Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Monday, August 12. 2013

Mac question


Someone once mentioned in the comments that there was some free plugin or add-on for Macs that would allow them to view streaming WMV video files, which is a Windows format that's not playable on a stock Mac.


Similarly, a stock Windows machine can't play the Apple streaming format, Quicktime.  Two decades on and these two behemoths never have resolved the issue.


Result?  Adobe stepped in with its cross-platform Flash format and today both Quicktime and WMV have been relegated to the dust bin of history.


You snooze, you lose.


There are, however, still a bunch of excellent WMV vids out there, so if anyone has the answer to this ancient riddle, please let me know in the comments.  I'll then do a fresh post with your name in lights (unless you decline because of shyness or fear of how it might be interpreted if it shows up on your résumé) and we'll have others download & test it, just to make sure it's OS-friendly.


If you're looking for test clips, all of the vids in the Bag O' Clips area of my Art Gallery are in WMV format due to quality issues.  Pound for pound, bitrate for bandwidth, WMV is much better than the Flash format, FLV.  All the rest of the site's clips are in FLV format, but I wanted to keep that area special.


T'anks for any help.

Posted by Dr. Mercury in Dr. Mercury's Computer Corner at 16:30 | Comments (12) | Trackbacks (0)

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FLIP4Mac is the utility you're asking about.

From the MacUpdate site:
"Flip4Mac is the official Windows Media player on the Mac - supported and hosted by Microsoft. Only Flip4Mac combines the best of a system wide QuickTime integration with Web browser support and a standalone video player application."

PS to NSA: No state secrets were revealed in this posting.

Jake in Texas
#1 Jake on 2013-08-12 17:20 (Reply)
Well, no state secrets were exchanged (this time), but it did prove how quick our communications network is, which might suspicious unto itself.

As for the proggie, it's $29 for the WMV version. I'm pretty sure that magic word "free" was used in that comment. Is there a SourceForge (freeware central) in the Mac world?
    #1.1 Dr. Mercury on 2013-08-12 17:25 (Reply)
    There could be a freeware central for Macs somewhere, however, I consider the value of most freeware equivalent to the cost of the s/w.

    You may want to look at this for free equivalents of flip4mac:
    http://www.wondershare.com/wmv/wmv-player-for-mac.html

    jake
    #1.1.1 Jake on 2013-08-12 17:45 (Reply)
    The free edition of Flip4Mac is available here:

    http://www.telestream.net/flip4mac/overview.htm

    though it's disguised from being lumped in with the paid versions - click the green "Download Now" button under "Player FREE" and choose the release which suits your OS version.
    #1.1.2 a passer-by on 2013-08-13 00:38 (Reply)
    I saw this yesterday and it's pretty clear that the WMV version is $29. I clicked on the download link just to check, but it just gives you the option for which OS you're using.
      #1.1.2.1 Dr. Mercury on 2013-08-13 10:52 (Reply)
      Try the Videolan plugin for Mac OS X.

      Videolan player is a nice free beer media player. Link is there page for it which leads eventually to sourceforge.

      Mac users might also what to try MPlayer OS X as an alternative to quicktime.
      #2 walt moffett on 2013-08-12 17:46 (Reply)
      My Mac plays everything, but I don't honestly know what it uses. (It doesn't bother me with these details.)
      #3 Texan99 on 2013-08-12 19:19 (Reply)
      try https://www.macupdate.com/ Macupdate is about the best site for any mac app or plugin. But try out Flip for mac at https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/17787/flip4mac its made by this small computer company called Microsoft. They have a entire Mac division just to make Mac apps.

      Another even better app is called VLC and its free and can play anything from any format it can be downloaded from http://www.videolan.org/

      And if you want to convert any movie into another format, adjust the sound or video etc try out ffmpegx at http://ffmpegx.com It is also free and easy to use mostly because their help files and instructions are so good.
      #4 Sam Goodman on 2013-08-12 21:23 (Reply)
      I use the free version of Flip4Mac, and VLC . Between the two of them I haven't been stumped yet.
      #5 stimpy on 2013-08-13 04:41 (Reply)
      Are you short? Because if you are, and then you run into a video problem, you'll be a stumpy stumped Stimpy.

      And we wouldn't want that! :)
        #5.1 Dr. Mercury on 2013-08-13 11:00 (Reply)
        Thanks to all for the suggestions. I'll do a bit of research and post a test vid, probably tomorrow.
          #6 Dr. Mercury on 2013-08-13 07:33 (Reply)
          I've also used VLC for WMV files. seems to work fine.
          #7 Knucklehead (Link) on 2013-08-13 11:02 (Reply)

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