Any ideas?

Thanks.

Are you able to play WMV 9 videos at all. If so, you may need to tell the browser to say it is IExplorer before it will let you even try.

You may need to install a win32codecs package to play windows media content, but I don't know if wmv 9 is covered. Also, you didn't indicate if you are running a 64 bit distro. If it is AMD64 based, and you are using Firefox, is it the 32bit Firefox package that is installed? SuSE for example installs the 32bit firefox version so that more plugins will work. Some distros install the 64 bit version by default and many of the plugins don't have 64bit versions.

This begs a questions. When it comes to Firefox vs IE explorer and Windows vs Linux, is the FoxNews.com website more "Fair and Balanced" then CNN.com?

Using FF (Minefield) and mplayer-plugin, it gets to the stage where it is loading the file from the mms server. It was taking quite a while and my impatience at the time meant I killed the video window. And at the time I was checking out something else.

Will actually see if it eventually loads a video.

I have FC6 x86_64. Is it possible to be able to watch cnn.com videos without installing the 32 bit version of Firefox?

Not a 100% sure, but I'd say probably not. This is one reason why I think the 64bit distros aren't ready yet. If you're gonna install the 64bit kernals, then spend all day trying to get 32bit apps to work on it, well, logic says, just download the 32bit and be done with it..

Obviously some disagree with me, but thats just my opinion.

IGF

Yes, its possible to watch wmv files on with a 64 bit player. Ffmpeg has added native support for wmv files. I haven't tried mplayer, but have tested it with gxine.x86_64 and the latest xine-lib-1.1.3 (not 1.1.2)
One thing to note. I compiled both gxine and xine-lib myself. For whatever reason xine-lib from the fedora-extras repository was crashing my system.

I tried viewing the Microsoft video of the CES Keynote address on their website. I was missing an audio codec, so it was a silent film. I was able to watch the hightlights on the C/Net site. A lot depends on the particular codecs used to produce the video. An mpeg or wmv (asf) file is a container. The particular video or audio stream inside it might and might not be playable. Someone with 64 bit XP or 64 bit Vista might have the same problem playing videos on some sites. There are packages for xine and mplayer to add mms: protocol support. But cnn.com may be going for the latest and newest video and audio codecs not caring that only 32bit versions of the latest window's media player can play them. ( Maybe MS is a sponsor. )

The mplayer plugin might be called "mplayerplug-in". It is on my system.

You might be able to examine the pages source code to save the video. Then try different players to see if one of them will work. Or at least be able to analyze which codec you need and search for it on Google.

CNN can kiss my ass!!! All Microsoft slaves should burn in hell for eternity!!!!