If you’re like most Windows users and you want to enjoy the sight and the sound of WMV (Windows Media Video) and WMA (Windows Media Audio) files, you would download the latest Windows Media Player software or do nothing at all. As for Mac users, there is a Mac version also, but it just isn’t good enough.
Why? Since the Windows Media Player for Mac has choppy, sloppy video playback no matter how fast your Mac is and the latest version was released years ago. Surely nobody would want that kind of software on their latest version of OS X, specially a useless media player. From what i’ve discovered, there are 2 common solutions to this:
1. Finding a better software to handle wmv files and the winner is VLC Player for Mac.
2. Getting QuickTime + OS X Applications to play wmv and wma files using a 3rd party software and most common is: Flip4Mac
Although, OS X doesn’t originally have any software to handle wmv (windows media video files) but that doesn’t mean you can’t play wmv on your mac. Thanks to VLC Player, we will be able to play most media files known to man on our Mac. However, VLC can be a bit choppy when fast forward and reviewing unlike the smooth QuickTime and the super smooth Front Row which i love. But if you want to use QuickTime to play wmv and wma, you need to install Flip4Mac plugin as a 3rd party plugin. The good news is that, Flip4Mac is free.
Basically, Flip4Mac can play video and music formats: WMV and WMA files directly in QuickTime and many other media player for Mac as well as Front Row, without having install the Windows Media Player on your Mac at all. Any future problems found, i will report back here.
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I tried VLC and yes it is kinda choppy when fast forward. Quicktime is much smoother.
i hate the load time when using flip4mac/quicktime opening large wmv files. and vlc has the choppy issue for searching. there would seem to be no ideal solution