before u go any further see this
warning which i believe applies to wmv as well as wma files.
that said please note my post in that same thread.
still want your videos? here goes......if u dare!
the "License Acquisition" takes awhile even on fast connection (but my hardware's slow) don't know why but usally no complaint from my security apps. some may send ur browser window to their site for "free trail" or buy "membership" (?porn vids maybe?) i have opted out of all and still got to watch vid...go figure! if your security is too tight this process will never even get started...too loose and u get flooded with spyware. i use a lot of "ask me" and "notify me" settings in my security to get what i want and still keep out the bad stuff but u have to know and understand "what's what".
moral here is that u either "invest" money for ur tunes/vids
or u "invest" time to learn about security, protocols, ports, formats, ect...ect...ect...
or u pay later to ur tech when uv buggered everything up...lol.
many vids still won't work but we're not done yet....
now we have to learn about "CODECS" (?media compression??) i'm just getting started on this subject myself so forgive my errors and SEARCH/READ around for more info...still i think i know this much:
codecs are a lot of different "compression" methods used on media that do not change the "format"/extention of the file (unlike our mp3s,zips,rars,ect...) they still look like wma/wmvs (and other player formats as well) but ur player can't read the file untill u install the proper codec on ur system. bad part is i have never seen a player inform the user of this much less tell us which codec is needed!!!!! i learned all this when i "trippped" over a DivX link by accident recently...after installing it 3/4 of my unuseable/"corrupt" vids now work fine! no i wont find/paste a link to DivX here run ur own SEARCH!!! but it does seem to be most common codec needed.
also i recently found/dl from gnutella/limewire some zips rars claiming to have ALL (yeh right) codecs but havent had time to investigate them yet so dl/unzip/install these at ur own risk!
now that u know almost as much as me (YOU WISH!) on this subject have fun and happy viewing!