MobileRead Forums - How do you play .wmv videos on PalmOS?

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How do you play .wmv videos on PalmOS?

Does anyone know how to play Windows Media video files (.wmv format) on a PalmOS device? Or is there even a plugin for the TCPMP player that would do that?

There used to be a plugin for TCPMP, but it was removed because of licensing issues I believe.

I usually use ffmpeg to translate my wmv files into something useful. But the problem usually isn't with the video format. It's with the non-standard (and/or proprietary) codecs that some people use - for some strange reason.

Go over to Rarewares and down load the aac plug in. I use TCPMP to play WMP files all of the time on my Zire 72. I have my desktop dump the files into my 1 gig SD card.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4Wheeldrive

Go over to Rarewares and down load the aac plug in. I use TCPMP to play WMP files all of the time on my Zire 72. I have my desktop dump the files into my 1 gig SD card.

Are you saying that the AAC plugin allows TCPMP to play wmv files? That would be too easy! I'll give it a try.

BobR,
Yup, that is exactly what I am saying. Please let me know if it doesn't work.

Still not sure how this works, but minus audio, I could play one wmv file I tried. (A Daffy Duck cartoon from archive.org)

I also upgraded to the .71 TCPMP release for PalmOS and from the included install info it had the following text

Quote:

tcpmp_ffmpeg_plugin.prc: subset of FFmpeg multimedia library. See notice below:

FFmpeg plugin is just a subset of the original FFmpeg open-source library. Still it's robust, mostly slower as other ARM optimized decoders and needs more memory. Supports MPEG1/2, MPEG4 (with GMC/QPEL), h.263, MS-MPEG4-v1/v2/v3, Sorenson 3, WMV7/8 and AVC (aka h.264). ATTENTION: Not all features of WMV8 is supported. Plugin can crash with some WMV8 files.

I installed both the AAC and FFmpeg plugins, but as far as I can tell, it's the FFmpeg that lets you play wmv files.

Unfortunately, I still don't know about the audio (windows media audio, which I'm guessing is the .wma) portion. It could be a problem with my specific video file, or maybe something else I'm not doing right. But if FFmpeg can convert formats, that might be a good alternative.

Will pass on more if/when I get around to pursueing further if I get a file I really want to see. Any other thoughts?

Drag your .wmv file onto Palm Quick Install. It will automatically convert it to an .asf file (which I was able to play in TCPMP with limited plugins).

Excellent suggestion! When I load my WM files, I right click on the file, go to the "send to" arrow, and then left click on the "Palm Quick Install" and the software converts it.

Also I found out that when Picard updates his software, you have to reload ALL the files, not just the ones he has updated. :scholar: