Media Player Suggestions

[Jase71]

Hi All,

Can anyone suggest a media player other than Windows Media ? I'm having serious processing issues at the moment which are in part attributed to VMP, so plan to uninstall it tonight after road-testing some other options. iTunes is OK, but it's really slow to boot up, and re-indexing files every time I change names etc is a PITA.

I basically need something to effectivly manage a lot of music files (40+GB), play & rip CD's, and watch .avi files.

 

[Pollux]

I use winamp for music and windows media player classic for videos..

Never had any problems myself.

In terms of burning, I use Nero.....Works great for burning music, VCDs, and DVDs

 

[Peteoz77]

Hi All,

Can anyone suggest a media player other than Windows Media ? I'm having serious processing issues at the moment which are in part attributed to VMP, so plan to uninstall it tonight after road-testing some other options. iTunes is OK, but it's really slow to boot up, and re-indexing files every time I change names etc is a PITA.

I basically need something to effectivly manage a lot of music files (40+GB), play & rip CD's, and watch .avi files.

VLC will play anything.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

 

[raven19]

+1 for Nero.

+1 for iTunes - purely for organising the mp3's. I never use it for burning CD/MP3/DVD discs though, always use Nero.

There are lots of other freeware downloadable software too out there, but the above are my main two I use.

2c.

 

[Adamt]

I'd heartily recommend Winamp for music. Works well on our media centre, handling >10 times the music you have. Winamp plays videos too, but I leave that to VLC; simple, clean interface and plays (almost) anything.

 

[Jase71]

I'd heartily recommend Winamp for music. Works well on our media centre, handling >10 times the music you have. Winamp plays videos too, but I leave that to VLC; simple, clean interface and plays (almost) anything.

Adam, you have 400 Gigabytes of music ? That's a lot of tunes (or is it uncompressed?). I have to compress my collection to MP3 due to drive space limitations.

Anyway, thanks for the Winamp suggestions guys, I'll give the 'lite' version a run tonight, see if it's worth buying.

 

[Fents]

Adam, you have 400 Gigabytes of music ? That's a lot of tunes (or is it uncompressed?). I have to compress my collection to MP3 due to drive space limitations.

Anyway, thanks for the Winamp suggestions guys, I'll give the 'lite' version a run tonight, see if it's worth buying.

I just picked up a new 1TB external drive for $139 not that expensive if you have drive limitations.

 

[Jase71]

I just picked up a new 1TB external drive for $139 not that expensive if you have drive limitations.

Yep, we got a 1TB drive a few months back, but I also have a huge file of RAW format photographs, as well as home recordings in .WAV format, which can be as much as 100Mb per song. The missuz also has a couple of hundred movies in there as well, so it's fast becoming loaded up. At the current rate, it'll be full by mid year (I havent even transferred 1/2 of the CDs I have - If i ripped my CD collection as uncompressed files, I would have to buy another TB to accommodate the other stuff ! Mind you, that's on the cards later in the year anyway, simply to backup the existing TB. Then another TB for more space, then another TB for that as backup ......

Funny how no matter how great the technology, we always need MORE

 

[peas_and_corn]

I use winamp for music and windows media player classic for videos..

Never had any problems myself.

In terms of burning, I use Nero.....Works great for burning music, VCDs, and DVDs

Media player classic is awesome

+1 for Nero.

+1 for iTunes - purely for organising the mp3's. I never use it for burning CD/MP3/DVD discs though, always use Nero.

There are lots of other freeware downloadable software too out there, but the above are my main two I use.

2c.

I cannot begin to express how much I hate itunes, that resource guzzling PITA software...

 

[Fourstar]

Winamp for everything. Unless Winamp dont play it, it goes into VLC.

The only reason i havn't jumped ship to VLC for watching videos and levae winamp to music is mainly due to me using winamp for the past 8 years.

 

[mwd]

For Music ONLY using Winamp 2.91 ( small and simpler than later versions )+ WoW addon.

Media Player Classic with ffdshow for most video very good for Mkv files.

KMPlayer seems to very good, better than VLC player IMHO.

Google or free-codecs.com

NB Windows Media Player is not very good and a great CPU and memory hog.

 

[Jase71]

NB Windows Media Player is not very good and a great CPU and memory hog.

Yep, this seems to be crippling my PC lately, the CPU's often running at 85+%, and Im certain that WMP leaves behind processes. So Im wiping out a whole lot of software, Media Player FIRST !

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

VLC is the only player worth using...and its free

WinAmp is excellent for music..


CDEX ISthe only CD ripper worth using will convert to MP3, FLAC and WAV

DVDdecrypter using with Ripit4Me is the best DVD ripper on the planet. ( Note it does not do HD DVD )

DVDdecrypter is an excellent DVD .iso burner

BUT if you have Linux....there are programs that blow all these into the weeds...

 

[Jase71]

VLC is the only player worth using...and its free

WinAmp is excellent for music..


CDEX ISthe only CD ripper worth using will convert to MP3, FLAC and WAV

DVDdecrypter using with Ripit4Me is the best DVD ripper on the planet. ( Note it does not do HD DVD )

DVDdecrypter is an excellent DVD .iso burner

BUT if you have Linux....there are programs that blow all these into the weeds...

Is it worth converting a P3 to Linux ? I wouldnt mind testing the waters.

Also, is there some sort of virtual windows platform for software that wont run on Linux ? I have home studio software that I would need to load (reason, cubase). Hm although with a P3 chip the processing will still lag, so on second thought......

Cheers for the suggestions (for Windows stuff)

 

[jonocarroll]

Also, is there some sort of virtual windows platform for software that wont run on Linux ? I have home studio software that I would need to load (reason, cubase). Hm although with a P3 chip the processing will still lag, so on second thought......

There is, it's called wine. Not guaranteeing anything though. If you've got software you like for M$ and you don't need to switch, it will probably work better in M$. Just a thought though.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

A P3 wll run excellent with linux, Download the Live CD from Ubuntu and see if all your hardware is compatable. You can also Dual boot Win or Linux very easly

Just run Vmware or VirtualBox and load a complete Win system in that...works great and has USB support for programs that wont work in wine

Thats what I do..

wine MAY work, but you will have to try it

 

[mwd]

VLC is the only player worth using...and its free

So is KMPlayer and much better interface plays Mkv better and also PVR files from Topfields and Tuner Cards etc. The audio on Avi's seems a bit better on my machine.

Getting a lot of converts on the Topfield Forums. I have both but hardly ever use VLC now.

Probably a Linux version here too so worth a try as its free.
KMPlayer Download

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Mmm must check KMplayer

 

[Jase71]

A P3 wll run excellent with linux,

But for stuff that really works the processor (per my ref of rendering music & photos) it's still only as good as the chip though right ?

I am very illiterate with the technicalities of this stuff, but I would think that for the big ticket/big processing software I have (Photoshop, and the others I mentioned above) staying with PC is probably best (with my HT P4).

Still, the old P3 might well be dragged out later in the year for a Linux project.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Linux is very lean on system resources compared to Win

You might get a bit of a suprise..

You will need 500Mb ram for it to work well, allthought using xbuntu will work better on older machines with less ram..