One of the big announcements of MacWorld was the licensing by Microsoft of Flip4Mac's QuickTime components as a replacement for Windows Media Player (WMP) for Macintosh.
On the face of it, this should be good: one fewer media player to worry about; Windows media files accessible within any QuickTime-aware application; a promise of continued updates.
Unfortunately, practice has thrown a spanner in the theoretical works. For one thing, Flip4Mac isn't very good. It frequently has problems displayed WMV content in browsers, despite an accompanying plug-in. It also is slow at converting WMV within QuickTime, a process no other codec I know of has to go through anyway.
But the biggest problem is wretched DRM. Since QuickTime sends a different user agent to servers than Windows Media Player, streams such as those used by radio station XFM will refuse to work with Flip4Mac. It also seems to have even more problems that WIndows Media Player when it comes to viewing content such as Channel 4's The IT Crowd previews; while WMP at least has a stab at redirecting to the Channel 4 web site, Flip4Mac just serves garbled music and a white screen.
Unless Flip4Mac gets a big boost of Microsoft R&D, Mac users are going to be third-class citizens when it comes to Windows Media content. Pity the poor Linux users who come in fourth though.
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The statement, "F4m isn't very good", I have problems with. I don't see it that way. Sure, there are some sites that won't stream, but that's because of all the many different protocols, formats, codecs and network variables. The F4M people are working to make any, that are presented to them, compatible. If you have a site in quiestion, send the link to support@flip4mac.com. Use that email to report any other anomalies as well. This is NOT a Microsoft company and they aren't run by them, so they really want to be successful and are responding to the requests of the users. DRM is still up in the air, but negotiations are under way to possibly add compatibility.
"The statement, "F4m isn't very good", I have problems with. I don't see it that way."
No offence, mate, but isn't that because you work for the company that develops Flip4Mac, Telestream?