I was using my Media Center (where I ran into the Unboxed issue I talked about earlier) and discovered a couple of things: Amazon does, indeed, use Microsoft technology for their videos: The Mythbusters video I bought automatically appeared in my Media Center Videos list; the file is actually a WMV file. The Fast Forward / Seek problem that I had with it also happens with Media Center.
After a quick Google search, it turns out that FF/Seek only works on indexed files. So:1. This is not an “Amazon Player” problem per se, since all WMV’s exhibit the same behavior2. The video player in Media Center is different than Windows Media Player: When I ran a video with WMP outside of the Media Center software, it acted like it had never been run before.3. The Media Center video player can’t FF/Seek indexed videos (that seek fine in Real Player or Divx Player).
My conclusions:1. Amazon is sitll not off the hook, because: There were a lot of problems other than the lack of seek support; if they’d just indexed the file, Seek would have been supported with other players.2. The Media Center video player also needs work. FF/Seek works fine for recorded TV shows; it should work for pre-recorded shows as well (at least those with the necessary indexing).
Amazon, Microsoft, get with the program! I just might have to try out the new ReplayTV software after all…
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