Some wmv (I assume this stands for Windows Media Video) files play for me and some don’t.
I was recently sent this clip from a friend, but when I click the link, instead of Windows Media Player opening and playing it, or instead of a browser window opening and playing it, I get a browser window chock-full of text that looks to me like programming gibberish.
(Based on the context in which I received it, I’m pretty sure there are no ‘safe for work’ issues).
Other of my friends have been able to play it (“amazing” was a comment, so I would like to check it out).
Yet other wmv files open for me and play just fine. Sometimes inside Windows Media Player, and sometimes as part of a browser page (with no controls, etc.).
This happens on both a computer at work running Winmdows 2000, and a computer at home running Windows 98.
Both are running Windows Media Player Version 9.
I am using Netscape.
I would guess that the file was somehow corrupted, except others say it plays for them just fine. I have run across this problem many times, always displaying a browser page full of programming-looking text. Yet many wmv files do play for me just fine, and I don’t know what the difference is. I’m wondering what I need to “fix” so all wmv files will play.
I’d guess the mime types on the remote server are set incorrectly, telling your browser that the data it is being sent is text for display rather than something requiring outside help.
I often have a similar problem when I use Netscape. Frequently (but not always) when I click on a .wmv link, it will spew it to me as a text file. If I look at the same file in IE, it will usually kick it over to Windows Media Player.
Is there anything I can to set Netscape to automatically send .wmv files to Media Player?
Billdo’s “solution” worked: I opened Internet Explorer (which I always strive to avaoid as much as possible) and pasted in the link, and it worked just fine.
So why does Netscape not (as Billdo said), “kick it over to Windows Media Player?” Is there a way to get it to do that? Or is there a way to do it manually if it does not do it automatically? And why does it work with some wmv files and not others?
I tested this on three other computers in the office (all running Windows 2000).
One did the same thing as above: using Netscape it spit out a browser window full of computer text and symbols. When I pasted the URL into Internet Explorer, it immediately tried to open Windows Media Player (it still didn’t actally load, saying something about missing a codec, but I attribute this to the fact that it was only version 6 of Windows Media Player).
A second one never loaded anything in the new browser window. After taking a long time to load, when it finally said “document done,” it was a totally blank page.
The third computer is different in one respect: instead of running Netscape, it uses Firefox. While the intermediate process was new to me, the end resulty was the same: instead of immediately opening Windows Media Player, a new Firefox window popped up, giving the choice of what to do with this file and giving the status of the “download.” A choice is given as to what application will load the file (at least I think that is what it was asking, I don’t remember now) the only choice it offered was “wmv file.” As it took it’s time to download, it appeared it was saving the file to the hard drive rather than just opening and playing the file. After it was done, though, I checked and could not find the file in the location it gave for saving downloaded files, so I think in retrospect it didn’t try to save the file to a disk. After it was completely “downloaded,” it then tried to open Windows Media Player, which again couldn’t play the file because it was version 6 of Windows Media Player.