PBS, what kind of Mac you running?

March 2, 2006 By

Hey, PBS’s Mark Glaser says that he can’t watch WMV files. What kind of Mac are you running Mark? Also, WMV files have NOTHING to do with the kind of browser you have. It has to do with the media player you have.

By the way, my son is a Mac user. Maybe NPR should hire him. He knows how to play WMV files on his Mac. I’ll have him try to play these and get back to us. Are these files DRM’d?

I just got an email from a reader that said these files work just fine on his Mac.

Another guy just reported that he can’t view the AP Web page from his Mac and that the Web page itself (not the video formats) can’t be opened. Oh, that’s not nice!

Filed Under: April Fools, Blog Tips, Microsoft Office, Video
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  • eponymous coward

    Scoble-

    That would be MSN Video that’s the problem (you get the same page if you try to use MSN Video). Read the comments in that post Mark made, as well, especially ones by the AP rep.

    John, you’ve got to be kidding me on hard ship dates. The MacBU doesn’t do that. Hell, APPLE doesn’t do that. Anybody who does that is insane and asking for lawsuits when the hard ship date slips for whatever reason. Yes, the way MS has treated Windows Media on the Mac is a joke…but truth be told, Real isn’t a lot better- they’ve been keeping Mac users in a ghetto, as well.

    I’d settle for “we’re licensing our technology to Flip4Mac and letting them produce our Windows Media solutions for the Mac- with the proviso that the goal is full feature compatibility, we aren’t going to keep them from implementing particular features the Windows side has.” There are units at Microsoft that do this- let 3rd parties do the Mac side if MS isn’t interested in creating a Mac development side of things for a particular product (like they’ve done for Office and the MacBU),, so I actually think it’s a good precedent.

  • eponymous coward

    Scoble-

    That would be MSN Video that’s the problem (you get the same page if you try to use MSN Video). Read the comments in that post Mark made, as well, especially ones by the AP rep.

    John, you’ve got to be kidding me on hard ship dates. The MacBU doesn’t do that. Hell, APPLE doesn’t do that. Anybody who does that is insane and asking for lawsuits when the hard ship date slips for whatever reason. Yes, the way MS has treated Windows Media on the Mac is a joke…but truth be told, Real isn’t a lot better- they’ve been keeping Mac users in a ghetto, as well.

    I’d settle for “we’re licensing our technology to Flip4Mac and letting them produce our Windows Media solutions for the Mac- with the proviso that the goal is full feature compatibility, we aren’t going to keep them from implementing particular features the Windows side has.” There are units at Microsoft that do this- let 3rd parties do the Mac side if MS isn’t interested in creating a Mac development side of things for a particular product (like they’ve done for Office and the MacBU),, so I actually think it’s a good precedent.

  • eponymous coward

    Oh, btw… Scoble, please ask MSN Video to implement cross-platform compatibility. Better yet, ask them what they are doing to help the AP reach that goal.

    Yes, I know, you can’t let us see ENTIRELY behind the curtain. But giving someone faith that their concerns aren’t being blown off (or, at least, an honest response as to why- “You have 5% market share, buzz off”) doesn’t mean you have to commit to a public ship date- but it does mean opening lines of communication.

  • eponymous coward

    Oh, btw… Scoble, please ask MSN Video to implement cross-platform compatibility. Better yet, ask them what they are doing to help the AP reach that goal.

    Yes, I know, you can’t let us see ENTIRELY behind the curtain. But giving someone faith that their concerns aren’t being blown off (or, at least, an honest response as to why- “You have 5% market share, buzz off”) doesn’t mean you have to commit to a public ship date- but it does mean opening lines of communication.

  • Mujibur

    Actually, please Microsoft don’t change anything.

    h.264 is really picking up steam right now. Lets rid ourselves of WMV once and for all.

  • Mujibur

    Actually, please Microsoft don’t change anything.

    h.264 is really picking up steam right now. Lets rid ourselves of WMV once and for all.

  • http://steph.wordpress.com/ Steph

    For what it’s worth, I haven’t managed to view any Channel 9 videos on my iBook. I have a couple of video player thingies installed (I kinda suck at understanding the whole codec stuff), but the one it opens when I try and view a Channel 9 video just crashes or doesn’t work.

    I’m not a super-user when it comes to viewing videos online.

    I’d love to be able to download them in *.avi or *.mpeg format. I also looked to see if I could subscribe to the stream in iTunes, and there doesn’t seem to be an easy button to do that. I could probably subscribe to it in BlogLines but I don’t know how it would handle the videos.

    Again, I’m not really up to par when it comes to getting audio/video from the web — the easiest way for me (and which works) is if I can subscribe to it in iTunes.

    These were the views of a lambda user :-)

  • http://steph.wordpress.com/ Steph

    For what it’s worth, I haven’t managed to view any Channel 9 videos on my iBook. I have a couple of video player thingies installed (I kinda suck at understanding the whole codec stuff), but the one it opens when I try and view a Channel 9 video just crashes or doesn’t work.

    I’m not a super-user when it comes to viewing videos online.

    I’d love to be able to download them in *.avi or *.mpeg format. I also looked to see if I could subscribe to the stream in iTunes, and there doesn’t seem to be an easy button to do that. I could probably subscribe to it in BlogLines but I don’t know how it would handle the videos.

    Again, I’m not really up to par when it comes to getting audio/video from the web — the easiest way for me (and which works) is if I can subscribe to it in iTunes.

    These were the views of a lambda user :-)

  • Danimal

    Ahoy people!

    I am using flip4mac to make .wmv files of vacation clips for a personal website.
    i want to use it because the file sizes are so much smaller than anything i can seem to get when saving as an mpeg or mov or avi.

    I figure most of my family & friends will view on a pc, so no problems.
    Bums me out though, to think that my mac friends will not just be able to click & view them… they’ll have to download either the flip4mac player, or the wmp for mac….

    WHY CAN”T THEY ALL JUST GET ALONG?????

    my 2 cents, a bit late.
    cheers!

  • http://personal Danimal

    Ahoy people!

    I am using flip4mac to make .wmv files of vacation clips for a personal website.
    i want to use it because the file sizes are so much smaller than anything i can seem to get when saving as an mpeg or mov or avi.

    I figure most of my family & friends will view on a pc, so no problems.
    Bums me out though, to think that my mac friends will not just be able to click & view them… they’ll have to download either the flip4mac player, or the wmp for mac….

    WHY CAN”T THEY ALL JUST GET ALONG?????

    my 2 cents, a bit late.
    cheers!

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