MAC help needed:

[speeder]

I have installed Windows Media Player, Mac OS-x version more than once from the WMV site and it still won't work. It shows as installed in my "applications" folder, but no dice. This is seriously limiting my ability to watch videos, both from boards like this and news sites, can someone help me here? Thanks a lot.

[lendaddy]

An excellent mod/uprade for a MAC is to buy and install a PC next to it

[stomachmonkey]

How do you know it's not working?

Have you tried starting the program manually or are you waiting for a file to launch it?

Try drag'n'drop a wmv file onto the application.

It may just be that the file associations are not set correctly.

After all we are talking about a piece of software made by the same people that make the operating systems that most pc's use.

Follow Lendaddys suggestion if you like viruses, pop-ups, adware, an insecure system or want your computer to make a sound like a yeti.

Scott

[Aurel]

Denis,

I run Windows media player 9.0.0 on Mac OS 10.2.8 and it works fine. But I also have the divX codec, and I think it is required to decode wmv files. Try installing the divX codec from http://www.divx.com/divx/mac/ and let me know if this does the trick.

Aurel

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Denis,

Did you download it from here:

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/otherproducts/otherproducts.aspx?pid=windowsmedia

I have 10.3.7 and my WMP works fine.

BTW, I highly recommend Camino for a browser. much much faster that IE.

And Joel, you give me a call when you find a PC laptop that allows you to: put it to sleep connected to home cable, walk down the street to your local coffee shop wtih free WiFi, open it up and immediately start surfing the Pelican BBS while having a little coffee and cinnamon swirl (you may like some other pastry for breakfast), help PC laptop owners reconfigure their entire computers to allow them to connect to the network, finish up, put your Mac to sleep, go home, connect it up and it once again automatically reconfigures itself to your cable.

No restarting, no reconfiguring, no calling the ISP help line.

Long ago I used to fix PCs and wrote a little VB in my day. PCs are fine computers, but until you get a taste of the elegance that defines a Mac, you really can't compare them.

[lendaddy]

I was just giving Denis a hard time, but I don't get what you mean regarding the WiFi. I use my laptop at several locations and it autodetects and connects. Maybe I missed something? Oh yea, I like Bagels

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Originally posted by lendaddy
I was just giving Denis a hard time, but I don't get what you mean regarding the WiFi. I use my laptop at several locations and it autodetects and connects. Maybe I missed something? Oh yea, I like Bagels

I must be helping people with older computers then cause at least twice a week someone can't connect, they come over and ask if I can, and 20 minutes later they are on, but only after doing a lot of work.

Best bagels in the world (my opinion only) come from a hole in the wall place in Montreal. You can get either sesame or poppy seed. They made fresh continually. The sesame are phenomenal toasted with lots of butter. crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside. sooooo good.

[lendaddy]

Don't know about new vs old tech on the PC WiFi, but a couple weeks ago I was at work where I was working on a machine out on the floor. I have wireless there so I had my PC on getting live NFL scores to entertain me while I worked. Anyway, I got done about 6 and thought hmmmm I'll leave this on in the pass seat while I drive home and see if I pick up updates while driving down the road. I did! I must have gotten 4-5 different connections for long enough to update the scores, I was laughing my ass off as I was going 45-50 MPH getting connections. So who knows. Oh yea, you described a perfect bagel, including the "lot o' butter" statement.

[Porschekid962]

You want a media player for your mac? I say VLC. You can download it for free at www.versiontracker.com Just search VLC and you will find the link for the download, works great. The only reason I have a PC (piece of crap) is for 3d renderings. Everything else happens on my macs. I have a pimped out iBook, originally a G3 but now I have two G4 processors and two slave hard drives that my friend set up for me. One of the slaves runs a windows clone which is ok. Hope the VLC works for you, I have had no problems at all with it so far. It plays mp3's, mp4's, mpegs, avi, wmv and some others.

[Aurel]

Originally posted by Porschekid962
I have a pimped out iBook, originally a G3 but now I have two G4 processors and two slave hard drives that my friend set up for me.

