keeps this time. Windows is bleeding and Apple is cool. Fear the fickle public who love their 46 million Ipod's sold this year. They be running a PC today... but by next year, they may be running a MAC.

Microsoft knows this and if they get really desperate, they'll pull the plug on office for mac.

MS taking on Itunes is a huge mistake. No one trusts MS anyway, they dont have a cool artsy image. MS is a big cold IBM clone.

I'm a long time PC user, not a mac user at all... But as an Ipod owner... you can clearly see the trend taking shape.

MS has some serious problems heading their way. Microsoft has an image problem. Nothing about Microsoft inspires quality, coolness, attractiveness, reliability or fairness.

Microsoft has become as cold and as dull as IBM once was.

vlc is crashy [nt] by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-12 22:35 · Score: 0

It plays a lot of files better than WMP or QT, but it crashes a lot. A lot a lot.

Can we have a QuickTime codec then please, Bill? by GrahamCox · 2006-01-12 22:40 · Score: 1, Interesting

WMP on the Mac is probably about the crappiest out there, Real included, and that's saying something. Unfortunately I've noticed that a lot of sites have started to go down the .wma file route for video content, which is a shame, but also inevitable, given the clueless PC hoards out there. There are some decent third party efforts, so that's OK, but what would be ideal would be for Apple to be allowed to develop and bundle a WM codec for QuickTime, so that content "just works" when played back, as it should. Since this would no longer be taking anything away from MS (quite the opposite), MS should go ahead and give them the rights to do this...

Of course, Apple might not want to, since it would help spread the diseases of WM even faster, but it seems that pleading with content providers to adopt QuickTime (or something else that is more cross-platform friendly) is just not working. I know, I've tried it already. They don't care, use VLC they say, or somesuch. If Apple are wise, they will recognise the reality of this and just add the format to QuickTime. Sure it's a backdown, but they must be getting used to the feeling by now.

Delivering the best experience to Windows customrs by sl4shd0rk · 2006-01-12 22:41 · Score: 1

This is friggin awesome! Is that coming out with Vista?

--
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!

Use cocoa? by ChunderDownunder · 2006-01-12 23:18 · Score: 1

When NeXT was a separate entity, OPENSTEP ran in Windows.

Perhaps they could dust off the code and use the Cocoa APIs. One less framework to maintain.

flip4mac issues by Triv · 2006-01-12 23:35 · Score: 2, Informative

Flip4mac is nifty, but it's got some serious usability issues.

1. if you right-click on a .wmv file, quicktime player doesn't pull up as a valid option to open the file.
2. playback is fine, but navigating within the file is problematic - trying to skip to the middle of a file usually results in the 'counter keeps ticking, but the video and audio freezes' problem.
3. opening files can (but doesn't always) take forever, and it has nothing to do with the size of the file.
4. it's a good stopgap, but it still chokes on the occasional file - one in ten or so.

Not saying it's not an interesting project, but it's not the holy grail either. I find that VLC is, if not as dependable (flip4mac opens files that VLC routinely chokes on) at least more flexible if it manages to open the file in the first place.

Re:flip4mac issues by n8_f · 2006-01-13 02:29 · Score: 1

1. Select "WMV Player", which will open WMV files in QuickTime and even gives the files the QuickTime icon.
2. I don't notice anything unusual with this. WMV has always sucked for seeking, in my experience, but I've been able to scrub fairly well in mine.
3. Again, not something I've had problems with. Is it possible it is a certain type of file (video/audio codec) that isn't working?
4. Some files may trip it up, but it handles WMV3 (Media Player 9 and later) and nothing else on the Mac does (Mplayer and VLC use binary codecs for playback on Windows machines). The biggest weakest is with streams, which I have had a lot of problems with.
Re:flip4mac issues by argent · 2006-01-13 05:53 · Score: 1

if you right-click on a .wmv file, quicktime player doesn't pull up as a valid option to open the file.

Right Click, Get Info, change the player to "WMV Player", click "Change All".

Actually, Real is best... by maarten_delft · 2006-01-12 23:41 · Score: 1

Yeah, but Windows media player for the Mac really is worse. If you click full screen, it switches to 640x480! WMP is the worst peace of software on my system. Bizarre things: it has a slider so you can skip forward, but that doesn't even work. Another thing is, if you hit "pause" and then "play", the stream starts all over again! This is not quality software.

With streams from our public broadcasting network, from www.uitzendinggemist.nl, I always choose Real streams. They are tons and tons better, although Real gets bashed down continuously, the software actually is mature and offers quite robust streaming with lots of options to tweak it to bypass firewalls etc.
When you got it sorted out, it works really good. Then it supports full screen & full screen controls, definitely has the best video quality @ 500 kbit, and is well supported for different websites.

At least on the Mac, QuickTime isn't that buggy, so it is okay as a media player once you have upgraded to the Pro version. But that pay-for-full screen thing is bizarre and now that Apple is making some money they really should make this free.

--
--[rosso bright]--

Builtin excuse by reidrac · 2006-01-12 23:48 · Score: 1

'Bussiness is bussiness'.

It's not worth saying.

Re:Who cares? That's why we have MPlayer... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-12 23:51 · Score: 0

MPlayer OS X is a joke. It was good a year and a half ago, but since then it's been buggier than Wintendo.

Re:Can we have a QuickTime codec then please, Bill by La+Camiseta · 2006-01-13 00:06 · Score: 1

flip4mac is a QuickTime codec plugin. It allows you to play all of your WMV files through QuickTime.

Uh, yeah ... by tbone1 · 2006-01-13 00:08 · Score: 1

Our focus really is in delivering the best experience to Windows customers.

Of course, that may be their focus, but their execution leaves a lot to be desired.

It's like Ford saying "Quality is Job 1." Great, glad to hear it; how about actually doing it?

--

The Independent: Reverend Spooner Arrested in Friar Tuck Incident - ISIHAC, Historical Headlines

Spyware? by Neuonyx · 2006-01-13 00:09 · Score: 1

From the license agreement

Section 3. Audit Permitted.
Telestream shall have the right, upon reasonable prior notice to You and during Your normal business hours, to audit Your use of the Licensed Materials and to inspect Your records related to any copies of the Software, or portions thereof, made by You.

Re:Spyware? by rworne · 2006-01-13 01:11 · Score: 1

Flip4Mac used to be a crippleware codec (about $9.00) for playback. In demo mode it would play only a portion of the file.

