Best media player?

youcancallmeal

Just did a fresh install on my laptop and I'm planning on getting rid of Windows Media Player altogether and going for something else. I used winamp ages ago so I'll probably get this but I've heard the freeware 'lite' version has some spyware with it Anybody got any other good suggestions for a media player for audio files?

neGev

foobar!

Thomas_S_Hunterson

neGev wrote:

foobar!

seconded

melekalikimaka

tried foobar, winamp,wmp,itunes(pre and post version 7), i used to use i tunes, so simple and not to heavy on ram, til 7 came along, now use wmp as foobar and winamp are useless for large libs, musicmatch is crud

youcancallmeal

Winamp

Well I do have a very large library of about 5000 files so are you saying I should stick with WMP 11 because winamp and foobar are no good for managing that size of files?

Makaveli

Foobar works perfectly well with large libraries if you have it configured properly.

So, third vote for Foobar.

youcancallmeal

Winamp

Ok I've added a poll. Please note I'm only referring to audio file playback. We all know VLC is the only player for video.

Thomas_S_Hunterson

youcancallme>al wrote:

Well I do have a very large library of about 5000 files so are you saying I should stick with WMP 11 because winamp and foobar are no good for managing that size of files?

I use fooar with a library of about that size and its fine.

You wont have the nice rounded buttons and album art that WMP has, ut if you're looking for a music player then foobar is the business. Personally I found browsing my library in foobar much quicker than in WMP.

neGev

I've foobar open as we speak with roughly 8,000 tracks. It handles it perfectly, and with only a small memory footprint too.

Makaveli

Again if you spend a bit of time configuring Foobar it can display album art, artists pictures, graphic equalisers, big buttons pretty much anything. You can make it look almost exactly like iTunes if you spend enough time at it and are inclined to do so. With the addedd benefit of the fb2k memory footprint being a lot smaller than iTunes.

If your music library is well structured in Windows Explorer using Foobar to navigate and browse through it is very quick.

cornbb

What about MediaMonkey? MediaMonkey rules!

Ruu_Old

Winamp 2.81.

hopeful

Winamp

Another vote for MediaMonkey...or there would be if the poll allowed it

youcancallmeal

Winamp

Ruu wrote:

Winamp 2.81.

I knew somebody "cool" would say winamp 2.x
I don't get it, is it for all the add ons that you can get for that range?

Ruu_Old

Its not cool at all, its one of the older ones. I have no skins or any of that and find it running much more stable that the others released. Just the barebones. 5.21 is the latest version.

zilog_jones

I use iTunes - I converted over from Winamp last year and really like it, especially the smart playlists. However I don't like the copious amounts of RAM and steals and that iPod service that won't die (I don't even have an iPod!). I've been too lazy to try WMP11 or Foobar.

Peteee

Winamp

Musikcube

Though I didn't like the 1.0 release, so I mostly use wmp11

Jonathan

Foobar wins hands down. Spend time fiddling around with the layout. Its well worth it. And make sure you have the Columns UI interface installed too.

AdMMM

Foobar

I've been using Winamp for as long as I can remember so I've always found it hard to venture out and try out alternatives.

Stephen

Winamp \o/

The only reason I have itunes is to load stuff onto my iPod and get podcasts for same.

Fabio

Never had a problem with WMP myself though it runs slowly on my 256mb RAM laptop.

I am planning, when I have enioug money for a new laptop, to convert this old laptop into a full open source run computer using Ubuntu operating system and all open sopurce stuff.

8T8

No Media Player Classic option to vote for ??

Best media player available IMO.

Small download, bloat free, tons of features, directshow compatible so any codec that works though directshow can play in MPC like WMP.

SeanW

Foobar

Winamp 2.x FTW. It does the business.

kaimera

Peteee wrote:

Musikcube

Though I didn't like the 1.0 release, so I mostly use wmp11

qft.

Musikcube handles files on a external hdd better than MP11.

MPC for video files.

zilog_jones

8T8 wrote:

No Media Player Classic option to vote for ??

The OP was looking specifically for an audio player. I also agree MPC is great - I always use it for playing videos (with ffdshow for decoding of course), but it's totally impractical IMO for listening to music.

8T8

zilog_jones wrote:

The OP was looking specifically for an audio player. I also agree MPC is great - I always use it for playing videos (with ffdshow for decoding of course), but it's totally impractical IMO for listening to music.

I gave up on winamp and the rest (for music) and just went with MPC and haven't any desire to go back.

I suppose if your into certain things like visualizations & library management other players make more sense but it's the same codecs & for me at least MPC does the job perfectly.

jesus_thats_gre

Winamp

Hmm use WMP11 myself as I tend not to use the Media Library in most players. Am a fan of ust going folder by folder in explorer. However, have been using the Zune media player since I got my Zune. Very alike WMP11 but without some of the crap.

zilog_jones

Well it's the media library management and the lack of a small menu to stick on top up in the corner (like the "mini player" in iTunes or Winamp with all the panels minimised) that make MPC impractical for me.

On the subject of visualisations, I have to say the ones in iTunes are chronic compared to the likes of MilkDrop et al in Winamp. But then again I rarely use them anyway.

feylya

Foobar

Winamp is running fine for me, besides the incompatibilty with Vista. Have about 11,000 songs in the playlist at the moment and it's only using 6.5MB of ram.

Jimoslimos

Real Player:D
/hides in dark corner and waits for rampaging mob to pass/

WMP only cos I've been too lazy to try anything else.

dulpit

Winamp

I use either WMP or MediaMonkey (MediaMonkey for my iRiver, otherwise WMP) both work grand with big libraries... Why change from WMP though? Does the job grand...

Blowfish

Amarok or XMMS.