Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with wmp

Windows Media Player to iTunes - help me avoid disaster!

CrazyGabby — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 11:29:52 -0800

I'm about to switch from Windows Media Player to iTunes (hubby is giving me his iPod Video, yay!). What should I know before making the switch? I would love any tips and tricks on switching over to iTunes/iPods. Basically, what do you wish you'd known ahead of time? A couple of notes:

- None of my music has DRM, so that's one less thing to worry about.
- I use ratings and play counts quite a bit, so would love to transfer those if possible. If not, it's not the end of the world.

Tips, info, and links are all welcome. Thank you!

How do I tell WMP to quit looking?

susandennis — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 16:22:15 -0800

How can I get WMP 11 to stop trying to find media information about my ripped CD on the internet? The pop up info box is making me crazy. Where's the switch to turn it off? I check out books on CD from the library and rip them into mp3's for my Zen player. Every single time the ripping is finished, Windows Media Player 11 stops and pops up a box that says:

"Windows Media Player cannot download media information for this CD. The tracks, artists, and album will be identified as "Unknown" in your library. For best results, connect to the Internet or manually add media information for the CD"

I can't do anything until I clear that damn box.

I never ever ever want media information from the internet but I cannot turn this thing off. I have unchecked almost every option available AND told it to work offline. No joy.

Anyone know how to tell WMP to quit looking? (Vista is OS)

Getting WMP11 to play mp3 links immediately

MarkLark — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 10:44:18 -0800

Windows Media Player 9 used to begin playing an mp3 as soon as you clicked the link, so you didn't have to download the entire mp3 just to start hearing it. I can't seem to get WMP11 to do this - any ideas? So I'm usually pretty good with The Google but after searching around I'm at a loss.

While many might scoff at my use of Windows Media Player over the years, I stuck with it because it was the only player that would immediately begin playing an MP3 in the player as soon as I clicked on an mp3 URL on a webpage. (eg, click on link to an mp3, WMP opens, buffers and then begins to play the audio after a second or two, even though the song is still being downloaded). This was great because I tend to like to 'preview' a song without having to wait and download the whole thing only to have to delete it if I didn't like it. This is even more useful on long songs (large filesize), such as DJ mixes, etc.

I recently upgraded to WMP 11, which now seems to take the quicktime route - clicking on an mp3 URL makes the browser go to a new page with an embedded player and doesn't begin playing until the song has fully downloaded.

Is there any way to get WMP11 to act like earlier versions? I'd like to click on a URL to an MP3, have the actual WMP11 application open and begin playing the audio in a 'streaming' fashion - playing as it downloads.

If this is not possible, does anyone know of any players that do function like this? I tend to plow through lots of unknown mp3 links quickly to weed out what I do/don't like. I can usually tell within the first 10-15 seconds of a song if it will be of interest, so this new method seriously slows me down.

Thanks in advance ... btw I'm on Windows XP if it matters.

Remove my file tumor!

jinjo — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 16:11:01 -0800

Can't get things deleted off my USB drive anymore. Think it's Windows-Media-Player-for-Mac's fault. I have a bunch of files in the Trash, but for some reason it always attempts to delete WMP first, and fails, and all I can do is cancel, so they're all still there. As far as I can tell, it actually does delete some part of it, because the icon changes to the generic application/white piece of paper one. But it says that several of its component pieces-- help file .htm's and the like-- are locked. (Get Info says they aren't.) I tried to drag it out of the trash, copy the full file to the same location and overwrite it for a fresh start, but no luck. And it copied the thing, and kept one of them in the trash, so after fooling with that awhile I have a whole fleet of partial copies of WMP that I cannot get rid of.

I took it to a PC, hoping it might work differently, but the Trashes folder it usually displays there was not to be found. What can I do?