I was surprised that MS would be trumpeting a company that reverse-engineered WMV and charged people for it. The playback codec now appears to be free, but you can kiss goodbye any chance of seeing DRM'd materials in Media player formats on the Mac.

Anyhow, since it's free now I would not worry about it. They still have paid export versions - I assume that's what the auditing is for. I don't know if the app phones home, but if it does, we will hear about it soon enough.

--
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit

Closed Formats : Linux by Frankie70 · 2006-01-13 00:33 · Score: 2, Insightful

If Microsoft is not prepared to support their products on competitor's operating systems, they should not be allowed to develop closed formats, APIs or interfaces.

What about the iTunes stuff for Linux - when is Apple going to support that?

Re:Closed Formats : Linux by menkhaura · 2006-01-13 00:47 · Score: 1

When pigs:
a) turn green
b) sprout wings and fly

--
Stupidity is an equal opportunity striker.
Fellow slashdotter Bill Dog
Re:Closed Formats : Linux by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 01:07 · Score: 0

a) turn green

Done.

Extending their Monopoly... again! by UtSupra · 2006-01-13 00:37 · Score: 1

What Microsoft is trying to do is force us to use Wndows to hear music. There are protected CDs that requires Microsoft (though they can be defeated), imagine if all of them were like that. All other online stores are either open (and, hence, do not have the more main stream popular music) or the iTunes Music Store (which some clowns claim it is closed) or require Windows. This makes it even harder to use those stores with systems other than Windows. There was a commission set up to look into this kind of excesses when Microsoft was found guilty of illegally extending their monopoly. Well, they are doing it again. Can you imagine what they stand to gain if they become the arbiters of what music can be heard? Right now, they are failing (thanks to Apple!), but that may change in a minute. I hope governments understand this quickly before it's too late.

There is a Windows Media Player for Mac? by Qbertino · 2006-01-13 00:45 · Score: 1

Talk about bizar facts.

--
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca

Good riddance to lousy programs. by Cerebus · 2006-01-13 00:47 · Score: 1

Flip4Mac + iSquint = transcoding delight.

--
-- Cerebus

3rd Party Filling the void? by jtshaw · 2006-01-13 00:51 · Score: 3, Informative

I am the first to admit that I had no idea I could even get WMP for my PowerBook.
However, I'm not sure there is a void that needs filling.

MplayerOSX has always worked great for playing anything on my Mac that Quicktime couldn't handle.

Link to v.2.1 by domefreak · 2006-01-13 00:54 · Score: 2, Informative

Not that I'm concerned about over-stressing MS's servers while we all look for the latest version, but in the spirit of karma whoring...

http://www.flip4mac.com/wmv_download.htm

Well then open your code by popsicle67 · 2006-01-13 01:01 · Score: 1

I think that says it all. With all this new-found desire to make the customer happy maybe we can expect more features and less problems with windows. Who knows, maybe even a light version that has what customers really want in it,hahahahahahahahahaha I'm so funny

WINE by winphreak · 2006-01-13 01:04 · Score: 0

Wine seems to deliver the best "Windows experince" for me.

--
"I'm a well-wisher, in that I don't wish you any specific harm."

Flip4Mac and live streaming? by Therlin · 2006-01-13 01:08 · Score: 1

Maybe this has changed, but when I tried out Flip4Mac just a couple of weeks ago, it would only play files that are already stored in some server. In other words, it would not play live streaming media. This made it unusable for my main use, which was CNN's Pipeline service. And before you say that Pipeline is Mac-compatible, let me say that I know it is, but I haven't been able to get Media Player to work on my Powerbook for a few months now. I was waiting for an update, but now I see that it is not coming.

Re:Flip4Mac and live streaming? by pi_rules · 2006-01-13 04:21 · Score: 1

Indeed.

I just tried getting the streaming stuff to work with C-SPAN and it doesn't work one bit. Damn!

One of the reasons I went to Mac from Linux was the multimedia support. Now I'm stuck with Real Player to watch the Yahoos in the Senate again? Fuck!

Read the EULA by JohnWhitney · 2006-01-13 01:15 · Score: 1

Before you install Flip4Mac, make sure to read the EULA that comes with it. Among the terms are that you can't resell or transfer it, and this little gem:

Section 3. Audit Permitted.
Telestream shall have the right, upon reasonable prior notice to You and during Your normal business hours, to audit Your use of the Licensed Materials and to inspect Your records related to any copies of the Software, or portions thereof, made by You.

I'm sorry... I'm not giving that right to anybody.

Flip4Mac Slow? by MikeTheMan · 2006-01-13 01:21 · Score: 1

From my experience with the "we'll only let you play the first half of the movie" trial version, it took at least twice as long to start QuickTime + Flip4Mac than it did to start Windows Media Player. Granted, WMP does suck, but the slowness seems even worse in the QuickTime + Flip4Mac solution... On an unrelated note, I really hope Microsoft isn't offering only the trial version of Flip4Mac.

WMV exporting on Mac by bushwahd · 2006-01-13 01:22 · Score: 4, Interesting

First, I agree with all above who have extolled the utter worthlessness of WMP (on either platform). I use this as an exemplar of evil UI design. What maroon decided that dragging the time cursor should NOT update the image in real time, as it does in QT Player? Who decided that hiding the config menu in some elaborately hokey frame was good design? And on and on... Piece 'o crap. Glad to see the back of it (though I only briefly ever used in on Mac and usually deleted it soon after). Still have to live with it on Windoze unless M$ caves completely and lets Flip4Mac do a QT codec for Windoze also. Ha!

Anyway, I write to mention experiences with the 2 contenda's for outputting WMVs from Mac, which are PopWire Technology and Flip4Mac. I've used PopWire's $30 (only!) WMV9 Export Component for QuickTime (a plug-in to QT) for about a year with great satisfaction. As much as I hate to create WMV's for anyone, the job and benighted clients sometimes require them. I've found that WMV is the all around best format to give someone a movie to embed into Windoze PowerPoint presentations.

The PopWire QT plug-in means that any and all QT apps (Final Cut, QT Pro, etc.) can directly output WMV as an exported file. Very handy. And, so far, no complaints: the quality is excellent as is the speed of conversion. I've used some of the (many) built-in presets, and diddled up a few of my own. The options dialog even lets you insert copyright and title and author metadata. Highly recommended.

