What do you know about WMV?

Windows Media Video (WMV) is a video compression format for several proprietary codecs developed by Microsoft. The original video format, known as WMV, was originally designed for Internet streaming applications, as a competitor to RealVideo. The other formats, such as WMV Screen and WMV Image, cater for specialized content. Through standardization from the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), WMV 9 has gained adoption for physical-delivery formats such as HD DVD and Blu-ray

These formats easily play on all Microsoft Operating System media players. WMV format files, which can't play on portable devices, like I Pad and I Phone. If you download the movies from the web site after too much time and can't play on your computer, because of incompatible WMV format.

With many WMV files in hand, you may want to view them on your peronal computer, or watch them from the hard drive of your computer, or other media players.

To play a WMV file, a set of codecs are required. A codec is a program that can easily read a file, creating video and audio formats from the provided data. WMV files may be played on Microsoft Windows Media Player and other media players as well.


Software that can play WMV files include Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, MPlayer, The KMPlayer, Media Player Classic and VLC Media Player. The Microsoft Zune media management software supports the WMV codec, but uses a Zune-specific variation of Windows Media DRM which is used by PlaysForSure. Many third-party players exist for various platforms such as Linux that use the FFmpeg implementation of the WMV codecs.

On the Macintosh platform, Microsoft released a PowerPC version of Windows Media Player for Mac OS X in 2003, but further development of the software has ceased. Microsoft currently endorses the 3rd party Flip4Mac WMV, a QuickTime Component which allows Macintosh users to play WMV files in any player that uses the QuickTime framework, free of charge to view files but chargeable to convert formats. The WMV installer is bundled with Microsoft Silverlight by default, installation without Silverlight can be accomplished with a "Custom" install. According to the Flip4Mac website, WMV files with DRM encryption are not compatible with the component.