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Windows Media Player 10 Beta Released
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft today officially announced the public availability of Windows Media Player 10 Technical Beta. These screenshots reveal how Microsoft is integrating music service subscriptions such as Napster and video service subscription from CinemaNow. Is Microsoft trying to start competing with iTunes with this new music service integration?"
"Warning!
This is a technical beta release. Before you decide whether to install this software, it is important to understand that the technical beta release does not have the stability of released Microsoft software..."
MS should use that everywhere. And WHO needs MS mediaplayers anyhow...
-Is the meaning of life vanity, or is vanity the meaning of life?
I wonder how many metric shit-tons of spam, bugs, backdoors, and spyware are loaded in this version? I'll stick with WinAMP, thanks.
I wish Microsoft was spending a bit more time on toning down the bloat-ware aspect of this piece of software. I've got a nice fast Athlon XP processor and a gig of RAM etc... and WMP still takes 3 or 4 seconds to get going. Not a big deal, I guess, but come on. By 1998 standards I've got a freakin' supercomputer.
But really, are there any significant innovations possible in media players except for infinitesimal interface polishing? (DRM doesn't count as a feature ;)
I get a feeling they're almost there.
I noticed on the same page that I could get WMP 9 for OS X. I would have sworn that was not there before, as I wanted to view the Epson Print Acadamy and it needed WMP9, which I could not find at the time - now the sample video works just fine whereas before I could not get video. Epson had also mentioned to me via support email that Microsoft was going to release WMP9 sometime at the end of March.
The wierd thing about that is that when you download WMP9 for OS X, the installer is dated October 27th, 2003. A suspicious person would speculate that Microsoft wants to make sure the Mac lags a version behind Windows for WMP support, and they would not release the final version of WMP9 for OS X until WMP10 was ready for beta test.
Note that this WMP9 also claims to support the same DRM as Windows WMP9. I have no such protected files to test against so I don't know how well that works.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
torrent link
There are 10 kinds of people in the world; those that understand binary and those that do not.
There are certainly lots of good ideas that we, as a community, can build into mplayer through our own innovations.
I wonder if once its fully released if microsoft will say that there is a major flaw in previous version of media players and force people to upgrade to the newer version. With the latest computer viruses people are applying patches without really understanding the impacts of what functionality they introduce like the newer versions of DRM. Maybe this is how microsoft envisage migrating users to DRM.
on my wb brwsing computer doesnt mean I dont want to use it.
Im not going to web-browse on my htpc am I??
of couse the donload link only works in IE, on xp
There's something about seeing a neutered, paid-for-only Napster window inside Windows Media Player that makes me cringe. That it should come to this. I'll be sticking to SoulSeek.
[ UNSIGNED NOT NULL ]
Anyway, anything from Microsoft has a catch. Music distribution is a minor target, and though they don't want to leave any crumbs on the table, that's not the place to look for interesting hooks. The place I'd look involves the next big target, Web searching. There are probably some interesting new hooks here for Microsoft to tie their search results to. Obvious targeting support here would be offering ways to bypass the Web pages for media-related hits, and just hooking them directly to MediaPlayer. Any gurus looking for those yet?
I really don't see any grounds for optimism in the computer industry these days. If Microsoft crushes Google, they'll just continue their evil ways. If Google survives the onslaught, they'll start abusing their power. Not a certain bet, but close enough.
Today's weird thought: Primary underlying causes of evil.
- Selfish greed
- Ignorance
- Laziness
And have a nice day.Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
this runs on linux.
----
Go canucks, habs, and sens!
Taking a look at those screenshots and hearing the new features, I really don't think I'm going to be installing that s--t on my computer.
:-(
Is there a plain-jane alternative? Something like foobar, but which can play video? I use foobar because of its standard looking interface.
Sigh. I don't want storefronts in my software
Is it uninstallable? I mean, after seeing the _last_ foray of MS into the Media Player market, it had better be removable.
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
It doesn't leave enough room for the new clock!
----
Go canucks, habs, and sens!
