is it me or does wmv just stink?

ok, this may be a big "duh" topic, but ive noticed since day one, playback of windows media files is just pretty much useless. i would think that a recent g5 with lots of ram and a hearty video card on a fast-ass broadband connection and the latest mac windows player shouldnt have a problem playing windows media files.

you cant pause them, scrub them or anythinig without having the whole playback go to hell. even on the pc the playback sucks. i cant see why anyone would use this large pile of dung???

I think it's something in the design of Windows Media Player. I have to say, though, I've been compressing media for my upcoming webpage and WMV files created with Flip4Mac can get quality much better than MPEG-4 at smaller file sizes. Sorenson and Photo JPEG looked great, but produce large files.

but any improvements from a playback standpoint?

Nope, still takes awhile to kick in if you scroll. A major deficiency in a modern digital-media player. They got loads to learn from QuickTime Player.

What sucks about WMV's are that clients can't step through them frame by frame when approving a piece...which makes it a totally useless format for what I do.



When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

and therein lies my point!

Thanks I've been wondering if I should hook up my PEECEE to watch WMV files I watch MLB.com and if the game is not it front it plays about 6 frames a second and when it is in front the quality just isn't that great. I'm glad to hear that it's not just because I'm on a MAC.



------------------------
Dean

"When I see you floating down the gutter I'll give you a bottle of wine."
Captain Beefheart, Trout Mask Replica.

With Flip4Mac Player, wmv plays in Quicktime and you can jog wmv files a frame at a time.



Craig Seeman
[thirdplanetvideo.com]

Good point, Craig. Unfortunately, the scrubbing is still very weak (frame advance and using the bar to jump from place to place are also irresponsive), and I'm willing to bet most people downloading WMV files will not have Flip4Mac. Still, better than nothing.

WMV won't be responsive as Quicktime but at least you can jog WMV with Flip4Mac.

> most people downloading WMV files will not have Flip4Mac . . .

There may come a time . . .



Craig Seeman
[thirdplanetvideo.com]

"...With Flip4Mac Player, wmv plays in Quicktime and you can jog wmv files a frame at a time."

This is not better than nothing because NOBODY outside the Post Production community has Flip4Mac on their machines (especially clients).

- Joey



When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Joey, you probably haven't been to the Apple Support Forums lately. It seems to me many folks are getting Flip4Mac Player to replace WMP9 which hasn't been updated in about 2 years. The basic Flip4Mac player is about $10 (a typical shareware price). Still many more folks have WMP9 on the Mac but the folks getting Flip4Mac Player are rank and file Mac users who want to dump everything Microsoft from their computers. You'll see same kind of coments on VersionTracker. Folks who have no interest in Flip4Mac encoder want the player so they can play WMV in Quicktime.

The encoder on the other hand is probably more common in post production.



Craig Seeman
[thirdplanetvideo.com]