I discovered Flip4Mac about a month ago and dorked with the demos, then last week hit the Buy button for WMV Studio Pro. So far, I've had OK success. I first tried to export some pieces I had created with After Effects (Animation or in other cases 10-bit uncompressed BlackMagic codec), using the 2-pass VBR in WMV SP. Not good. Not good at all! Took a REALLY long time (dual 2Ghz G5) and looked absolutely awful. I was getting a little sweaty palmed about all those bucks I just fired off to these guys, plus the deadline looming...

So I tried again with a 1-pass CBR preset, and while it took what seemed like a much longer time than PopWire would have, it did give a comparably respectable result. So I need to do some more tests to find out what works and what doesn't given different input material.

I have had reasonable success viewing the odd WMV on the web using the Flip4Mac web QT plug-in that is installed as part of the free WMV Player (all this functionality is included in the higher end, pay-fer products like Studio Pro). However, I saw that someone else had trouble with the Comedy Channel movies. I did also: I don't care really, I was just looking for a sample WMV to try out the install of last night's 2.0.1 patch, but I don't have an answer for what CC does wrong that everyone else seems to do right. Maybe it is a streaming thing?

Dear me, what anger by gelfling · 2006-01-13 01:45 · Score: 1

If you don't like it don't use it, don't take it personally.

Re:Dear me, what anger by dohnut · 2006-01-13 09:42 · Score: 1

If you don't like it don't use it, don't take it personally.

Most of us don't use it. The reason for the reaction is that the product was just obscenely bad. Thank god for this thread, I've been wanting to make an on-topic comment about the catastrophic disaster that is WMP for the Macintosh for over a year now. I'm not pro- or anti-microsoft, but I was stunned that a software company of their potential made a product that was this awful. WMP for the PC is fine, it works and I was expecting the same experience when I installed it on my Mac. Not even close, the Macintosh version is/was a complete joke. Imagine trying to view a divx file on a 486 -- because that's what it felt like. Video quality was horrible, it would pause all the time (I'm talking local files too, not streaming), video glitches, audio glitches, you name it. I say good riddance!

Whew, now I can rest.

--
Stupider like a fox! - H.S.

Shouldn't be TOO hard... by Svartalf · 2006-01-13 01:51 · Score: 1

This is considering that they already have one available to their users if they only add X11 support to the machine and install OpenOffice 2.0 for MacOS- yes, I know, it's not as well supported as the Windows, Linux, or Solaris versions. If they want it a little more robust or fully supporting Aqua, then all they need do is deploy the resources to it like they did with Safari and they'll have a real working, largely interoperable Office suite in no time.

--
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas

Re:Shouldn't be TOO hard... by sl3xd · 2006-01-13 04:00 · Score: 1

I wasn't aware OO.o for OS X was even at a full 2.0 release state...

Don't forget that Apple has iWork -- I see it as being more likely that they'll extend iWork than it is to work on OO.o

Pages & Keynote aren't at all bad; Apple would need to add ODF support (I can't recall if iWork '06 did this), and they need to create a spreadsheet app.

While MS Access (ie. a database frontend) is nice, for 99% of home users, it's unnecessary and/or overkill. (I can't comment on business use of Access; I've really only had business experience in non-Microsoft environements..)

--
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
Re:Shouldn't be TOO hard... by outZider · 2006-01-13 04:39 · Score: 1

Unfortunately, Apple isn't a big fan of bloat. While OO 2 has come a long way over 1, it's still huge and unsightly.

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- oZ
// i am here.
Re:Shouldn't be TOO hard... by Fordiman · 2006-01-13 04:40 · Score: 1

A week of programming could use the KOffice Calc part with Openoffice's file input filters. I'll bet that whenever Apple's agenda gets to building a spreadsheet, that's going to be their strategy.

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110100 1101000 1101000 1100110 0 1101111 1101000 1100011 1
Re:Shouldn't be TOO hard... by Professor_UNIX · 2006-01-13 04:58 · Score: 1

A week of programming could use the KOffice Calc part with Openoffice's file input filters. I'll bet that whenever Apple's agenda gets to building a spreadsheet, that's going to be their strategy.
Unlikely since they'd have to release it under the GPL.
Re:Shouldn't be TOO hard... by squiggleslash · 2006-01-13 05:00 · Score: 1

Running X11 apps under OS X isn't a pleasant experience, FWIW. That said, NeoOffice/J is an excellent improved OpenOffice.org system that replaces the X11 UI with one written in Java. So your point, in a roundabout way, still stands.

--
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Re:Shouldn't be TOO hard... by Locomorto · 2006-01-13 12:40 · Score: 1

Well they did it with Safari, so why not with this? Microsoft is extremely unlikely to pick it up and run with it, and as is seen with safari - merging changes back into the original codebase is a difficuly proposition.

--
Stopping Content Restriction Annulment and Protection means not calling it DRM.
Re:Shouldn't be TOO hard... by toddestan · 2006-01-13 13:14 · Score: 1

Unfortunately, Apple isn't a big fan of bloat. While OO 2 has come a long way over 1, it's still huge and unsightly.

Bloated, huge and unsightly? You mean like iTunes?

In all seriousness, I don't see OpenOffice as an Apple product anytime soon. It's just too complex, ugly, and kitchen-sink like. Maybe something a bit more lightweight like KOffice. Maybe.

Yeah! by saboola · 2006-01-13 01:52 · Score: 1

You go Microsoft! Microsoft is the best! In your face Apple! Now what will they do to play videos and music! Muahahah!

I didn't know this existed! by jcostantino · 2006-01-13 01:53 · Score: 1

Wow, seriously... I didn't know this existed! Thanks! I'm tired of WMVs playing like crap (or not at all) in VLC and WMP.

--
Reviews with a twist! http://www.sardonicbastard.com

Oh well, I will stick with VLC by TheSkepticalOptimist · 2006-01-13 02:02 · Score: 1

I never used Media Player much on the Mac anyways, but being left with only QuickTime as a "media player" on the Mac is a little disconcerting.

Quicktime is adequate as a codec, but as a "media player" it lacks greatly. Its nagware to begin with, whining about all the benefits of QT Pro the first time you run QT in any new session.

Second, no full screen support without PRO? I need to pay for full screen when EVERY OTHER free media player out there supports it for free.

Windows Media Player has the nice feature of allowing you to switch to full screen mode even if the video is embedded in a web page. You can't even access QT playback menu if the video is embedded in a web page.

