WMP 9 on OS X 10.2.8 -- very slow jerky playback of some .wmv file

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Delysid - 03 Feb 2005 01:01 GMT

After reading other posts here I guess I'm luckier than some folks since at
least most .wmv files do play, but unless they are a very small frame size,
they play slow and jerkily, even straight off the hard drive.

For instance, I have a 8.4 MB .wmv video file on my hard drive with the
Windows Media Video 9 codec, and it plays, but instead of playing at 30
frames per second as it says it should in the Statistics window, it plays at
3 fps or less, with a huge number of "Frames Skipped" and frequent pauses of
5 seconds or more.

The file's bitrate is 779 kbps. Changing buffer settings has no effect,
since the file is local and not streamed.

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Corentin Cras-Méneur - 03 Feb 2005 23:57 GMT

> After reading other posts here I guess I'm luckier than some folks since at
> least most .wmv files do play, but unless they are a very small frame size,
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
> The file's bitrate is 779 kbps. Changing buffer settings has no effect,
> since the file is local and not streamed.

:-( How much RAM do you have ? What Mac are you using ??

The problem is that there is not much you can do to improve performances
(beside beefing up the Mac itself).

Corentin

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Delysid - 08 Feb 2005 11:25 GMT

> :-( How much RAM do you have ? What Mac are you using ??
> The problem is that there is not much you can do to improve performances
> (beside beefing up the Mac itself).

I'm using a slot-loading iMac G3 500 MHz with 384 MB RAM, a 20 GB HD, and
Mac OS X 10.2.8. It seemed pretty awesome back in 2000, but it's not very
powerful by today's standards. Though mpeg movies play beautifully in
Quicktime Player.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
- D.

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Corentin Cras-Méneur - 08 Feb 2005 16:30 GMT

> I'm using a slot-loading iMac G3 500 MHz with 384 MB RAM, a 20 GB HD, and
> Mac OS X 10.2.8. It seemed pretty awesome back in 2000, but it's not very
> powerful by today's standards. Though mpeg movies play beautifully in
> Quicktime Player.

QT player has pretty efficient codecs to play these files. WMP might
need some optimization to get things a little smoother :-\

Corentin

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Delysid - 08 Feb 2005 22:31 GMT

> > I'm using a slot-loading iMac G3 500 MHz with 384 MB RAM, a 20 GB HD, and
> > Mac OS X 10.2.8. It seemed pretty awesome back in 2000, but it's not very
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> QT player has pretty efficient codecs to play these files. WMP might
> need some optimization to get things a little smoother :-\

So why doesn't Apple include Windows Media codecs in QT? Is it that they
choose not to for strategic business reasons? Or is it that Microsoft won't
let them, either by outright refusal or by charging a prohibitively large
amount:?

Or why doesn't Microsoft improve the WM codecs in WMP? Do they want to
ensure that non-Windows users get an inferior video experience, or is it lack
of resources? I find it hard to believe it's the latter, since a working
version of the WMV 9 codec already exists for OS X so they wouldn't be
starting from scratch, and since OS X is unix-based and there must be plenty
of unix people at Microsoft

What about 3rd-party developers, i.e. neither Apple nor Microsoft? Do any
of them offfer a video player that supports Windows Media, and is faster than
MS's own WMP?

Thanks,
- D.

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Corentin Cras-Méneur - 09 Feb 2005 22:31 GMT

> > QT player has pretty efficient codecs to play these files. WMP might
> > need some optimization to get things a little smoother :-\
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> let them, either by outright refusal or by charging a prohibitively large
> amount:?

There are several possibilities: They might need to play a license... or
maybe they simply don;t want to because they want to promote their own
formats.

> Or why doesn't Microsoft improve the WM codecs in WMP? Do they want to
> ensure that non-Windows users get an inferior video experience, or is it lack
> of resources?

I vote for "lack of resources".

> I find it hard to believe it's the latter, since a working
> version of the WMV 9 codec already exists for OS X so they wouldn't be
> starting from scratch, and since OS X is unix-based and there must be plenty
> of unix people at Microsoft

Yeah, but I suspect only a couple of people wirk on WMP for MacOS X on
their spare time when they can afford not to work on some other Windows
program (eg WMP for Windows…).

> What about 3rd-party developers, i.e. neither Apple nor Microsoft? Do any
> of them offfer a video player that supports Windows Media, and is faster than
> MS's own WMP?

