How to Play WMV Files

Windows Media Video (WMV) is a format developed by Microsoft for Internet streaming and watching videos on a PC. This is a type of video that can be played on your computer and portable media players. The most important feature of a WMV file is that its format allows large video files to be compressed, retaining the rich quality of the video. It is a file format developed to store video content in a compressed format, so that movies and other video programs can be viewed on a personal computer. These videos can be watched from the hard drive of your computer, or other media players. To play a WMV file, a set of codecs are required. A codec is a program that can easily read a file, creating video and audio formats from the provided data. WMV files may be played on Microsoft Windows Media Player and other media players as well. The latest version of WMV is WMV10.

Playing WMV files in Windows

WMV files play best on Windows Media Player (the latest version WMP10 is recommended to be used with Windows XP and newer versions, and ideally requires a RAM of 512 MB or higher, a 24-bit sound card and a Video card with 256 MB of RAM or higher for optimum playback). The latest versions of Windows ship with the updated version of Windows Media Player. It can also be downloaded from the Microsoft website.

Playing files via Windows is an easy process - open WMP and select the file you wish to watch. When it comes to Windows XP and later versions, WMP should automatically download the required codecs as it plays the video. If not, they can be downloaded manually as well. 

Other Windows compatible media players that support the WMV format are DivX, Winamp, VLC (VideoLan Client), and Power DVD.

Playing WMV files on Linux

To play WMV files in Linux, you need to have a media player supporting the WMV format. Linux usually has a VLC player installed with the help of which WMV files can be played. Linux also supports media players such as Miro, Boxee, RealPlayer, Mplayer and Helix Player which are all WMV compatible.

Playing WMV files on Mac

The Macintosh OS also does not natively support the WMV format, but there exists the “Mac Version” of Windows Media Player. It is interesting to know that Mac's default media player, Apple Quicktime can be made to play WMV files by installing a free plugin named “Filp4mac”, which is available for free download from Microsoft's website. Again VLC player is an option to play WMV files on the Mac as well.

Playing WMV files on your Blackberry

A WMV file will not play on a Blackberry; you need to convert the WMV file into a format that the Blackberry can read. The iOrgSoft Blackberry Video Converter is one of the various software available that can help convert many formats such as WMV, MP3, MP4, AVI etc to a format that can be read by a Blackberry.

Some of the other media players besides Windows Media Player, QuickTime and VLC Media Player that support WMV files are RealPlayer, Mplayer, Zoom Player, ALLPlayer, PowerDVD and Media Player Classic.