I stick with Video Lan for Mac video playback as it is a slick piece of software that allows for support of ANY video codec (divx or xvid support for QT is spotty at best) and it supports full screen mode. Except for a few issues with the overall UI of the app (it is a perpetual beta software afterall) its a good piece of software for video playback.

BTW, if you get annoyed with the QT "Please switch to Pro" annoying pop-ups, there are lots of places on the web you can get to crack QT into the pro version so you can get rid of the nagware and get full screen mode for free, as it should be.

--
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.

Re:because Windows Media Player is aviable by walterbyrd · 2006-01-13 02:03 · Score: 1

>because Windows Media Player is aviable on every Windows box

But if you used a standard format, it would still be available for every windows box, as well as other platorms.

Entourage by Kadin2048 · 2006-01-13 02:09 · Score: 3, Informative

Messenger is basically unnecessary, because there are third-party products that do what it does (MSN support) better, and with better system integration. Messenger as it exists right now would have been a fine program in 2002, but today it's lame. Plus, very few Mac users I know want to only use MSN for Instant Messenging, and that's what the program is geared to. Most people who want to talk to people who use MSN are going to use Adium or one of the other multi-protocol IM clients.

There might be a small niche of users who haven't discovered the joy that is Adium (I'm now a total convert since they built in Address Book integration and encryption) and are still using the standalone MSN client, but I think they'll find that they're better off once they make the switch to another product.

The real MS product that it would be detrimental to the Mac platform to lose is Entourage. Without that, I can't think of an easy way to interact with an Exchange Server (Apple Mail will do the email part, but it won't do the calendaring or PIM functions). Granted I think Exchange is stupid, but it's popular.

--
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."

Re:Entourage by DGregory · 2006-01-13 09:39 · Score: 1

You can set up Exchange for Pop3 or Imap4, but you've got to get your sysadmin to do the setup. That's how I get it to work with handhelds.

Just the first by Fujisawa+Sensei · 2006-01-13 02:12 · Score: 1

Now that Apple is turning itself into a threat to Microsoft, Microsoft is going to start dropping support for Apple. First Windows Media. I give Office one more realease on Apple at the most, but even that release will be annoying, Office for OSX already sucks. MS will just make sure that many of the enhancements in Office don't work as expected, or don't work/integrate at all to get people to buy Windows and the Windows version of their software.

--
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.

Re:Just the first by Dr.+Sp0ng · 2006-01-13 02:47 · Score: 1

I give Office one more realease on Apple at the most, but even that release will be annoying

Microsoft just committed to Office Mac for at least 5 more years earlier this week.

Office for OSX already sucks

How so? Entourage blows, yeah, but the rest of the package seems fine to me.
Re:Just the first by WhiteWolf666 · 2006-01-13 03:23 · Score: 1

Microsoft just committed to Office Mac for at least 5 more years earlier this week.

That could _easily_ mean one more release.

Not that I care; I hope OpenOffice.org for OS X takes off soon.

--
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell

Mplayer too. by antdude · 2006-01-13 02:14 · Score: 1

Mplayer OS X is another good one.

--
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).

What? No more WMP freezes and infinite buffering? by johndesz · 2006-01-13 02:15 · Score: 1

Flip4Mac plugin for QuickTime Player allows QTP to play WMV and WMA files. $10. Living w/o another MS product: priceless. http://www.flip4mac.com/

Re:because Windows Media Player is aviable by Pecisk · 2006-01-13 02:20 · Score: 2, Insightful

There is NO standard format for streaming media, well, wasn't until recent times. All we had (and still have) is MPEG subformats, which are licensed to be used in varous containers - WMA, AVI, QT, etc. In fact, first real royality-free streaming format (it is allowed to implement support for them to any commercial/non-commercial vendor and it is also designed to maximum avoid any patents) is Ogg Vorbis/Theora.

For example, I have seen much radios embrase Ogg Vorbis streaming, including quite famious Virgin Radio in UK, check out here http://www.virginradio.co.uk/thestation/listen/str eams.html. Fluendo, as I have seen from GNOME Planet, has successful business plan with supporting Ogg with their rather cheap streaming services. And Ogg also has one supporter under their wing and it is...Real. Yeah, newest Real players (those without bloat) has quite good Ogg support.

So actually if we are talking about past, there was no competition for WMA and Real for some time, so it was quite natural that they were most used for streaming. But times are changing and it is good.

--
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!

WMP was horrible anyway by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 02:28 · Score: 0

Any media player that doesn't allow you to scrub through clips that you've completely downloaded is not worth the trouble anyway.

There's basiclly no difference between a downloaded WMV file and a streamed one as far as being able to fast forward and rewind are concerned.

License terms warning by mindbooger · 2006-01-13 02:28 · Score: 1

From the license agreement pre-install:

"Section 3. Audit Permitted.
Telestream shall have the right, upon reasonable prior notice to You and during Your normal business hours, to audit Your use of the Licensed Materials and to inspect Your records related to any copies of the Software, or portions thereof, made by You."

Uhh, no they shall not. To the trash with you! :)

Flip4Mac new free version by Kadin2048 · 2006-01-13 02:34 · Score: 1

I've actually used this plugin before, and thought I'd point out that they've changed their pricing.

It used to be that they didn't have a free version that wasn't crippleware -- their freebie would only play the first half of any given file, and then cut to a black screen. Plus there was a crawl across the top reminding you that it wasn't paid. Really obnoxious.

Now they have a free version that let's you play WMV (not DRMed stuff, but it does support the uber-annoying WMV3); a $29 version that lets you import WMV and transcode it to other formats; a $49 version that lets you export to WMV (why would anyone want to do that? Ugh); plus some high-end options that let you do custom encoding profiles and HD audio.

It's kind of nice that MS decided to support a Mac developer -- I can only assume that they gave them some compensation in return for freeing -- as in beer -- their play-only version. It's still annoying that you have to pay $30 to get even basic importing functionality, but I guess they need to support themselves somehow.

Oh, and the other nice thing about Flip4Mac is that it will let you play WMVs that are embedded in web sites from within your browser, using a Quicktime interface. Big plus in my book since I could never get the Mac Windows Media Player to work correctly with my browser. Plus, it's interface sucked.

--
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."

Flip4Mac won't play Daily Show clips! by 5plicer · 2006-01-13 02:39 · Score: 1

Try it yourself: most recent clips from The Daily Show

--
The bits on the bus go on and off... on and off... on and off...

Flip4Mac is buggy! by mh101 · 2006-01-13 02:46 · Score: 1

I downloaded and installed Flip4Mac a couple days ago when I first found out about it, and am not entirely pleased. I'd rather use WMP.

