No Video with WMP 7.1 and IE 5.1.7 - Audio Only

Hi,

I'm getting audio only with Yahoo video. The Yahoo A/V window opens up, the
stream is buffered, and the progress marker moves, but I only have the audio
portion. The "screen" stays black the entire time. If I change Yahoo's
preferences for playback, their Media Helper shows versions of WMP and
RealPlayer I do not have, and doesn't keep the settings if I change them. I
have the IE preferences set according to Yahoo's help screen. When I try to
view videos with websites that play back in the browser window, nothing
happens, or I get a "playlist format not recognized" error from IE. I have
verfied that the proper plugins are in place for IE. Quicktime movies don't
seem to be a problem. Maybe there's something I need to configure but I
can't figure out what. I didn't seem to have this problem a while back when
I was using IE 5. I even tried going back to IE 5, but the same stuff
happens. I am using OS 9.2.2. Any help appreciated!

TIA,
James

 

You're probably trying to play "DRM-enhanced" files with a player
version taht has no clue what DRM is about. (D)igital (R)ights
(M)anagement-enabled players "phone home" for the key to decrypt the
video. If you (and your machine) happen to be on the "OK, these folks
can play it" list (by paying for access to it, by being part of a
specified group, or by some other method of getting there that I can't
dream up right now), you get the key handed to you, and the player can
decode the data. Non-DRM-enabled players don't, and so they have no way
to get the decrypt-key, and therefore, won't play the file, whatever it
happens to be.

I'd strongly suggest "just saying no" to anything DRM-enabled, since it
is, IMO, nothing more than a new flavor of "spyware" - Every time you
try to play the clip, whether legal, stolen, grey-market, or
home-brewed, it has to go out and get the key, which means that whoever
turned on the DRM stuff gets notified each and every time you try to
play it, gets told about you and/or your hardware setup, probably gets
info about how you're conencted to the 'net, and with that information,
can easily track you around the 'net. Sooner or later, the clip is going
to becom unplayable forever since the server that has the key is
eventually going to either not have the key, be taken offline without
being replaced, moved to someplace else that the clip has no knowledge
of, or otherwise disabled as part of the normal mutation that happens in
the existence of the 'net.

DRM is, IMO, the single worst thing to happen to the internet since the
gren card spam.

 

I sort of doubt that everything I tried to play is DRM-enabled. Besides
that, there is a DRM plug-in in the plug-in folder to handle this
situation. so there must be something else going here.

James

--
Real replies may be sent to zookini33 <at> hotmail <dot> com.
Spam trap is in place. This posting does NOT constitute
an agreement to accept email of a bulk or commercial nature.

http://home.earthlink.net/~zewkini/

 

If they're using the latest wmv3 codec, then all one will get
in OS X is the audio. AFAIK there is no way to play the video,
no way to convert the video; no way in OS X at least.