How can repair my video codecs?

cheero — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 17:20:42 -0800

How can repair my video codecs? Out of nowhere, I cannot see any video in my AVI files but I can hear the audio just fine. Windows Media Player 11 simply does not load when I click to open an AVI. It is fully installed and everything but when I try to click on an AVI to open it -- nothing happens. I've installed the VLC player in hopes that plays it, no dice. Same goes for Windows Media Classic.

I've installed the k-lite codecs pack which worked for me for years but for some odd reason, things crapped out on me.

I've also used GSPOT to see what codecs were needed for certain movies but each time it said that everything was fully installed.

How can I rectify this extremely annoying problem? Is there some kind of tool I can use that will repair this?

The specs I am running are: OS: WinXP Professional 5.1 Service Pack 2 (Build #2600) CPU: Intel Pentium D , 2.99 GHz Video: Plug and Play Monitor on nVidia GeForce 7800 GTX Sound: SB Audigy 2 ZS Audio

Thanks in advance

Remotely edit playlists and mp3s with WMP

loquax — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 18:43:59 -0800

Editing Windows Media Playlists remotely So I have two PCs, both on a wireless network, with WMP 11. My music is all on one PC, basically a file server. The other PC sees the files and the whole library fine using the media sharing thing in XP/Vista, including playlists. BUT, I can't edit the playlists (or the tags/ratings of the files) from the remote library using the WMP interface. Which is a pain. Anyone know any clever way I can do this?

(I'm using WMP because it works easiest with other stuff, so while I'm a big Winamp fan, I can't really use any suggestions other than WMP suggestions)

Thanks!

Cross-fade plugin for the Windows Media Player SDK?

Overzealous — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 09:03:57 -0800

Is there a good cross-fade plugin for the Windows Media Player SDK? I am a big fan of the SQRSoft crossfade plugin for Winamp, but a project I am working on involves imbedding the WMP SDK into an application, and crossfading tracks would be soooo sweet. I know the crossfade exists in the full WMP application, but it is not a function built into the SDK. Plugin? Work-Around? Anyone?

WMP 11 annoyance

dash_slot- — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 13:23:13 -0800

Last week I downloaded Windows Media Player 11, to complement Real Alternative and all the other MPs on my system. Now, every time it finishes playing a movie clip, it wants to go online. I could block it with Zone Alarm, but I want to stop the behaviour in options. Anyone know which option stimulates the player to do this, and where to switch it off?

WinMac Media Player

spaceman_spiff — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 19:05:34 -0800

Daily Show on a Mac Windows Media Player is, at least on a Mac, nearly unuseable for embedded video, and Flip4Mac likewise (WMP skips and jumps, and F4M never gets past the buffering stage). However, some sites (the Daily Show, for instance) use nothing but. While I am aware that many such clips end up on YouTube, I'd like to use Comedy Central's site instead.

Anyone have a suggestion?

Is it me or WMP?

dragonbay — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 20:23:16 -0800

All of a sudden I can't rip a CD to mp3 files using WMP-10. What happened and (more important) how do I fix it? I swear I've done this before on this machine, but now I can't rip to mp3 uning WMP-10. I get an error message that tells me "Windows Media player cannot rip the track because a compatible MP3 encoder is not installed on your computer. Install a compatible MP3 encoder or choose a different format to rip to (such as Windows Media Audio)."

Well, I don't want WMA, so I clicked "More Information" and got the error message C00D0FAA which contains a pointer to obtain an MP3 encoder on the "MP3 Creation Packs and DVD Decoders for Windows XP Web page". In turn, this page tells me that "MP3 encoding is included at no cost with Windows Media Player 10" - which is what I thought in the first place.

Maybe I'm just zoned out, but I don't get it. Can anbody help?

Streaming audio server statistics

bhance — Fri, 19 May 2006 13:06:15 -0800

ObscureStatisticsFilter: Help me find usage and market adoption statistics for major streaming audio servers. I'm looking for usage numbers for streaming audio servers to help me estimate each one's marketshare. Icecast vs. RealMedia vs. ShoutCast vs. Windows Media Server, etc.

