Favourite choice of media player: iTunes, etc,

[Denyer]

I love 1by1 -- it takes Winamp input plugins and is less than a meg even including them. Its search functionality is pretty rudimentary, though, and the playlist handling leaves something to be desired. It also doesn't seem to allow copying a list of files into a nominated directory with track numbers appended to the beginning (which is useful for portable players.)

I find iTunes pretty bloated, personally -- it seems to have the code for a web browser bolted into the core and comes with a bunch of crap I don't need or use such as Quicktime. Songbird (an open source attempt at building an alternative) I found about as intuitive as dunking a mouse into treacle before using it...

Winamp's also bloated, but the all-in-one Bento interface they added is an improvement on the previous one, IMO. There are a couple of things I need to work out if there are plugins or easy options for -- a simple directory browser that allows quick navigation of folders, stuff that I prefer to keep in folders rather than add to a library, and a default two-column order for albums that mirrors keeping files in an "artist - album" hierarchy (one-click playback rather than winnowing down via two columns.) It'll mean having to tag stray files that haven't been so far, but that's probably worth it.

Anyone have any particular favourites, or any recommendations that work out of the box equally well for directory navigation and a library?

[Hawkeye]

i just use windows media player...er it plays the songs. and i dont have enough music to warrant some sort filing system. i only have a few hundred that i just have sorted in folders by band.

[secretcode]

i just use windows media player...er it plays the songs. and i dont have enough music to warrant some sort filing system. i only have a few hundred that i just have sorted in folders by band.

Same here.

[Ackula]

For music I just stick to WinAmp classic mode. Its light and functional enough for me. My main concern is just having something basic and straight forward, I don't need a lot of fluff or anything. Thats pretty much my opinion on all software, easy interface and less fluff is a winner for me. Granted I haven't really tried anything different in a long time, I just tend to stick to what I know.

For video files I use Media Player Classic. It also is super simple and streamlined, and it will play any file format I know of. Can't beat that. And it looks like my old Windows 98 default media player, I loved Windows 98....

[inflatable dalek]

I have two MP3 Players, one jam full of music at a high compression rate for use at work (up to half my shift is spent in a cold grey chiller alone and unloved) and another I'm using for radio drama stuff- Hitch-hiker's, Doctor Who ect-- with no compression (and thus swaping and changing all the time).

I do find that despite having a 1000 odd tracks on the first one I tend to listen to the same dozen or so tracks over and over (generally the ones that have a good rhythm for splitting cages and that I can sing along with loudest safe in the knowledge the steel walls protect humanity from my tone deafness).

I'm not sure if that answers the original question though as all my stuff is copied from CD's and thus I have no idea what these I tunes are...

[Sir Auros]

I hate itunes so much. If you have a reasonably large library, just browsing through tracks is a huge hassle. I use Winamp when I'm playing mp3s, but it's gotten so big now that it actually takes time to load. I remember when it came up almost instantly.

[Grandmaster Shockwaeve]

I love itunes. The way it's organized makes it really easy to find anything, either from lists of artists and albums or by searching for a few words. I can listen to one album like from a CD player, or I can select any number of artists and/or albums and shuffle them together without having to make and save a playlist. Using party shuffle, I can have it playing on shuffle but add in any track I feel like hearing next. For me, anyway, these features are worth the larger program.

EDIT: I just tried using VLC media player. I opened the folder containing my itunes library, and in the playlist view it presented the files as a list of directories and sub-directories (because that's how itunes organized it). It took about a minute for it to load the whole playlist (about 4500 tracks) but after that it was very fast. The search quickly brings up a song as you type, but it only looks at the filename, not the artist or album data. If you save the playlist, then reopen it with VLC, you just get a listing of files with no directories, but it is still very fast.

[Jetfire]

I hate itunes so much. If you have a reasonably large library, just browsing through tracks is a huge hassle. I use Winamp when I'm playing mp3s, but it's gotten so big now that it actually takes time to load. I remember when it came up almost instantly.

Stangely I fine iTunes utterly as easy as pie. Everything gets sorted for you more or less and it's very simple in presentation.

[CounterPunch]

I use iTunes, its more than good enough for what I wanna do (find an artist, play an album, simple as that)

I never use it for anything more, ive got about 15000 songs on itunes and never have any problems with it.

I agree with Jets, I find iTunes really easy to find stuff and the like, you got artist, album, songs, genres, the search option.

[Sixswitch]

Winamp here. I find ITunes to be quite poo. And Media Player for some reason doesn't suit me for music. It's my preferred player for video though... Weird that.

-Ss

[Chromia]

Same here.

Me too. Every time I try a "Newer! Better!" system, I get spyware and crap I don't need.

[Rodimus Convoy]

I like Windows if I just want to play a CD quick without needing to upload it to iTunes, but I find that iTunes is better for organization and playlists. The only problem I have with it is that I have two different mp3 players, an iPod and a MobiBlu. The iPod of course works fine, but if I buy a song from iTunes, it won't show up on my MobiBlu. iTunes is very protective of the songs they sell, and that can be a real pain in the @$$, seeing as I've bought a lot of good songs through iTunes.

EDIT: Speaking of newer an better, I tried something recently called Slacker Portable. Haven't had time to check it out yet, but apparently, it's just like a radio with artist based stations (i.e. Modest Mouse or Megadeth stations) and you can save or skip songs. If you like a song, you can make it play more often, etc. But it sounds pretty cool.

[secretcode]

On the terms of portable music I either use my truck's CD Player if I'm the road. Otherwise I use my PSP.

[Vin Ghostal]

For music, iTunes all the way. It's so intuitively designed. For video...who cares? Whatever program will play the damn thing.

[secretcode]

For video...who cares? Whatever program will play the damn thing.

There really isn't many options is there? You got Windows, Quicktime, Real, iTunes... DivX maybe?

[Rodimus Convoy]

O.K... So now iTunes has developed a new way to piss me off. My mother and I share a computer, but we have different profiles. Anyways, she constantly uses iTunes to buy songs and such, but they don't show up on my iTunes application. Not really a problem, 'cause her taste in music differs from my own, but I got a $25 iTunes card and decided to buy her a song or two. I bought them using her accout information on my application, but on her application, the song doesn't show up. Purchased iTunes songs aren't compatable through the same account or computer. So that really sucked. Anyways, no one probably cares, so I'll go back to the hole I crawled out from under.

[Clay]

For music, I use my portable mp3 player exclusively. Don't even keep music on the computer: I burn it off to data cds for backups.

I do have an ancient copy of winamp for what little is on the computer, though.

[Sades]

My poor laptop is bloated with music files. All of which are played on Winamp- it's a bitch and a half to start up though, takes forever. And it's almost impossible to run it, Firefox, AIM and MSN on at the same time.

[I know, I know... Trillian, blah blah blah. I just like having two seperate IM windows up, because I am a masochist and therefore enjoyt he hassle and must continue to do everything the sucky way.]

Since people are chiming up on portables, I have had the same Lyra RD1072 for going on maybe a little over two or so years now, and I'm quite happy with it. It's sturdy and durable in ways that iPods aren't [mine is scratched and beaten all to hell + has been dropped on pavement/floors more than once and it's still kicking] and has a looooong battery life. However it does not organise or sort your music- in fact, unless you know the number the device has assigned to your favourite song, you'll have to do some searching before you find it.

It also has a much smaller capacity than most MP3s, from what I know, but I don't care. I think it's well worth the money if you don't like dropping over a hundred bucks every few months when your iPod dies because you've looked at it funny.