Handbrake is a lovely program, yes, but unfortunately not a whit of help for converting (evil empire) WMV to more civilized formats as it’s only for converting DVD’s.

ffmpegX might help, but the one WMV I tried on it didn’t convert nicely.

Leighgion - 18 December 2005 05:19 PM

WMV is the evil.

It’s worse.  M$ appears to be abandoning any further support/upgrades for MacOS X compatibility.  Yet another ploy of theirs to attempt to make Macs seems less modern and useful than Windoze boxes.  The Mac version of Windows Media Player has been stuck at ver. 9 for a long time now, while WMP for Windows is already at ver. 11.  New stuff like the free complete TV episodes you can get from… d’oh, I forgot the URL… will not play, any way, any how, on a Mac (not even with Flip4Mac - “Error: Movie cannot be opened").  This is very similar to Intel’s refusal to make Indeo codecs for MacOS X.  Very f#$&ing;annoying.

Leighgion - 28 December 2005 11:31 AM

ffmpegX might help, but the one WMV I tried on it didn’t convert nicely.

Another solution is to find a smart/geeky friend with a Windows box and have them do it. Apparently there are easy-to-use freeware/shareware apps, in abundance, for doing such conversions on Windows, and without sacrificing noticeable quality.  A file trading group I’m a part of has the Windows members regularly convert even multi-GB WMV/ASF formatted stuff to MPEG (not to MOV - Windows people hate MOV files about as much as we hate WMV files, though I think it’s simply reflexive.  It’s been my direct experience that [when I had a Win. box to play with] MOV files play just fine under even Win98, while WMV on Windows is a jerky, out-of-sync mess that cannot be fast forwarded or rewound to specific spot without sitting there waiting sometimes for minutes.)

Anyway, getting a Win-savvy friend to do it for you is also a solution to the Indeo codec problem (as is, in the case of Indeo, using OS9/Classic QuickTime Pro or some other app to convert it to an OS X compatible codec).

Now if Apple will stop ripping us off for an extra $20, even after we’ve bought QuickTime Pro, to get MPEG editing capability. There are b@st@rds on both sides of the Apple/MS divide, it seems, with Intel being jerks on the sidelines.

PS: another possibility for doing any of these conversions, for those who happen to have VirtualPC installed already with a recent M$ OS on it like Win 2000 Pro or XP, is to get the latest WMP installed in that, and whatever 3rd party utils Windows people use for the conversions (I can find out what my file-trader buddies use, if this is important to anyone here, and report back), set up a virtual shared drive (like “drive E:” or whatever in your VPC Windows, which would just be a folder somewhere on your Mac, and convert the WMV file to a MPEG or whatever in that drive-folder, then logout of VPC.  Voilá.  The downside is that your machine will be a nearly useless lump for the hour(s) it takes to do this, unless you have a hot top-of-the-line multiprocessor Mac, VPC being an *unbelievable* resource hog.

I just downloaded a PC application called FairUse4WM which supposedly takes the DRM out of Napster and other Windows Media Player music that uses DRM. I’m about to give it a try as soon as I get home to my PC.

Question: Is there a way to convert Windows Media Audio to a format for the Mac and iTunes?

Danny Boy - 29 August 2006 12:42 AM

I just downloaded a PC application called FairUse4WM which supposedly takes the DRM out of Napster and other Windows Media Player music that uses DRM. I’m about to give it a try as soon as I get home to my PC.

Question: Is there a way to convert Windows Media Audio to a format for the Mac and iTunes?

Has anybody else tried this?

1 - FairUse4WM to convert Windows media and strip out the DRM

2 - How do you convert Windows audio without DRM to a format that iTunes/iPod likes? For Macs?

So, what you’re saying is that this Windows application strips out the copy protection of Windows Media audio, like that in Napster?

That should leave a “clean” Windows Media Audio file.

If so, try using EasyWMA which converts the audio to MP3 files.

I’m not saying that Napster and Microsoft don’t deserve this; both are arrogant, self-serving companies who care little about their customers.

Is stripping DRM from songs legal? Is continuing to use the song after the subscription has expired legal?

Or just desserts?

Leighgion - 28 December 2005 11:31 AM

Handbrake is a lovely program, yes, but unfortunately not a whit of help for converting (evil empire) WMV to more civilized formats as it’s only for converting DVD’s.

ffmpegX might help, but the one WMV I tried on it didn’t convert nicely.

Love HandBrake!

Haven’t found anything that converts WMV to QuickTime. At least, anything FREE.

I have to wonder what Apple will do with iTV’s streaming output. At this point, I can only assume that everything will be Apple standard; MP3s, AAC, .MOV, MPEG, and the usual gang of culprits.

The problem is that iTV won’t be a big seller unless it’s got some way of getting into the Windows world. If iTV is to work for Windows users, too, will it also stream Windows audio and video files?

Or, is iTV to be a Mac only device?