I have been contemplating buying an imac for my next home computer. I am thinking of getting one in a few months once my tax refunds come back. In today's age of the internet where there are many proprietary media formats I am wondering what kind of compatibility I can expect from my mac. For instance my local news website has streaming windows media .asx files and such and I wonder if the imac will support these file types. I have done a search on the forums and I did not see this addressed. sorry for the newby question. Thanks for your help guys.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
supported mac media
- Thread starter hopshead
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Using the Flip4Mac components for QuickTime offers a decent amount of compatibility with WMV, but it's a toss-up between sites. It seems to depend on how they implement it. So, that's a qualified yes, but it's hit and miss. This is why I refuse to patronize sites whose media I can't watch.
As far as my experience goes, if you install the free Flip4Mac codec, Real Player, Flash plug-in, and maybe the DivX Quicktime plugin, there is almost nothing you can't properly view.
The sole exception is, as a couple people already said, a few specific implementations of Windows Media streaming. CNN works fine, for example, but if a site uses content protection it won't work at this point.
Personally, I just don't patronize sites that are that customer hostile (actually, I tend to avoid sites that use WMV at all, since I really dislike it), but probably 80% of the video on the web these days is Flash-based anyway, so that makes life a lot easier.
Incidentally, if you're really hooked on some specific site, you can always post the link here and somebody can confirm that specific case for you.
The sole exception is, as a couple people already said, a few specific implementations of Windows Media streaming. CNN works fine, for example, but if a site uses content protection it won't work at this point.
Personally, I just don't patronize sites that are that customer hostile (actually, I tend to avoid sites that use WMV at all, since I really dislike it), but probably 80% of the video on the web these days is Flash-based anyway, so that makes life a lot easier.
Incidentally, if you're really hooked on some specific site, you can always post the link here and somebody can confirm that specific case for you.
I have never ran into an instance where there was a format I wasn't compatible with. I have flip4mac and perian installed.
I have! .srt's & .sub's have both been a pain in the butt for me. I have tried Quicktime & VLC, and only VLC has been able to play them, albeit the subtitles are quite big. I have tried to resize them in VLC and have had little success.
Is there something more straight forward, or separate, that will allow me to see subtitles in all my players?