I'm a WinAMP person, have been for a while. It does transparency, so it goes away and doesn't bother me until I want it. It doesn't try to do annoying things in terms of cataloguing and can be nice and small and unobtrusive (unlike a certain other popular music player). The real killer feature is that it's compatible with my stereo (which connects via USB), so the stereo buttons (and, more importantly, the stereo remote) control WinAMP. There are video plug-ins for it.
I used to use Winamp exclusively, but when I started wanting to rip CDs I switched to RealPlayer for it. I've never really be happy with Real, but it gave me the features I wanted for free.
What type stereo do you have? It's been years since I've looked into any and I've never heard of a USB interface for one.
"Windows Media Player Classic", which is a hack of the originaly WMP before it got bloated. You can load it up with codecs to play everything under the sun (google "Real Alternative" or "Quicktime Alternative" and what you are getting is MPC with a Quicktime or Real codec). It's small, stable, and has just the right feature set.
I have a bunch of different programs I've tried for ripping and burning, but I usually use WMP10. I haven't found anything as easy to manage, stable, and as reliable in temrs of correctly identifying/tagging ripped tracks and producing playable burns.
WMP10 because I'm lazy and don't want to download anything. It also syncs with my Zen with little hassle.
Disgusted by my laziness, Ryan downloaded (and actually legitimately registered!)MusicMatch for me because it has a much better ripping and burning feature. I haven't played a lot with it, but I think it has some kind of subscription service available and I *think* I've used it to listen to some internet radio stations.
Yeah, I don't exactly live on the cutting edge of technology. I should, I love my music!
Other than that, I hate Real Player and QuickTime. I used to be a big fan of WinAmp, but there's that whole downloading thing involved...
I dislike Real and QT because they are proprietary and there are certain files you MUST use those programs to read. So when you decide, what the hell, and download them, they try to take over your whole computer... bastards!
I don't know a lot about the video end of things. People say "codecs" and my eyes start to cross and my brains leak out my ears.
I like WMP10's organization. It's very intuitive to anyone familiar with the windows environment, and I can organize my library by track title, artist, or album to make it easier to find stuff. Filename, too, I think. And if you are one of those super anal people who like to I'm *pretty sure* you can update the meta tags on everything, too.
Winamp. It's just a solid piece of software. With plugin support it can play just about anything. Got old commodore 64 music. Get a plug in. Got some nintendo tunes. Get a plug in. It's versatile and has way more skins then windows media player. I use a doctor who skin at work and it's mini feature is perffect. A little bar that has all the functionality without a huge footprint on my screen! :)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-12 02:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-12 01:44 pm (UTC)What type stereo do you have? It's been years since I've looked into any and I've never heard of a USB interface for one.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-12 10:36 pm (UTC)My stereo is a pretty boring Philips, circa 2003. Basically, it's capable of functioning as a USB soundcard.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-12 09:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-12 01:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-12 06:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-12 10:24 am (UTC)Disgusted by my laziness, Ryan downloaded (and actually legitimately registered!)MusicMatch for me because it has a much better ripping and burning feature. I haven't played a lot with it, but I think it has some kind of subscription service available and I *think* I've used it to listen to some internet radio stations.
Yeah, I don't exactly live on the cutting edge of technology. I should, I love my music!
Other than that, I hate Real Player and QuickTime. I used to be a big fan of WinAmp, but there's that whole downloading thing involved...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-12 12:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-12 02:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-12 02:22 pm (UTC)How is WMP10 for organizing stuff? What do you hate about Real and QT? (I'm not a fan of them either, but I'm curious about other people's reasons)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-12 03:03 pm (UTC)I don't know a lot about the video end of things. People say "codecs" and my eyes start to cross and my brains leak out my ears.
I like WMP10's organization. It's very intuitive to anyone familiar with the windows environment, and I can organize my library by track title, artist, or album to make it easier to find stuff. Filename, too, I think. And if you are one of those super anal people who like to I'm *pretty sure* you can update the meta tags on everything, too.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-12 01:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-12 02:24 pm (UTC)I'm not a fan of skins or visualizations, so those don't do much for me. Still I'm leaning towards WinAmp for it's versatility.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-13 03:55 pm (UTC)