Hi everyone, I'm hoping you can help me figure this out.

I'm trying to watch videos from the poker site Cardrunners. I can watch these movies just fine on my Windows XP machine.

I'm trying to play them on my GF's Powerbook. I've installed Windows Media Player for Mac, MPlayer, and VNC. None of these work. I also installed the Filp4Mac Windows Media components for Quicktime, but that didn't work either.

At first, I (correctly) suspected that the DRM on the files was causing the problem. I was able to remove the DRM using FairUse4WM. The stripped files play just fine on my Windows machine.

After removing the DRM, the files will now open on the Mac in MPlayer and WMP. The sound works, but the video does not, making me think there is some kind of codec issue.

Here is a free video from this site (no DRM on the file). I can't play this file on the Mac either, with the same symptoms: sound but no video.

Since the unprotected file displays the same symptoms, I assume that the DRM has nothing to do with the problem, but I wanted to explain all the steps I've gone through.

Can anyone get this sample file to play on their Mac? How did you do it?

Thanks a ton,

Jim

Did you try VLC?

Ooops, yes. I tried it. I meant to say VLC in the subject line. Same symptoms with all the players. Sound but no video.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Jim

It looks like transcoding these videos is the only answer, unfortunately. I'm using a terrible piece of free software called SUPER that supports batch transcoding.

Can anyone suggest a good, free, batch wmv->divx (or xvid) transcoder? It's got to work with wmv's with a DRM license associated with them.

Thanks,

Jim