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Windows Media Player 10 Reviewed
An anonymous reader writes "Paul Thorrott reviews Windows Media Player 10 and notes that unlike Apple's iTunes Music Store, which offers music that is only compatible with Apple's iPod portable player, WMP 10 will work with songs from virtually any other online music store. There are more screenshots here with a download link." Reader Thomas Hawk writes "I wrote my Microsoft Windows Media Player 10 Review today the first day the software was released and one of the first reviews on the product. I basically give it good marks but there are definiately some things that they can still improve upon."
An anonymous reader writes "Since I'm somewhat wary of Microsoft's new software (particularly DRM-laden Media Player types,) I was paying attention to the EULA and privacy agreements provided when downloading the software. Ironically enough, the privacy page linked from the installer (at time of writing) merely said "TODO: Privacy policy goes here". Most certainly an honest mistake, but in the meantime it appears there is in fact no policy on privacy (or it has not yet been taken into consideration) in WMP10."
Clearly it's a superior means of enjoying musical content over having that annoying 100 gram iPod Mini which you can actually forget you have with you, because it requires no bulky computer or extension cord and that insidious battery will last for up to 8 hours.
Microsoft Windows Media Player 10, because your not going anywhere anyway.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
gasp
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"pain is weakness leaving the body."Paul Thorrott reviews Windows Media Player 10 and notes that unlike Apple's iTunes Music Store, which offers music that is only compatible with Apple's iPod portable player, WMP 10 will work with songs from virtually any other online music store.
Wtf does that mean? What does iTunes Music Store have to do with WiMP 10? iTunes (not the music store) can play mp3s, which means it's compatible with almost every other online music store too. It's just MS's WMA format that iTunes can't play, but neither can any other player anyways.
"In case of emergency, break glass. Scream. Bleed to death."
Does it support Ogg files in your playlist yet?
There must also be a page that says "TODO: Security policy goes here."
= +
If they just stuck to a media player that limits itself to, say, playing media, they wouldn't need a privacy policy.
I am a big Windows guy, so it hurts me to say I like iTunes better but I do. It doesn't really bother me that I cannot buy from other companies since I use mostly MP3's with iTunes anyways. If you are are really looking for a media player that can play different formats (including movies), I recomment WinAmp 5. It's better than Winamp 3, it plays multiple media, has a large plug in set to extend functionality and had a low overhead. Plus, I love the media library feature in WinAmp, which WMP never seems to get right, confirmed with my installation of the 10 beta.
anyone else still think the MSN music store looks just a tad like an existing one?
Anyone else a little nervous that they haven't gotten around to writing a privacy policy? That seems a bit disturbing, to say the least.
TODO:
Conspiracy theory goes here.
Songs bought from Windows Media Player based music stores work in and only in Windows Media applications such as WMP.
Songs bought from the iTunes Music Store work in and only in Quicktime applications such as iTunes.
Songs bought from mp3 based music stores work anywhere.
Didn't we all know this already?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Somebody was commenting on the interface in an earlier thread but I had no idea... MSN's opposing gradients from hell clash with the XP Luna scheme really, really badly.
Go look. Can you read those tabs at the top-right? Music... ra... radio... movies & tv?
Also - find the transport controls! They are hiding in the worst place possible, at the lower-left corner, which is exactly the last place your eye goes to when scanning the sea of text in the main window. This decision probably hinges on simply not making the thing look too much like iTunes.
God, I get angry just looking at this thing.
What is wrong with them? More money than God and they still can't manage to find a visual design that isn't completely retarded. Reversed text mixed with plain. Tabs - which don't look like tabs - separated by an arbitrary hierarchy. All controls with meaningful functions crammed into a too-small area at the bottom of the window, which sits mashed nicely against your taskbar, which is usually crammed with widgetry as well.
To say nothing of how the MSN Music Store works, I can say that iTunes (and WinAMP, and Audion) knock the shit out of this.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
That's the privacy policy for the BETA version of the MUSIC STORE. The privacy policy for WMP10 is here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/mp10 /privacy.aspx?locale=409&geoid=f4&version=10.0.0.3 646&userlocale=409/
one could look at it that way, or one could look at is as a mistake (engineers releasing product before lawyers had added their input?).
Recall that WMP 9 was probably MS's first instance where they started to make people's privacy important. During install, there is an explicit privacy step you have to go through, checking a number of boxes on whether to allow net connections to search for things, whether to use your media player's unique id, etc. And it wasn't set up like Real and all their hidden check boxes visible if you only scroll down. Very much visible and meant to be taken seriously. There's a very clear and visible "Privacy" tab in the options menu.