Well, if there isn't one now, who's to say what future WMP9 updates will carry in their picnic basket?
I wish Epson would have figured that out when I tried to use their site two months ago and contacted their support people! "WMP9 is not out yet for the Mac", they said... talk about being behind the times! Not that I'm any better.
Thanks for the correction.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Microsoft: All your rights are belong to us!
Community: What you say!
Microsoft: You have no chance to survive make your time!
Community: For great justice!
Microsoft: Ha Ha Ha Ha
bash: rtfm: command not found
...is how I described the performance of Media Player 8 on my PII-400MHz, when it first came out. But Media Player 9 also runs sluggishly on my P4-3GHz. I hope that the Microsoft coders have actually followed the 80/20 rule and made some efficiency improvements in this release, because having to wait 2-3 seconds after double clicking a media file is not good enough. I guess that is why Winamp 2 is so popular - launch the media file and it instantly starts playing.
Please don't send a Word document when a text file will do the job.
And WHO needs MS mediaplayers anyhow...
Actually, with WM9, video quality seems to be consistently better than MPEG or DivX files of the same size. So, yeah, it's very reasonable for someone to use WM.
It seems that everything released nowadays is beta. "Beta" is the new trend just like using years for version numbers was the trend in the 90's. Just wait for this: Windows Media Player X - Beta 2004 Then it will be complete.
download games I make at: http://www.shippysite.com
and those people will be modded up. I haven't used media player at all in years ..... and well this version .... will not be changing that.
go Winamp... it really kicks the llama's ass.
actually I am happy to see you, however that is in fact a banana in my pocket.
Yeah, I agree, because looks are just what I worry about in my beta software
(?)
Screw you all! I'm off to the pub
From the article:
this technical beta lays the groundwork for the great end-to-end digital media experience coming with the final release for Windows XP
I do believe I will be forced to struggle to contain my excitement...
bash: rtfm: command not found
... it's not an essential part of the OS core??? hey, I wonder how did all those Windows users live (still do, as a matter of fact) without the amazing multimedia experience that comes with WMP10 ... err ... will come .... nevermind.
Oh well, you can bet they are building Longhorn around this baby as we speak, anyway - at least as far as the DOJ is concerned.
Has nobody noticed the great implications of this?
Finally MS is leveraging the Windows Media Player monopoly! This fits in nicely with their ongoing world domination plans.
iTunes is getting loads of publicity lately. And iTunes is being used on many Windows PC's! This is not what Bill Gates likes.
But Bill knows that every Windows has his media player on it. Why not make it so that you can buy Bills media files online which will only play with Bills player than will only run on Bills O/S? And let's make it so that when you launch Bills OS it pops up Bills media player that connects instantly to Bills online music download service? Why not have the payments bundled with MSN which is bundled on the OS?
This would be nice for Bill. Especially when he has about 90% of desktops in the wild.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
When will they learn? If people pay for a "service", they expect to own what they pay for. The obvious exceptions might be something like netflix where you have to return the physical media to get new ones... simple, elegant, or Tivo, where you're really paying for enhanced scheduling, and you can own it if you want.
It's pretty clear that M$ is shooting in the dark, hoping to find some hit, while they make bank off their other products. They have time, they can wait pretty much forever.
1) Enter a section of the software market with a new Microsoft product.
2) Include it free with Windows, thereby eliminating the competition's ability to compete because users are too lazy to download competing software.
3) Profit.
4) When the DoJ gets upset, pay them off by offering to donate massive amounts of Microsoft software to schools, thereby leading students to learn Microsoft software rather than competing products.
5) Profit more.
6) Repeat.
- New skin (who cares? I play music and movies on it, not look at decorated borders)
:-P)
- Integrated online stores (I really think these should be on the web instead of in the player... anyway, I won't use them since they probably just offer WMA, being in Microsoft's player)
- Enhanced device support (nice feature, but I don't have a NOMAD or Lyra player so no reason to use this for that either)
- Improved All-in-One Smart Jukebox (not sure how much this would help me since other players already support media libraries... this feature alone would probably not make me switch anyway
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I think I'll stick with:
bash: rtfm: command not found
Do you bychance own a Volkswagen or Apple products? I mean, my first observation was that it's slow....
