Windows Media Player 11 Released 365
filenavigator writes "Microsoft issued a press release today publicizing the release of Windows Media Player 11. Looks like the major updates in this version are for the Microsoft marketing engine. Features boasted by Microsoft include better integration with media players sanctioned by them, and integration with their new URGE music service. Additionally, and more importantly, this version contains the latest in Microsoft DRM software. Interested parties can download a free copy"
Free ? (Score:1, Informative)
I wouldn't call buying a copy of window a "free" upgrade
Re:Integration with Vista (Score:3, Informative)
Is syncing fixed? (Score:5, Informative)
I used to use WMP10 to sync my files. It wasn't the most convenient method, but it beat doing the sync by turning the Sansa into a USB drive (it reboots forever, updating some databases). Selecting which files to sync up was fairly simple, and the syncing was fast. The biggest complaint I had was that it didn't really understand the concept of syncing on multiple computers (home and office). One has to become the main computer and the other... I dunno.
I installed the WMP11 beta, because I was hoping that that part of syncing would have been fixed. Well, I regret that decision now. Luckily, I'm going to reinstall this computer soon anyway.
Basically, syncing is incredibly slow now, the interface much less intuitive and for some reason it keeps uploading copies of the same files. I gave up on getting that sync right. I'm downloading the final version, I'll install it probably tomorrow.
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Freeamp (Score:5, Informative)
Freeamp, which is now called Zinf [zinf.org] due to complaints from the Winamp people, is what you want. No ads. No phoning home. No DRM. No nonsense. Open source. Runs on Windows and Linux.
Re:Simple MP3 player needed... (Score:3, Informative)
Foobar 2000 [foobar2000.org]
It's FOSS, so the GUI is generally crap (it's as unitiuitive as other media players while still being ugly and unskinnable by default) but it's very lightweight and unobtrusive. It's been in development a long time and is quite mature.
Re:Dear God, what have they done... (Score:2, Informative)
The organization nightmare you can pretty much sidestep by simply hitting "Organize By Song"-- it'll just revert to what is basically the WMP10 organization scheme that we've all come to love and/or hate. The GUI problem is understandable, given that I am running XP in classic mode. I'll give it this though: it'll look hella cool once you run it inside the vista mothership. Mind you, that doesn't make the startup trainwreck any better. MS could have done a much better job there.
After the initial shock though, the nice things start to make themselves evident. The search is oh so responsive-- finally, it's up to par with itunes "show results as you type" deal. I haven't worked too much with setting up successive filters (I'm only a few minutes into the acclimatization process), but it looks like if you click on the library category (album, song, genre etc), and then start typing in the search box, results are organized by the category in question. Cool... it may actually be better in terms of search flexibility than iTunes. The privacy options appear to be better than 10, although given the DRM crap that is lurking under the surface, I don't know if the privacy options are just a whitewash (any privacy experts care to weigh in?). The application itself feels infinitely faster and more responsive than 10 ever was-- especially when it's recovering to window mode from the taskbar "mini" mode.
I'm a qualified fan at this stage-- I'll use WMP11 for audio organization, but VLC will remain my primary video viewing app.
Is it just me? (Score:4, Informative)
WinAmp and VLC could do things years ago that this sorry excuse of 'convienienceware' will ever be able to do. No?
Re:Can't we wait? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Simple MP3 player needed... (Score:3, Informative)
I've found foobar2000 [foobar2000.org] to be very nice. It's a typical hacker-player that can be mod'ed to do anything you want it to, but the base is just a simple, lightweight music player with a library, superb format-support (except iTunes MPEG4 lossless) and otherwise no fuzz.
I ditched Winamp5 for Foobar when I saw Winamp using 200MBs+ of RAM with my current music-library. Plus Winamp is shit and doesn't support unicode.Xbox 360 video streaming (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Can't we wait? (Score:2, Informative)