2 + 2 = 1
MSDN has made the webcasts available for offline viewing by the general public, which is how I was able to get the help I needed when I needed it. MSDN has also chosen to make these on-demand webcasts available in the Windows Media format. This is understandable since MSDN was the one who produced the webcasts. They should be able to make them available in whatever format they wish. I am a loyal proponent of that philosophy.
Unfortunately I was not able to play these on-demand webcasts using Windows Media Player. None of them. This seemed quite odd to me, since I had downloaded and installed the latest version of Windows Media Player and had viewed other WMV and WMA files without any problem.
In short order I discovered the problem. Instead of using Windows Media Player on my laptop, I was using it on my desktop. As I previously blogged, my desktop machine became a Mac five months ago. Apparently, Windows Media Player isn't the FULL Windows Media Player when it comes to the Mac like QuickTime is the FULL QuickTime when you install it on Windows.
I realize that there are business interests involved here, but my question is this:
If a company makes a webcast free to the public in WMV format, and they make a player (again, free to the public) whose job it is to play WMV and WMA files, and then the free player fails to play the free file, what's the point?
I'm quite proud to say that I make my living as a software architect, writer, speaker, and developer using nothing but Microsoft technologies. We have a LOT to be excited about, particularly with the recent release of .NET 2.0, VS 2005, TFS, Atlas, etc.
I'm also quite proud to say that I am a Macintosh user. OS X is simply amazing. The stability, the features, the attention to detail, the user experience, etc. are all beyond even the beta 2 of Vista I installed last month.
I enjoy the best of both worlds. It's unfortunate that the little things - things like not being able to play a Windows Media Video file in a program like Windows Media Player - really have to interfere in an otherwise happy equilibrium.