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Topic: Player with similar library layout as WMP (Read 6675 times) previous topic - next topic
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Player with similar library layout as WMP

Well, like the topic says, are there any other media players that has such a functional and nicely sorted library like WMP?
The only reason why im keeping WMP, is because of its library ^^

I know iTunes has it as well, but h*ll, its an EXTREME resource hog
So, any suggestions?
Foobar2000 @ Onkyo SE-90PCI @ Sennheiser HD595 :)

Player with similar library layout as WMP

Reply #1 –
Quote from: vigylant on
Well, like the topic says, are there any other media players that has such a functional and nicely sorted library like WMP?
The only reason why im keeping WMP, is because of its library ^^

I know iTunes has it as well, but h*ll, its an EXTREME resource hog
So, any suggestions?


One thing WMP has going for it is its fast library. But a quick rundown of alternatives:

Fully developed and like WMP, aimed at the "non-technical" crowd:
- Media Monkey
- JRiver
- MusicMatch

functional but ugly and requires a bit more playing around with settings:
- Winamp

very fast but lots of fiddling and XML-expertise required to set up:
- foobar2000

showing promise:
- Songbird

Player with similar library layout as WMP

Reply #2 –
Hehe, tried all of them
Songbird is similar to musikCube, which i liked, but it had alot of bugs..

Winamp is ugly, agreed on that one..

MusicMatch (now yahoo something?) was nice, but not very many advanced options

JRiver and mediamonkey are a little too messy
Foobar2000 @ Onkyo SE-90PCI @ Sennheiser HD595 :)

Player with similar library layout as WMP

Reply #3 –
Quote from: vigylant on
Winamp is ugly, agreed on that one..

Well, the default classic and modern skins aren't the only available ones, hence I'm not quite sure whether I understand you here. Winamp is easily customizable to fit your visual needs, featuring tons of custom content on winamp.com as well as several private homepages. Google will be your friend concerning the latter.

At least I for my part can't complain about Winamp's aesthetics. I'm using a modern custom skin and the "Album List" plug-in, which displays the covers of all albums in a docked side-window and serves as a useful playlist creator. A lyrics plug-in docked on the opposite side completes the whole lot.

Player with similar library layout as WMP

Reply #4 –
Yeah, but it installs a lowpass driver, which last time ruined both my real and my virtual dvd drive
Wont take that chance again ^^

It is however easy to block the driver from being installed, but then i get an error every time winamp starts... Damn, i miss winamp 2.x
Foobar2000 @ Onkyo SE-90PCI @ Sennheiser HD595 :)

Player with similar library layout as WMP

Reply #5 –
Quote from: eofor on
Fully developed and like WMP, aimed at the "non-technical" crowd:
- Media Monkey
- JRiver
- MusicMatch

functional but ugly and requires a bit more playing around with settings:
- Winamp

very fast but lots of fiddling and XML-expertise required to set up:
- foobar2000

showing promise:
- Songbird
MediaMonkey's library management is nowhere near as fast as WMP's on my PC. A 7000+ track library will take at least 30 seconds to load on P4 with 1.5GB RAM. MusicMatch isn't developed any more - it was replaced by Yahoo Music Jukebox. Winamp has serious issues with inverting a large (OO 10^3 items) playlist. foobar2000 can have serious issues with large libraries too - just see the forums hosted here for a thread dedicated entirely to that problem.
EAC>1)fb2k>LAME3.99 -V 0 --vbr-new>WMP12 2)MAC-Extra High
 

Player with similar library layout as WMP

Reply #6 –
i have yet to find a better media player than wmp11 in terms of user interface. if it wasn't for its lack of gapless mp3 playback and non-microsoft standards support, it would be the best media player by far. on windows anyway.. amarok isn't far behind

Player with similar library layout as WMP

Reply #7 –
Quote from: damir on
i have yet to find a better media player than wmp11 in terms of user interface. if it wasn't for its lack of gapless mp3 playback and non-microsoft standards support, it would be the best media player by far. on windows anyway.. amarok isn't far behind

