# Playing WMV files in Quicktime



## The Memory Hole (Apr 19, 2005)

Hello.
I thought I'd share something that I found on VersionTracker.
It is a Quicktime component that allows you to play all Window Media Files in Quiciktime Player. I know that VLC and mPlayer can do this, but I thought it was cool that you can now actually play the files with Quicktime (as opposed to Windows Media Player, which is quite difficult to control).

It can be found here: http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/26423

It is a commercial product though ($9.99). The demo will only allow you to play the first half of the file. There is also a pro version on VT that allows you to edit the files in Final Cut and iMovie also.

Oh, and if this has been around for a long time... eh sorry for making a repeat post then. I just thought I'd share since a lot of people seem to want Windows Media playback with Quicktime (especially those who are new to Macs).


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## Oscar Castillo (Apr 19, 2005)

This is helpful to me as I don't partitcularly like using Windows Media Player.  Just doesn't seem to work with the same control as Quicktime or even Real Player under OS X.  What I'd really like is for IMovie to import Windows Media files.


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## mindbend (Apr 19, 2005)

This company has a small suite of products that get around all of that. Not cheap though.

www.flip4mac.com

I currently use the export as WMV from QuickTime component and it works very well and looks good. I rally HATE even having to use the damn thing as I'd much rather be creating true QuickTime content, but some clients demand it, so at least there's a tool that let's me do it all on my Mac in a quality way.


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## Convert (Apr 19, 2005)

On a side note, is there anyway of importing wmv. files into iMovie?


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## mindbend (Apr 19, 2005)

Check out www.flip4mac.com, it's all there. And yes, you apparently can import WMV into iMovies using one of their tools.


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## Mikuro (Apr 19, 2005)

Works great. Unfortunately, even this QT component gives much, MUCH worse performance than what you'd get with equivalent-quality MPEG4 video. I don't know if that's a problem with this decoder or if Microsoft just made a crappy codec that requires way too much processing power for the video quality. All I know is the Mac version of WMP is slow as slug. I was hoping this would be faster, but it seems about the same. But it's hard to run tests since WMP doesn't offer any frame rate feedback like QuickTime Player does, so I'm not sure.


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## Captain Code (Apr 19, 2005)

Does it work with WMV9 protected content?


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## Qion (Apr 19, 2005)

Mikuro said:
			
		

> All I know is the Mac version of WMP is slow as slug. I was hoping this would be faster, but it seems about the same.



Yes, the Mac version of WMP sucks. But, I did see an extremely noticable performance boost with this tool, especially in going frame by frame, and going forwards or backwards.


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## Mikuro (Apr 21, 2005)

Qion said:
			
		

> Yes, the Mac version of WMP sucks. But, I did see an extremely noticable performance boost with this tool, especially in going frame by frame, and going forwards or backwards.


After a little more testing, I have to agree. I tried playing some HD content, which previously brought WMP to its knees. With the QT importer, it's definitely smoother than in WMP. It still doesn't play WELL by any stretch of the imagination, but I guess that's to be expected on my Mac mini. Especially when you consider MS's requirements for Wintel systems:

2.4 GHz processor or equivalent (not sure how a 1.25 GHz G4 really stacks up there)
384 MB of RAM (I only have 256)
64 MB video card (I only have 32)

And that's just for 720p video. 1080p ("full" HD) has much heavier requirements.

Just for the record, 720p MPEG4 plays pretty well on my machine.  Too bad it's next to impossible to find HD MPEG4 content (I've only tested it with my own encodes)...


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## fryke (Apr 21, 2005)

Captain Code: Nope. No WMV9 protected file works on the Mac - unless in VPC, probably, but that kinda defies the purpose.


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