# Windows Media Player 9



## Stridder44 (Nov 7, 2003)

Check this out...


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## donkey (Nov 7, 2003)

this deserves a poll.

"Are you installing WMP 9?"


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## Reality (Nov 7, 2003)

And this one is the new one?


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## Urbansory (Nov 7, 2003)

I'm curious how it will work, mplayer will still be my default, but there are some audio files I think this will only play.


EDIT:

Installed it, it is better than the previous, but it is still choppy and mplayer still is WAYYYYYY better.


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## BoneFill (Nov 7, 2003)

I've installed the whole System faster than this it takes literally hours to start...

Is this the answer to iTunes for PC? if it is please let me laugh at microsoft that's the best thing they can do? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!


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## Ricky (Nov 7, 2003)

About time.


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## donkey (Nov 7, 2003)

it works fine here.  didn't find anything odd or long about install or use.  actually looks good compared to the old one.


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## Urbansory (Nov 7, 2003)

Yea, installed fine here, but playback still doesn't compete with mplayer. The new interface is nice, that can be said to be true.


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## donkey (Nov 7, 2003)

> playback still doesn't compete with mplayer.



howso?  i've played just a couple of files but i've gotten no lag or anything.  could you elaborate?


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## Reality (Nov 7, 2003)

I got rid of my old WMP and DLed this one. I can play movies the old one wouldn't now so I guess it's a worthy DL. But I hate wasting memory on this stuff.


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## Urbansory (Nov 7, 2003)

1, it delays, i get that damn beach ball, like when i skip through the movie. Mplayer just goes. Not sure how i can explain it, if it works fine for you, maybe you have a faster machine, but mplayer still outperforms.


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## donkey (Nov 7, 2003)

i'm sure machine speed has something if not everything to do with it.  i haven't use mplayer since my linux days, but i do remember it being a light app.  back to the game!  go timberpups!


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## Satcomer (Nov 7, 2003)

Well, I'm disappointed in the quality of the player. I've tried several different sites with streaming media files and the quality of Windows Media streaming files is terrible. On these sites there will be streaming media offered in the Windows format and the Real format (plus some with the QuickTime format).  You can see how lacking the quality is on Windows media. Even comparing it to Real Media files.

Although it's nice to be able to watch files from within my browser now. There are sites that still only offer streaming Windows media.


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## free&unmuzzled (Nov 8, 2003)

It gets slightly less ugly with each release...


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## donkey (Nov 8, 2003)

> the quality of Windows Media streaming files is terrible



always has been.  always will be.  i just call it inferior technology.


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## hazmat (Nov 8, 2003)

I just installed it.  The installer froze for a while, but then it installed fine.  I prefer the aqua look of 7, but it seems to work just fine.  I hate how if you click on a later part with the scroller, it really lags for a while before it catches up.

And what is it with the title bar buttons?  They don't conform to the sunken 10.3 theme at all.


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## Arden (Nov 8, 2003)

Wow... bet it still does a mere fraction of the stuff that WMP for Windows does... like I care.


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## AlanBDahl (Nov 9, 2003)

hazmat said:
			
		

> I just installed it.  The installer froze for a while, but then it installed fine.  I prefer the aqua look of 7, but it seems to work just fine.



The Aqua look is still there: View->Select Skin->Translucent. The other two looks from 7 are there as well.


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## Arden (Nov 9, 2003)

Does anybody actually use Win MP with the "original" skin?  I can't stand the look of it... too pre-XP Windowsish.


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## cwoody222 (Nov 9, 2003)

ARGH!  I had 2 files I needed this for 2 weeks ago.  I deleted the files and now I can't get them again!

2 weeks too late!

Anyway, still ugly and poor PQ but at least I can play series 9 files.


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## heathpitts (Nov 9, 2003)

Now i can listen to www.theticket.com sports radio without using MS Remote Desktop. Also other sites that only use WM9 codecs through a web browser will now work. Maybe they should have only added the codec to quicktime instead of making a stand alone player.


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## Ripcord (Nov 9, 2003)

arden said:
			
		

> Does anybody actually use Win MP with the "original" skin?  I can't stand the look of it... too pre-XP Windowsish.



Post-XP Windowsish is somehow better?


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## texanpenguin (Nov 9, 2003)

OK, I haven't got the Mac online anymore, so I'm not installing this, at least just yet, but can someone tell me why, on Windows' own MP site, it says that to uninstall WMP7 for Mac, you have to remove Mpeg Layer-3 Audio and MPG4 extensions?

What the hell does WMP7 have to do with MPEG-4? That's iTunes, QT6.3, I thought? And one would think iTunes may have some sort of use for the "Mpeg Layer-3 Audio" extension for... oh, I don't know... MP3 PLAYBACK?

Am I wrong?
Tell me I'm wrong...


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## hazmat (Nov 9, 2003)

That's because they're giving instructions for OS 9.  I didn't do anything before installing WMP and it was fine.  I deleted v7 afterwards.  Everything's fine.


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## toast (Nov 10, 2003)

It looks fine. This program will APPARENTLY bring many lacking features to OSX, such as complete support of WMP/WMA. Those files are often corrupted (and I'm not just talking on the pornographic content you'll download on P2P networks). MPlayer can read non-corrupted WMP/WMA, but WMPlayer has always been more reliable to me.


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## fryke (Nov 10, 2003)

no DRM, according to some news sites... so this is _not_ the way to play Napster et al. acquired songs.


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## Arden (Nov 11, 2003)

Ripcord said:
			
		

> Post-XP Windowsish is somehow better?