(as an aside, I don't know what everyone's complaining about? I haven't had any problems with WMP for Mac. Yes, there's less features than WMP for Windows, but that's what iTunes is for. I just need something that'll play WMV fles.)

With every video I've tried playing, whenever I close the video window after it's done playing, I always get a "Quicktime has quit unexpectedly. Would you like to reopen it?" message (can't remember the exact wording, but it's the usual message you get when an app has crashed).

And then I can't use Quicktime's "Export to iPod" option for playing on my iPod... I assume that's not a bug but rather they want me to pay extra to unlock that ability (yes, I do already have Quicktime Pro). Can anyone recommend a free WMV converter for OSX?

--
Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.

It was the right move by pvera · 2006-01-13 02:50 · Score: 1

The last two WMP's for OS X were terrible. The Flip4Mac was a much better solution even when it was $10.

--
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder

Just a ploy for more money by MrCam · 2006-01-13 02:59 · Score: 1

Microsoft has dropped IE and now WMP for Mac, both of which are free. They are still making VirtualPC and are working on a version for Mac/Intel at $200 a pop if the current prices continue. So as long as everyone else makes cheap PC's and Apple never releases OSX for cheap PC's Microsoft can sell a copy of Windows for 95% of all computers. I wouldn't be suprised if the Office for Mac 5 year deal included a deal to make sure Virtual PC ran almost as fast as a PC. Microsoft's big money maker is Office, Windows is just a tool to sell all there other crap and services.

Shave A Few Minutes Off Vista's Delay by azosx · 2006-01-13 03:03 · Score: 1

It's not like with IE where you can just start using Safari and not lose anything. VLC and MPlayerOSX aren't exactly mainstream, easy to use or do they integrate well with Safari or other browsers. Before killing it, maybe they could update its codec support. It's not like with IE, people still use the damn thing!

Linux and Quicktime file format? by Kadin2048 · 2006-01-13 03:07 · Score: 1

Just out of curiosity (I'd test this myself and answer my own question, but I'm not near my Linux box) do any of the 'big name' Linux video players handle Quicktime files out of the box? It seems like a no-brainer move. I just stumbled across all the developer documentation for the QT ".mov" file format with a few minutes of Googling, and it seems pretty easy to understand even to an admitted non-developer like me. The benefit is that you can chuck pretty much anything you want into a Quicktime file, and the player (depending on how smart it is) will know what codec to use or skip parts that it can't handle. So you can easily have multiple audio tracks, subtitles, vector elements, etc.

--
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."

RTF...T? by Kadin2048 · 2006-01-13 03:10 · Score: 1

Well personally I just read the title of the article, "Microsoft Ends Windows Media Player on the Mac," and figured that 'for Macintosh' was pretty much implied in the description.

So much for encouraging people to read the article -- are we going to have to tell people to Read the F***ing Title now, too?

(Not to be hard on you or anything. :)

--
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."

Re:RTF...T? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 06:20 · Score: 0

I could have sworn that wasn't the title when I posted. If it was, my bad.

~M

Free version doesn't transcode/export by Kadin2048 · 2006-01-13 03:16 · Score: 1

Unfortunately the free version doesn't let you transcode/export either. You have to pay $29 to transcode to another format, and around fifty bucks or so if you want the dubious pleasure of encoding your content into WMV. They even have some "pro" versions to encumber--I mean encode your HD content.

So the free version just lets you play it. If you want to do anything useful with WMV besides that (like, put it in a container that doesn't suck) you'll pay $30.

Kudos to them for charging extra to encode. I'm all for anything that discourages that.

--
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."

Re:Free version doesn't transcode/export by swillden · 2006-01-13 04:58 · Score: 1

So the free version just lets you play it. If you want to do anything useful with WMV besides that (like, put it in a container that doesn't suck) you'll pay $30.
Or install Fink.

--
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.

It's simple by metamatic · 2006-01-13 03:19 · Score: 1

Microsoft support Office on the Mac because it makes them money. Most of their crap runs at a loss, so they don't want to kill one of their few money-making products.

They don't support IE and WMV on the Mac, because it doesn't make them money. Or at least, not directly. And they don't see any long term hope of it doing so.

And the 'support' in terms of the few million dollars of non-voting stock was to do with getting a lawsuit dropped, that was about to show that they stole QuickTime source code and used it for Video for Windows.

--
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak

Flip4Mac doesn't work for sh|t!!! by Warlock7 · 2006-01-13 03:24 · Score: 1

This is truly sad. Now any MS DRM'd media won't be playable on a Mac, EVER!

The dozen or so videos that I attempted to run through QT using Flip4Mac displayed a rainbow of color while the audio played fine. This is an unuseable option that doesn't work.

MS appears to be taking Apple very seriously now that they are in direct competition in the OS market on the same hardware platform. Dropping support for IE and WMP in only the beginning. Sure they've made a five year commitment to Office, but that's only because there's a direct revenue stream from that product. Without the money coming in, they'll be dropping support for Office soon enough.

Is Apple really this scary to MS?!?!

Paradigm shift? by why-is-it · 2006-01-13 03:45 · Score: 1

Our focus really is in delivering the best experience to Windows customers.

I think this is the single most important statement in the article!

Clearly, m$ has experienced a major paradigm shift. When should we expect to see the results of this new corporate strategy?

Unless of course, they define "best experience" as customers being forced to purchase mediocre software at inflated rates.

Perhaps we shouldn't expect too much. After all, Gates promised that security would be job #1 a couple of years ago, and we have yet to see any significant improvements in that regard.

--
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?

Mactopia on the chopping block? by frankie · 2006-01-13 04:08 · Score: 1

It's pretty obvious what MS is doing. They're killing all Mac software development THAT DOESN'T EARN THEM ANY MONEY.

Mac IE and WiMP were both freeware that did nothing to increase sales of other MS products (unlike for example RDC, which by definition requires Windows).

Ergo, Office is safe as houses (as promised at MWX), whereas Messenger could be next to die.

Re:Mactopia on the chopping block? by Peganthyrus · 2006-01-13 15:46 · Score: 1

Remember, Messenger has a revenue stream embedded in it: complex (possibly animated) user icons, emoticon packs and "winks" and "nudges". I don't use them, you probably don't either, but I have a freelance job making them for American Greetings (and a few of their subsidiary brands).

