VLC not playing .WMV files??

[Laplace]

Hi all, I recently downloaded VLC for the specific purpose of being able to play pretty much any video file, but after installing it and trying to open a .wmv file from the Kanye Hurricane debacle, it gave me an error saying that the specified codec wasn't available.

Is there somewhere I can download codecs for VLC? And how do I install them?

Thanks,
Laplace

 

[solaris]

VLC dont have WMV3 support, because the are no open source decoder for the closed-source codec from Microsoft.
But it plays almost any other video format, including WMV1 and 2.

 

[snkTab]

but but but... Microsoft is plays for sure?

 

[Makosuke]

VLC does what it can with .wmv files, but that's really its weak area--I've only had significant luck with it playing older .wmv files, and the codecs are spotty at that. On the bright side, it'll play basically anything with an .avi, .mp4, .mpg, or .mov extension without hassle.

If you really don't want to use Microsoft's Player (which actually doesn't even support the latest MS codec itself), you might have a look at the Flip4Mac QuickTime codec, which works great on all but the newest .wmv codecs in most cases. It's not free, though.