>> How To Play WMV or WMA Files on Windows Media Player

Articles -> How to play WMV or WMA files

Windows

You must have the required Windows Media Video Codec (compress/decompress) loaded to play the WMV video or WMA audio.

For Windows XP, Windows Media Player should automatically download the codec (about 800k) when you start to play the video. If it doesn't work automatically, you can manually download and install the codec from the link below :

Microsoft.com/ Codec Installation Package

Or you can just download Windows Media Player here:

It comes with the latest WMV codec built in. WMV videos play better in Windows Media Player too so I recommend it.

Apple Macintosh

For the Apple Macintosh click the link below to download The Mac version of Windows Media Player :

Linux

If your running Linux try this: Sinehq.de

Can I watch Windows Media (.asf/.wmv/.wma) files using xine?

While the container format (system layer) ASF (wmv is just an alias) is fully supported in xine, for newer windows media 9 based streams you'll need to install windows binary codecs (.DLLs).

Possibly the most convenient way to get the Windows DLLs is to download them from the MPlayer website http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/dload.html . The package is called "essential". Unpack it and move everything you find inside to /usr/lib/win32 (actually you can place them anywhere you want, e.g. someplace in your home directory, but then you'll have to set codec.win32_path in your xine config file accordingly). Restart xine then and you should be able to watch windows media streams.

Problems? Contact me - Michael Shipley