Patience is a virtue and I like to think of myself as a patient man. Granted, I don’t enjoy waiting for buses and I loathe bad/idiotic drivers, but I’m generally a patient person. Maybe there’s varying degrees of patience, because I just thought of about 17 more things that I don’t like waiting on. Get to the point...
Plain and simple, Windows Media Player sucks and I hate it. There’s almost nothing worse in the interactive world than Windows Media Player. Seriously. The software sucks. Video files created in that format, suck. The whole idea of “streaming,” sucks. It doesn’t work well enough and it makes me feel green and Hulk-ish. I want to smash my computer when I’m trying to watch a video and it stops every five seconds with that damn “buffering” message. Buffer this (middle finger), you sons-a-bitches, I’m on a super fast connection, you don’t have to buffer anything!
So why is it still around and why do people insist on using it? Why can’t we just get everything video-related in QuickTime? That would rock.
Even better... how about all video is converted into Flash!?!
According to a survey that’s conducted for Macromedia, by NPD, 97.3% of internet users have a Flash Player installed on their machines. Windows Media Player isn’t far behind, at 84.8%, but I attribute that to the software being pre-installed on Widnows machines. What’s worse is that for Windows users, you get version 10... Mac users, sorry, version 9 is the latest.
Flash Player, in case you didn’t know, isn’t platform dependent – you get the same version of the software for both Macs and PCs. Same with QuickTime, and iTunes, and FireFox. But guess what doesn’t, Internet Explorer (for Mac). Yes, IE for the Mac sucked so bad (even though at one point it was the best browser for standards compliance) that they gave up and don’t make it anymore (so if you’re using it now, stop and get a better browser).
Back to the point... stop making things in Windows Media Player, it’s good at sucking. If it didn’t alert you enough, one-third of the name should have tipped you off that it’s no good.
On a weird side note, do other people associate Bush, Microsoft and Wal-Mart all in the same camp? For some reason, I do.
+ original post date: December 1, 2005 01:21 PM
+ categories: All About Seth, WTF, Web Stuff
comments5
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one in the same.
what brought this tirade on -dare I even ask?
+ author: parc
+ posted: December 1, 2005 02:43 PM
Actually... nothing. I just really dislike it.
+ author: Seth
+ posted: December 1, 2005 03:20 PM
Yes. Camp Crap.
+ author: Crasymaker
+ posted: December 1, 2005 04:38 PM
You really are a good writer, Seth. You have flow and phrasing and good command of all the intangibles. i'm glad you do what you do with interactive. it's a strength and i'm grateful, but it's clear that you're a multi-talented mother-scratcher.
I enjoy your stuff. I enjoy you, brother.
thanks,
J.
+ author: J.
+ posted: December 1, 2005 07:44 PM
About half the time I get stuck on a site that forces me to use Windows Media Player, the video just stops playing about halfway through.
And you're right, the damn thing is always buffering. Then it pla... no wait, buffering again. There we g... nope, more buffering.
I also hate it because it has controls that act like they should let you rewind and fast forward like Quicktime does, but they don't work. They just jump you back to the start of the movie.
+ author: ScooterJ
+ posted: December 2, 2005 09:21 AM
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