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The music stores that use WMA don't need to build the client that plays the music, organizes the music, and synchs the device. They can use Windows Media Player 10 or any other good client (Quintessential Player, J. River Media Jukebox, WinAmp, RealPlayer, MusicMatch) to play, organize, and synch. Having one store integrated into one app may be valuable to those that don't want a choice. Some would rather use a web browser to choose among a variety of stores and then choose their favorite music player/organizer/syncher with their purchased songs.

Does anyone know how to get around these restrictions?

Get an unlimited, uncrippled media sharing solution. Go with something like VideoLAN (free!) or my personal favourite, Media Center. MC can upsample or downsample or transcode on the fly, serves up library audio and video to unlimited number of clients across LAN or WAN (I tried to max it out with 8 LAN clients and 5 WAN clients onetime and it just kept on chugging), and works with pretty much every codec I throw at it.

I don't know much about DiVX

I have a 1TB media server RAID-5 NTFS array (vintage 2002 so it's not a speed demon but still respectable - maxes out the PCI!). I back it up using FW400 (also not the fastest these days) onto an external 1TB RAID-1 array.

Anyway, one advantage I have noticed about DIVX over DVD is reduced bandwidth. You can get very respectable video quality from 1.5Mbps DIVX, versus ~4-5 times that DVD. Either of these is acceptable over wired connections, but 802.11a barely allows acceptable DIVX, and even 802.11g struggles to support more than a few DVD streams. But it manages several DIVX streams handily. There's also the issue of multiple seeks and STR rates on the RAID-array. So if you are in a family/group situation and you anticipate multiple simultaneous wireless access, recompressing to DIVX/XVID is a good option to reduce contention.

Also, if you're setting up a media server, then Media Center is a good choice. Its ability to do on-the-fly codec transcoding and bandwidth downsampling based on client profiles is a godsend, as is its ability to control Tivo and uPNP media hardware devices on the network. Technical info here.

Media Center 11 has an elegant-but-beta Library Server that does realtime transcoding of bitrates and formats between its server and attached clients, across LAN or WAN. You can couple this with its "Media Scheduler" module to record internet radio streams and then serve them up in whatever format and bitrate a client specifies. What's nice is that you can also stream video and photos to clients. MC will also do bitrate transcoding while streaming from attached Tivo HMOs.

MC also has a beta uPNP module that lets you control attached media streaming devices and offload the transcoding duties to them.

And oh yeah, SlimServer is GPL'd. You can script this to do on-the-fly custom transcoding. It's more flexible than pre-rolled, but less friendly.

A TiVo plugin for iTunes would be nice, though!

There's a Tivo HMO plugin for Media Center. You can even access your SmartLists and radio stations through any connected Tivo. Now, if they could only do one for ReplayTV I'd be a lot happier!

I've been a big fan of jRiver Media Center:
http://www.musicex.com/mediacenter/

I decided to go with Monkey's Audio for my lossless format, just because it integrates with it so well. It's a truely amazing program and one of the best rippers around.

Ripping once to lossless and never doing it again is definitely the way to go.

kiwi

Apple has the Holy Trinity of online music: Software (iTunes), Store (iTMS), Player (iPod). You're just not going to beat Apple until you come to the field with at least those three pieces.

There are now several good players made by different companies and they are getting better every year. On the Windows platform, there are several music apps that many people prefer over iTunes (e.g. Quintessential, Media Jukebox, WinAmp, Windows Media Player). DRM music stores are getting better and more numerous.

Let's assume that there are or will be several good non-Apple players, music apps, and music stores. If a consumer likes to use Media Jukebox or Windows Media Player 10 to play/organize their music, why wouldn't he/she choose a good player that synchs with these programs? If that consumer wants to buy DRM'd music, why not choose a player that works with all of the good non-Apple music stores?

Maybe buyers don't want this choice. If a hardware company wants simplicity, they can just bundle Windows Media Player 10 and promote msn music. I would prefer to see the iPod support DRM'd WMA files and synch with the other popular music apps. I would prefer to see Apple license their DRM so iTMS songs can play on other players and apps.

Even if we leave the style, appeal, looks, etc. aside, itunes is still a far more superior software for music management then anything else available in the market

Everyone thinks *their* favourite piece of software is the dogs bollocks. I submit that Media Center is far superior in every way to iTunes. YMMV. I note also your comment about managing mp3 players with different software suites. Ever hear of plugins? I've seen Archos players managed with iTunes, and iPods managed with Media Center. Whatever rocks your boat.

