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Post by cleglaw on Nov 29, 2007 5:14:06 GMT
I used to use Media Jukebox which presented me with a nice way to organize my music. Then after getting my new computer, I was forced to use a newer version as the old one is no longer available. The Shuffle function didn't work. So, after playing around with available versions of Media Jukebox, I finally discarded it.
I remembered from an old thread that a lot of folks at the Amazon Basin recommended Winamp. But when I looked at Winamp, I learned that it includes an AOL toolbar. I don't trust AOL AT ALL.
So, I fiddled around with the Windows Media Player (version 11) that comes with Vista. And guess what! It works really nicely, nice program. I don't download music, so I can't speak to that functionality.
A rant about downloaded music. The compression formats cause a loss of sound quality. It surprise me in a way that people like it so much. Quality is being subjugated to convenience.
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Post by Alrik on Dec 2, 2007 12:30:47 GMT
I once used Sonique as well, and the "eJay" player. For the WindowsMediaPlayer, there are also several nice "skins" available - some of them fitting to this season.
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Post by Elliot Kane on Dec 2, 2007 13:55:29 GMT
I tend to use Real Player. Windows Media Player, Quicktime and DivX. With that lot, I can play just about anything
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Post by cleglaw on Dec 2, 2007 17:51:59 GMT
I thoroughly dislike Real Player. It insinuates itself into the system tray and runs at startup and contacts the net without permission. Making it behave is not a simple intuitive transparent process. That was my experience.
Most of what I listen to is music I have loaded on to the computer from cds. So all I really need is a program that organizes the music.
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Post by Elliot Kane on Dec 2, 2007 18:50:19 GMT
Real Player IS a complete pain, but it is also the best in terms of file management and organisation that I've found to date. It also has the most complete online database.
There is something I've heard of called Real Alternative that plays Real files without taking over your system. I've never used it, so I'm not sure how good it is, though.
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Post by Alrik on Dec 3, 2007 21:53:36 GMT
The music CD player of my sister (Mac OS X) always contacts one "GraceDB" or so database. Which seems to be quite good, because it contains CDs as entries which I hardly ever expected there (for example soundtrack CDs for The Dark Eye RPGs).
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Post by Konrad Flameheart on Dec 11, 2007 8:58:58 GMT
For Mp3 playback i use winamp (lovely little program that takes up next to no system resources) when it comes to everything else i use media centre/media player whichever takes my fancy (I use nero for my CD burning software and that installs all the codecs you need for just about anything, so using those codecs i can make the windows native programs play whatever i like ) And of course because the programs are native to windows there is no additional drain on the system runtime envioriment
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