How to Transfer iTunes M4V DRM Videos to Play on Windows Media Player

How to Play iTunes Videos on Windows Media Player Easily

"HOW TO PLAY ITUNES VIDEOS ON WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER EASILY"

“My iTunes for Windows sucks, it always freeze what I launch it. Is there another way to play iTunes videos by Windows Media Player directly instead of iTunes” Question from Daniel Lee.

As a most official player for Windows, WMP has a large number of user base. It runs fast yet with powerful features to manage your digital media files including audio, music, audiobook, video etc. It is really helpful if you have have many media files. If you are also interested in watching iTunes videos in Windows Media Player, please continue read on.

Part 1. What Kind of Videos Are Supported by Windows Media Player

There has been multiple versions of Windows Media Player released after it first appeared in 1991. This player has intrinsic support for Windows Media codec files such as WMA, WMV, ASF, AVI etc. And more and more new file formats are added with the development of the new versions. In the most recent version of Windows Media Player 12, It supports the following listed formats.

Supported Audio Formats: MP3, MID, MIDI, RMI, AIF, AIFC, AIFF, WAV, CDA, M4A, AAC, ADT, ADTS and so on.

Supported Video Formats: ASF, WMA, WMV, WM, ASX, WAX, WVX, WPL, WMD, AVI, DVR-MS, WMD, MPG, MPEG, IVF, MOV, MP4, M4V, MP4V, 3G2, 3GP2, 3GP, 3GPP, M2TS etc.

Furthermore, for other formats which are not on the support list of Windows Media Player, you can also install a third-party codec to enable it to support more media types. For instance, you  can add more formats by using specific DirectShow filters or MediaFoundation codec. In brief, it can play any common files without any protection as long as you have the right codec installed.

Part 2. What Can You Do to Make iTunes M4V Playable on Windows Media Player

From what we have discussed above, we can find that M4V is already in the support list of Windows Media Player. But when we try to play the iTunes M4V files on Windows Media Player, it will still prompt you the error that ‘Windows Media Player can’t play this file, maybe the format or codec is not supported’. Why? The reason is that, though M4V is supported by WMP, the iTunes M4V is encoded with the Apple iTunes FairPlay DRM copy protection before they are sold in iTunes. Under this protection, the iTunes movie files can only be played on selected players and devices from Apple like Apple TV, iOS devices, iTunes player, etc. In order to play the protected iTunes videos on other players like Windows Media Player, you must remove the DRM restriction at the first place. Thankfully nowadays you can crack DRM with little effort using a powerful iTunes DRM video converter called DRmare iTunes M4V to WMP Converter. It is developed with stunning features to remove DRM, convert iTunes M4V videos etc. You only need to load your downloaded iTunes videos to the converter and the DRM will be removed automatically once the process is done.

Part 3. Full Steps to Transcode DRM Protected M4V Movies to Windows Media Player

It seems very easy to convert iTunes movies and TV shows to WMP with DRmare, right? If you haven’t use the software yet, you can download the free trial version to evaluate it yourself. Following is the step by step tutorial.

Step 1Load iTunes DRM M4V videos

It is a piece of cake to import iTunes DRM M4V files, please just drag and drop the video files from iTunes library to the DRmare software screen. Sometimes if you fail to load the files, maybe the files are not downloaded completely. Please just make sure the iTunes purchased or rental videos are downloaded and authorized to play on the current computer before converting them.

Step 2Customize output format for WMP

Windows Media Player supports almost any formats, so you can select any formats you want theoretically to convert videos and remove DRM. But I’d suggest you to choose MP4(Lossless) since it can keep the original quality including the original subtitles, audio tracks. Based on your requirements, you might do some settings on the output video parameters such as the bit rate, frame rate too.

Step 3Start to convert iTunes M4V videos to WMP

In the end, you can press the ‘Conversion’ button at the bottom right side of the software to convert your iTunes videos. Please don’t open other programs on your computer to make sure it runs fastest and most smoothly. 

 Finally, all the videos files will become standard videos files. You can click the play list menu from the software and then import the videos you want to Windows Media Player to play, you can simply drag&drop. So you have learned how to play iTunes videos on Windows Media Player already, right? If you still have any questions, please feel free to contact us by email.