asx won't play

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DaCoach - 29 Dec 2007 23:57 GMT

I have Vista and WMA 11 along with a broadband wireless connection. I can
play numerous radio stations. However, whenever an asx streaming file is
clicked, it won't play. I have associated asx with WMA. However, when I try
to play a station such as ESPN radio for streaming audio, the file says WMA
is not formatted for that type file. The file shows as ready, but when I
click PLAY, it begins to connect to the stream and then returns to the READY
stage. It even plays the video commercial prior to the streaming but not the
asx file. I've tried to connect to various asx streams and none connect.

Thanks for any positive input.

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Neil Smith [MVP Digital Media] - 31 Dec 2007 19:13 GMT

>I have Vista and WMA 11 along with a broadband wireless connection. I can
>play numerous radio stations. However, whenever an asx streaming file is
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
>stage. It even plays the video commercial prior to the streaming but not the
>asx file. I've tried to connect to various asx streams and none connect.

OK a few corrections - I've never seen an error message as "not
formatted" though the other symptoms are quite common. If it's a
player directly in the web page, you would often be able to
right-click that player, click Errors... and write down the specific
error message.

ASX are just playlists (you can view them in notepad if bored) and act
as pointers to the location for the radio stream for use by the
player.

Inside those can be one of 3 or so possible "protocols" listed - mms,
rtsp and http. mms has been removed from WMP11, it was marked for
removal since WMP9 so it's not a sudden event.

I'm surprised though that ESPN who are pretty big, haven't fixed this,
because lots of people have complained here, and the people who come
here are the tip of the iceberg of annoyed punters.

This has been going on for over a year now - see for example
http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/28862607/-why-no-more-mms-strea.aspx
and I'd rather hoped most providers had fixed up their streams.

Personally, you should contact ESPN directly and ask them to fix their
streaming. They probably have misconfigured servers - though it may
only affect a subset of the servers they deliver from (so some days
you might get "lucky")

Without knowing the specific page or stream, I can't help to get that
station played. In general, you should find the stream location
indicated inside the ASX file, and replace mms:// with first rtsp://
and then http:// if that doesn't work.

HTH
Cheers - Neil
------------------------------------------------
Digital Media MVP : 2004-2007
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/mvpfaqs

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