Click here for a free picture of an iPod!
But that's kinda worthless. Microsoft has massive bandwidth themselves, and most of their downloads are hosted by Akamai who has even more bandwidth, not to mention cache engines at many ISPs. Torrents are cool if it is some small site that can't handle Slashdot, but for big sites like MS, Apple, etc it's pretty worthless. They can, and regularly do, deal with worse. A bunch of geeks, many of them running Linux and thus not intrested, are nothing compared to the millions of copies of Windows grabbing stuff on patch day.
still lacking ogg support. The 'new' GUI looks more bloated than before, and what's up with this sudden support for Napster?
Also, why do companies think that making an app look like fruitella is better? So far the only reason why i ever installed WMP is because of the stick figure plugin/theme/whateverMScallsIt.
No, if you want a decent media player for windows, then i recommend using media player classic, which has all the (important) features and none of the extras that you can live without.
If you have a fast system. I wonder how my P3 600 would take all this new MS skinning if I was running Windows.
I'm Looking foward to this "free" hardware MS and Sun keeps talking about. With all this glitter MS keeps putting in their stuff it looks like a lot of people will need this free upgrade in order to run notepad.exe.
Use OSS Media Player Classic
I hate to sound cynical but the Microsoft Multimedia Transport Protocol (MTP) seems to be silently screaming the word "vulnerability." I know it's just to connect devices, but I have a feeling that somehow, some way, it's got some sort of security issues that are going to surface shortly after its released.
The level of integration is getting to ridiculous proportions.
I hated having media files playing in my browser; the interface is terrible, and crippled. I hated opening PDFs in my browser; it's harder to read that way (less screen-space to read in) and they often hide important controls too. I hated Flash in my browser; I can disable GIF animations, but Flash gives me no control at all, plus the security problems, and added annoyance of all ads being massively animated, and having sound...
Now, to add insult to injury, instead of integrating the applications inside the browser, they are putting the browser inside the programs. Good god man! You can't tell me that isn't going to be MASSIVELY annoying and cumbersome.
Screw them all. All applications launched from my browser open in a seperate window of their own, and do whatever I tell them to do. All of my browsing is done outside of my unrelated applications, and that's the way it's going to stay.
Screw you Microsoft guys, I'm going home.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Not even.
Microsoft is conscious enough of their security track record that if security issues are found in their previous players, they'll patch it without requiring you to upgrade.
They might *like* you to, but they are a bit more image conscious now.
You know what? I think it's about time for a name change.
Windows Media Player --> Windows Media Restrictor
I rather like it, but that's because I used the Color Chooser (in Enhancements) to make it look less gaudy and blend in with my windows and winamp skins.
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
Nice troll, gave me a burst of fun! Keep going good work, c'mon make me smile!! Anyway, a little bit more of substance wouldn't harm your message at all! ciao
A lot of people out there want to organise their music better. Why would you have such a bulky looking program as WMP 10, which doesn't organise your music. Sure, iTunes is bulky, but it is truly intuitive. I made the switch from Winamp 3 to iTunes just before I bought my iPod, and havent looked back. WMP 8 has been collecting dust for ages. There needs to be a decent reason to warrant downloading this update, I just see it as a waste of time, not just to clutter your screen with more ads. Sure, Microsoft may be planning on organising data better in Longhorn, but how many years away is that now?
I was looking for this and it's an AWESOME alternative! VERY GOOOD WORK DONE HERE!
No. No they aren't.
Dialog... (Score:0, Offtopic)
How is this offtopic? It only describes the struggle to retain our digital media rights, in contrast to Microsoft always trying to steal them from us, beautifully tied in with the 'all your base' phenom. I shoudl think that the parent deserves +5 Insightful, or at the very least +5 Funny.
