New Windows Media Player Leaks

TacoLL writes "A new version of Windows Media Player, Windows Media Player 11, is set to be made public on Wednesday, however, it has found its way into the hands of internet users before its public release. Flexbeta has some early screenshots of the next Media Player for Windows users."

Comments

Leak or astrohyping?

[XorNand]

If the source found its way onto the Internet, that would be a leak. If early prototypes were released months ago, in time for Real Networks, Apple, and others to dissect what MS was cooking up in the lab, then I would consider that a leak. But "leaking" a yawn-inducing product two days before the official release? It sounds to me more like a marketing tactic intended to drum up press at just the right time, akin to the same BS that beta testing has evolved into.

The first on-topic one...

[mazzarin]

As opposed to the rest of the posts 'OMGLOL WMP LEAKS!!1', this post actually discusses it. I've used it. Its available to download from softpedia.com I found it to be rather nice and would definitely prefer it over iTunes if I still used it (iTunes). URGE is no iTunes music store but I never used that in any case. It has a slick look, uses less mem than iTunes - more than Winamp or foobar of course, and the responsiveness is quite good. I've never really liked Windows Media Player, always thought it was clunky and bloated but this seems to be a release where they got it right. I highly recommend checking it out.

Feature Creep in WiMP

[schmiddy]

Windows Media Player is a great example of a piece of software that has reached maturity, and been going steadily downhill ever since. Everyone who's had to struggle with a slow computer with windows knows that version 6 (6.4 specifically, I think) was when WiMP essentially reached maturity. Really, what more possible features could you need in a media player other than the usual play, pause, rewind, etc. buttons, and some useful codecs (which, of course, Microsoft would never even dream of distributing, as they promote "piracy", or help alternative formats like Real).

l I'm even aware of at east one open source media player project based off the WiMP 6.4 design (has essentially the exact same look and feel, but is supplied with all the good codecs), namely "Media Player Classic" (here).

Since 6.4, which was last distributed with Win2k (though the auto-update features try their darndest to sneak the newer versions in), WiMP has gotten progressively worse. Version 9 was a disgrace, and 10 was even worse. Seems like the only innovation Microsoft has to offer in media players is bundling in more DRM features that no one wants, useless and ugly skins, and support for their own worthless WMV/WMA formats.

Please, don't use this new "feature"-laden crapware. Microsoft should take a hint from VLC or mplayer, and realize that we don't want the useless junk they're piling on. The reason why VLC and mplayer are so great is they do one thing and do it well: play media. Period.