Patrick Versus Media Players

So currently I use iTunes to play my DRM music, Winamp for all other MP3 music, Windows Media Player for my TiVo files, PowerDVD for DVDs, VLC for most other Video Files, and Rainbow player for MODs and ITs.

I'm looking for a decent Media PLayer that can play all my files, DVDs, and movies, ideally something that has a way to organize and create playlists. Obviously I have to strip the DRM from my iTunes music for this to happen, but anyone know of anything that can do this?

Well. You can skip Rainbow player since Winamp plays Mods and ITs too.
VLC can play DVDs so you can skip PowerDVD.

I don't know shit about TiVo and Itunes is evil.

I use VLC for pretty much anything except for music. Then I got WMP and I actually use it's library feature. I like it.
Winamp I got laying around to cover any slack and so I can open random mp3 files w/o disturbing the current playlist in WMP.

I only use Winamp for music (including MP3 and mods, due to its having a superior playlist functionality to everything else) and Media Player Classic for movies and everything else (bundled with the CCCP or K-Lite Codec packs).

Quicktime compatibility? Only with Quicktime Alternative (especially since the latest "official" installers also install iTunes and a dozen uncalled for "services" I really don't want on my machine). Same for Real Alternative.

This way, I can play anything from 3gp to DVDs using only freeware stuff and keeping codec and media player proliferation to a minimum.

Not trying to defend it or anything, but what's wrong with iTunes?

Texas Libra said:

Not trying to defend it or anything, but what's wrong with iTunes?

It's made by Apple. 'nuff said.

(oh and it also quietly fills your system with unneeded services start-up programs and is ridden with spyware and DRM-enforcing measures and is also bloated, but I'm an Apple-hating miser so I'll quote primarily just the fact that it's made by Apple)

Maes said:

It's made by Apple. 'nuff said.

(oh and it also quietly fills your system with unneeded services start-up programs and is ridden with spyware and DRM-enforcing measures and is also bloated, but I'm an Apple-hating miser so I'll quote primarily just the fact that it's made by Apple)

The only problem I can recall with it was its annoying habit of inviting itself to load on startup without the option to really prevent it. But that was a while ago, so they've probably invited themselves to do a lot more.

More specifically?

It loads an "iTunes service", except from the app itself, plus some other services like the "Bonjour service" (haven't figured out what that does), the "Apple update service" and the iPod sync service, at least those I can recall.

If you plan on using it just as a media player, you don't even own an iPod (...don't get me started on that, either...), and you couldn't care less about it self-updating, there are much, much better alternatives out there, that support more formats.

I don't even use the official quicktime for playing MOV files, since Quicktime Alternative gives you the ability to play MOV files in ANY media player, not just Apple's own player, and doesn't install the crapware. BTW, by now even quicktime installs the above mentioned services :-/ All of them. WTF?

Everything Maes said, plus the horrible, clunky, unintuitive interface and restrictive way that it forces you to work with your files.

And if you do use it to administer and ipod, the problems are all magnified. At least, every now and again, it does like to lose all your music for you. I see that as some kind of built in penalty for actually deciding to use it. :P

iTunes is simply not an option anymore. I no longer buy DRM music, and I shouldn't need more than 2 media players to manage all my music and videos. iTunes is perpetually installing little "extras" like Safari, Bonjour, Genius and Quicktime (dear god) which are equally a pain in the ass. The one thing I can say for itunes is that the interface is decently close to what I'm looking for.

kristus said:

Winamp plays Mods and ITs too.

horribly, and even fatally crashing winamp with a few.

This thread has no mention of foobar2000 so i'll mention it now. It's no video player but who plays video in a music player anyway, use mplayer or vlc for those.

Foobar2000 does a better job at playing MODs than Winamp does, but even it has issues with a few songs. I do like, though, that sub-songs in some files are recognized as separate entries in the playlist.

