streaming windows media problems

[jvalph]

Hello,

Whenever I try to play a streaming windows media file the application I'm using will crash (tried with Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player 9 & 10), the only way I can still play the file is with media player classic, which I believe has it's own codec/splitter/renderer or whatever it's called.

Every time the windows media player browser plugin tries to play a file the browser will crash too (for instance trying to play a non-streaming .wmv file in the browser will make it crash, but playing it in windows media player does work as long as the .wmv is on the hard drive).

This is on Windows XP SP 2; I tried reinstalling WMP, the plug-ins and the browsers, tried rolling back WMP to previous versions.

Can anyone advise me what could be the problem and how to solve it?

Thank you.

(I did a search and found two posts about what seems to be the same problem but no answers to it)

[jvalph]

I forgot to mention that the application crashes only by the time it starts connecting (first it says opening media, then connecting to media, then the application crashes), so I was wondering if there could be something wrong with my network/connection settings? I've been trying some different things, but so far no luck.. Any ideas?

EDIT: turning off proxy makes no difference

[jvalph]

I cannot believe nobody can come up with as much as a suggestion for something to try......

.....Anyway, I've ruled out my firewall... I've also tried different runtime environments.. I've also found out that in older versions of WMP the UDP protocol could cause problems with streaming media and NAT, but that's not the problem either.. anybody???? anything???? This is getting frustrating...

[bootje]

Hello JVALPH,

You describe very well the same problem I have. Until now I have no solution for it. Maybe we have to ask Microsoft.
I use Windows2000 en WMP9.0. My computer crashes and I have to reboot.
Hope someone reads this thread.
Can anyone advise us what could be the problem?
Thank you!!!

[blizey]

Hi,

You can try downloading this extension from Firefox. https://addons.mozilla.org/extension...nfo.php?id=446

I was having some problems viewing media as well and this did solve the problem. I am just using the default configuration settings. Hope it works for you.

[jordipg]

Hello ,

I was having the same problem and I found the same solution blizey proposes. The software you need is:

- Firefox (http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/start/)
- MediaPlayerConnectivity extension for Firefox
- Winamp (http://www.winamp.com)

Once installed Winamp, Firefox and the Extension it's possible to choose which application opens which media types in Firefox. The embedded object in a web page is replaced by an "play" image you can click to start winamp and play streaming media.

After following this steps, i'm able to view, for example, streaming media files from:
http://www.microsoft.com/billgates/speeches.asp

Have a nice day.

PD: Playing streaming media is too cool for IE+WMP

[bootje]

Thank you for your tips, but still whenever I try to play a streaming windows media file the application I'm using will crash (tried with Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player 9)
I installed MediaPlayerConnectivity,as Blizey suggested. Playing the speeches of Bill Gates my computer crashes.
Any other suggestions?

Bootje

[jordipg]

There's another suggestion: do not use Windows Media Player (9, 10...).

Winamp is capable of playing streaming video without any problems.

In Firefox choose Tools->MediaPlayerConnectivity to configure the extension.

Check type "Windows Media" and put in the 'pathname' textbox the full path to winamp.exe (ex: J:\Archivos de programa\Winamp\winamp.exe). As arguments you can use "/ADD %f" to enqueue multiple video files.

In the second tab (Configuration 1/2) i've checked "Activate MPC for applicative links mms://,rtsp://,pnm://".

Restart firefox.

Once done Winamp will open Windows Media Files.

This has worked for me and now I'm able to see Bill Gates speeches among other .asf, ,wmv that crashed my browser before.