Terrestrial, internet-only, hobbyist, pro, whatever: something like: "In 2004, X stations were serving audio with RealMedia, Y stations with ShoutCast, and Z stations with Windows Media Server" and so on.

I'd like to see some sort of one-versus-the-other breakdown - or links and cites to help me ad-hoc something along these lines.

Why does Windows Media Player hork up all my CPU?

sidereal — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 20:18:49 -0800

Why does Windows Media Player hork up all my CPU these days? When it didn't used to? Windows Media Player, Version 9.00.00.3075 on XP home box horks up all my CPU now. Every time I try and play more than one MP3 it goes through this big laggy session and plays the music files, but wow, it eats CPU like Bobbi Bliss. I don't remember it ever being so bad. In fact, a while back, I gave up trying to wrangle other MP3 players and moderate their operating system fights, and just gave in and let WMP handle all sound files, because I just got tired of all the stupid OS fights. It went well for a long time, but lately, this crazy app, well, I said, it horks up all my CPU now when I use it.

I'm surprised, because I sorta assumed it's tightly integrated with my XP Home OS. I'm using the term "tightly integrated" regarding Windows without irony for once.

So I Guess My Question Is, how can I find out why this integrated Windows app is acting like some 3rd-party app that billg hates? I don't get it. What sort of analysis can I do to find out what the hell is so CPU-intensive now? When it didn't used to before?

Failed WMP install leaves me in BSOD/reboot loop

mumeishi — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 11:05:42 -0800

I attempted to install the latest Windows Media Player, it failed and asked me to reboot and try again, and now I'm locked in a reboot - blue screen of death - reboot loop. Help! The blue screen is just after the Windows XP logo with the initial loading progress bar. BSOD flashes by (too quick to read) before rebooting again. On reboot, I'm asked to try starting in safe mode, safe w/network, safe w/something else, last good config, or normal. All options produce the blue screen and reboot.

I've reloaded BIOS defaults and removed an unused TV tuner card. Others seem seated properly on the mobo.

System is Athlon64 3200+, NVidia 6600GT, Asus mobo, 1GB ram.

Sigh. I don't want to reinstall XP just yet, so is there any other advice? Thanks!

Video killed the computer

daninnj — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 15:14:47 -0800

Video crashes my computer after I bought a new video card. How do I fix it? I recently purchased a GeForce 6200 OC (256mb) from Best Buy two days ago. While many things run smooth (Google Earth works like a charm), any video player (realone, WMP, VLC) playing any video format crashes the computer. Windows Media Player says "Connecting" when trying to play a video and if I move the mouse, the pointer takes about five seconds to move. The computer moves slowly, and if I manage to exit WMP, everything turns back to normal after a few minutes. The video never shows up. The other players do the exact same thing.

I installed the drivers from the CD and the new drivers from nVidia's site and I have the same problem. I emailed BFG Tech and they said to reinstall Windows Media Player, but that didn't work. A new codec pack didn't work either.

My computer:
HP Pavilion 552
Processor: AMD Athlon 2000+ (1.66Ghz)
RAM: 768mb
Driver: 7.7.5.0 (but I tried the latest also: 7.7.7.0)
OS: Windows XP Home SP2 with the current updates

WMP Playlist to DVD burning

srboisvert — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 03:50:16 -0800

How can I easily burn a long Windows Media Player playlist to a dvd? If that isn't possible how can I export only the desired files from my overly large media collection to another directory so I can then just burn those files using another program without having to individually select all the files ? I don't have an ipod or another external device that i could easily copy to using wmp's sync feature

Stereo to mono?

LordSludge — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 12:47:57 -0800

Seeking a freeware MS Windows Media Player plug-in to play stereo mp3s as mono. I very often listen to mp3s using only one ear-bud headphone, but I only get one channel, left or right. Is there a free plug-in that will play my stereo mp3s as mono? If I can't find a software solution, I'll just get hardware 1/8" plug adapter, just curious...

