I've been finding it rather frustrating that most streaming video resources on the web seem to be moving away from Real media to Windows media. Real sucks, but it's cross-platfrom. This media is usually MPEG-4 but Microsoft has managed to take the standard and wrap it in the proprietary ASF or WMV format if you use Microsoft's video tools.
So players like Quicktime can't get at the content. Now to be sure, a lot of downloadable content is Quicktime - but not a lot of streaming content outside of movie trailers. This is weird considering the streaming server is FREE, but I guess it's another one of those IT-dept stigmas against Apple, not to mention I know a lot of Windows users that don't like QT player.
Microsoft's been trying to take over digital media for years, and they may actually to be starting to make some headway, though at the expense of a lawsuit from Burst, the creator of some of WMP9's technology. The is of course some evidence of dirty tricks like email withholding. Microsoft... guys... you're big. I use your software when it's good. So then, why do you have to continue to be a cheat?
Anyway, back to the topic.... Macintosh Windows Media Player 7.1 has been out for some time, but most new content is being ripped with verison 9... And since version 9 was supposed to be about Microsoft's take-over of all digital content I figured it would only be for Windows. AT LAST, RELIEF: Windows Media Player 9 for OS X has been announced as "coming soon!". I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry. I don't want to use it as I'm quite happy with the quality of QuickTime or pure MPEG, but if the content is in it.. do I have a choice? (well yes, i could choose not to view the content. That's not a palatable choice, however.) sigh.