Hell even Xine could whoop up on this bad boy.
WMP10 is bloated like hell.
Start it and you got tons of flashing stuff everywhere and tons of buttons.
Hey, the main purpose of such a tool is to play media files. Even finding the "play", "stop" and volume buttons is now difficult.
That's getting ridiculous.
{{.sig}}
It's good to see that they've moved it back into a more-or-less rectangular window, instead of that horrible amorphous blob from the last 3 versions. On the downside, now they'll probably patent the use of right angles in a user interface.
So, I thought the same way for a while after to dot com boom, but then I started seeing things like:
Google (you can't innovate on search, can you?)
Halo (aren't all FPSs the same?)
iPod (nuff said)
Here's a good example from my weekend at an outdoor music festival: Can you innovate on a honey bucket? I saw for the first time a giant 6 person urinal trough. No waiting in long lines, not being closed in a nasty smelling booth, and most of all it opend up the others for people who needed them.
I guess what I'm getting at is that just when you think something is as good as it's going to get - someone will find a way to make it better and profit from it. Even honey buckets.
Are there alternatives to WMP? I mean with all the codecs and formats? I don't mind the UI, it just has to play everything.
I hate to tell you this, but every MS Media player after Mediaplayer 7.1 has integrated DRM.
Which is why i'll never upgrade past 7.1, or Win2k for that matter; DRM/phone home/ etc is the birds, a INTEGRATED security weakness.
I'm a MCSE, but i'll NEVER go along with this crap, i'm just glad I started techie life in the Unix community.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
Wow! It is another me-too product that will be used by most of PC users.
MS kills others as usual.
Why don't they bring their own ideas?
Anybody else still use that program?
What about Media Player Classic?
No offense to the beta junkies, but the bloat starting in mplayer7 really turned me away from the new versions. I'm sure there are some neat features tucked away, but 10 beta just looks like more of the same. I'll just quitely wait for the codec release & then be on my way.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
that the technical beta release does not have the stability of released Microsoft software...
Released Microsoft software doesn't have stability either so what is the big deal?
flinging poop since 1969
Who wants to start a pool on how long it will be before we see Wormster?
hum i still use old mplayer2. hey dont need kinky stuff hehehe
Already happening. The EU anti-trust investigation was around media player. However that seems driven mostly by Real's sour grapes ("People don't use real because WMP is on the desktop". No, people don't use real because it's been a bloated heap of spyware driven shit, with an awful set of codecs).
"The Auto Sync feature was developed to enable users to quickly and easily take the content they want, wherever they want."
except wherever and whenever DRM won't allow it of course.
Someone could be in for a rude shock!
They call that integration! Come on, it's just an embedded web browser. Web-based stores are designed (and I use that term loosely) for use in a web-browser. For M$'s own sake I hope they can come up with better 'Store' integration for WMP in terms of design and usability else they're just giving the marekt to iTunes. Then again, Microsoft do know their market, and it's not one driven by innovation.
If anyone is interested in WMP10 and other betas of Microsoft software, you may be interested in www.betaone.net
We will also be releasing a repackaged installer allowing WMP10 to run on Windows Longhorn and Win2k3 systems, within the next hour.
Also, the obsession with hierarchical tree lists? Is it really necessary to know that my music resides under the "All Music" node? This creates so much dead (not negative, that would mean it's useful) space and nasty horizontal scrollbars. Interface wise the Windows and Office teams at Microsoft have come leaps and bounds with XP and Office 2003, respectively. But the Windows Media Div. seems to be really hung up on the technical bits and providing a shitty user experience. I hope they redesign for the final release. I was really hoping that they'd shape up WMP interface wise with this version. It's the place the player is lacking most. WMP continues to be all geewhiz skinning with absolutely no design discipline. Save that crap for the hobbyists at Deviant Art.
_nfotxn
Look at this picture:
.. album cover? .. at the top.
