Windows Media Player

I...just don't like Windows Media Player. I'm a recent switcher from Windows to Mac.
Well has anyone else experience a drastic decrease in video quality when playing WMV files in Windows Media Player? I have managed to install sets of codecs that enabled me to play the WMV files on MPLAYER and VLC; the video quality when played with those two program is fine, but once it's played with Windows Media Player, the pixels of the clip doubles or triples in size. What I see are blocks composing the objects shown in the clips. Ugh..

Also, there are huge amount of streaming wmv (or asf files...?) on the internet that simply wouldn't play with macs. I presume that it's a problem on Windows Media Player, but has anyone faced the same problem? For streaming videos on webpages that work fine with Windows simply do not work on Mac... :-(

I also took note of this, when I switched awhile back. You'll get use to it, because there really is no fix for it. Yes, I have also ran into the problem of no being able to play some of the streamed content neither. I don't really think you can do anything about it. The Windows Media Player tends to be very picky on the mac.

Yes its true windows media player on the mac sucks. Apple make a decent quicktime player on window so why cant they return the favor??

Mr Sprout said:

Yes its true windows media player on the mac sucks. Apple make a decent quicktime player on window so why cant they return the favor??

Click to expand...

It sucks anywhere, not just on mac.

Why doesn't Apple put out a program that will play it? they'd make a fortune

iNAP said:

Why doesn't Apple put out a program that will play it? they'd make a fortune

Click to expand...

Who'd pay money for that? Besides, Microsoft has patents on some of the newer WMV codecs.

Flip 4 Mac might do what you want without having to install WMP.
http://www.flip4mac.com/products.htm
Best

Windows Media Player sucks. I downloaded it, played 3 or 4 .wmvs, it just quit, and then it would open. The icon would bounce in the dock, and then quit. Got rid of it, got VLC, good most of the time, but can be buggy at times.

The only thing on Mac that works well is Quicktime. While WMP does suck on Mac it is infinitely better than Real Player.

How is it that .avi files are given a Quicktime icon, yet I have to resort to using VLC to open them?

Because .avi is a frankenstein. Some avi files QT can open but it depends on the codec used to encode them. avi is more of a wrapper than an actual format from what I understand.

How do you change your default media player in OSx

For what file type?