That's why I use WMP as my primary player too . IMO the only thing holding WMP back is the terrible FLAC DS filters, but then again those aren't developed by MS anyway. Amarok's great too
EAC>1)fb2k>LAME3.99 -V 0 --vbr-new>WMP12 2)MAC-Extra High

Player with similar library layout as WMP

Reply #8 –
But amarok isnt for windows, right?
Foobar2000 @ Onkyo SE-90PCI @ Sennheiser HD595 :)

Player with similar library layout as WMP

Reply #9 –
I suggest too try the new MediaMonkey (Alpha 5). It's a lot faster than WMP, has a nice layout and a lot of feature like replaygain. Another plus are the scripts which can easily be done by your own. In the forum there are already hundreds of scripts. For example there is a autorating-script (which I scripted), a albumart-finder-script, a genre-finder-script, a script which allows to make you own nodes, a evillyrics-import-script, a script which automatically plays similar songs (uses last.fm), a script which finds tagging inconsistencies and a lot more! I you have a good idea you'll also find someone who does a script for you.
Bye the way: MM3 is a lot more for technical people as it supports replaygain now as I said. Plus you can use winamp-plugins or decoders (like the new in_mad). And it supports iPods, PlayForSure-devices and most other players which just connect like usb-sticks. One of my favorite features is the burning-function as you can easily define de folder-structure and filenames, like "<Artist>\<Year> - <Album\<Track#> - <Title>"

@LANjackal: That's really strange that MediaMonkey is slower than WMP. Propably you did something wrong or the version you tried was buggy. MediaMonkey 2.5.5 is really fast here (but not as fast as MM3). I have over 13'000 songs and it loads within a few seconds. You should try it again.

Player with similar library layout as WMP

Reply #11 –
Quote from: Big_Berny on
@LANjackal: That's really strange that MediaMonkey is slower than WMP. Propably you did something wrong or the version you tried was buggy. MediaMonkey 2.5.5 is really fast here (but not as fast as MM3). I have over 13'000 songs and it loads within a few seconds. You should try it again.

2.5.5 is the version I used. In any case, MM doesn't have the metadata lookup capabilities that WMP has (AMG + Muze access), and I'm a metadata freak so that's a dealbreaker. Oh yeah, and WMP11's free . Lack of official Last.fm support for MM is also a major issue for me.
EAC>1)fb2k>LAME3.99 -V 0 --vbr-new>WMP12 2)MAC-Extra High

Player with similar library layout as WMP

Reply #12 –
There is a script which adds AMG-support and much more like MusicBrainz...

What do you mean with official Last.fm support? The Winamp-plugin can easily be installed on MediaMonkey. Just select the MediaMonkey-folder. I'm also a Last.fm-fan by the way!

And MediaMonkey is also freeware. The pro-version just has some nice additional features.

But okay, each one should use what he wants!

Player with similar library layout as WMP

Reply #13 –
Try Helium Music Manager. It's a quite good, has built-in last.fm support as well as a lot of other features, is nice looking, lightweight enough, and makes for a decent tagger.

http://www.helium-music-manager.com/

Edit - And it's skinnable too, if that sort of thing tickles your fancy.

Player with similar library layout as WMP

Reply #15 –
@odious_m: IMHO not the design is ugly (because this can be changed with skins) but the Library. I like WMPs or MMs much more...

Player with similar library layout as WMP

Reply #16 –
@Big_Berny

Ok, gotcha.  Never use the library myself, as I prefer the magazine section.

Player with similar library layout as WMP

Reply #17 –
Quote from: JadeElephant on
Try Helium Music Manager. It's a quite good, has built-in last.fm support as well as a lot of other features, is nice looking, lightweight enough, and makes for a decent tagger.

http://www.helium-music-manager.com/

Edit - And it's skinnable too, if that sort of thing tickles your fancy.

Tried that one as well ^^
Didnt like the way it queued stuff up.. You double click, and it adds it to the playlist.. And making playlists was.. Really difficult ^^
Foobar2000 @ Onkyo SE-90PCI @ Sennheiser HD595 :)

Player with similar library layout as WMP

Reply #18 –
Well, the only other thing I can suggest then is use Foobar and make it emulate WMP. It can be done with some work, and I think there might already be such a preconfigured build in the Foobar forum.