Windows Media

Windows - not the first word you’d expect to see on a Mac blog. The fact of the matter is, if you’re looking for video media, most of it will be on YouTube or Google Video, but you’re probably still going to run across some .wma or .wmv files that aren’t going to play on your Mac without some tweaking because Microsoft no longer produces Windows Media Player for Mac. Thanks to Telestream, you can install their Flip4Mac Quicktime plug-in, and play .wma and .wmv players in Quicktime, or by using Quicktime in Safari.

It’s a little confusing to find this plug-in, because you could sift through 3 separate sites. The Telestream homepage had information on Flip4Mac, including a link to their dedicated Flip4Mac website. The Flip4Mac website is also initially confusing because they offer a wide range of Windows Media support products. However, unless you’re wanting to import, export and produce in Windows Media formats most of these products should be overkill. The free plug-in is difficult to locate here, as well, without some poking around.

All becomes clear when you learn that Microsoft discontinued Windows Media Player for Mac in favor of distributing Flip4Mac for free in early 2006. In actuality, this download can be found on the Microsoft website: Windows Media Components for Quicktime.

This is a quick download and install, and once it’s there you probably won’t even notice it. If you launch the “WMV Player” application you see installed, you’ll notice that it actually launches QuickTime. From here on out, whenever you need to play a Windows Media file, Quicktime will launch and you’ll be able to watch (or hear, in the case of .wma files) just as you might if you were watching a Quicktime file. This goes for Safari, too: any time you encounter this sort of content on the web, it’ll launch the Quicktime in Safari and play it right there.

Should you want to change any of the default settings, you’ll find a new Flip4Mac icon in the “Other” section of your System Preferences pane. By default, it will check for updates to Flip4Mac once a week, so you won’t need to try to remember to look for updates.
If you do ever need to use the more advanced Flip4Mac features discussed on their website, you can try it out, and then purchase the license directly in the application or through the System Preferences options.

So easy, you may forget that you originally downloaded it off the Microsoft website!