I don't know the details of the money, but I know that AG makes an amount of money off of these things that's kinda surprised them, and it would not shock me at all if Microsoft gets a little something off of every one of these things someone buys. (Probably does: Wikipedia notes that winks, etc, can be digitally signed, and the official client won't play ones that aren't signed by MS. How much do you pay to have them signed, hmm?)

(Ironically, I'll probably never see my work live - I use Adium for my IM, and it's not going to happen until some time after Gaim implements it.)

--
egypt urnash minimal art.

Uh? by Dark+Coder · 2006-01-13 04:12 · Score: 1

(jolly-green giant print-ratching out yellow paper)

WP - "Msft WINDOWS MEDIA support down to last non-windows platform... Cites development and Marketing Cost."

Do I smell a monopolistic retreat, 'strategic consolidation', or what?

--
Mechanical Teletype (ALL-CAPS) is no match for Slashdot lameness filter. Dang...

Good riddance to bad rubbish by John+Whitley · 2006-01-13 04:23 · Score: 1

WMP sucks anyways. It's a crappy video player for anything more sophisticated that hitting "play" and letting the video go from start to end unperturbed. Playback control gripes include:

WMP (for Mac or Windows) cannot frame-step.
Dragging the point of play (or FFW/FRW) causes a lag of up to many seconds where the audio is playing at the new point of playback, but the video hasn't caught up yet. Seems to be that the player just lets the codec twiddle its thumbs until the next fully encoded-frame (as opposed to relative encoded frame) happens along.

FWIW, QuickTime player handles these cases for its formats quite well, and VirtuaDub on Windows can play WMVs without these issues as well.

BUT WHAT ABOUT PORN!? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 04:27 · Score: 0

I maintain a windows box for the single reason that many "premium" subscription porn sites require the newest versions of Windows Media Player to acquire a license to play their videos.

As soon as someone can break the DRM on both WMA versions, I'll be happy, but as it is anything that requires WMP9 or later means I have to let Bill watch.

Note this is Flip4Mac 2.0 by benwaggoner · 2006-01-13 04:27 · Score: 1

I'm not in front of a Mac now, but my understanding was the new Flip4Mac 2.0, which Microsoft is distributing, does support WMV9 Advanced Profile (probably what you're calling WMV10). It wasn't supported in the old Flip4Mac. The new version also got a LOT of performance tuning for G4 and G5, so you can actually play back HD WMV content on today's high-end Macs.

--

My video compression blog

thanks for the info... by YesIAmAScript · 2006-01-13 04:29 · Score: 1

I and several others use the MLB streaming to listen to games on Macs. I doubt the QT plugin does streaming, and I was wondering what we would do.

How do I get the Real plugin to open those (associate to) streams automatically in Safari (or Firefox, I don't care)?

--
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95

MSN and Associated Press by furnk · 2006-01-13 04:32 · Score: 2, Interesting

I'll be curious to see how Mac users are able to deal with the Associated Press' upcoming Internet video network, which will be distributed to all AP's 3,500 newspaper and broadcast members in the U.S.

According to an MSN press release, the content will be delivered via Windows Media-based video player, and is scheduled to be launched Q1 2006.

I don't remember much of that stuff... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 04:42 · Score: 0

And I worked at Apple at the time!

I tried to look up Apple's historical low, because during that period, I think Apple only went down to 14, not 11. Additionally, I don't remember MS paying over par for the stock. I do remember it was non-voting. I also remember it was a 5-year deal.

Additionally, I know that the patent swap was only for patents that existed at the time. I don't think it even included patents that extended past the five-year deal. Apple and MS have no kind of patent swap agreement past that point.

I don't remember MS particularly needing Apple at that time. The only way I thought they perhaps needed Apple was as a foil to deflect arguments that they monopolized the OS market (a weak argument since even at Apple's current market penetration numbers MS still can easily to be said to wield monopoly power over the market).

I do remember MS must have made out very well on the stock, even if they sold it at their earliest opportunity, which was at the end of the 5-year period.

I personally also feel the Google/SUN deal was meant to look like this deal. That is, it is supposed to let people know that a major force in the industry has no interested in destroying SUN and in fact has some incentive to help them along. This should help allay investors and potential partners' fears of collapse.

Re:I don't remember much of that stuff... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 07:01 · Score: 0

You are right on most of the details. The agreement was 5 year guaranteed development of Office, S150M investment in non-voting shares, patent sharing for existing patent portfolio.

What did MS get for the investment and development of Office? No, not the MS monopoly needing an ass to kick around. It was to settle all Apple's lawsuits directed towards Microsoft, particularly the charge that Microsoft copied QuickTime technologies that were incorporated into AVI. MS was sure to lose that lawsuit since the evidence was damning. It's a cheap way to settle a lawsuit: invest money into a profitable Office development and non-voting shares which turned into billion dollar profit (though at that time that outcome wasn't known). At the worst, MS lost $150M.

What did Apple get for not getting the cash in the lawsuit? Apple got to reassure their customers that Apple was still a viable business and was not about to die soon. Apple also got to reassure their customers that the number one business application is going to be around for at least 5 years and take away an argument to dump Macs from IT people.

Like any kind of settlement, it left watchers unsatisfied, but that was the best thing Job had done at that point. He chose to keep Apple going and not to get the money and close the business. He bought Apple a much needed time to execute his turnaround. Imagine this, had Job not pulled it off, it's possible that Apple would have been on life support now and there would have been no iPod.

Defeat and Unconditional Surrender. by twitter · 2006-01-13 04:43 · Score: 1

So they've decided it doesn't make sense to continue development of a free (to us) piece of software on a platform that is in the decided minority when it comes to desktops. Makes sense to me.

Looked at from the "Works For Sure" side, this is a total defeat and surrender. If a Mac user wants to buy music online their choice no longer includes the decidedly second rate M$ players and music services. I don't see anyone mentioning this because no one takes the new Napster and it's kin seriously. WMP does not even work well on Windoze. The service itself was supposed to be a money maker and obviously it is a loser. It does not work for sure, it never worked everywhere and now they have dropped the only other major commercial OS.

You are right about them needing to focus on what's important. The whole M$ drive into your living room is an astounding flop. The Xbox is still a money loser and it's about to have it's ass handed to it. WMF playability is so poor that people just don't bother with videos and content provider must be desperate for a replacement. As mentioned above, their forray into the marvelous world of DRM'd music is not taking off despite massive "free trials" at universities because it sucks. While they poured all of that work and effort into rooting your living room, their core product is one big stagnant target. Even Michael Dell is selling Red Hat because people are fed up with Windoze.