Foobar lets user deal with the (hard) clipping, either through limiter (soft clips) or something like Replaygain [replaygain.org]. Another thing is the common sample rate conversion (44.1k->48k) problem with bad resamplers from AC97 soundcards (AC97 does everything is 48k, most music [CDs] are 44.1k), custom SRC was one of the first things in foobar. They also got things like kernel streaming (as oppose to DirectSound) if your a stickler on bitwise perfect output.

Good control over the playback is of course essential. Media Center is another program that lets you fine-tune the playback options. You can use ASIO playback (to as many different zones as you have ASIO outputs), tweak the playback precision (8, 16, 24, or 32 bit), the channels (source, or map to 1,2,5 or 6 channels), and the sample rate (from 44.1KHz right up to 192KHz). There's also automatic or user-mapped ReplayGain.

iTunes (in both Mac and PC) cound't recognize my mp3 Tags in Big5 code.

Media Center supports Unicode ID3V2 tags, and it streams over LANs *and* WANs, no problem. Just FYI.

I don't care if it was around several years before iTunes, but it obviously wasn't using iTune's interface before iTunes came up with it

So let's see, you admit you are completely ignorant concerning the history and evolution of a piece of software you nonetheless deign to comment upon. Interesting.

Why not take a look at Media Jukebox versions 1-5, released many years before iTunes. Then take a look at the literally hundreds of Mini and Maxi mode skins for Media Center. I also think you're ignoring the fact that MC works in multiple interface modalities: maxi, mini, theatre. Many of the skins do implement a classic three-pane action-modal maxi interface, which is also the design that iTunes has tended to use in its various incarnations and which was common by 1999. But some of the skins are insanely non-Euclidean weirdnesses,

I think what you're seeing instead is a case of parallel evolution. Take a look at an ichthyosaur sometime, then compare it to a dolphin, and tell me who "copied" whom.

All I really want is one player that plays all the audio formats. *Sigh* I currently have WMP, Winamp 5, Foobar2000 and iTunes all fighting over extensions...

You probably should try Media Center - it plays everything, audio and video. The developers' slogan is "All Media, One Interface". It supports over 80 formats, does ASIO playback, and has a scripting engine that can drive any unsupported formats using their player's API. It can also transcode between formats on-the-fly while serving clients, as well as doing bitrate downsampling and soundstage upsampling. More info. Windows only though, I am afraid, although it has been embedded in several home theatre and media playback set top boxes.

Lots of people say 'iTunes". But one of the great things about WinAmp was its complete interface flexibility with skins and mods. iTunes is classic Apple: "You'll take your music this way and no other. This is unquestionably the single greatest design ever... until *we* change it in the next release". The kind of people who like WinAmp for its freeform nature would probably find iTunes too limiting.

The best media jukebox software on Windows (for customization and probably overall) is Media Center. It has several modes (Maxi, Mini, Theatre) and the "Playing Now" screen can be customized with HTML, Flash, Java and ActiveX widgets to load and manipulate tag info, or anything else. So you get to make your own killer playback screens. But your streamer is a nice workaround iTunes' lack of interface flexibility.

This is news to me.

How true that is. iTunes is classic Apple: "You'll take your music this way and no other. THis is unquestionably the single greatest design ever... until *we* change it in the next release".

The best media jukebox software on Windows (for customization and probably overall) is Media Center. It has several modes (Maxi, Mini, Theatre) and the "Playing Now" screen can be customized with HTML, Flash, Java and ActiveX widgets to load and manipulate tag info, or anything else. So you get to make your own killer playback screens. But your streamer is a nice workaround iTunes' lack of interface flexibility.

The best media jukebox software on Windows is probably Media Center. It's what iTunes would like to be when it grows up a bit. Unfortunately for Apple, it's a moving target. The motto is "All Media, One Interface".

The best media jukebox software on Windows is probably Media Center.

You just need to subscribe to a show or two (I use ipodder and enjoy Adam Curry's Daily Source Code). Then listen to a couple of shows while you are away from your computer (important--do this while commuting or walking or something).

