Media Player Discussion Thread

[tgpo]

I've used Foobar2000 for a few years now. The base program is striped down to core functionality and through the use of components, you can add additional functions. It's the linux of media players, you can make it exactly what you want and nothing you don't want to keep its footprint small.

Plus you can fully customize the look, feel, and display of it. So it can be whatever you want it to be.

[FETCHER.]

Originally Posted by squiresuzuki

Anyone heard of Songbird? They're still working on it, but's it's going to be a really sick program when it comes out. It's built off the Mozilla Firefox Platform. It's a great music player, library, it can sync with your iPod, not to mention a full browser (which is really just firefox). You can download a plugin which used to be standard called Skreemr, where you can search for any music or song you want and then download it right into your library. Just like iTunes Store, but free. It has some really cool plugins such as for music recommendation, not to mention Last.FM support.
I believe the site is getsongbird.com (i cant post links yet

That sounds awesome. I like iTunes though, I apreciate the newer versions even more 'cause the Genius playlists. I think they are awesome. Plus I will always go back to Apple now after what happend to my old iPod (my fault) they replaced it with the new version of iPod touch (was a touch i had before 16gb) and gave me the 32gb version, a case for my iPod and a £25 iTunes card to spend! Without spending an extra penny!

[Schizotypic]

Originally Posted by gotjuice

MediaMonkey is by far the best program I've ever used, and I've used iTunes, Winamp, WMP, and the Zune software (that-which-must-not-be-named). It's really easy to scrobble with Last.FM, supports iPod syncing, just so much easier to tag your music/keep everything organized. IMO. I find I have a lot more time to actually listen to music now rather than having to keep fix tags. You can download a whole bunch of skins to customize it how you like, no lag whatsoever, like I said hands down the best. Definitely give it a shot.

I have used Songbird and Foobar, just to try them out. Never have I used Winamp. I had about 110Gb's when I made the switch from Itunes, and a LOT of files weren't tagged. Once I started tagging them, Itunes slowed down a lot... and it was slow to start with. It got to the point where I would open it and it would just freeze. When I got MM I imported my entire library at once and it was all done within five-ten minutes. No lag time. TO this day it supports 136Gb, over 1500+ albums without any lag. All of them are tagged correctly + albumart. And the tagging is a bajilliooooooon times easier too.

I've heard many accounts of it supporting easily 5000+ albums.

[jtwilliams]

Question. Does Media Monkey automatically look up the tags if you put in a CD to rip from?

[Guybrush]

I have a large collection and I use Winamp. I tried MediaMonkey to see what the fuzz was, but honestly I didn't notice where it did anything better. All I noticed where the things it did less well so I eventually uninstalled it.

[gotjuice]

Originally Posted by jtwilliams

Question. Does Media Monkey automatically look up the tags if you put in a CD to rip from?

Yes, if you tell it to. There's several different auto-tag options from a variety of sources including Amazon and Freedb.

[Schizotypic]

Originally Posted by toretorden

I have a large collection and I use Winamp. I tried MediaMonkey to see what the fuzz was, but honestly I didn't notice where it did anything better. All I noticed where the things it did less well so I eventually uninstalled it.

I actually never tried Winamp. What did Winamp do that MM couldn't?

[Guybrush]

Originally Posted by Schizotypic

I actually never tried Winamp. What did Winamp do that MM couldn't?

The most important thing I think is that searching is better integrated. If you have a lot of music, then you can't really scroll around for it. You search. The developers behind winamp understand that.

It's not just the search bar which is easier to find. You can define your own smart views, basically search filters, that pops up in the left-hand side menu which is generally easier and better than the one you find in MM. You click your "1970s" filter and up comes all songs from that decade.

[Schizotypic]

Originally Posted by toretorden

The most important thing I think is that searching is better integrated. If you have a lot of music, then you can't really scroll around for it. You search. The developers behind winamp understand that.

It's not just the search bar which is easier to find. You can define your own smart views, basically search filters, that pops up in the left-hand side menu which is generally easier and better than the one you find in MM. You click your "1970s" filter and up comes all songs from that decade.

On MM I have three categories across the top. It's just like how this guy has Genre/artist/album: example I have artist/album/year. Also I have MM ultra (It's a skin you can get) Looks like this: MM Ultra You can put as many of those filtering categories across the top as you like, and there are plenty to chose from.

[Guybrush]

Originally Posted by Schizotypic

On MM I have three categories across the top. It's just like how this guy has Genre/artist/album: example I have artist/album/year. Also I have MM ultra (It's a skin you can get) Looks like this: MM Ultra You can put as many of those filtering categories across the top as you like, and there are plenty to chose from.

By filters, I mean stuff like "1970s" - only music from that decade .. or "norwegian", just music from Norway. 1980s debuts for example. You have to be a little smart with your organizing and/or tagging for searching to work, but anyone who's a little bit serious about his or her collection should be.

If you chip away at my argument, the core of it is that if you imagine you had 200 000+ music files on your computer, then I don't think MediaMonkey would be a good program. From my experiences, I believe Winamp would then be better.

edit :

The functionality you mention in your post is of course also found in Winamp.