 No, just, well, "different."  Any Windows-ness is still ugly.

Anything before XP is too dull and boring.  XP is better if you use something besides the default skin.


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## hazmat (Nov 11, 2003)

arden said:
			
		

> No, just, well, "different."  Any Windows-ness is still ugly.
> 
> Anything before XP is too dull and boring.  XP is better if you use something besides the default skin.



Changing it to the XP Silver scheme and in the advanced appearance settings shrinking the title bar to the smallest it will go makes it extremely livable.


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## Arden (Nov 11, 2003)

I've found that out... I don't care much about the size of the title bar (as long as it isn't 100 pixels or something), but the PC I use at work to control the bumper car game uses the Silver skin, which I discovered while poking around on it.  Much better than the default.

Sorry for going off-topic, if it bothers anyone...


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## AfterShock6783 (Nov 11, 2003)

Quick question.  "MPlayer"  Que?  I've been a mac user for.... forever really.  but I haven't gotten or heard of MPlayer.  I guess I've SERIOUSLY been out of the loop. sorry about this.
Also, RealONE player for OSX... worth the purchase or would you not even pirate it given the chance?(not condoning piracy, just giving an "extreme")  I haven't heard any criticism on this software.  lookin for input.
-=Justin=-


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## Urbansory (Nov 11, 2003)

MPlayer is a better windows media content player, ut it does not at this time play the latest format video, it will play the audio though.

I don't even bother with anything from Real, not touching my system, the video quality is just garbage IMO.


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## Arden (Nov 12, 2003)

I absolutely hate Real Player, but I still have it and Win MP on my computer so I can play a file of said type if needed.  I try to avoid it, but sometimes it is unavoidable.

I think Real Player has a crappier interface than Win MP for Windows.  At least Win MP for Mac doesn't have anything but the player window, like Quicktime.


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## hazmat (Nov 12, 2003)

MPlayer, IIRC, has been around for a long time now for Linux.  You should check it out.  Also check out VLC.  Real Player, as has been said, is and always has been a steaming pile of crap.  But it's necessary if you want to view Real-specific files.


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## grobbins (Nov 12, 2003)

hazmat said:
			
		

> Real Player, as has been said, is and always has been a steaming pile of crap.



RealOne Player for Mac OS X is a free download and, unlike earlier RealPlayers, was developed specifically for the Mac. What problems have you had with it?


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## AfterShock6783 (Nov 12, 2003)

grobbins said:
			
		

> RealOne Player for Mac OS X is a free download and, unlike earlier RealPlayers, was developed specifically for the Mac. What problems have you had with it?


Well, first off.  It's a free download, yes.  But only remains free for, like, 14 days I think it was?
yeah, I don't think that's a great give-away...


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## grobbins (Nov 12, 2003)

AfterShock6783 said:
			
		

> Well, first off.  It's a free download, yes.  But only remains free for, like, 14 days I think it was?


The RealOne Player for Mac OS X software is completely free. The real.com home page also offers a 14 day trial for the SuperPass premium content subscriptions, but the link at the top right of real.com lets you download the software without signing up for a subscription.


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## monktus (Nov 13, 2003)

It's also a terrible bit of software, as is all Real's stuff. I got MPlayer again and it did work on my system this time although I still prefer VLC. Having a serperate app to show the play window annoyes me in MPlayer and, while neither it or VLC are the most stable of programs, I'd go with VLC. MPlayer is good though (playlists!) but I think it will improve a bit more over time. I just with Apple would sort out the problems QT player has with avi files, and adding a playlist would be nice. Do you think we'll see an "iQuickTimePlayer" sort of app? Or will iTunes got the way of Winamp and get video playback? I don't think either is likely, especially the latter. The rest of QT works so well, I hope the player gets some new stuff as OSX is still a bit behind Windows when it comes to divx and the like.


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## Urbansory (Nov 13, 2003)

The Windows Media Player isn't all that bad, when it comes to quality, because I have a few clips that look terrible in MPlayer, but look great in Win Media Player. The only bad thing about WMP9, it is slow to respond to user input, if they speed that up, it will become my default.


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## grobbins (Nov 13, 2003)

monktus said:
			
		

> It's also a terrible bit of software, as is all Real's stuff.



Have you tried RealOne Player for Mac OS X? If so, what problems have you had with it? Or are your comments based on pre-Mac OS X versions of RealPlayer?


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## monktus (Nov 13, 2003)

I've got RealOne player for OSX. It sucks. Not quite as much as the OS9 version and the windows version but it sucks. The fact it closes the app on closing a file is annoying, the resizing isn't proportional, Real also make it very difficult to download the free version. It's tucked away somewhere that's awkward to find, I ended up getting the free version from a P2P app as it was much less hassle. My other major beef with Real is that their format is awful. It really irritates me that every BBC stream is RealMedia because they stupidly signed a 7 year agreement with them. Have you ever tried to watch News24? The quality is terrible. As is RealAudio.


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## octane (Dec 7, 2003)

I can't uncompress the file.

Stuffit Deluxe and Expander don't even know what it is!..


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## hazmat (Dec 8, 2003)

Try downloading it again.  Maybe the file is corrupted.


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## octane (Dec 8, 2003)

donkey said:
			
		

> always has been.  always will be.  i just call it inferior technology.



I've got to agree. I expected [foolishly, I imagine] that WMP9 for OS X might be a better product .. it's not.

The site is naff, half of the movie links bounce you off all over the internet... blaghrr!

When I got a postage stamp size player window for 'the last samuri' I changed the settings [I've got ADSL] .. still no difference.


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