I'm not sure the sources are freely available...
The codecs that are "open" are already supported byt third party apps
like VLC (MacOS X only). If the sources of the other ones were also
available, I don;t doubt that they would have integrated them..,

Corentin

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Delysid - 11 Feb 2005 12:37 GMT

> > What about 3rd-party developers, i.e. neither Apple nor Microsoft? Do any
> > of them offfer a video player that supports Windows Media, and is faster than
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> like VLC (MacOS X only). If the sources of the other ones were also
> available, I don;t doubt that they would have integrated them..,

Hey, thanks for the tip on VLC. I hadn't heard of it before, so I looked it
up in versiontracker.com and downloaded the latest version for OS X, 0.8.1.

It doesn't seem to support the WMP 9 video codec identified in the VLC
properties window as WMV 3 for the file I described above. As for WMV 2, it
supports it in some files and not others -- must be different subversions of
WMV 2.

But for the WMP video codecs it does support, it plays them beautifully.
I've got some .wmv files from a particular website that all play with a low
frame rate in WMP 9, with long gaps when a scene cuts to another, with many
lost frames. In VLC, however, these same files play perfectly smoothly. So
I hope they'll be able to add support for the latest Windows Media video
codecs soon!

Apart from codec support, VLC also has an excellent full-featured playlist,
something lacking in both QT Player and Windows Media Player. VLC also has
scads of other goodies not found in the competition -- I may start using it
as my main video file player.

Thanks!

P.S. For anyone else reading this who wants to check out VLC, here's the
website:

http://www.videolan.org/

It's an open source multi-platform project that originated in France.
Highly recommended!

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Corentin Cras-Méneur - 12 Feb 2005 01:08 GMT

> Hey, thanks for the tip on VLC. I hadn't heard of it before, so I looked it
> up in versiontracker.com and downloaded the latest version for OS X, 0.8.1.

VLC is a GREAT application,. MPlayer X is not bad either. You could also
give it a try :-)

> It doesn't seem to support the WMP 9 video codec identified in the VLC
> properties window as WMV 3 for the file I described above. As for WMV 2, it
> supports it in some files and not others -- must be different subversions of
> WMV 2.

Absolutely. That's also what I noticed.

> But for the WMP video codecs it does support, it plays them beautifully.
> I've got some .wmv files from a particular website that all play with a low
> frame rate in WMP 9, with long gaps when a scene cuts to another, with many
> lost frames. In VLC, however, these same files play perfectly smoothly. So
> I hope they'll be able to add support for the latest Windows Media video
> codecs soon!

It also depends on Microsoft. They have to release the sources for
people to be able to implement their own WMV9 codecs.

> Apart from codec support, VLC also has an excellent full-featured playlist,
> something lacking in both QT Player and Windows Media Player. VLC also has
> scads of other goodies not found in the competition -- I may start using it
> as my main video file player.

And it plays more DivX formats than any other app. There is also support
for full screen video (you have to pay in QT to do that) and it offers
pretty nice controls with shortcuts you can personalize any way you want
(but the interface for the preferneces is a little tedious).

> Thanks!

You're very welcome,

> P.S. For anyone else reading this who wants to check out VLC, here's the
> website:
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> It's an open source multi-platform project that originated in France.
> Highly recommended!

If I quite remember, it started as a school project in an Engineer
school in Paris,

Corentin

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Art Morgan - 14 Feb 2005 07:37 GMT

Good news, I hope...

WMP files all run well on my Mac G5 MAC OS X Version 10.3.7
(Dual 2 GHZ) memory is 512MB DDR SDRAM

The 'about' information reads as follows:

WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER 9 SERIES
Windows Media Player for Mac OS X
Version: 9.0.0(3307)
Product ID: 55474-026-82092621-73058

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/software/Macintosh/osx/default.aspx

Click the 'Download Now' button, you will get the WindowsMediaInstaller.bin
file

My WMP is installed in the 'Applications' directory on the hard drive. I
notice there is another 'Applications' folder named (MAC OS 9) I am assuming
that installation to the alternate folder would cause problems, if indeed it
ran at all.

Please advise to newsgroup as well as to 'mdubreu1@tampabay.rr.com' as to
results. Thanks

Art Morgan

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Corentin Cras-Méneur - 15 Feb 2005 21:37 GMT

> My WMP is installed in the 'Applications' directory on the hard drive. I
> notice there is another 'Applications' folder named (MAC OS 9) I am assuming
> that installation to the alternate folder would cause problems, if indeed it
> ran at all.

It would. You just would lose some System integration like Services, etc
since the System deosn't scan these locations.

Corentin

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Mac Forum / Applications / Media Player / February 2005

WMP 9 on OS X 10.2.8 -- very slow jerky playback of some .wmv file