Have you read the review? The guy gushes all over the place about how wonderful Microsoft is, and how WiMP is "the best"! Where the hell did his head go? Some samples:
I am a Windows Media Player junkie. Having used the program for a number of years I think it is quite simply a brilliant piece of software - a masterpiece developed by extremely talented engineers in so many ways. Even more spectacular is that is free. Microsoft gives it away. If Microsoft didn't give this software away I'd gladly pay money for it. I love it.
Ugh. I feel so... dirty... after reading that.
Mp3 ripping. It's admirable that Microsoft finally listened to their users on this one and gave in. In all of the previous versions of Window's Media Player Microsoft forced you to rip your tunes to WMA. [...] Windows Media Player 10 fully supports mp3 ripping and high quality encoding at that. Kudos to Microsoft.
Something that iTunes has had... lemme see... forever?
The new "Composer" menu on the left hand window is a handy feature. Check it out. It's new and I love it. Want to create a Bob Dylan covers playlist? Select Dylan under the composer menu then sort the window by artist and select all but Bob Dylan as a performer and save it as a Bob Dylan covers playlist. Very simple, very easy.
More gushing + feature stolen from iTunes.
Ratings. WMP 10's rating system is first rate. [...] Microsoft developed a fine ratings system. How does this work? Rate each song you hear from one to five stars with a stroke of a right mouse click. Later when you are relaxing you can listen to only your favorite tracks.
That sounds great! Microsoft really outdid themselves by copying from iTunes^W^W^W innovating this really amazing feature! (end sarcasm)
Crossfading. In the past one of the things I hated most was that long silence between songs. One song would end and then prior to the next one there would be more silence.
WinAMP, iTunes, etc? Nope, it's a Microsoft invention don't you know.
Improved interface. Microsoft provided a much improved cosmetic overhaul to WMP 10. One of the things I like a lot in the libraries is that they color code (light blue and a lighter blue) between lines now making it easier to follow the data on a track across the screen.
Look at the screenshot on the page. It looks like crap. Usable, sure, but definitely not attractive.
Anyway, this "review" just hurts, so I'll stop there. I just wish we could rate this review '-1 Microsoft Leg Humper'.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
"WMP 10 will work with songs from virtually any other online music store
:)"
I guess "work" has become a very subjective word.
I'll second this. Read Walt Mossberg's WSJ review of the store -- he couldn't get music purchased from other WMP-based stores to play in WMP10.
This means that not only is WMP10 incompatible by definition with the vast majority of music sold online (70-80% of all music sold is through the iTunes Music Store, which is in protected AAC format not supported by WMP), it apparently won't play what little music is sold in protected WMA format, either.
Given that WMP10 apparently doesn't play any music ever sold online, I'd say that they have an uphill battle. I'm sure that MS and the MS-based retailers will eventually fix the problems that keeps WMP10 from playing the 20-30% of purchased music in MS-based formats. But since Microsoft's store isn't better than Apple's, and MS-based players aren't better than Apple's, about the only advantage that MS has is the ability to pre-install WMP on every copy of Windows. Of course, since Apple is doing deals with PC manufacturers to pre-install iTunes and iTMS on PC's as well, with any luck the market will at least stay competitive, to the benefit of customers...
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
Smart playlists, shared music, the native ability to burn/rip CDs, and iTMS come immediately to mind. Not to mention the fact that Winamp has security holes and is in general far more clunky. WA4 pissed me off; WA5 is better, but iTunes is still far and away the sleeker player. I started using WA with version 2, used 5 for a while, then tried iTunes and dumped WA about 2 weeks later.
I could care less about skinning or plug-ins. IMO when developers brag that their apps are skinnable or support plug-ins it tells me that they probably haven't paid as much attention to the core functionality, and have opened the app up to security vulnerabilities and instability. As a general rule I avoid skinnable apps.
Plus a whole bunch of people in my office (including) use iTunes and share their music; I can listen to their playlist with a single click. I've been able to check out music I hadn't been exposed to before when it is convenient for me.
You know, all the reviews pan Apple for providing their songs in a "proprietary" format, which is called AAC. AAC is actually a patent encumbered open standard.
Well, all the other stores, be they MSN Beta, Napster, or buymusic.com all provide songs in WMP format, which I believe is a PROPRIEATRY PATENTED FORMAT, last I checked.
The reason why iTunes and the iPod don't use WMA is because Apple DOES NOT want to give Microsoft a cut every time a Mac or an iPod is sold.
