New Windows Media Player Leaks

TacoLL writes "A new version of Windows Media Player, Windows Media Player 11, is set to be made public on Wednesday, however, it has found its way into the hands of internet users before its public release. Flexbeta has some early screenshots of the next Media Player for Windows users."

Leak or astrohyping?

[XorNand]

If the source found its way onto the Internet, that would be a leak. If early prototypes were released months ago, in time for Real Networks, Apple, and others to dissect what MS was cooking up in the lab, then I would consider that a leak. But "leaking" a yawn-inducing product two days before the official release? It sounds to me more like a marketing tactic intended to drum up press at just the right time, akin to the same BS that beta testing has evolved into.

More Lockout?

[Draconix]

Awesome! Does this mean yet another round of new media formats I won't be able to play without using MS proprietary software?

Re:Windows Media Player?

[drewzhrodague]

Is this really news that is worthy Slashdot?

No, Definately not. But it's an excuse to bash Microsoft, and so here it is! =_)

Re:News.com has a good series of images available

[Quaoar]

Surprise, surprise. It looks like all of our favorite Mac-apps, repackaged!

How will Windows ever die if it just keeps stealing the best ideas with no consequences? It's unbelievable.

Who is their intended audience?

[Locke2005]

I've got over 10,000 mp3's on my hard drive (all legally ripped from CDs I own). Do I really want to scroll though 10,000 icons of the album art in order to find the song I want to listen to? Please, Bill, please... tell me it's possible to turn the fricking icons off! On the other hand, displaying an icon for every song probably is a useful feature for my 5 year-old daughter. However, I should remind M$ that 5 year-olds generally don't make the software purchasing decisions in most households...

The first on-topic one...

[mazzarin]

As opposed to the rest of the posts 'OMGLOL WMP LEAKS!!1', this post actually discusses it. I've used it. Its available to download from softpedia.com I found it to be rather nice and would definitely prefer it over iTunes if I still used it (iTunes). URGE is no iTunes music store but I never used that in any case. It has a slick look, uses less mem than iTunes - more than Winamp or foobar of course, and the responsiveness is quite good. I've never really liked Windows Media Player, always thought it was clunky and bloated but this seems to be a release where they got it right. I highly recommend checking it out.

um...

[boomerny]

holy who gives a crap, batman! as uninteresting as this is, I'm sure I'll have to package it shortly because some exec wants to watch some shitty video which requires it. I'm also sure it will be a pain to lock out all of the program guides and checking for updates and other annoyances. They supply an enterprise deployment kit to aid in config, but why isn't all that junk turned OFF by default? grumble

Re:OGG support

[BrainInAJar]

when "the grain" is "freedom-restricting technology trends", then yes... We must insist on going "against the grain"

Must the founders of America always go against the grain when it comes to that whole England thing?....

Feature Creep in WiMP

[schmiddy]

Windows Media Player is a great example of a piece of software that has reached maturity, and been going steadily downhill ever since. Everyone who's had to struggle with a slow computer with windows knows that version 6 (6.4 specifically, I think) was when WiMP essentially reached maturity. Really, what more possible features could you need in a media player other than the usual play, pause, rewind, etc. buttons, and some useful codecs (which, of course, Microsoft would never even dream of distributing, as they promote "piracy", or help alternative formats like Real).

l I'm even aware of at east one open source media player project based off the WiMP 6.4 design (has essentially the exact same look and feel, but is supplied with all the good codecs), namely "Media Player Classic" (here [sourceforge.net]).

Since 6.4, which was last distributed with Win2k (though the auto-update features try their darndest to sneak the newer versions in), WiMP has gotten progressively worse. Version 9 was a disgrace, and 10 was even worse. Seems like the only innovation Microsoft has to offer in media players is bundling in more DRM features that no one wants, useless and ugly skins, and support for their own worthless WMV/WMA formats.

Please, don't use this new "feature"-laden crapware. Microsoft should take a hint from VLC or mplayer, and realize that we don't want the useless junk they're piling on. The reason why VLC and mplayer are so great is they do one thing and do it well: play media. Period.

Already leaked by Microsoft themselves

[konfoo]

Anyone who attended NAB 2006 in Las Vegas last month would have seen the tons of signage, brochures and other promotional material from Microsoft showing off WMP11.

Re:Windows Media Player?

[HermanAB]

Hell yes, considering how MS routinely delay their releases, having proof that it is not just more vapourware is good news for all MS shareholders. At least somebody is doing his job over at the MS campus.

Re:Leak or astrohyping?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just upgrade to latest release and stop whining.

Re:Leak or astrohyping?

[Anonymous Coward]

Latest release still has a memory leak, as far as I can tell.

Re:MPlayer

[dnaumov]

"I have a PIII running Windows 98SE with Windows Media Player 9 - it is very slow to load."

So you run an ancient OS on an ancient CPU and you expect what to happen exactly?

Re:Who is their intended audience?

[Ingolfke]

Well I think I've made an ass of my self.