Been doing this for years with Media Center's Media Scheduler. Got several hundred of my favourite shows preserved for posterity and occasional listening (Essential Mix, Breezeblock, Left Right and Centre, etc). Thanks very much but there's nothing new to see her, moving right along. By the way, I think I recorded my first stream (Real Audio) and transcoded it into low mp3 bitrate for listening on an mp3 player around 1998 or so. Welcome to the party!

Seeing that Media Center is codec agnostic and does video as well, it is nice to be able to timeshift video from the web as well. I can download shows or upload from the ReplayTV. Audio is easy and a problem solved years ago. Video is more challnging but it's sure nice to be able to check out last night's Daily Show while commuting.

iPod was popular before the music store. It's iTunes itself. The killer app for organizing your music. Nobody does it better or simpler.

The fact that you think this is probably because you haven't tried Media Center.

All these different portable players are great, but how do we deal with our libraries? My library is fully managed by iTunes, but is primarily MP3 (I don't import using AAC).

Yes, iTunes support for multi formats is rather... limited. Try something like Media Center - I've yet to find a format (audio or video) it can't manage. If your collection is fully tagged then transferring to another jukebox software should be relatively painless.

iTunes won't work for this...what would really be nice is something like iTunes that ran remotely so that I could control it from my laptop ... iTunes is nice, but it is hardly the most advanced jukebox conceivable. There's a lot of room for improvement.

You're right there. Try Media Center - it makes iTunes look pretty weak. It has a web interface, an API interface, and of course a GUI. Best of all, it understand Zones with multiple distinct SPDIF outputs, so you can route different playback streams to different rooms or speaker configurations depending on mood. It also does ASIO playback (full 32-bit internal sound processing) so you have pinpoint control and amazing DSP options. Another thing MC is notable for is its client-server mode: the streaming works across Internet as well as Intranet. I've used it for on-demand streaming of tunes and video coast-to-coast. There is no silly LAN-only limitation.

If you have money to burn you should get an AirPanel controller with something like NetRemote for couch bliss. With less money you should go for a cheap JP1 remote.

There are some good MC user rigs described here, here.

Media Center embedded is also used as the software "glue" for some OEM'd HTPC products: Music Mountain and Cinemar come to mind. MC also understands uPNP, so it's becoming increasingly easy to autodiscover and stream to random devices using uPNP.

iTunes is, in my opinion, the best software to come along in a long time for managing a large database of music.

You just haven't seen Media Center yet then, have you? You're in for a treat.

Of course, seeing as how neither MC nor iTunes is a linux solution we're both thread crapping. But you started it.

iTunes is, in my opinion, the best software to come along in a long time for managing a large database of music.

You just haven't seen Media Center yet then, have you? You're in for a treat.

Of course, seeing as how neither MC nor iTunes is a linux solution we're both thread crapping. But you started it.

MusicMatch is nowhere even near.

it certainly is the best media center design to date ... Microsoft copied iTunes

My friend,they are both cribbing from the most advanced player in terms of features, UI design and configurability, library management and client-server and zone playback modes: Media Center.

If you are going to *sell* a piece of jukebox software in the marketplace when so many monopolists are giving theirs away for "free" then you have to be very very very good indeed. And Media Center certainly is.

"Plus it still doesn't have iTunes, which is huge.

No, but you will have Media Center, which is way cooler anyway anyhow. How useful would iTunes, currently a non-multimedia software with very limited codec and transcoding support, actually be for a multimedia handheld?

I'm just talking about smart things like smart playlists, party shuffle, and other ways of easily and powerfully customizing how your music plays.

Yes yes yes, iTunes is reasonable in these areas, but it's still playing catch up to Media Center's more flexible, refined and downright powerful implementation of these things, is coming from a long way behind, and has a long way to go. iTunes doesn't even support multimedia, which for a multimedia handheld the subject of this posting, is a bit of an oversight!

This will be great when something like iTunes for video becomes available.

"iTunes for Video" has been available for many years and it's called Media Center. Version 10 these days. Plays well with ArchosAV and ReplayTV. You can even get an iTunes/iPod maxi/mini skin to make you feel right at home...

My library is 700GB+ and Media Center doesn't even break a sweat.

I don't get it. Doesn't the iTunes GUI just blatantly copy the old "Z" and Z-alike maxi modes of Media Center?

One of the best features of iTunes is the ability to listen to the libraries of other people on a corporate LAN (or even a home LAN).