Do you mean that you have two G4 processors in your ibook? How was that done ?

Aurel

[bryanthompson]

I use WMP9 on my Powerbook with no problems... I installed WMP and VLC at the same time, so maybe there are codecs with VLC that WMP needs? For some files I have to use MPlayer to get it to show the video, but that's rare.

[techweenie]

No problem with WMP, Real and QT on my PowerBook.

Denis: what happens when you open the app?

[id10t]

Heh. My Mac doesn't even run OS 9 or X - Debian GNU/Linux for me! Actually, it is a slot loading DVD iMac, reminds me a lot of my old TRS-80 . Chose it for my server because it has the best power to heat/noise ratio. Does email, web, DNS for my LAN, and a few other tasks nicely.

[BlueSkyJaunte]

WiMP works fine on my 15" AlBook.

You can start it up and drag-n-drop into the window or set up associations so that double-clicking on a wmv file starts up WiMP.

[Porschekid962]

Aurel, my buddy works for mac and he put two, yes two G4 processors in my ibook. its pretty sweet, runs at about 1.4 and has plenty of memory. i like portables and instead of getting a powerbook he pimpied out my 12 inch. i can ask him about the particulars, btw i dont have a battery anymore.

[speeder]

Originally posted by techweenie
No problem with WMP, Real and QT on my PowerBook.

Denis: what happens when you open the app?

What happens is that everytime I try to play certain videos, (like the "ghetto drifting" one from here or news videos from MSNBC.com), it has a little pop-up that says that I don't have the right software to run it and won't play it. On the NBC site, it has a link to the Windows Media Player site for anyone who doesn't have it, and I tried to install it there. Again.

I like the WiFi capabilities of this thing and it's great looking, but other than that I'm really not impressed. The keyboard and trackpad suck something awful. My aging PC at home has the worst-ever OS, (Windows ME), and more viruses than a whore in TJ, (I'm too cheap to buy the AV software), is about 10 times faster than this thing for what I use it for. And all imaginable software is either on it from new or easily downloaded and I have NEVER had a problem playing any kind of file on it.

I'm not real computer-savvy, so not sure how I should be "opening" the application. On a PC, you simply click on the link for the video.

[nostatic]

I think it has to do with how your mime types are assigned. I agree with the above sentiments regarding browsers: go to www.mozilla.com and download Camino. Much better browser. If you have installed the latest version of WinMediaPlayer, it should fire up when you click on the link in the browser. If not, it might download a small file to your desktop (or other location if you've changed it in the browser prefs). You can take that icon and drag it onto the WinMediaPlayer icon and it should find the streaming file and play it (assuming it is a streaming video).

Didn't you buy that used Denis? Did it have a fresh install of the OS? That is the best way to start with an older machine. You never know what kind of nonsense the previous owner did (kinda like 911s...)

[Moses]

Never had a problem with Windows media player on my Macs (OS 10.2). Works with Camino, Safari and even the evil Explorer.

[techweenie]

Originally posted by speeder
I'm not real computer-savvy, so not sure how I should be "opening" the application. On a PC, you simply click on the link for the video.

Well, same with a Mac. Double click on the document and it opens the app. You can also double-click the app icon or an alias of the app icon.

Nostatic gave you good advice: if you don't know the history of your machine, do a 'clean' install (includes reformatting). Between Quicktime and WiMP, I can play 90% of the videos I find. Occasionally I'll get the 'can't read this format' message, but that's usually just a corrupted file.

Any idea what file types are giving you trouble (.avi, .mpg, .wmv, .asf?) they all run fine on my Mac.

[speeder]

Originally posted by nostatic


Didn't you buy that used Denis? Did it have a fresh install of the OS? That is the best way to start with an older machine. You never know what kind of nonsense the previous owner did (kinda like 911s...)

Yes, I did buy it used but it was from a pretty big Mac guy who resells and buys a lot of them, he's a major fan like most of the Mac users that I encounter, and I'm pretty certain that it was a fresh install of OS-X.

I appreciate the help, I'm sure that it will get straightened out and I'll like the machine better.