Given the way they abused their position of trust when they owned the world of commodity computing, I hope they never recover. Bill Gates can take his money and enjoy his retirement while Microsoft sinks without a trace. I'll be happy when free software is shared rationally and the nightmare of public schools being sued for sharing binary coppies of weird format text editors is long forgoten. See you later M$.

--

Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

Funny you should mention this... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 05:03 · Score: 0

I happened to find this and installed it last night. It works quite nicely and I prefer it to the Windows Media Player. I don't think there's any Microsoft Conspiracy(TM) here so everyone can relax now.

Yes, I have them myself... by SuperKendall · 2006-01-13 05:16 · Score: 1

I have been using iWork for some time (ever since Pages came out) and also just bought iWork '06...

I mostly use Pages, but it does work really well. I also own Word but I really prefer using Pages. It's a relly good mix between a word processor and a simple DTP like InDesign.

Possibly in five years Pages would be ready as a total replacemnrt for Word for most people. But Apple I think is wise to keep Microsoft working on Office to keep bringing in corperate customers.

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley

The future with VC-1 by TheSync · 2006-01-13 05:17 · Score: 1

SMPTE is currently working on standardizing a version of Windows Media 9 video codec as the "VC-1 codec" under SMPTE 421M. This should provide an openly available standard to create VC-1 decoding software (if you pay your license fee to MPEGLA and potentially others).

As VC-1 is being touted as being as mass-market broadcast video codec, I imagine we will see it popping up in all kinds of ways (satellite and cable set-top boxes, and home theater sofwtare).

Command line Mplayer by wesw02 · 2006-01-13 05:18 · Score: 0

You can also compile the command line verson of mplayer, which appears to handle a few of wmv's alittle bit better (in my opinion).

That rather pisses me off.... by ShyGuy91284 · 2006-01-13 05:19 · Score: 1

I get rather sick of Microsofts "If we don't think they are a threat to our business, let's not cater to them" method. If they want something to become standard, they really need to support the reasonable popular platforms (yes, Macs aren't hugley popular, but I've seen enough of them on this campus to know they are a pretty big market). Hopefully this will at least push more content producers (be it trailers, movies, or just clips of something) to use Quicktime/H.264 since they are on PC and Mac. What will be next, Microsoft introducing a new version of WMV to go on HD-DVD (As I recall, it's supposed to be standard for the next-gen media to support both H.264 and WMV) that won't play on Macs, thus giving another reason not to get a Mac? That would be assuming the Standards could still be upgraded to the next WMV of course.

--
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.

Re:That rather pisses me off.... by argent · 2006-01-13 05:39 · Score: 1

Why? Distributing the Flip4Mac product provides a better experience for Mac users, because now we can use Windows Media files in any Quicktime-supporting program... instead of being stuck with Microsoft's application.
Re:That rather pisses me off.... by ShyGuy91284 · 2006-01-13 06:53 · Score: 1

For a price it appears. I've always loved RealPlayer Alternative and Quicktime Alternative, and wished they had a Linux variant (they work great). That would be an interesting path for a WMV codec to take.

--
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
Re:That rather pisses me off.... by argent · 2006-01-13 09:36 · Score: 1

For a price it appears.

Err, the codecs themselves are free (as in beer) from Microsoft.

Re:Three Letters (one thing it doesn't do) by TheSkyIsPurple · 2006-01-13 05:37 · Score: 1

It won't play iTMS videos.

Apple doesn't currently let anyone play these videos, nor do they document that in their APIs.

I've got a bug open with them, but no action has been taken...

Fair enough by localman · 2006-01-13 05:39 · Score: 2, Insightful

WMP for mac is pretty weak, but it is the only way to play certain files.

Quicktime is a great player -- but there's still several file formats it can't play by default. Mostly MS formats (like their various non-standard MPG4 versions). The plugins require all sorts of gymnastics to get them working on Quicktime. If MS gets someone to make a good, easy to install plugin for Quicktime, that covers all their WMP formats, that would be a good thing.

Cheers.

Positive? by CottonEyedJoe · 2006-01-13 05:52 · Score: 1

This is largely seen as a positive thing in the mac community. Windows Media Player for Mac has always sucked. Sure it played some files QuickTime didnt, but its always been slow and buggy. Distributing the flip4mac player free is a HUGE improvement. I would agree that less competition is usually bad, but like the defunct Mac Explorer... a stagnating product is NOT competition.

Concerning QT Pro... by Jesus_666 · 2006-01-13 05:53 · Score: 1

If you just need it to unlock the QuickTime Player's basic functionality you might want to take a look at QTAmateur.

--
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)

Re:business decision - No WMF Flaw by dragon_imp · 2006-01-13 06:00 · Score: 1

Since the WMF flaw wasn't there on the Apple systems, obviously they aren't cocmpatible enough with Windows to justify a new version of Windows Media Player.

Same could be said for Quicktime on Windows... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 06:41 · Score: 0

Title sums it up.

quit distorting the facts by geekee · 2006-01-13 07:39 · Score: 1

"Actually, it's a bad decision for Microsoft. Since they won't be able to claim that their evil DRM works for everyone (they silently ignore Unices), judges/govt monkeys will be more likely to see that DRM as something wrong. Also, the unwashed masses are more likely to trip into it as well, thus increasing the public awareness.

Ahh, good. Anything bad for WM* and friends is great news for us."

Anyone, including Apple can license WMV and provide a codec for their player. In addition, MS plans to support quicktime players via a plugin. Apple is far more evil in that they don't license their fairplay DRM to protect their iPod, iTMS monopoly.

--
Vote for Pedro

Redmond... by Omega · 2006-01-13 07:47 · Score: 1

Seriously, it sounds twisted but lots of the guys at Microsoft (I don't work there, but I know people who do) work on their personal Powerbooks (in the office). As long as upper management (Director/SVP/etc) doesn't see it, there's no problem.

Re:Redmond... by Squirrelgirl · 2006-01-20 11:34 · Score: 1

I read Somewhere (tm) on Channel9.msdn.com 's blogs that Microsoft employees in general don't hate Macs at all much.

However a friend of mine showed me a video clip where they bowled down OS/2 Warp boxes (not computers, but the retail boxes from the stores) in their hallways.

mplayer OS X by shotfeel · 2006-01-13 07:47 · Score: 1

Yes.

