Media Players - What Do You Use and Why

My Favorite Features of WMP 10

Published on December 24, 2004 By Essencay In Personal Computing

Note: This author has never used any Media Player other than Windows Media Player and welcomes comments from winAMP users to show what your favorite features are in that software.

My Favorite Features of Window Media Player 10:

- Organize the media content and build a wide variety of playlists on your PC -
I have 244 hours of music from my CD collection using 19.63MB...don't know if that is a lot or not

...that I have been able to easily manage with the built-in playlists and playlists I've created myself.

- Play, rip and burn CD's -
Every new CD I buy gets added to my collection on my PC just by popping it into my CD-ROM and WMP gets the details off the net.

- Windows Taskbar Toolbar support -
One of the best features...WMP can minimize to a useable player right on my taskbar.

- Skinning support -
There are many great skins out there. Many of which come from The Skin Factory available right here at WinCustomize.

- Synchronize your media with portable devices -
I don't have a portable music player, but my wife does and she really enjoys this.

Features I Don't Use, But Are Available in Windows Media Player 10

- Purchase and download music from Online Stores -
I prefer to purchase CD's and use a Music Service to make my purchases.

- Listen to online radio -
Another feature that I don't use mainly because I'm on dial-up and can't afford losing bandwidth while I'm browsing.

Comments (Page 2)

Brian Smith

on Dec 24, 2004

My goodness one player only: that would be a treat wouldn't it. If only the computer world was that simple.
Here is what I use:
1. Music videos-Winamp 5 of course and if I want to skin a player it is it!!
2. Burning CDs: WMP 10-easiest burner around; agree it is also great to have it in the tak bar but my task bar is too full for that.
3. For my ipod-itunes for windows (big compliant here-can apple let this be a skinnable player in wondows-what iswrong with the company?) I WANT TO SKIN IT as the apple skin sucks!!! But...I got a little nifty minimize tool that lets itunes be minimized to the system tray and so it is the best minimized player around now.
4. I used Musicmatch for awhile and own the thing but it is a pain-amn it wants to play everything and is obtursive!! I could not uninstall it until I got into safemode-aah it is a real pain!!
5. Raid player: well I listen to virgin radio and it uses a WMP 10 player

Oooh for one player that did it all but that will never happen unless Mozilla gets into the fight-they will be the company that will challange us all with software that makes it happen and yes it is all skinnable (I do not work for them by the way-just like what they are doing-a company with balls!)

CygnusXII

on Dec 24, 2004

I use WinAmp 5. I have used it since the very early days, way, way before AOL Bought it out.
I like it, for several reasons, it is straight forward, it is skinnable, it rips audio, and shoutcast.
Major Tom skin by Steve Moss, changed my world, and introduced me to skinning. I might add,this was a ground breaker for me. Real Audio Players,last good version was back in the days when it was bundled with Windows. Jet Audio was nice because it was soooo, slick and inclluded RA support right out of the box.
Of Note Foobar is very nice. DbPowerAmp is very nice as well. Media Match Jukebox, is just to bloated for me. I like things simple and straight forward. I am mostly deaf in one ear, so I am not an audiologic connisseur, I just like to Jam, and crank up the bass, and turn on my Axe and go to town.

Psikotik

on Dec 25, 2004

I use Quinntessential Player. It has many cool functions, like the quicktrack in the menu, and isn't as bloated as Winamp 5.. and while it doesn't have as many skins as Winamp, it has several very nice ones. It also has a plugin which allows for the use of Winamp plugins. I use WMP 10 for my video playback.

mrgrimm

on Dec 25, 2004

Well I use J. Rivers' Media Center. Does everything I need and more and supports just about every format. Rips to Mp3s, Ogg, Flac, and many others.

cakeypower

on Dec 25, 2004

I use Beep Media Player for music and Totem/Xine for Video.

Beep - http://www.sosdg.org/~larne/w/
Totem - http://www.hadess.net/totem.php3

DesignCaddy

on Dec 25, 2004

i use iTunes. but i don't like iTunes. more on that later.

windows media player 10 is a terrific player. i have 30.5 gigs of music (its a little more than 2 weeks of constant play) and media players handles it all very well. i like the ease of browsing the library, expanding by artist, album, and so on. its easy to rate your music, if that's what you like to do. WMP uses such a little amount of resources that you can have it open while you're doing just about anything. it is stable, it has good featuers, and its skinnable. people have a lot of greif in using WMA files.. but its a wonderful format with great sound and low size. its comparable to AAC.

what i dont like about it, and this may have changed in 10, is that media player burns cds with 2 seconds gaps between the songs. and the visualizations leave something to be imagined.