People seem to forget that the iPod and iTunes happily play MP3 files, as well AIFF, and WAV files as well as AAC.
There was also a note about the MP3 decoding chips inside the iPod. The exact same chip is used in a number of other players that are Windows only. That chip will happily decode, MP3s, AACs and WMA files. Apple pays the licensing for AAC, but refuses to pay to license WMA. Well, the makers of the other players don't want to pay Dolby a license to be able to play AAC files, hence why their firmware doesn't use the AAC. They could easily turn on AAC and write a plugin for iTunes and the thing would work with iTunes then (at least the non DRMed stuff).
Since I have an iPod, I started ripping stuff to 192K AAC, but have since switched to 256 VBR Lame MP3 files. My iPod has no issue with these files whatsoever and iTunes plays them happily.
If Apple and Microsoft wanted to use a REAL open standard (just because most PCs ship with WinXP, and WMP is FORCE BUNDLED with them DOES NOT make WMA a standard), they would offer songs in MP3 or Ogg Vorbis format.
blakespot
-- Heisenberg may have slept here.
iPod Hacks.com
P.S. I hate to break it to you, but the iTunes UI is far from perfect.
Of course it's not perfect! Is any GUI? But it certainly is the best media center design to date. I used to use MediaMatch, and I can say that I was not impressed. Options were in the oddest of places, interfaces were confusing, error messages were unhelpful, etc., etc., etc.
Can't you see that the whole article is a satire of the breathless worship of iTunes? I mean, you go on about how WMP10 has 'stolen' features from iTunes, even though Apple never invented them in the first place.
Well, lemme see. I said "WinAMP" for the crossfade, because AFAIK, they were the first to have it. As for the playlist design, that was an iTunes invention. WinAMP handled playlists through the use of playlist files.
One way or another, my point is that Microsoft copied iTunes, and now this guy is shouting from the rooftops that Microsoft is so amazing! I'd be just as disgusted if someone gushed as hard about Safari. "Ooo! It's got tabbed browsing! A 'leet feature not seen anywhere else!" Ugh.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
It reads:
TODO:
- write security policy
- remove testuser/testpass backdoor
- refer javascript and url holes to developers
- prepare blanket denial of security problems for press
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So you think that 320 kbps is low quality -- oh wait, you actually mean that you didn't bother to RTFA. How surprising in Slashdot...
FYI: A quotation from TFA:
You can now rip music to MP3 format from WMP 10 directly, without needing an add-on (Figure). There's just one problem: Microsoft's MP3 encoder only supports 128, 192, 256, and 320 Kbps MP3 ripping. Because I prefer to rip songs to 160 Kbps MP3 format, I still need to install a third party MP3 encoder. Hey, it's better than nothing, and it's certainly better than the crippled MP3 ripping in RealPlayer 10.5 Plus.
Sure, VBR support & free bitrate selection would be nice, but I as the author said, it's better than nothing.
“Wait for Hurd if you want something real” –Linus
Most people can't even figure out what to download to enable the ogg codec on their systems in the first place.
Let's take the typical Windows Media Player user and say they want to play some ogg files.
1) serach for ogg on google and you find vorbis.com. "Cool, I can't wait to play these ogg files I legally obtained."
2) Try figure out where the "ogg" codec is and then click on the "vorbis" link.
3) Select OS and to come to a page which doesn't list WMP and only seems to have some old versions of winamp and some media players they have never even heard of.
4) Click "other software" because you can't find anything that will just let you play ogg files on WMP.
5) Scroll through through over 30 programs and then give up because you can't find what you need. Those with more patience will keep scrooling till they find "OggDS Direct Show Filters" which is something like the 40th program on the page. Install the codec and then realize that WMP doesn't support ogg very well and avoid ogg files in the future.
For whatever reason the people at Vorbis do everything in their power to keep people from using ogg in WMP and your asking why Microsoft doesn't do a better job at supporting ogg? Its a two way street.
The link to the DirectShow version of the Format should be 2 clicks away from the front page listed right under playes. If the Vorbis people want to see ogg marketshare grow among enduser they need to do a much better job at A)enabling them to play ogg files in WMP and B) adopting and advocating a GUI win32 encoder and c) explaing why ogg is better than mp3. Saying its not patent encumbered and saying its as good or slightly better than mp3 is't going to cut it. I don't envy them for that hard a task but I'm also not the one putting out the software.
I've said many times in the past that ogg is great for content producers. That does't change the fact that for all intended purposes ogg is very much a solution in search of a problem with regard to the idea of replacing the mp3 with consumers.
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