Corrections... by MacDork · 2006-01-13 08:14 · Score: 4, Insightful

The MacWorld of 1998 had Jobs introducing Gates on stage, and they announced that M$ would make a US$150 million investment in Apple, buying US$75M of non-voting stock at twice the price (IIRC, AAPL was at $11/share, M$ paid $22/share). The deal also included a patent portfolio swap, where each has unlimited access to the other's patents royalty free. M$ agreed to support a fully functional version of office on the mac for at least 10 years. Apple agreed to drop its support of the anti-trust case. There were a bunch of other details in the deal which made the business rather unsavory, but both companies desperately needed each other at that moment in time.

August, 1997. Look at the old stock charts. See that spike? That day.
The entire deal was for five years.
Apple agreed to settle its lawsuit with Microsoft for an undisclosed sum of money separate from the $150 million dollar investment.

The only concession Apple really made for Microsoft was to bundle IE as the default browser on the Mac for 5 years. Later in the DOJ's anti-trust case, Apple's Avi Tevanian testified that Microsoft had tried to get Apple to step out of the QuickTime for Windows business and focus only on video editing and playback on the Macintosh. Apple refused. Google for "quicktime knife the baby" for details.

it looks like Jobs is getting his revenge.

I think the only revenge Jobs ever wanted was for being kicked out of his own company. Not so much revenge even, it's more like vindication. He came back and led Apple out of the woods and back to greatness. The Mac/PC holy war was a lot like the Apple II/Mac holy war. Jobs invented it to serve his own purposes. He had no real emotional investment in it himself. That was made quite clear through his actions 8 1/2 years ago. I continued to allow folks like John Dvorak over at PC mag to goad me for a while after, but when the press no longer tagged Apple with the beleaguered moniker, I got over the whole thing myself. A computer is a tool. I prefer a Mac, but I can see where Windows PCs and various *nixes fit into the equation.

Bill Gates really doesn't figure into the picture here. He's always wanted to be the 'rockstar' that Jobs is, but no matter how much money he's made, he's never achieved that in his own mind. Jobs isn't concerned with Gates or money. After $100,000,000 he had more money than he could ever spend... to paraphrase Jobs. Jobs wants Apple to succeed out of personal pride. Beginning January 1, 1998 APPL has been a stock market superstar. Nobody can touch that track record. Given that they are still at 3% marketshare in their core market, they really have nowhere to go but up. Intel based Macs may very well be what turns the tables on Dell/HP/Lenovo dominance. And it won't have a thing to do with getting revenge on Gates. The technology deal with Microsoft announced at this MacWorld probably has a lot to do with that. Jobs wants Gates to support Windows on Apple hardware. Not as a replacement for OS X, but as a compliment to it. That way he can stand in front of a crowd at the next Macworld and say, "It slices, it dices, it runs Windows and Mac!" Jobs' "revenge" has nothing to do with Gates and everything to do with Jobs being escorted away from Apple campus in 1985. It's personal.

But that's just MHO :-)

Response to my mail by ichigo+2.0 · 2006-01-13 09:07 · Score: 1

I received a response to my question (they're pretty fast at responding!) and it would seem that the problem is in the license:

Hello.
The QuickTime SDK permits the development of applications which call
QuickTime on a user's machine. It is not permissible for an application to
play QuickTime files on a computer which does not have QuickTime installed.

Sincerely,
-name removed-
Apple Software Licensing

From: -my name- -my email-
> Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 17:32:57 +0200
> To:
> Subject: Quicktime file format
>
> I was wondering if there are any legal issues to making an application
> that is capable of playing quicktime files without any version or part
> of quicktime player installed i.e. what is the license on the quicktime
> file format?
>
> regards, -my name- -my email-

In direct response... by BronsCon · 2006-01-13 14:07 · Score: 0

This is in DIRECT response to the "MacIntel" boxen being released. Think about it, people will buy a MacIntel, not be able to play the WMV home movies thier brother/son/daughter/sister/firend/whoever put together in Windows Movie Maker and, wow hey look, I can put windows on this thing too? Ok, that's what I'll do and BOOM, you know Windows will f*ck up OS-X86.

Go ahead, fanboys, argue with me.

--
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.

Ominous attempt to keep OS X out of digital video? by timyu · 2006-01-13 15:06 · Score: 1

I think this is an ominous move. While Flip4Mac can play WMV files, it explicitly does not support Microsoft's DRM. What does this mean for Tivo and OS X users who want to watch their programs via TivoToGo? Will Tivo drop the DRM requirement (doubtful), or will they provide an alternate solution? Microsoft is doing all it can to promote the adoption of its DRM technology by as many media partners as possible. Some are arguing that by dropping WMV for the Mac, they are hurting themselves by discouraging further use of Microsoft's DRM. From a business perspective, that makes little sense. It is already a 95% Windows market and the fact that some OS X users will be left out in the cold will have little business impact to a potential Microsoft DRM-adoptee. It seems to me that Microsoft is doing this in an attempt to freeze OS X users out of the emerging market of online digital video distribution. If they can get enough media distributors to use Microsoft DRM, and it doesn't play on a Mac, they can keep consumers of that content tied to Windows. Having lost out to iTunes and the iPod in the digital music battle, is Microsoft trying to freeze Mac users out of the digital video revolution?

QuickTime Pro 7 Mac Serial by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-13 15:23 · Score: 0

Registered To: Apple Retail
Registration Code: 6YX4-ZJTG-UZET-AYFT-ENUF

It's basically a business decision for Microsoft by swordgeek · 2006-01-13 17:49 · Score: 1

...and our business is to crush the competition beneath our heels.

--

"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban

Flip4Mac and VLC - makes me happy. by Amiasian · 2006-01-15 01:47 · Score: 1

Well, I can watch wmvs in VLC just fine, with Flip4Mac. I guess it relies on the Quicktime Plug-In architecture in addition to whatever it has for itself.

Security Concerns by camperslo · 2006-01-15 03:27 · Score: 1

Given the nature of the security issues we've seen with images, various media files, and Flash, I think it is potentially dangerous to be installing a closed-source plugin. How can we know this isn't creating a new vulnerability?

Rather than use plugins to support closed formats on the Mac, it is better we constantly pressure sites carrying closed content to change. Clearly Real shouldn't be considered an acceptable alternative.

One organization that I really like, PBS, carries Real and Windows Media. I hope others also provide feedback encouraging change.

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Microsoft Ends Windows Media Player on the Mac

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