itunes: i use itunes as my regular player because i have to.. i have an ipod, and i use the itunes music store for music and it gives you AAC protected files which media player can't play. its library browse feature is convienient to find album or artist quickly, and its search feature (which wmp10 has also) is fluid, unlike media player 10 as you begin to type it begins tos earch and norrows down as you type. it burns cds without the gaps in tracks, and has a lot of good features, and it edits music tags in the file isntead of in their own file like wmp9 (if you ahd to redo your library you'd lose your tag info)

however itunes, being ported from mac, is unstable. it uses a tremendous amount of memory for something that plays music in the background (19 megs idle, 35 megs under steam). and its not skinnable. it also has this habit of making my music dissapear, and reappear in a couple weeks. it also currupts my ipod now an then, which must be wiped, reset, and verything put back on.

i yern for media player. if i could use my ipod and AAC protected tracks i would be on media player.

i dont see what the fad is with winamp. to each his own, ive used it and its a wonderful app.. but i dont see why its neccisary to have it. i like how media player is integrated into windows and how it handles items in browsers.

i've also used the player included in roxio. it plays any file imaginable but its library isnt as easy to use as itunes or media player, and it uses a lot of memory. it also has a funny way of handleing tags.

bkpeck

on Dec 25, 2004

WMP 10

Jafo

on Dec 25, 2004

I first used Winamp, back in the 2.9 days.

Um....that'd be like 'now' ...as technically 2.9x is still 'current'....

RockinMike

on Dec 25, 2004

MMJB 10 beta. It's been my official audio unit for my computer for 5 yrs, ripping a cd in less than 3 minutes, burning a cd takes less than 15 minutes. I don't see the need to "search" for a better media center for my pc.

Scarebear

on Dec 25, 2004

I use Quintessential Player (QCD) as it is easy to skin, easy to use and allows me to use the old Sonique visuals I love. It simply does all I want my media player to do

Threi

on Dec 25, 2004

i also use quintessential. i used to use winamp, but quintessential is faster than winamp(even 2.x), skinnable like winamp(even 5.x), and on top of that it is compatible with all winamp plugins

eieio

on Dec 25, 2004

Still use Winamp. I'm using 5 now because of the freeform skins, but I started using it back when it was just 2.something
Probably 95% of my usage is just to listen to music. I don't go for all the other features and I use Coolplayer with a MP3 plugin for ripping CDs.

Pam Johnson

on Dec 26, 2004

There are some pretty good media players out there, and in all reality they all have something special that makes them unique. I use iTunes and Media Player 10. For those of you who have an iPod (as I do) there is a program (shareware) called xPlay out there that is great for working with the iPod (allows music transfers without being on the original computer).

As to music I have a SATA 160 Gig drive that has over 110 gigs of music (a great deal of these have been convert to mp3 format from reconds and tapes bought over some forty-five years). The program that I now use to originize all of this is WMP 10. But, I use a cataloging program to keep track of all my music (MPEG Auto Collection (MAC) 2.82 a freeware application)).

For those of you who buy music on line through one of the online services there are programs out there that can be used to re-record that music so you can put it in the format you most desire. The same one I used to do my records and tapes is the same one I used to record music off of another music player that will not allow drag and drop transfers unless it is from the original computer. You can fine these programs for both the Mac and PC; not sure of Linux.

I use WMP 10 or iTunes primary becasue I feel they put out a better sound. Winamp seems to break up a bit. I tried Quintessential Player but haven't really gotten into as I have iTunes, and WMP10

Enjoy your music - Pam

BlueDev

on Dec 26, 2004

Um....that'd be like 'now' ...as technically 2.9x is still 'current'

Okay, to clarify then *pokes Jafo*, I exclusively used Winamp back when 2.9 was the most recent and up-to-date version. 3 lost me entirely, and that was when my media player wanderlust set in, which now seems to have settled with foobar2000.

mp3 master

on Dec 26, 2004

Since I went to a media center pc a couple of years ago I have tried WMP v8 thru 10, Musicmatch and iTunes. iTunes is my personal fav. 'Bout to purchase a 300 gig external drive to put the rest of the collection on since i 'bout filled up the 120 with mp3's. Yes, they are all legit. iTunes is the easiest to work with and build playlists. It is fast and the burns are great. Never had a problem with it. No charge.

Welcome Guest! Please take the time to register with us.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:

Richer content, access to many features that are disabled for guests like commenting on the forums.
Access to a great community, with a massive database of many, many areas of interest.
Access to contests & subscription offers like exclusive emails.
It's simple, and FREE!