.. they don't "get" it at all!
screenshot
That's just ugly. The crappy graphical circular thing (I guess it moves to the music?). The badly-contrasted buttons with text RIGHT in the center between dark and light, impossible to read or decipher (thanks MS, for making my monitor look like it has glare on it, ALL THE TIME!) The useless empty space to the right with a
If they are trying to copy apple they need to just please give up
No mention of CD-Text support. Why won't Microsoft add this?
Winamp 5 also does this. You can also search the file-location and whatever really. If you wish. It's your choice. If this goes for the *crappy* Winamp 3, I dunno.
I see some people here have issues with WA5, but I must admit I have never had any problems whatsoever. Maybe I'm just lucky...
The search however is pretty neat. You still get to filter by artist and album and whatnot if the search-results are to "overwhelaming".
Sorry guys, but I like WA5. A lot. I'll hvae WA instead of iTunes anyday.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
Its TOTAL crap... VLC from www.videolan.org 60% faster at rendering most wmv files in fullscreen stretch mode under Mac OS X 10.3.x compared to latet MS Windows bloatware class-happy garbage.
Try it yourself!!!! openup a high-rez (640x480) wmv using VLC and do it again under Microsofts while running OSX.
Miscrosoft only displays EVERY OTHER VIDEO FRAME and also has tearing and other anololies.
VLC is fast and smooth and does not need to install anything in the OS, and does not require a reboot to install.
MS is doomed.
They pay as little as they can for their engineers and contractors and it shows.
It works fine with MANY versions of WMV !!!
And it plays 60% faster in full screen mode.
(MS drops every other frame and also has video tearing).
Asstraffic.com sells wmv and VLC has always played them fine.
And months ago when I first tried MS Media player 9 for osx i gagged, and a few minutes ago i tried it again and gagged and laughed.
its utter crap compared to the more-optimized code in the free VLC player.
VLC is awesome (though violates many patents)
Yeah, it doesn't help that the people whining usually have inferior products. Sorry, but at the time of Netscape 4, IE was simply a better browser (portability issues aside). It wasn't until reletively recently that Mozilla pulled ahead in my mind.
Apple might be able to make a better case because they actually have a quality product that people like. In Netscape or Real's case, you could shrug it off by saying "They only lost because their products sucked, not because Microsoft exploited its monopoly.". Not here.
Parent contains Informative links to WMP alternatives.
Uhm, how exactly is the OP trolling here, moderators? I've got a buck that says the moderator calling this a troll is from the Windows world.
:)
It makes perfect sense to me, and it goes hand in hand with those of us wanting to see less bloat and more functionality. For example, my (audio) media player? Its the ext2fs filesystem (how I organize my audio "libraries"), midnight commander (how I browse and select what I want to hear), and ogg123 (the codec). Works like a charm, and you certainly can't say its bloated.
I mean, just where exactly is it written (other than the Good Book of Microsoft) that the media player (audio or even video) *has* to be a bloated, glitzy, graphical app to be *functional*? Geez...
"Is Microsoft trying to start competing with iTunes with this new music service integration?"
- Competitor has great idea/product/service
- Copy idea/product/service
- 'Extend' it to the point that it ruins everybody's freedom and/or enjoyment
- throw some money in to hide that
profit
From the perspective of the commercial software developer (at least for those that develop for the desktop environment), everything in software in now about garnish (= the way the software looks) and locking users into regular payment schemes, be that through DRM or software rental licensing.
It used to be that a major release upgrade meant a core functionality change in software - nowadays, it's just about a prettier look. For example, take a look at Powerquest's PartitionMagic software - from v7.0 to v8.0, I see no core functionality changes, just a slightly different look and feel. The same is true going from Windows 2000 to Windows XP - it's all just about a GUI change.
Unfortunately, version numbers are now just marketing tools to attract "fashion-conscious" users to using your software while, at the same time, introducing yet more bloat so that they also stay in the hardware upgrade cycle.
The whole Windows applications / PC thing is a global conspiracy to keep you spending money on hardware and software, nothing more.
