5) Plex WMV Player. Plex is another very great Media player for Mac devices to play WMV files hassle-free in one go.Though there are still millions of users, who are connected with it and using it in their Mac devices for many years, Plex is a decent choice. Yes, you can play a WMV file on your Mac. With the recent release of Windows Media Components for QuickTime, you can play Windows Media audio and video files (WMA, WMV) directly in the QuickTime Player and also view Windows Media content on the Internet using a Web browser. A Powerful Media Player which you can use to play various video & audio formats not supported by your Apple device. Supporting files such as; asf, flv, m2ts, mpeg, mpg, mkv, mov, mp4, mp3, mss2, wma, wmv & more! Also supporting the smooth playing of files in HD (720) and FullHD (1080p), even on iPhone 4s and iPad 2.
In addition to its venerable, but aging offering, AVI, Microsoft makes another, more modern player to accommodate today’s more advanced codecs and the demands for quality and convenience by consumers. It’s called Windows Media Video (WMV), and is said to have first come about as a response to a RealNetworks product built for Internet streaming on a computer. But WMV has also grown over the years for a variety of uses beyond web streaming on the computer, and is being used in mobile devices and consumer products.
WHAT IS WMV
WMV leads something of a double life, adding a twist to the usual definition of a player. Acting as a container for various codecs like a typical player format and as a codec. When the .wmv file extension is used as an actual codec, it is contained within Microsoft’s Advanced Systems Format (ASF). Confused? Don’t feel alone. There certainly are complex technologies involved with this kind of audio/video software, particularly when diverse formats are held in different containers and file extension names are intermingled. For purposes here, just consider WMV the same way you would think of AVI, MP4, FLV, MKV or other players.
Watch WMV Videos
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WMV was designed to hold content with very high compression ratios, thus making it excellent for storing large amounts of data, then playing it back at superb quality. It’s particularly good at delivering high-definition (HD) video in 720p and 1080p, the two most common consumer formats. At its uppermost implementation it can contain the VC-1 codec, which is one of the three mandated by the Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers (SMPTE) high-definition formats (MPEG-2, H.264 and VC-1) designated for use in Blu-ray products. VC-1 is also used in Microsoft’s Silverlight format, which is how Netflix distributes its instant content on PCs.
CURRENT WMV PLAYERS FOR MAC AND WINDOWS![]()
First, be careful not to confuse WMV with Windows Media Player (WMP), which is an application program that runs on Windows machines to playback (ideally) WMV content. It’s not unheard of to have problems running a non-Microsoft codec if it isn’t installed properly in the Windows Media Player. As always, there is a selection of alternatives to WMP. Some of the popular free players, which are compatible with WMV, include DivX, VLC ,and RealPlayer. Microsoft used to offer a Mac OS X version of WMV, but discontinued the practice several versions ago. As for a free WMV player for Macs, Flip4Mac (licensed by Microsoft) is a popular, free plug-in, that allows WMV movies to be played through Apple’s QuickTime player.
WMV CONVERTERS and ENCODERS
Here again, we enter a broad field with many levels. For simple format conversion, the free WMV players are capable of converting a particular format into WMV and vice versa. For the most part, these only offer a restricted range of settings for bit rate, resolution, color adjustments, frame rates, audio conversion options, etc. when compared to dedicated converter/encoders. Remember, these are also players with the ability to playback a large number of codecs, so don’t expect a free product to be able to address every bell and whistle you can imagine when it comes to converting and encoding.
Dedicated products such as Microsoft’s Expression suite (Windows only) or the Sorenson Media Squeeze series (Mac and Windows) have a much greater selection of tools for doing much more intricate work with many more parameters. But keep in mind these are typically for professional use. They’re designed to optimize the latest features in creating high quality and adaptable content for the desktop, Internet, video distribution, and mobile devices such as phones. These converter/encoder products cost well under a thousand dollars, but will give you the best set of options in taking WMV content and repurposing it for whatever application you have.
There are also a few other products that are primarily used as converters or encoders (sometimes also collectively called “transcoding”), which are either free or are available at a low price point. Those include SUPER (Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer) for Windows only, and the Any Video Converter (Mac & Windows). An open source tool called Handbrake that is gaining in popularity and runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux might be added to the list later, but sadly the online documentation does not indicate if it handles WMV yet. Handbrake does deal with the increasingly accepted Matroska (MKV) container format.
WMV: THE NEXT STEP
Microsoft doesn’t like to be left behind. They are not always on the forefront of introducing innovative products, but once they see a market exists, Microsoft can go after it in a powerful way. With WMV, Microsoft has stepped up to the challenge, not only continuing where AVI left off, but in going beyond to offer a format that offers high-quality, flexibility, and growth in a technology environment that is not only ever-changing, but one which can quickly be turned on its head by seemingly insignificant players from out of nowhere.
Related Posts
(Redirected from Flip4Mac WMV)
Flip4Mac from Telestream, Inc. is a digital media software for the macOS operating system. It is particularly known for being the only QuickTime component for macOS that supports Windows Media Video.
Features[edit]
Telestream previously offered a free standalone player also known as Flip Player while charging for their Pro and Studio features until the release of v3.3 on May 1, 2014 when they began charging for Flip4Mac Player[4] (plug-in and standalone player combined).[5]
There are four versions of Flip4Mac Player:[6]
Play Windows Media files (.wma and .wmv) directly in QuickTime applications and view Windows Media content on the Internet using a web browser
Wmv Player For Mac Download
Adds the ability to import WMV and WMA files for editing and conversion to QuickTime formats or iOS devices
Includes all the features of Player Pro, and adds the ability to create standard definition (up to 768 x 576) WMV files using preset templates and custom encoding profiles
Microsoft outlook for mac high sierra. Includes all the features of Studio, and adds two-pass HD (up to 1920 x 1080), VBR encoding and pro audio features
Technical specifications[edit]
Below is the following technical specifications for Flip4Mac Player:[7]
Codec support
Network stream protocols
Frame sizes available for export
System requirements[edit]
In order to run Flip4Mac, you need to meet the following specifications:[3]
Windows Media Components for QuickTime[edit]
Windows Media Components for QuickTime allow free transparent playback of the most common Windows Media Video and Windows Media Audio formats on macOS inside QuickTime applications and web browsers.
On January 12, 2006, Microsoft discontinued the Macintosh version of Windows Media Player and began distributing Flip4Mac Player for free[8][9][10][11][12] until May 1, 2014 when Telestream began charging for Flip4Mac Player.[4] Microsoft's website refers the product as Windows Media Components for QuickTime while Telestream just refers to Flip4Mac.[13]
Windows Media[edit]Advanced Stream Redirector[edit]
Advanced Stream Redirector (ASX) file format is a type of Extensible Markup Language (XML) metafile designed to store a playlist of Windows Media files for a multimedia presentation. Flip4Mac currently supports the following MIME types:[14]
Advanced Systems Format[edit]
Advanced Systems Format (ASF) is Microsoft's proprietary digital audio/digital videocontainer format, especially meant for streaming media.
Windows Media Audio[edit]
Windows Media Audio (WMA) is an audio data compression technology developed by Microsoft. The name can be used to refer to its audio file format or its audio codecs.
Windows Media Digital Rights Management[edit]
Flip4Mac is unable to play content that has been protected using digital rights management.[15]
Windows Media Video[edit]
Windows Media Video (WMV) is a video data compression technology developed by Microsoft.
Version history[edit]
See also[edit]References[edit]
Further reading[edit]
Flip4Mac has been mentioned in the following books:
External links[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Flip4Mac&oldid=862483796'
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