MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - A simple trick to play .wmv files on PalmOS

Chaos · 04-22-2006, 04:52 PM

The reason some work and some don't is actually quite simple.

There are basically three versions of the WMV codec, but only versions 2 and 3 are widely used. Version 2 (WMP8 and lower) has, I believe, open source decoders and hence can be decoded on almost any platform with the right software. Version 3 is newer (WMP9 and higher), and does not have any open source decoders, so it can only be played on Windows (with WMP9+), Mac OSX (non-DRM, WMP9+ only - no other players can handle it), or x86 Linux (with something like MPlayer/Xine/etc. and the win32codecs package).

Since there's no open source decoder, and the win32 codecs are x86 (Intel/AMD/etc.) only (won't work on anything other than a 32-bit x86 system), Macs without WMP9+, and any OSes not running on x86 hardware are out of luck for WMV3 (WMP9+) files. I also haven't heard anything about anyone getting the win32 codecs working on Intel Macs yet, but I may just not have been looking - it's theoretically possible to do with something like MPlayer.

04-22-2006, 04:52 PM	#2
Chaos Evangelist Posts: 418 Karma: 281 Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Canada Device: Assorted older devices	The reason some work and some don't is actually quite simple. There are basically three versions of the WMV codec, but only versions 2 and 3 are widely used. Version 2 (WMP8 and lower) has, I believe, open source decoders and hence can be decoded on almost any platform with the right software. Version 3 is newer (WMP9 and higher), and does not have any open source decoders, so it can only be played on Windows (with WMP9+), Mac OSX (non-DRM, WMP9+ only - no other players can handle it), or x86 Linux (with something like MPlayer/Xine/etc. and the win32codecs package). Since there's no open source decoder, and the win32 codecs are x86 (Intel/AMD/etc.) only (won't work on anything other than a 32-bit x86 system), Macs without WMP9+, and any OSes not running on x86 hardware are out of luck for WMV3 (WMP9+) files. I also haven't heard anything about anyone getting the win32 codecs working on Intel Macs yet, but I may just not have been looking - it's theoretically possible to do with something like MPlayer.