One of the major advantages of the OSS movement is that every user has the opportunity to customise their computer environment and to trade off bloat against speed - provided that those same users start thinking for themselves a little and not just blindly consume every piece of hardware and software marketing hype that gets thrown at them.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
You can get the old look in a couple clicks. And you're complaining about the bloat caused by a SKIN?!
And generally, yes, new versions need a new looking UI. Otherwise most people would never know that they got a new version and would keep bitching about how long it's been since a new version of ___ came out (or how nothing's changed/improved in the new version.
Imonna Live Forever!"
You can get the old look in a couple clicks. And you're complaining about the bloat caused by a SKIN?!
No... if anything, it's the otherway around. Thr skinned media player is slowed down and bloated by the shitload of crap that comes with the main media player.
And generally, yes, new versions need a new looking UI. Otherwise most people would never know that they got a new version and would keep bitching about how long it's been since a new version of ___ came out (or how nothing's changed/improved in the new version.
And who'se fostered this kind of mentality in people? MS et al, that's who, releasing stupid new interfaces for each new version of their product. It's totally unnecessary in most cases, and really stupid to make that argument that this is necessary because 'otherwise people wouldn't upgrade'. They would, in fact, because it'd be installed on all new versions of Windows. But besides, who gives a SHIT if they don't upgrade? If they don't want to, they don't have to!
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
I can't see how a media player (player, not organiser downloader etc etc) would ever need a graphical user interface. If you can see the UI instead of the film, it is in the way. If you are looking at the UI instead of listening to the music, it is in the way.
A point you illustrate well is that the individual functions of a microsoft-style media player would be far better performed by individual applications in the 'do one thing well' model. For example, I do not want an audio/video application to have to know how to manage lists of thousands of files - it is likely to perform this task poorly since it is not designed for it. A media player should be able to play a media file. (But then giving away the useful stuff was never in their business model).
mc - what's wrong with ls, bloat-lover?
Why not take it a step further and use Linux? I do and haven't looked back.
You have to use reverse psychology you super intelligent being!
I know you are psychotic, but please make an effort.
Without trying to sound like a slashdot parrot, all they've basically done is stolen the shiny plastic feel from Apple, and added some content integration via napster and the other one. And some mobile support. Let's hope this one doesn't have a glaring exploit that 8(?) did, which allowed web pages to open the WMPlayer object, replace the exe with a trojan, and right royally shaft your machine (including deleting taskmgr.exe - now that really is evil!!)
Nothing costs nothing
Windows Media as well as Realplayer have become bloated, ad-invested, more than you need, annoying to start, ugly-interface software. When I need to download any of these to play something, and there is no other "clean" alternative, I will just opt not to play it and I'll be all the more happier. Who needs the info overload. I don't have to have it!!!
However, I'd avoid codec packs if possible. They usually install outdated versions of codecs, as well as multiple handlers for different compression schemes. It becomes a nightmare to track and control which codec is used for whatever media.
It's far simpler and more reliable to install the codecs you need. DivX, XviD and an AC3 audio filter cover most of the ones you don't get on a standard windows build.
I also install WMP just to get the WMV codecs that come with it. BSPlayer picks these up nicely.
iPodService (iPod management) 4.0MB
iTunesHelper (CD burning bridge) 4.0MB
iTunes.exe 33.0MB
In today's time and age, 40MB of RAM is a drop in the bucket. Most WinXP computers today ship with 512MB of RAM. Computer enthusiasts tend to boost that to upwards of 1GB.
The only time 40MB of RAM being consumed would be a problem is if you were running iTunes on a server, which is clearly not the target audience for the app.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
It may be trivial, but just because you have money to spare doesn't mean you should go out and by a car with low mileage. If i can do something with program y just as good as (or better than) i can with program x, all the while using less memory, why not do it? :9
There is noting wrong with it.
its our^H^H^H the best media player available!
what possible innovations could outshine that?
Anyone notice that WMP10 follows it's close predecessors in giving you the ability to not turn off the automatic checking for new updates? Instead you get "once a day," "once a week," and "once a month." (see flexbeta screenshots in parent article.)
