Quicktime Video Plugins - Watch those WMV files after all

Ok, I poked fun at Microsoft’s Interoperability attempts, showing that I was unable to view their video highlights of the event on my Mac.

In reality, of course there are ways to view Video encoded for Microsoft Media Viewer in Quicktime, as well as many other formats of video. The way to do this is to snag a couple free plug-ins that install preference panes and will do the job of getting you compatible with the world.

First up, to play Windows Media files, you need the Flip4Mac WMV Components for Quicktime. You can download the free version from either the Flip4Mac web site, or from Microsoft’s site.

Look, just for fun, I’ve included pictures of the web sites. Yay.

Flip4Mac installs an app and also a preference pane in your system preferences for the Flip4Mac plug-in.

Next, head over to the Perian web site and snag a copy of that plug-in as well. Perian handles a ton of different formats, and between the two of these plug-ins, I don’t think there’s anything I’ve tried to watch yet that I can’t.

Perian also installs as a preference pane in System Preferences, and you probably noticed its icon near the Flip4Mac icon in the System prefs screenshot above.

Ok, well, as much fun as it was laughing that the New Interoperable Microsoft was showcasing videos that weren’t interoperable, in reality it’s easy to set yourself up for viewing such fine works of art as the highlights of Microsoft acting like they are the first people in the world to grasp that data needs to move around and open source is not going to curl up and die. Hooray, Behemoth!