Microsoft's audio and video framework for Windows, which embraces playback, encoding and streaming. Windows Media Player is the media player that comes with every version of Windows. Windows Media Encoder is software for converting live performances and existing audio and video files to Windows Media formats. Windows Media Server is a Windows server component for streaming audio and video.
Windows Media Player can also be downloaded for the Mac, although typically not the latest version. See
Windows Media Player,
Windows Media formats,
Windows Media Rights Manager and
QuickTime.
Native Microsoft Multimedia Formats
Type Purpose
WAV Audio
AVI Video
ASF A/V using non-Windows codecs
WMA Audio using Windows codec
WMV Video using Windows codec