Microsoft KB Archive/247027

= Release Notes for Windows Media Player for Macintosh, Version 6.3 =

Article ID: 247027

Article Last Modified on 8/29/2001

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Windows Media Player 9 for Mac OS X

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This article was previously published under Q247027



SUMMARY
This article contains a copy of the information contained in the Release Notes included with Windows Media Player for Macintosh, version 6.3.



MORE INFORMATION
This document provides late-breaking information or other information that supplements the Windows Media Player documentation.

System Requirements:

Minimum Computer

Power PC Macintosh, 601 or newer

System 7.6.1 or newer

Open Transport 1.1.2 or newer

QuickTime 3.02 or newer

32 MB of RAM -- 10 MB to run the Windows Media Player

15 MB of free hard drive space for install

256-color display

Recommended Computer

Power PC Macintosh, 180 MHz 604e processor or newer

MacOS 8 recommended

16-bit color display

Installation

Before installing Windows Media Player, any older versions of the software need to be removed from your system. To uninstall the older version, drag the "Microsoft Media Player" folder (if any) to the trash. In the "Preferences" folder, delete the "Microsoft Media Player Prefs" file. In the "Extensions" folder, delete the following files:


 * Acelp.net Decoder 05.0 kbps
 * Acelp.net Decoder 06.5 kbps
 * Acelp.net Decoder 08.5 kbps
 * Acelp.net Decoder 16.0 kbps
 * Mpeg Layer - 3 Audio
 * MPG4
 * VivoActive G723 Decoder
 * Voxware Sound Component v1.5

Make sure to empty the trash after deleting the files.

The QuickTime PowerPlug extension must be enabled for the Windows Media Player to install. If the install fails without an error, verify that QuickTime PowerPlug is in the "Extensions" folder and enabled.

Supported Formats

The Windows Media Player for Macintosh plays back only Windows Media content. However, Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology is not supported in this version.

The largest supported display size is 400x400.

The highest supported bandwidth is 500K bits/second.

Codecs

The Windows Media Player for Macintosh, version 6.3 supports the following codecs:

Video:


 * Mpeg4 v2
 * Mpeg4 v3
 * Mpeg4S
 * JPG (Illustrated Audio)

Audio:


 * WMAudio v1
 * WMAudio v2
 * ACELP.net
 * Voxware MetaSound
 * Mpeg2 Layer3

Proxy

If you are accessing Windows Media content through a proxy server, you will have to configure the Windows Media Player for your proxy to play content being streamed via the HTTP protocol.

To set the proxy for the Windows Media Player:


 * 1) On the Edit menu, click Preferences.
 * 2) Select Use a Proxy for HTTP streaming.
 * 3) Enter the name of your proxy server and the port number. If you do not know what to enter, contact your network administrator.

Known Issues:

Menu Items

If a menu item is selected while a clip is playing, the clip pauses for the duration the menu item is selected. When the menu item is released, the clip jumps forward for however long the menu item was selected.

Control Bar

To fast-forward and fast-rewind, click on the button once to start the operation and then click the play button to begin playback.

You are not able to pause while you are fast-forwarding or fast-rewinding.

High Bit Rate Clips

Clip encoded at high bit rates may cause the player or system to stop responding, requiring a system reboot. The clip may continue to play even though the system or player does not respond. This occurs on slower machines because all the system resources are used to decode the stream.

Playback

Audio and video may lose synchronization. Occasionally audio may fall behind video. The amount that audio falls behind video may vary up to several seconds.

The Windows Media Player renders video based on key frames. If you use the slider, fast-forward or fast-rewind buttons or jump to a marker, the video will not begin to render until the player receives a key frame. So you may have several seconds of no video after you jump to another place in the stream. This will also occur if the player window is overlapped by another window.

When playing audio only content, the video display area of the player remains visible.

Server Side Stream Switching

This version of Windows Media Player does not support Server Side Stream Switching. When the Windows Media Player encounters a stream that is switched at the server, it stops responding.

Slider

When the slider is used to fast-forward or rewind, the player may pause the stream once the slider is released. Hitting the "Play" button starts the stream again.

The slider may not operate correctly when playing Windows Media files that are compressed with the WMAudio or MPEG 2 Layer 3 codecs.

Dial Up

If you are not connected to the Internet and choose "Open Location" from the "File" menu to select some content on the Internet, the player will sometimes launch your dialer and not connect. You may get the error "Connection Failed." Make sure that you are connected to the Internet before entering a path to content on the Internet.

Error Messages

Not all error messages are in this release of the Windows Media Player.

Mute

In a play list, Windows Media Player plays audio for each entry in the play list even if the audio has been muted. In some instances, the player may display the audio as being muted even though the audio is playing.

ASX

The Windows Media Player for Macintosh does not support all the ASX tags that the player for Windows supports. The unsupported tags are:


 * Watermark
 * Abstract
 * Display Bar Icons
 * Base
 * Duration
 * EndMarker
 * Event
 * Logo
 * PreviewDuration
 * StartMarker
 * StartTime
 * Preview
 * Repeat

It is best to host ASX files using Windows NT running IIS (Internet Information Server).

Help

The Windows Media Player help system installs help web pages into the same folder as the application. If you move the application out of this folder it will not be able to find these help pages. To work around this you can create an alias to the Windows Media Player and place this alias anywhere you like. Create an alias by selecting the "Windows Media Player" icon in the Finder and choosing "Make Alias" from the "File" menu.

Embedded Web Page Content

This version of Windows Media Player installs a plug-in that launches the player application when a Web page is encountered that contains embedded Windows Media content. If you have different versions of the same browser on your computer and want the plug-in to work with each version, run Windows Media Player setup again and select the additional browser when prompted.

Membership Authentication

This version of Windows Media Player does not support streams that require membership authentication.

Internet Explorer

Media files with names greater than 27 characters cannot be opened in Internet Explorer. If you attempt to open a link to an media file with a name greater than 27 characters, the Windows Media Player does not start.

If you are having problems opening links to multimedia content with Internet Explorer 4.01, you may have to download the link to your computer to play the file. To download a link to your computer, Control-Click the link and select "Download Link to Disk". Open the file after it downloads.

Netscape Navigator

Hyperlinks in web pages that use the "mms://" protocol will not launch the Windows Media Player. To play content that uses this protocol choose "Open Location" from the "File" menu and type in the link address.

Keywords: kbinfo KB247027

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