Windows 7 Windows Media Player - does anyone else use it?

[garethuk]

I've been a big user of Windows Media Center since around 2003. As the music section of Media Center is linked to the Media Player library, I have always used wmp to organise my files.

In past versions of media player, unless an album was "found", wmp would organise the file unpredictably. I have a very large music library which I've spent years updating. I did a clean install of windows 7 to a seperate hard disk and found I couldn't just dump in the old database file as with Vista (presumably wmp12 has improved the database schema since 11).

How have other media player users managed to work around this issue? If I had performed an upgrade from my vista installation, would I have kept my library?

Great site by the way - incredibly useful!

 

[jimbo45]

I think the consensus of opinion on this board is that there are so many better applications than Windows Media Player (note not Windows Media Center --that's a different application).

Winamp, Media Monkey, VLC etc etc all play almost any codec on this planet -- you don't really need windows media player.

cheers
jimbo

 

[garethuk]

OK - then how are you playing music within Media Center without a media player library? Now I'm confused...

 

[djwayne]

I dunno, I must be different. I like Windows Media Player 12 alot, I don't see where I need another player, as it's been playing all my stuff nicely. I like the libraries, and ease of accessing any of my music. It rips and burns cd's flawlessly. Once you get used to it, it's a breeze to operate. I'm using it as my default player.

 

[garethuk]

I have to say that I do enjoy the improvements. Just wish there was a way to migrate the library from wmp 11 to 12.

 

[reghakr]

I have to agree, VLC is the way to go.

Did you know you could right-click on each library item and choose delete or remove from list?

Who needs the libraries unless you use WMP

 

[djwayne]

At this time I'm not adding a whole lot to my music library because Windows 7 is a beta that expires in August, so I don't see a point in setting up a large library file.

 

[anykey]

garethuk, sorry I cannot help you with this.
I prefer MediaMonkey, however this thread might prove helpful to you:

Music library in Windows media player? - Windows 7 Forums
http://windows7forums.com/members/garethuk.html

 

[garethuk]

Thank you all very much for your time. I guess I'll try to keep it going alongside my vista library - hopefully one of them will be able to work with the final release!

 

[djwayne]

Another nice feature of Windows Media Player is the search feature. Just type in a word, phrase, or artist or song name, and poof, it locates it in your library instantly. This comes in really handy and I really like it a lot !!

 

[MrSpiffdifilous]

Sorry if its a bit off topic but, I heard WMP12 was destroying MP3 files originally with the release of the beta build 7000. Is this still the case or has this issue been fixed?

 

[djwayne]

Ya I heard that too, but I heard that they fixed that already in some updates....I'm having very good luck playing MP3's ..no problems to report.

 

[garethuk]

This corruption issue was fixed with a Windows Update that was released just before the public beta. As long as you have run Windows update since installing the public beta you should be fine. Doing a quick search the update is KB 961367.

 

[ronnieh]

winamp woes and no DVDFab

Winamp is very unstable on my PC with win7 build 7000,especially playing a CD.Finally uninstalled it.
DVDFab 5230 doesn't work at all.

 

[Paulie]

WMP has always been my first choice for playing music and although it has been short in the codec department it makes it up in stability. Winamp has always been volatile. KMP player was about the best for playing films etc but since wmp 12 has updated codecs there has been no need to venture after 3rd party software.

 

[reghakr]

As I've stated in a previous post, I never use WMP, therefore the Library features are of no use to me whatsoever and have deleted them accordingly

I organize my own media files on a separate partition and I can locate them very simply.

jimbo is correct is stating Media Center is a totally different program. I have a Blue-ray DVD writer and the program that came installed is called Cyberlink BD and HD Player. That's whats in my Media Center and that's all I use.. It;s connected to my Home Theater through HDMI and optical output and is just incredible. I get excellent 7.1 channel output and can even do mixed mode through speaker configuration. WMP only outputs in 5.1 channel and there are no options to change this.

 

[Overlord Laharl]

I use WMP myself, and i don't see the need to ever install another media player as long as Windows bundles Media Player in it.

It plays my mp3, wav and wma files perfectly, why should i download another player?

The only thing i want is that Microsoft negotiate with codec vendors to add in mp4, divx and flv support into WMP and then WMP will be perfect.

 

[dockmaster]

Is there a reason WMP doesnt include support for .flac files or other low loss file structures. I guess we need to load and add-on.

 

[Overlord Laharl]

I'd guess that it's probably due to licensing issues and corporate distrust, especially distrust against Microsoft.

Remember how Microsoft wanted to include built-in PDF support in Office but Adobe cried foul and Microsoft had no choice but to put PDF support as an extra downloadable add-on to Office.

Probably the same thing with the various media codecs which are not included in WMP. Either:

1) Microsoft does not want to pay for licencing fees for some of those codecs and left them out completely. (I'm sure that Microsoft is fully aware that only a small percentage of its customers actually use WMP)

or

2) The copyright holders refuse to grant MS the license to embed the codecs in WMP, like how Adobe protested MS's inclusion of PDF support in Office.

 

[jimbo45]

I use WMP myself, and i don't see the need to ever install another media player as long as Windows bundles Media Player in it.

It plays my mp3, wav and wma files perfectly, why should i download another player?

The only thing i want is that Microsoft negotiate with codec vendors to add in mp4, divx and flv support into WMP and then WMP will be perfect.

What about lossless codecs lilke .FLAC as well -- I use the Logitec squeezecenter duo system to audio stream in any case -- this plays FLAC natively without messing around to add new codecs.
( SqueezeCenter: Our powerful and free Open Source software. Runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD and Solaris. )

Microsoft is a SOFTWARE Vendor -- nearly everybody ( including one man and his dog under "the railway arches" ) can probably do Multimedia better than MS -- they are only trying to play Catchup -- and messing around with the DRM crud made them fall even firther behind .

Cheers
jimbo