Agreed. You know what is cooler? The ability to browse libraries and stream music over WANs as well as LANs.

I've been enjoying doing exactly this for several years with Media Center. And of course, with a trifecta or maxi, mini, and fullscreen skin options, Media Center rules for customization.

It's nice to know you can usually rely on Apple to do the right thing, once it has exhausted all the alternatives.

I think that's about it for now.

I've been enjoying doing almost exactly what you specify for several years with Media Center.

It's nice to know you can usually rely on Apple to do the right thing, once it has exhausted all the alternatives.

it's really pleasing to see a major company release a tool which will reduce the number of Windows Media files in existence in the world.

I've been enjoying doing exactly this for several years with Media Center.

It's nice to know you can usually rely on Apple to do the right thing, once it has exhausted all the alternatives.

Why can't iTunes share songs over the net?

I've been enjoying doing exactly this for several years with Media Center, as well as directly transcoding for different zones.

I enjoy sharing music over intra- or internet connections with Media Center. Client-Server streaming, shared libraries, configurable ports, the whole enchilada.

It's nice to know you can usually rely on Apple to do the right thing, once it has exhausted all the alternatives.

You can now use other playlists as criteria for a Smart Playlist. Create one playlist that is a combination of several other playlists.

I've been enjoying doing exactly this for several years with Media Center, as well as directly transcoding WMA->AAC.

It's nice to know you can usually rely on Apple to do the right thing, once it has exhausted all the alternatives.

Do you really want to watch a video on a 4" screen, when it's what you do all day?

Of course not, but it beats lugging a 48" screen around on the train! Seriously, I think the point is that PVPs come with output jacks so you are not limited to the on-device 4" LCD. And the on-device recording is a nice touch.

What you're describing in terms of features sounds more like a notebook computer than a PVP, and I think they have already been invented, and cost seriously more than $400.

I do note IBM's nice new double-density-pixel LCDs mean a nice boost for small-screen devices. Finally, for multimedia, streaming, transcoding, codec support and so on, the freeware iTunes really isn't going to cut it. Consider something more along the lines of Media Center. ALthough I am still looking for a good all-round solution that also supports OGM and Matroska.

After using iTunes for a bit I'd be hard pressed to use any other music software.

Your sad but temporary state of ignorance no doubt proceeds from the fact that you haven't yet tried Media Center.

For the tunes you might check out Media Center. I've been using it for a couple of years now (since the days when it was called "Media Jukebox") to store and catalog all of my music. I can't even remember the last time I played an actual CD. It has OK visualizations, but its library management is the best I've found (smokes WMP and that MusicMatch crap). And it's pretty cheap.

Also, regarding your wireless keyboard. I use an RF Logitech one, and it intermittently disconnects too. It's weird. It's got a combo mouse/keyboard receiver unit, and the mouse always works fine. But the keyboard for some reason drops it's connection. Usually even resetting it (pushing the little red button) doesn't fix the situation. I usually have to reboot. Maybe there's a driver update or something. I dunno. Just a heads-up.

AAC AIFF AU AA APE AVI BMP BPL CDA DIVX GIF JPG MPL MID MPC MP3 M1V JMX OGG PNG MOV MP4 QT RAM RA RM SMIL RV SWF SHN WMA

AAC AIFF AU AA APE AVI BMP BPL CDA DIVX GIF JPG MPL MID MPC MP3 M1V JMX OGG PNG MOV MP4 QT RAM RA RM SMIL RV SWF SHN WMA

AAC AIFF AU AA APE AVI BMP BPL CDA DIVX GIF JPG MPL MID MPC MP3 M1V JMX OGG PNG MOV MP4 QT RAM RA RM SMIL RV SWF SHN WMA

My lib is 55GB now, and not cluggy at all.

My library is 1TB+ of mp3, ogg, rm, mov, avi. iTunes dies horribly trying to catalogue it but Media Center manages it very well, even if it does take a few hours. Then it scores extra brownie points by serving up its catalogued library (within seconds) including playlists to other Media Center Clients, either over LAN or WAN.

iTunes sets the bar here, as far as anything I've tried on Windows

You obviously haven't tried Media Center yet then?

Aside from static playlists, Media Center has SmartLists that are more flexible then the ones in iTunes.

iTunes schmeyechoonz, I am not interested in dinky little audio eyecandy, I want to know how the new WinAmp fares against some real competition, like Media Center. Can anyone with experience of both comment?

