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Windows Media Player 10 Beta Released

Posted by simoniker on from the music-to-ears dept.

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?"

15 of 326 comments (clear)

  1. This instead of MS Eula's... by Soulfarmer · · Score: 5, Funny

    "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?
    1. Re:This instead of MS Eula's... by xsupergr0verx · · Score: 5, Funny

      that the technical beta release does not have the stability of released Microsoft software...

      That could swing either way. But I think they mean it in the bad way. Shame, I got excited for a minute.

      --

      Click here for a free picture of an iPod!
    2. Re:This instead of MS Eula's... by blowdart · · Score: 5, Informative

      only reason I upgraded windows media player to version 9 was because the Halo 2 teaser trailer would only work on version 9 so that was reason enough for me to upgrade.

      If you were running 7 you shouldn't have needed to upgrade. The WM9 codecs work within MP7 and would have automatically downloaded and installed the first time you played WM9 content.

    3. Re:This instead of MS Eula's... by kaschei · · Score: 5, Informative

      Foobar 2000 for all your audio needs.
      BSPlayer for all your video needs.
      Koepi's codec pack for all your codec needs.

      --
      I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. -Henry David Thoreau
    4. Re:This instead of MS Eula's... by badasscat · · Score: 5, Insightful

      >And WHO needs MS mediaplayers anyhow...
      Have any pointers to alternatives ?

      Plenty of alternatives exist, it depends on what you want to do. I think the idea that anyone would use one "media player" for everything is just stupid - at least when it's a company out for its own interest releasing the player (as opposed to, say, an open-source free software project designed to collate as many formats as possible into one application).

      I would never use an MS media player to rip anything. I use EAC/LAME for that.

      I would never use an MS media player to play back mp3's. I use iTunes for that, and it works great - so well, in fact, that apart from needed performance tweaks I doubt Apple or anyone else will ever be able to release a better player for this purpose.

      I would never use an MS media player to play back QuickTime files - in fact you can't use it for this, as far as I know of. I use QuickTime to play its native format.

      I would never use an MS media player to play DVD's. I use WinDVD for that, and it has a lot more DVD playback options than WMP - it's not even close. There is absolutely nothing WMP offers over any of the standalone DVD player apps out there.

      In fact, really the *only* thing I would use WMP for is to play back Windows Media files. And I do use Windows Media whenever I do video capture, partly because the Windows Media 9 codec is a nice codec that supports ultra-high resolution as well as 5.1 surround sound, and also because MS gives away a very nice little free video capture and encoder utility called Windows Media Encoder. This is an example where MS is actually providing me something of value, and so I use it.

      So I'm not seeing WMP is useless, just that it can never be a jack-of-all-trades, especially with this "DRM 10" built into it (DRM 10? There have been 9 other versions of this?). There is no such thing as a "media player" as far as I'm concerned (I never got mplayer to play all the formats I wanted in Linux either!); there are only mp3 players, DVD players, "windows media" players, Real players, QuickTime players, etc. Each player with its own native format; it's own specialization that it does best, and that gives you the most freedom to use your media as you see fit. All of these companies want to monopolize your media, and you'd be stupid to give up that control to them.

      Oh, I also just find it really silly that everyone is now building "media players" to act as web browsers - but only to their online music store addresses! This isn't "integration", this is just a stupid web page rendered in the player window! I can navigate with my own damn browser, thank you - this is another function that media players just should not have.

      (yes, I've disabled the music store in iTunes - no way I'd pay 99 cents for a DRM-encrusted song anyway.)

  2. I Wish by Walker2323 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:I Wish by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      I've found Winamp 5 stealing 99% of my CPU when it's asked to load a file (any file, MP3, PLS, M3U, anything) from a directory containing a very large amount (1000+) of subdirs and files. It doesn't release CPU until you kill it or hit escape, after which it will take a few minutes for it to close the open diag. The GUI type doesn't matter.

      I still use it sometimes, when I want to output something using a Winamp-specific DSP plugin, but Foobar 2000 is MUCH better than Winamp at almost everything except player attractiveness (which I don't care much for). It's the best audio playback program on any OS (this, coming from a Mac OS X and Linux user). For audio, Foobar is the player to beat.

      For video on Windows, I stick with Media Player Classic. All you have to do to play almost anything you want is download MPC, ffdshow, Fraunhofer's MPEG-2 codec, QuickTime, RealAlternative, the WMP9 codec pack, and ac3filter. Bam, complete freebie multimedia on Windows without Microsoft's phone-home garbage, and since you're not using the QT Player, there's no reason not to use the official QT download instead of QT Alternative. (It still surprises me that MS can get away with phoning home to a Microsoft server every time you highlight a QuickTime MOV file in Windows Explorer....it's as if it's checking for a codec just so it can display the miniature preview, but WMP hasn't supported direct decoding of the QuickTime format since WMP 6.4. What they really get is the name and filesize of the MOV you're trying to open, even if you're just trying to double-click it from inside a folder so that the real QuickTime Player opens it.)

      Yecch, WMP can suck mine twice.

  3. Innovation opportunities in media players by gsasha · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. torrent link by ender1598 · · Score: 5, Informative

    torrent link

    --
    There are 10 kinds of people in the world; those that understand binary and those that do not.
  5. Cringe factor by x3ro · · Score: 5, Funny

    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 ]
  6. Re:"What, me compete?" asks Bill (rhetorically). by xsupergr0verx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You know, you are absolutely right. When the next chimaera from Redmond is released with the WMP10 music store, it is going to get some serious use out of the average PC user. These technophobes are going to use the obviously inferior MS service just because it is already there and they are afraid of being sued by using anything else (even if they pay for it!).

    A testament to that is looking at your less savvy friends'/family members'/co-workers' computers and staring at IE. Even if you tell them of alternatives, they are terrified to install it. One even asked me if Firefox was legal to use, because it wasn't Microsoft!

    You have a long way to go folks.

    --

    Click here for a free picture of an iPod!
  7. Just RTFA... by ErichTheWebGuy · · Score: 5, Funny

    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
  8. Re:alternatives by andi75 · · Score: 5, Informative
    Media Player Classic is quite lightweight (1.2 MB standalone exe), and seems to play just about anything, provided you have the necessary codecs installed.

    - Andreas

  9. Re:So is WMP 9 for OS X new? by wibs · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yup, WMP9 has been out for Macs for ages.

    There is a non-redundant part of this post, though. For those who don't want WMP anywhere near their mac, MPlayer is an excellent open source alternative that handles all kinds of video formats, and is overall a great player. Its WMV support is kind of shaky, but most files still play.

    And because I'm on the subject, I might as well point out VLC, which in my opinion is the best all-around player for the Mac. It doesn't handle WMV files, though =-\.

    --
    If you get nervous, just remember that there are a few billion other people who don't really give a damn.
  10. Re:Amazing! by obeythefist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ahh... but you see, all new Windows PC's will come with this software installed, just like they came with MSIE. So at first it didn't seem like anything really because there were so many PC's around without MSIE on it. And nobody would go out of their way to upgrade or download MSIE, you're right about that.

    To paraphrase a little if I may... "and after that, many people will still use Netscape, Mosaic..."

    Kazaa and Gnutella will never come integrated into Windows. Although it would be, potentially, one of the most comical and entertaining battles of our lifetimes to see MS head to head with the RIAA, the world doesn't work that way.

    Winamp can integrate Napster, iTunes, everything in the world if it wants to, but that will never change the very same fact that destroyed Netscape.

    Winamp is not bundled with Windows.

    --
    I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.