Help viewing wmv files

[Alinestra Covelia]

Hiya, I have downloaded a series of wmv files that are said to contain rare and exciting footage of my brother in a COLLEGE MARTIAL ARTS COMPETITION (and probably getting his arse thoroughly kicked in the process). However, none of my media players can open the visuals for the movie - all that happens is I get a load of sound and white noise.

Does anybody know whether wmvs need codecs like avis do? Or whether there's an update that allows me to view wmvs?

[Urban Ranger]

That's just Windows media video. However your version of Windows Media Player might be too old to play it. That's why I much rather people stick with standard formats.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
That's just Windows media video. However your version of Windows Media Player might be too old to play it. That's why I much rather people stick with standard formats.

If you have an out of date codec, WMP automatically connects and upgrades your codec unless you've changed that preference. You don't need to upgrade the whole damn WMP version to play, say, WMV9 files.

And this is a good thing -- it's this reason that WMV9 is unmatched these days. They can actually keep improving it because they're not relegated to a tortoise-paced "standards" body.

Does anybody know whether wmvs need codecs like avis do? Or whether there's an update that allows me to view wmvs?

Which WMP do you use?

[Hueij]

You don't need to upgrade the whole damn WMP version to play, say, WMV9 files.

Which WMP do you use?

Aren't you contradicting yourself here? If you don't have to upgrade your Media Player then what does it matter what version she has?

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by Hueij
Aren't you contradicting yourself here? If you don't have to upgrade your Media Player then what does it matter what version she has?

She might have changed the options of her WMP so that it doesn't automatically search for codecs.

[Hueij]

Originally posted by FrustratedPoet


She might have changed the options of her WMP so that it doesn't automatically search for codecs.

Then all she has to do is reset the options, no matter what version.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Hueij
Then all she has to do is reset the options, no matter what version.

Well Hueij, where I come from it's hard to help people out with software when they can be using any of 9 versions of it. I like to know which one we're dealing with when troubleshooting.

Thanks for the input, though.

Prior to WMP6 or 7, it didn't do the autodownload thing, which is why I asked. Because then you can manually update the codecs.

[Hueij]

Ah, didn't know that. But can't they stop getting out moere and more dfferent codecs? What's wrong with the ones we already have?

[monkspider]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
That's just Windows media video. However your version of Windows Media Player might be too old to play it. That's why I much rather people stick with standard formats.

I agree, proprietary formats tend to be highly problematic for one reason for another.

[Hueij]

I downloaded The Big Sleep a couple of months ago (divx) and it had no sound. Took me about a week and just before I sent it to the recycle bin I found out I missed another codec

[Asher]

Originally posted by monkspider
I agree, proprietary formats tend to be highly problematic for one reason for another.

UR is talking out of his arse, one is not more problematic than another.

In some cases, it's more problematic to use an open standard than a proprietary standard. For an example of this, see MPEG4 vs WMV. WMV is gaining acceptance much faster than MPEG4, and because MPEG4 as a standard was actually finalized quite a while ago and just now starting to get out in the market, WMV is technologically superior and it's also cheaper, and easier to develop with.

Obviously UR has never had to deal with DivX, of which there are about 100 codec versions of it, compared to about 3 WMV/WMA codecs total.

[tinyp3nis]

Little hint, don't upgrade to wmp9, if possible just the codecs and maybe wmp8? I have 8 now, had to get rid of wmp9 with system restore.
Reason for this is that most of windows streaming media files that I have seen are just playable, but you cant search the stream. I mean you can't jump to say 20:00 from the start. I noticed this when I upgraded to XP from 98 and at the same time from far superior wmp6.4 to lowly wmp8. Fine, I found another player that can "search" (what is the actual word for this anyway?) the stream. But after I installed wmp9, even the other players couldn't search no more !!!

[Asher]

The word you're looking for is seek, and it simply depends on what the author of the file configured for if you can seek through a stream.

I do it all the time in the sites I use WMP9 for (C|Net, launch.com, Xbox.com, etc).

Did you install one of the WMP9 betas or the final version?

Personally I don't think I could go back to WMP8, I'm too used to all of the nifty stuff like InstantOn.

[tinyp3nis]

The word you're looking for is seek, and it simply depends on what the author of the file configured for if you can seek through a stream.

Thanks, I have no idea how I forgot that. But the point is most of the files are unseekable, and the player helps them to be that way, not codecs. I noticed this when comparing 6.4 with other players, 98 had had many newer versions of wmp for a long time when I upgraded to XP, but I kept 6.4 till the very end because It could seek the files that were not meant to be seeked.

[Asher]

Some files are set not to be seekable because they're intended to be advertisements, and much like when you're watching TV advertisements, you're not supposed to be able to fastforward them unless you've got a TiVo or a VCR taping them.

I certainly wouldn't agree that "most" are unseekable, the only unseekable files I've encountered are advertisements on Gamespot.com and CNet.com.