Windows Media Player Problems

scazza — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 19:31:44 -0800

Windows Media Player will no longer load in Firefox or Safari. I have reinstalled twice, I remember seeing similar problems with WMP and OS X on AskMe or MeFi (I can no longer find where I saw it) without an answer, help!

What are your favourite settings/formats for exporting short web-based videos?

Monk — Mon, 06 Dec 2004 14:48:05 -0800

What are your favourite settings/formats for exporting short web-based videos? [mi]

I have to post a 3-minute 300×200-pixel video on our intranet. The only media player guaranteed to be on all machines is Windows Media Player 9. The server doesn't allow for any kind of streaming format.

I'm using Premier 6.5 with the Windows Media 9 plug-in to export the video clip and am overwhelmed with the amount of options available. I'm an HTML monkey. I don't know the difference between various codecs (MPEG4 and WMV7, 8 and 9), bit rates, modes (CBR vs Peak VBR vs Quality VBR vs Bit Rate VBR) and audio options.

The exported file has to be small enough that it downloads and starts playing quickly with minimal time spent looking at a "buffering" graphic. (Don't let the fact that this is an intranet fool you into thinking we've got masses of bandwidth. Our "internal" server is two timezones away.)

Random tweaking has produced a 5MB file that takes a minute and a half to start playing. Is this as good as I'm going to get?

Playing Windows Media video under OSX

inksyndicate — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 12:51:18 -0800

Best way to play the latest Windows Media movies under OS X? I've tried the latest version of MPlayer, but it only plays the sound, not the video, of WMV movies.

I don't even know if playing Daily Show WMVs embedded into comedycentral.com is in the cards...but I'd just like to be able to play downloaded Windows Media movies reliably, at least, since it seems to be such a hot format.

Can it be done without some fancy open source re-compile of my Mplayer?

Can I force WMP to use less bandwidth?

mwhybark — Mon, 15 Nov 2004 12:19:53 -0800

Can I throttle the speed at which WMP plays streaming media? When I fire it up, it attempts to play at 128k, and kills our inbound bandwidth. We're in an industrial-boonies area of town and only have a pokey ISDN due to distance from the tellyphone whatsit. Despite the unused fiber hatch right in front of the building.

Yes, I am aware of non-MS products. This question is not about them.

Buffer Problems

Juicylicious — Thu, 14 Oct 2004 09:39:25 -0800

Why is it impossible for me to watch/listen to streaming video without the program stopping every few seconds to buffer? I tried to watch this video on both RealPlayer & Windows Media the same thing happened with both.

Windows Media movies don't work after paying for Quicktime Pro?

inksyndicate — Mon, 27 Sep 2004 21:41:13 -0800

It seems like ever since I paid for Quicktime Pro for my Macintosh, Windows Media movies stopped working, especially embedded ones -- they complain about inability to create a "unique tmp file." Plus my file associations are screwy. Wonder what happened and how I can fix it...?

Windows Media Player

Slimemonster — Sat, 10 Apr 2004 00:01:05 -0800

For some reason, as of late, .avi files have been playing weird in Windows Media Player (which i'm getting a little sick of). The sound plays fine but the video starts dragging and keeps getting farther and farther behind. This does not happen with .mpg or .asf files. Is this a simple RAM problem or is something up with windows media?

Inverted Media Files

Slimemonster — Sat, 06 Mar 2004 14:55:09 -0800

Okay, for some reason, all of my .mpeg and .avi files when opened in Windows Media or Global DIVX play upside down and inside out. The audio is fine, but the image is totally inverted. What is up with that? How come .wmv files are playing normally? Did i do something to the files or is there something messing with them? It just started happening out of the blue last tuesday.

Windows Media Player Freezes

Irontom — Wed, 18 Feb 2004 09:12:33 -0800

Why does the current version of Windows Media Player freeze my Win2K machine? The same wmp clip crashed my machine in both the Real One player and the current WMP, but the older version of WMP plays it just fine.