The only thing i don't like about media player classic is that the volume control on my ipod is controlled by "function" and then volume up and down buttons. When MPC is open this controls the in-built volume and not the computer's, meaning if the volume on the computer is off (and it always is on mine when i don't need it) all you're doing is making silence louder whilst trying to turn up the volume.

It's also not really very much like the classic media player anyway, just looks like it. It would be good if there was an even more cut-down player that "just plays" "everything" like MPC does but looked and worked exctly like the old media player, same functions and everything.

deathbringer said:
It's also not really very much like the classic media player anyway, just looks like it. It would be good if there was an even more cut-down player that "just plays" "everything" like MPC does but looked and worked exctly like the old media player, same functions and everything.

I have that. It's called Windows Media Player 6.4 :p

What would you strip out exactly? Some functions are pretty essential to playing "everything".

Wouldn't the old version work in a newer Windows OS, using the executable and the DLLs?

myk said:

Wouldn't the old version work in a newer Windows OS, using the executable and the DLLs?

In the meantime, look under \WINDOWS\system32 for mplay32.exe ;-)

Maes said:

In the meantime, look under \WINDOWS\system32 for mplay32.exe ;-)

Too old, what's better is
\Program Files\Windows Media Player\mplayer2.exe

leileilol said:

Too old, what's better is
\Program Files\Windows Media Player\mplayer2.exe

I love you leileilol. You're my hero.

Speaking of Winamp, it crashes when I plug in my MP4 player, until I did remove some Winamp plugin.

kristus said:

Well. You can skip Rainbow player since Winamp plays Mods and ITs too.

The problem is that they sound absolutely like ass in Winamp's module plugin. I recommend un4seen.com/xmplay.html]XMPlay for MOD-related files.

Patrick Pineda said:

The one thing I can say for itunes is that the interface is decently close to what I'm looking for.

If so, then you might want to check out songbird

Very akin to itunes but without all the puff, also plays FLACs. No video playback yet though.

Hmm... I don't recall having any particular big-time problems with Winamp and MODS, except for maybe a couple of things:

a) Some "S3M" modules with Adlib tracks and instruments didn't play without the Adplug plugin, but worked like a charm with that installed.

b) No option for dynamic interpolation/filtering, but if aliasing really is a big problem you can monkey around with the equalizer presets and set up your own low-pass filter.

c) A few rare mods that included multiple internal loops (usually old game soundtracks) would only play and be skippable up to the first such loop.

But nothing close to generalized failure or crappiness, so far.

I use Winamp to test out Mod/IT tracks for a Skulltag mod I made. The quality was no different between Skulltag and Winamp.

I use Windows Media Player 11 - the library is easily the best feature. I've had the db it uses screw up once (created duplicate entries that couldn't be deleted), but asides from that it has always worked without issue.

For mods/s3m/etc I use XMPlay.

so I found 2 players that work for me. Windows Media PLayer 11 for all my music, with MOD, IT, OGG and Mp4 plugins. As for DVDs and other Video I found MPC with K-Lite Codec pack. They seems to serve their respective purposes well

foobar2000 > all.

Probably the user who made this thread in 2009 will be very grateful for your input.

33 minutes ago, RataUnderground said:

Probably the user who made this thread in 2009 will be very grateful for your input.

Uh... who are you talking to? The only post 2009 response is yours.

1 minute ago, Murdoch said:

 

Uh... who are you talking to? The only post 2009 response is yours.

I have no idea what happened, but there was a reply from a user this morning explaining alternatives to winamp.

1 minute ago, RataUnderground said:

I have no idea what happened, but there was a reply from a user this morning explaining alternatives to winamp.

Weird.

On the last episode of Unsolved Doomworld Mysteries, RU tried to blame a time wizard for a necrobump, but Detective Murdoch is on the case. Tune in to the next exciting installment to find out what happens!

40 minutes ago, RataUnderground said:

I have no idea what happened, but there was a reply from a user this morning explaining alternatives to winamp.

It's a conspiracy, I tell you! One of the moderators has it out for you and this was a ruse they pulled to make you look silly!