Windows Media Player in Linux

mr lee writes "Today CodeWeavers released CrossOver plugin 1.1 which now supports Windows Media Player 6.4 under Linux. As much I would not like to see or support sites that use Windows Media shite, its still really nice to have this option. Not too mention kick ass QuickTime playing." Update: 02/27 18:30 GMT by H : I've actually been using this - it's done really really well. I'm planning on doing a fuller review soon, but it's very well done.

Is this good?

[Publicus]

It probably won't make any difference, but doesn't this, in a way, legitimize the wma format?

The results of smoking crack

[Reality Master 101]

Windows media player "shite"? "Kick ass" Quicktime?

I don't know about this guy's universe, but in mine, Windows Media Player works great, but Quicktime under windows is a giant, stinking, smelly, steaming, smoking, pile of dog-doo. It constantly crashes, and the user interface is probably the worst ever designed.

I wonder why?

[Meech]

Companies are like little greedy children, they don't play nice together. Apple has quicktime, Microsoft has windows media player. Quicktime, as you say, runs like garbage under windows, and from my experience, windows media player runs like crap on the Mac platforms. The only thing that works on all are "standard" file types such as mpg, mp3, etc.

Mplayer is great!

[7-Vodka]

Mplayer is awesome, I view divx movies with it. There's even a spanking new pretty gui. It's the only movie player for nix that actually works well. There's also aviplay, while it's worth a mention, the code is messy and it doesn't work as well.

Quicktime is the pits

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently installed Quicktime on my PC. I followed the directions and told it NOT to splatter itself anywhere.

Despite this, any time I go to a web page with sound, I have to wait forever for the QuickTime drivers to load, and then I get a message asking me to upgrade Quicktime.... with no option to get rid of the message.

The installation and user interface have a sort of rudimentary unfriendliness to them that the rest of the world left behind when it ditched Windows 3.11 for Workgroups.

Re:what about Mplayer

[Geekboy(Wizard)]

Mplayer is sweet, I use it as my only (video) player on my FreeBSD box.

However, while it does support Quicktime, almost all of the newly released QT movies are compressed with Sorenson (sp?) codec, which is closed source, and Apple licenses it from another company. Therefore, unless Apple, and Sorenson (sp?) both give permission (read: unlikely), you won't find a legal open-source player. Apple (and others) can port the app to different platforms, and others still can make a shell for the application (read: what Codeweavers did), but you still don't get the benifits of open-source programmers optimizing the heck out of the program.

There's something wrong here

[rjamestaylor]

Here's a story, basing Microsoft products as "shite", about using said Microsoft product in Linux and praises Apple's just-as-proprietary media format. /*Head spins*/

So, am I to understand that MS sucks so very bad that we need to run out, install a different MS-free OS and then get a utility to run pieces of MS software to have a decent computing experience yet give no "thank you" to MS for making a product that enables us to have that enjoyable computing experience?

This reminds me of street beggars spitting on people who give them money for being capitalist pigs. Sheesh.

One thing for MS

[tevita]

They do embed all their bits and pieces into one package and sell it for a "not too significant" sum of money. Here we have the "cross-over plugin" ($20), add that onto whatever other bits and pieces you need for your operation and before too long, you bitsa OS becomes significantly more $$ than the one MS (all in one) solution. Oh yeah, and add the incompatiability and management headaches on to it all as well.

Summary: I am not sure that the "Free"/"Open Source" model is going to be more cost effective than the MS solution in the long run on the desktop.

Some might say

[9632]

That Linux users should use the crossover plug-in because it supports proprietary formats. I say that by purchasing it you show that there is a Linux market and you know what happens when M$ smells money. (enter your own conspiracy theory here)

Re:Way to go

[Gleef]

Sinjun trolls:

Way to go there buddy. Kick them for using the most widely supported media format out there. How dare they ensure that the largest number of people can view their stuff!?

Um, the MPEG-2 Video Codec [mpeg.org] works in Windows Media Player, Real Player, Quicktime Viewer, DVD Players, VCD Players, and dozens of Free Software programs on pretty much any platform with decent processor speed and video specifications. It produces good quality video in a reasonable file size as well, and lets the producer decide just how much to compress the video. By any sane measure, it is the "most widely supported [video] media format out there".

Calling a Windows-only media format that just one program can view "the most widely supported" is either naively ill-informed or a deliberate lie.

What else can MP v6.4 handle?

[antdude]

I have MPlayer, Xine, and Oogle. I can play DivX4, MPEG, etc. What else am I missing that Media Player v6.4 can handle? Is it only WMV and WMA? If so, then I thought it was only supported in 7.x+?

Thank you in advance.

Re:HOW ABOUT

[fferreres]

'Free' software only really appeals to those people that refuse to pay for software outright... and would end up pirating pay software anyway.

How about:

'Free' software only really appeals to those people that refuse to pirate...

I've "discovered" the fact that i can't switch many people to Linux because they better like pirating Windows stuff. The very second things become unpirateable, they'll start bitching like babies and will run to Linux OR pay for cheap alternatives to the defacto standards of today.

Re:Likely Not Legal

[jafuser]

You don't really need a WMP >6.4 anyway, as it plays all codecs just as well as 7. Actually better, since it's a bit more efficient than the bloatware that is WMP7+.

Re:Codecs

[fferreres]

My Windows friend is always asking me "Hey Fede could you try and see if this .avi works? It has no sound on WMP although it downloaded some codec!".

...I mount the SMB...

Fede: $ mplayer file.avi
...
"Fede: Yep, the file's fine, works great"
"Pato: damn...i tought so. I'll switch to Linux some day!"

He also askes me to check partially downloaded files (ie: couldn't download 100% of it). I think mplayer rebuilds the indexes while some WMP codecs do not, so i can play them and WMP cannot.

Forget it, it's just a EULA

[jmorris42]

Clickwrap 'licenses' ain't worth the photons emitted by your display. Ignore it and get on with it. CodeWeavers might not have the lawyers to officially tell people to use it and certainly couldn't bundle it (copyright has nothing to do with a EULA) but that's a practical limitation and not a legal or moral one.

Re:Don't support Windows Media.

[rakarnik]

And support Windows OSs instead?

Case in point: I am currently enrolled in a graduate school program that is delivered online via Windows Media Player. Most of my classmates use Windows and have no problem with the format. On the other hand, I have to keep one of my computers at home running Windows just so I can watch these lectures. So would you rather that I don't support a proprietary OS, or a proprietary media format?

Truth is, no matter how often I click the RealMedia or MP3 link on a site that can afford to support multiple formats, other economically constrained sites will not switch, especially when the needs of about 99% of their users are being met. And the Crossover plugin (or a Linux based media player such as MPlayer) may be the only way to use these sites.

Re:Few comments on crossover 1.1.0

[yesthatguy]

Any chance someone could post a link to the RealOne beta (linux)? I looked for 10 mins. or so and must just be looking past the crucial link.

Everyone: But this please!

[Dwonis]

Some Slashdotters don't seem to understand the significance of this.

What's the #1 reason why people still use Windows, even though they hate its broken crappiness? Alternatives like Linux and BSD lack backward-compatibility with Windows.

What does does the CrossOver plugin offer? Partial, but significant, backward-compatibility with Windows. Net result: more people use Linux, so more Linux-native software is developed, Microsoft is marginalized, and everybody wins.

I just bought the downloadable version of the plugin, you really should, too.