Music players and their features

[piranha]

I'm taking a small poll, because simply, why not.

What is the music player that you use on your computer?
Are there any features that you think are missing, incomplete or broken/doesn't-work-like-you-wanted-to?
Are there any features of it that should be gotten rid of?

I'm thinking of writing a music player during times when I get coders-block with my kernel.
I'm researching UI designs and various things that might aid in the development of such a project.

-JL

[JackScott]

I use Windows Media Player 11. Main reasons why are because it's built into Windows and I'm too lazy to install anything else when this works, and it has a cool toolbar thing I can put in the taskbar. I don't like because it doesn't play some files (x264 and flac are the main ones) without a whole tonne of codec packs, and even then it's a bit dodgy.

[01000101]

I use Media Player 11 (Vista) or MPlayer (Ubuntu/CentOS), mainly because they come equipt with alot of standard drivers. One thing that always annoys me in linux-based players, is the legalities around the mp3 format, it is really holding back linux-based players and it makes them look somewhat bad as you have to aquire them through non-standard or proprietary means.

[Alboin]

My personal musical library is rather small, so if I want something played, I generally just use mplayer from the command line. More often than that, however, I go onto last.fm or archive.org for my musical needs.

Either way, I like apps that can be used entirely from the command line, in a manner suitable to the command line. (ie. no curses or anything.)

[bewing]

Legal issues around mp3? I know that *encoding* schemes are protected, but I thought that decoding (playing) algorithms were public domain? I haven't looked into it at all yet, obviously.

I use WinAmp. It's pretty, but uses too much in the way of resources. Slows the machine down some, has some bugs that interact with and crash my browser and chat programs after a while. It jitters during playback if I run a big shell script. Sometimes it seems to crash my IDE, too.

[Alboin]

Legal issues around mp3? I know that *encoding* schemes are protected, but I thought that decoding (playing) algorithms were public domain? I haven't looked into it at all yet, obviously.

Most software is encumbered by some patent somewhere. The thing with MP3 is that the 'owners' have not actively pursued individual cases of infringement, or free implementations, as of the current. (eg. lame)

[lollynoob]

Winamp
Sorting by track number (in the ID3 data, not in the filename)
Themes; they're all terrible.

[bewing]

Most software is encumbered by some patent somewhere. The thing with MP3 is that the 'owners' have not actively pursued individual cases of infringement, or free implementations, as of the current. (eg. lame)

But, as per my point -- lame is an *encoding* algorithm, and has nothing to do with decoding, AFAIK. All the various mp3 encodements are decoded with an identical, public domain decoding algorithm, yes?

[Brynet-Inc]

But, as per my point -- lame is an *encoding* algorithm, and has nothing to do with decoding, AFAIK. All the various mp3 encodements are decoded with an identical, public domain decoding algorithm, yes?

Will you just look it up already?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3#Licens ... ent_issues

Stop arguing.. can't we all just agree that software patents are evil?

As for the main topic, listening to music is not my idea of an enjoyable afternoon.. but when I stumble across the odd radio show, I use the ffplay utility distributed with the ffmpeg package. (No GUI..).

[pcmattman]

Windows Media Player 11 usually, I use Winamp Pro when there's a file WMP can't play (or when I want to transcode files). As a total last resort I use iTunes (which I have anyway for my iPhone).

At the moment I mainly use Winamp Pro as a glorified transcoder. The themes are just too intensive for a program I have running all the time in the background.

[Combuster]

Winamp@windows, AmaroK@linux.

Winamp mainly because mp3's are only part of my media collection - I have several hours in modules and game soundtracks that aren't quite mp3-like. (and I have like 12 different plugins for that kind of stuff) It has decent library management stuff and its faster and more accessible than windows media player (for the ones who disagree: skin support disabled ftw)

[ru2aqare]

Winamp when I don't run video compression jobs, and mplayer otherwise. The thing is with winamp, it's full of bugs and consumes a lot of CPU *even when idle* (like it had 10% CPU usage on my previous computer, an AMD Athlon 2800, and it still has 3-4% CPU usage on my Core2 Q6600). But it's still better than the infamous Windows Media Player, for example it has a nice scrolling spectrum analyzer thingy.

When I really need those extra CPU cycles, I start up mplayer with a radio stream.

[inflater]

I use Winamp 5.1. A good ol' version with no bloat and decent AdPlug plugin support (I like listening to FM music sometimes...). I use the standard Winamp modern skin with scaling 250%, looks strange for someone but I think its cool and very relaxing for your eyes.

I use music players only to hear music, not to support the software sponsors... which is pretty popular at new versions: new "Web" functions, more bloat.

[JamesM]

Amarok. It's truly awesome - I can't think of a single feature I'd want that it hasn't got - and its UI is truly intuitive. You should check it out as part of your UI research at least, because they got that bit 100% truly bang on.

[01000101]

Amarok is indeed well laid-out. I've had troubles with it in the past though (instability issues on Ubuntu). I also don't have an audio card on my Dev machine anymore, so I don't really care about music in Linux, I only use MPlayer for videos.

Win-amp is 'OK', but I find the interface terrible and (like previously mentioned) has horrid themes.

I really, really, really liked the Alien-Ware Windows Media Player themes, they truly kicked @$$.