I wonder if XP SP2's on-by-default firewall will automatically not block this update checking traffic? (sarcasm)
This post is not meant to Troll, but can't Microsoft release a post-WMP6.4-era media player that's not constantly calling home?
I mean, at least iTunes lets you turn off update checking and iTunes Internet usage in general...
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
Is it any better than its predecessors? Does it still call up home everytime one opens any file? Does it still have that RealPlayer like annoying webpage functionality which it insists on loading (and morosely slow at that!) everytime you launch it?
*sigh. I'd give an arm and leg to have a no-nonsense media player, but I'm still stuck with what is (in most cases), the best of the lot.
Oh yes, I have tried videolan
http://efil.blogspot.com/
I have been using it since the early 5 betas, never had one probelm. I keep it open all day.
What ever you say.
Hey Taco, can we have a new moderation category: "Sad" ?
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
"Is Microsoft trying to start competing with iTunes with this new music service integration?"
Yes, of course they are. Why wouldn't they ?
I've actually played around with Windows Media Player 9.0 on a relative's machine that has broadband Internet access. One thing I've noticed is that it runs very well in broadband, with very smooth streaming audio and video, even at near full-screen sizes.
I wonder is WMP 10 designed for Windows 2000 Professional and Windows XP users only.
FIXME: Add a sig here
Windows Media Player could playback Real Audio files. I like to listen to the BBC radio stations but the BBC won't use anything other than Real. Why should I have to install something so full of spyware just to listen to the radio? Windows Media Player works, WM10 is nearly 2x quicker on my Tablet than the previous version; it looks prettier, and it works. I like it.
PocketGamer.org - For the gamer on the go!
"Is Microsoft trying to start competing with iTunes with this new music service integration?"
Yes. Have you been living in a box for the past five years?
It's all about choice. I don't want to be forced to use a toasting rack and heating elements from the same manufacturer. I want choice. Choice is good! And when I turn my toaster off, I want to type
/dev/tst0]# unmount /mnt/toaster /dev/tst0]# halt
[user@localtoaster
[user@localtoaster
To me, that's the only way things should be shut off. Any other way shouldn't even be an option.
Don't bash products that are old versions if new ones are freely available.
WMP 9 was a good product. I used it all the time to catagorize over 2500 mp3s. A good tool is required to organize everything. Yeah, I'm clean and every artist and every album is in its neatly categorized directory. Now that I've switched to linux, I'm missing a program with the same functionality.
I'm using JuK right now. It comes bundled with KDE in the multimedia package. It does sort songs by their tags and does an okay job, but not as nicely as iTunes or WMP9. It is smaller though and doesn't take as many resources and it has a nice little icon in the tray. It would be smart of KDE to put more effort in this project as this is an application people would care about in terms of "I want to switch. Can I switch?"
Your best bet is a fantastic little program called Media Player Classic v6.4.8.2 by Gabest, which I first discovered as part of the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack.
All the cleanliness of WMP6, and even more functionality than WMP9! And yes, it's GPLed.
"But always she's the spectre of uncertainty I first endured, then faded, then embraced..."
Now Windows Update and BSA and HFNETCHK etc. will start whining once again that my servers, which have no sound cards and no possible use for anything "multimedia", desperately need a WMP upgrade. :-P
now this is a reason for an auti-trust lawsuit -teaming up with napster and then forcing every longhorn user to have windows media player 10 (therefore napster).
I wonder if Apple have the balls to sue them. Thing is, MS might lash out and start sueing everybody, and IBM and Novelmight sue MS, and then the end of the world might happen.
Ok, i'l drink less caffine before my next post...
I thought you're not allowed to call it MCSE anymore...
Frankly, Foobar2000 is a hella nice program, but it lacks one major thing: a media library. No, sticking all your stuff in one playlist is not the same thing. Also, I haven't found iTunes to be quite as slow as everybody seems to say, although its mem usage is pretty bad.
