Thread: Best media player?

Quintessential Player on Windows, XMMS on Linux. Both are similar to Winamp.

As far as I know iTunes is the only one that plays H.264 standard. Well, flash player does, but only in the special flash encoding. The reason it's so CPU intensive is because the codecs are much more complicated.

If you really want to cut down it's footprint you could cut out the middle man and simple play your files through quicktime. iTunes uses the Quicktime engine, iTunes basically just organizes everything for you.

Originally Posted by ninja9578

As far as I know iTunes is the only one that plays H.264 standard. Well, flash player does, but only in the special flash encoding. The reason it's so CPU intensive is because the codecs are much more complicated.

If you really want to cut down it's footprint you could cut out the middle man and simple play your files through quicktime. iTunes uses the Quicktime engine, iTunes basically just organizes everything for you.

Hmm, perhaps I'll poke at QT a bit--with iTunes, anything I'm doing chugs to a halt between tracks. I'll also have to look up H.264 and see if I care

Right now I'm having a very positive experience with the current Songbird build--it's basically a Mozilla/Winamp mash-up, but well mashed, and I'm getting better performance out of it than either iTunes or Winamp.

Foobar2000 on Windows, some other one otherwise (I use Exaile when in Ubuntu, but it isn't particularly good) Foobar2000 does what you want it to do (plays music, maintains a library) and nothing more. It's very economical as a result, and very responsive.

Tbh, nowadays I hook up VLC to SLAY Radio, so my media player is just a backup, really.

Yup, Foobar2000 is another good one. Very bare-bones, but good.

MPlayer works great for me on Linux. It ran fairly well on Mac OS X when I used to use the said OS, but I have no clue how it fairs on Windows. VLC is another cross-platform media player.

VLC

I only like 'RealPlayer' because of the 'Annabelle The Sheep' visualization.

I use quintessential player but to be honest I much prefer Winamp.

Originally Posted by Serendipity

I use quintessential player but to be honest I much prefer Winamp.

I haven't used Q-player, but what do you like about Winamp? I've been using it for 11-12 years, and my experience has been downhill for about the last three. One issue is keeping the library up to date, seeing as I never acquire new files via Winamp and don't sync a mobile device from it. Another is the unnecessary browser relying on IE. In the last several versions, the dealbreaker has been frequent freezing/crashing of Winamp and/or other programs, particularly when Alt+Tab-ing between them. For overall footprint it definitely has iTunes beat, but it's still too much, and it's much less stable than any other media player I've used.

I have run into a con on Songbird--it syncs my video as audio tracks, meaning if they come up in shuffle, I'm in for 20-120 minutes of silence :/

VLC is good for movies, though I don't think it's efficient for music. I just use Windows Media Player on my Vista laptop, and Winamp on XP. Works fine.

Originally Posted by Rakjavik

VLC

VLC doesn't have a music library, does it? Why make your life more awkward, use Foobar2000, just as minimalist/comfortable as VLC (for music only) but has a media library tacked on.

VLC's great for Shoutcast though, along with Tunapie 2 (basically fetches the station list off Nulsoft's site and fires up VLC (or something else) for you, I don't think there is a Windows equivalent other than WinAmp).

My stupid 'windows media player' wont play all video formats but i have
VLC also and that will play anything my 'windows MP' wont play....
Thank God cause i have no idea whats wrong with the windows one.
But i use VLC just for videos.

Originally Posted by Taosaur

I haven't used Q-player, but what do you like about Winamp? I've been using it for 11-12 years, and my experience has been downhill for about the last three. One issue is keeping the library up to date, seeing as I never acquire new files via Winamp and don't sync a mobile device from it. Another is the unnecessary browser relying on IE. In the last several versions, the dealbreaker has been frequent freezing/crashing of Winamp and/or other programs, particularly when Alt+Tab-ing between them. For overall footprint it definitely has iTunes beat, but it's still too much, and it's much less stable than any other media player I've used.

I have run into a con on Songbird--it syncs my video as audio tracks, meaning if they come up in shuffle, I'm in for 20-120 minutes of silence :/

What a pain!

It's been a while since I have used Winamp, probably a couple of years, and at the time it seemed to work effectively, in terms of queuing up songs etc. For me, Quintessential Player seems to always pack itself when loading up a new folder, or if I tell it to shuffle songs. Not sure if this can be alleviating by reinstalling the player (although I haven't listened to my music for ages thanks to my daughter!!).
So I guess when I had Winamp, it must have been before they broke it, hehe!!

I must say at this point that I have never heard of Quintessential Player. And I'm usually up to speed with software (not hardware though, haven't got a clue).

EDIT: Gah, it looks horrible. Custom user interfaces suck ass. Lime green and black may have been the future in 1996, but the truth is it looks like shit at any time.

VLC for video, foobar2000 for music.

iTunes works well enough for me.

How old is your computer that it's having a hard time running iTunes anyway? It doesn't have a very big footprint on my computer You're also not going to find anything as easy to use, Apple's known for that.

Originally Posted by ninja9578

How old is your computer that it's having a hard time running iTunes anyway? It doesn't have a very big footprint on my computer You're also not going to find anything as easy to use, Apple's known for that.

hehe...old enough. Just over four years, P4 with 1GB RAM and not much open space on the hard drive, with all my music on an external drive. Ya, soon enough nothing up-to-date will run on it. Hopefully I can afford to replace it before long, though I'm trying to wait until I can get a decent rig.