I take exception to the "nobody else comes close" part. J. River's Media Center has been doing everything iTunes offers for years, and with much more of the versatility that /. readers seem to crave than iTunes will ever give you. Yet if you're really attached to the look of iTunes, someone made a dupe.

enjoyed sharing playlists with other iTunes users in the building for weeks now

As a J River Media Center User, I've been enjoying sharing playlists, audio, and video streaming and transcoding for years now. Welcome to the party. Tell me when iTunes grows up a bit to the point where it can handle rich, varied media.

I built this out of cannibalized parts last January 2003. I suppose by now you could probably double the media storage for the same cost -- there's a lot of rebates for PATA drives around.

Supermicro P6DBE (1997 vintage)
2xP3 600MHz

Adaptec 1940UW SCSI
Software RAID 1
x2 36GB Seagate SCSI drives
(web server)

1GB ECC PC100 RAM

x1 WD1600JB PATA drive
(apps)

Promise SX6000
Hardware RAID 5
x6 WD1600JB PATA drives
(media server)

ATI Rage Pro
(it's a server!)
Antec 1040SX Case

Antex True480 - 480 Watt PSU

Basically, all I bought new were the drives, the case, and the PSU. Total cost below $1300. Serves several thousand visitors a day, peaked at 30K hits for a while following a Slashdotting. CPU usage peaks around 20%. Using J River's Media Center, I've tested it serving 6 simultaneous 720x480 DIVX streams to clients over LAN and WAN with no problems.

These chumps spent 3 times what I did, and they don't even have disk redundancy. Who let the dogs out?

Of course, Apple would be wrong. You can use J River's Media Center v9.1 to manage your iPod (along with other music, photos, etc).

It actually uses QuickTime's own routines to work with AAC (M4A, M4P) files both on your computer and on the iPod. You just have to send one purchased song to your iPod with iTunes, and then MC will be able to manage any other purchased music (iTunes creates an authorization file once on your iPod).

All I use iTunes for is buying songs. MC9 handles everything else music-related on my computer.

I have a large MP3 collection all sorted into directories by Genre/Artist/AlbumName/Tracks. I just want to move up and down the directories and select a starting point to play at and just go.

MJ has had the "make a playlist out of query parameters" feature for years, but takes it further: you can define custom fields in the database and search on them (though to be fair, iTunes already includes the things I used those custom fields for.) More importantly, its notion of (non-dynamic) playlists is much more flexible -- you can use a song's presence on a static playlist as a query parameter for a smartlist. I've come to think of playlists as a way of attaching attributes to songs. It's a much more flexible, nuanced way to represent things like genre, where multiple values can easily apply to a song.

there are lots of things you can do with smart playlists, but to get any sort of genuine boolean logic in there requires scripting. you can't do that with the smart playlist interface.

MJ has had the "make a playlist out of query parameters" feature for years, but takes it further: you can define custom fields in the database and search on them (though to be fair, iTunes already includes the things I used those custom fields for.) More importantly, its notion of (non-dynamic) playlists is much more flexible -- you can use a song's presence on a static playlist as a query parameter for a smartlist. I've come to think of playlists as a way of attaching attributes to songs. It's a much more flexible, nuanced way to represent things like genre, where multiple values can easily apply to a song.

Within less than a minute, I had achieved what I'd never been able to achieve between two Windows boxes with WMP.

32 average HDTV streams (at 20Mb/s), or 23 high-quality HDTV streams (at 27Mb/s), or 106 average DVDs (at 6Mb/s), or 71 high-quality DVDs (at 9Mb/s), or 2500 average mp3s (at 256kb/s), or 444 uncompressed audio CDs (at 1.441Mb/s) ... MC9 lives on the server along with a pair of M-Audio 24/96 DiOs and the built-in SP/DIF on the motherboard. This gives me 3 SP/DIF zones and 2 analog zones. I talk to the server from my airpanel running the Lobby suite. From here I can launch DVDLobby and tell it to launch a movie on one of the htpcs. Or I can just launch MC9 and start different playlists to any of the 5 zones that eminate from the rack closet. I can also launch MC9 on any of the media clients and they then connect to the main MC9 library on the server. I can also launch any member of the lobby suite from these clients.