OT: do i have to use wmp or realplayer?

[Charles Martin]

> From: Joe Jones <joham at jo-ham.com>
>
> You won't find many (any?) programs that will play windows media and
> real media files other than the apps made specifically for them.
>
> The formats are closed and proprietary for a good reason - to force you
> to use their respective players (and in the case of Windows media, to
> maintain control).
>
This is an excellent subject and very pertinent. My commendations to 
Jeremy and Joe for bringing it up.

There is (some) good news on this front. Thanks to the UNIX base of Mac 
OS X, there are a couple of players out there which will play WiMP 
files without having to use WiMP (usually). One is called VLC and is 
free, the other is MPlayerOSX (the GUI version of mplayer), also free. 
They're not very Mac-standard-looking, but they DO use the OS X "Aqua" 
interface (ie no command-line stuff needed). But as Joe mentioned, the 
Mac OS X versions of RealPlayer (now called RealOne) and WMP are 
actually not bad (for them), and are also free.

As for CONVERTING those formats, the offerings are quite a bit thinner. 
The only thing I know of that will convert RealVideo into something 
else is Cleaner, a commercial product that's intended for pros and is 
NOT cheap.

For converting .asf (WiMP) files, there are only two options I know of: 
the OS 9-only (not Classic) ASFConverter, which is no longer supported 
(I think) but still converts most ASF files I throw at it; and an OS 
X-only CLI utility called ASF Recorder that can convert streaming ASF 
files to QT movies on the fly. Regrettably, no "executable" version of 
the program exists for OS X; you must download the source and compile 
it yourself (a trivial matter if you're used to doing it, but not for 
us GUI-lovers).


> Windows Media, on the other hand, works up to version 8 of the codec,
> but the new version 9 codec (that a lot of content is being produced in
> now) /doesn't/ work on OS X, for no reason other than the fact that
> Microsoft doesn't want it to. If you want to view windows media files
> that use the version 9 codec, you must use Windows.

According to the Macintosh Business Unit of Microsoft, a new version of 
WiMP that supports the WM9 codecs will be appearing later this year. 
Good news for us, and kudos to them (about frickin' time, but hey).

_Chas_

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