I dreaded using iTunes, but I had to use it to DJ for a party once, and now I haven't looked back. It is my main music player.
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
--Aristotle
It's common practice for OSS apps just as much.
"New KDE, with a few more sidebar buttons, a few more tiny apps beginning with K, and few changed gradients in our default theme!"
Obviously there are more changes under the hood that occur. You're being kind of unfair here, I think, to pretend you've seen a full changelog for WMP10, especially since it hasn't been released yet except in beta form.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Not a chance. I was so dismayed by the look, feel, and size of Microsoft's Media Player 9 that got downloaded when I was downloading patches that I restored the original one, deleted as much as it would let me (that integrated into the OS crap), and have used other media players since.
(Beta often means buggy - so I anticipate a few "security issues" to appear and patches to encumber it even further.)
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
It's about copyrights, patents and media control you moron. The content drives the codec and the codec with the most market share has the greatest potential for profit
The classic skin for wmp7+ is just a 'familiar' UI for a new program.
There is some code that is shared, but these are codecs and filters that are common to most windows media players, I think, IANA MSFT programmer.
mplayer2 is leaner, faster and better than the new wmps. But wmp9 is close, much better than the horrible ver7, and it supports newer wmvs that don't play under mplayer2. PLUS it has a media library and playlist support, both lacking in mp 6.4
Shinsengumi de gozaru
Well, maybe not automatically downloaded. But you can fetch them here for MP7 or MP6.4.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
You didn't need to get MP9. The WM9 codecs are available for download directly from MS. Works on either Media Player 7-series or 6.4. (Which means Media Player Classic.)
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
You didn't mention that any download page for it would be in Japanese. Sheesh...
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Yeah, I believe the medical term for it is lobotomy.
-- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
Hands down, Windows Media Player is has a much improvement in the GUI plus a few music services being integrated into the player.
:)
Uhmm..... huh? I'm very much in the dark as to whether the author thinks that WMP10 is an improvement or just a facelife and addition of a couple of new services?
Personally I want to see if my Rio Cali will be supported, though even if it is I think the music searching and handling in the Rio software is probably superior to the music handling in the WMP music library section. We'll see though, luckily right now I'm "stuck" on a mac at work
Windows Media Player 9 (which I think never exited the "beta"^H^H^H^H^usable stages) was uninstallable, once put on the system. One had to do a system restore to remove it.
Or, one could do a number of other things that were a bit more complicated--reinstall WMP 9 from a Windows Install CD, or (like I did) reinstall Windows altogether. My system is now happily using Media Player Classic, with some ancient version of WMP going unused somewhere.
If only they had added that Napster support in WMP 7 back in 2000. World could be better place now. :/
>>I thought you're not allowed to call it MCSE anymore...
>Yeah, I believe the medical term for it is lobotomy.
I call it the `payrise`. You can have a MS qualification AND be a good programmer, you know...
The competing products were worse partly because M$ could use it's monopoly revenue to cross-subsidize it's player development and also because the application developers had good access to the OS developers.
M$ and the competitors were writing the same thing but M$ is being paid a thousand times more for the same effort. Don't get me started about the player being "free" - if M$ wants to retain it's $35,000,000,000/year income stream for doing next to nothing it has to keep on locking out software competition it doesn't control.
---It's wrong that an intellectual property creator should not be rewarded for their work.
It's equally wrong that an IP creator should be rewarded too many times for the one piece of work, for exactly the same reasons.
Reform IP law and stop the M$/RIAA abuse.
Opera has some nice features, but the interface is so horrible I can't force myself to use it for long.
In addition, there are plenty of extensions to Firefox which add this functionality. Look for the configure button that you can add to the firefox toolbar.
As for "Back", I don't mind ATL+Left one bit... My problem is that you MUST press the Alt button on the left side of the keyboard, and Alt on the right-side will not work. If They both worked, I'd be happy, because alt is right next to the arrow keys, and I could navigate one-handed again. I don't know why they removed this feature that had been working in previous Navigator versions.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant