Memory Usage:
(in case anyone has read my reviews before and doesn’t know how I get my numbers, go to your task manager. It will prove I’m not pulling these numbers outta my a.. ;P)
WMP – 8776k
iTunes – 43368k
Winamp – 7264k
Playing song
WMP – 21328k
iTunes – 45772k
Winamp – 23114k
WMP + 1
—————————————-
First Run:
WMP – Very quick. Very simple. It sets up and scans your library within 10 minutes or at least on my machine.
iTunes – Slow. To finish installsion it took about 10 minutes then to finish all its initial scans took another 15 almost.
Winamp. As as WMP. Done everything in about 10 minutes.
WMP/Winamp + 0.5
—————————————-
Plugins:
WMP – Has a good number of plugins ranging from visual to effects to codecs.
iTunes – Very very slime pickings for plugins. Mostly visual.
Winamp – A large community of developers. 100’s of them.
Winamp +1
—————————————-
Skins :
WMP – Has a selection. Not a good selection but a selection none the less.
iTunes – SUCKS FOR SKINNING! There are a handful of skins and all they do is change the color.
Winamp – A huge number of skins! Many are great and can totaly change the way you use the program.
Winamp +1
—————————————-
HotKeys
WMP – Can’t add custome keys but will use the media controls on your keyboard
iTunes – Will also use the media controls on your keyboard, but only when the program is is focus!
Winamp – Uses media keys plus allows the creation of custome keys.
Winamp +1
—————————————-
Sharing Media
WMP/iTunes – Both simple to use and share.
Winamp – Can only do it with a plugin and even then its horrible.
WMP/iTunes – 0.5
—————————————-
Playlists:
WMP – Handles them nicely. Very simple. Allows you to save them in several different formats.
iTunes – Can only save it in the single format iTunes uses. Not as nicely done as WMP or WA
Winamp – Very simple, just like WMP. It also allows your to save them out in a few different forms.
WMP/WA + 0.5
—————————————-
Video:
They all suck. Get VLC. (check here for a review)
—————————————-
Layout:
WMP – This is hot. The default skin for WMP 11 is beautiful. I love it. Also the way the library is handle is very different from WA or iT. You can sort the music much like in WA or iT but unlike them which just reorders the list, WMP gives you a totally different view. I don’t know if this is a good thing. I suppose they were trying to set themselves apart from the rest of the field and they did exactly that. I personally really really like it.It actually makes it worth having all that album art!
iTunes – It works. Its simple, but I don’t care for it. Its too simple. The default nav is just to blah, but the new views they’ve added are nice (almost exactly like WMP :O ) but don’t work very well due to the stupid bottom bar and the ugle header bar that just can’t be hidden.
WinAmp – The layout of the program is really good in my opinion. You can move the seperate parts anywhere you want, hide parts you don’t need, and its very clean and simple with enough options in the open that you don’t need to dig through menus to get at everything.
My layout
WMP/Winamp + 0.5
—————————————-
Final Scores:
WMP – 4
iTunes – 0.5
Winamp – 4.5
—————————————-
Overview
WMP 11 is very good. A HUGE improvement. And even though Winamp has more points (only 0.5!) I would reccommend trying WMP 11. If it suits your personal taste go for it! It is just as good if not better if you ignore the skins and plugins. I am personally going to continue to us both winamp and WMP 11 for the next week or soon until I figure out which I like more. I though doing this test would put both programs through enough hoops that one would walk out on top, but alas, no.
As for iTunes, the ONLY reason I can see anyone using this program is that they are too set in their ways already, have an iPod or are just to lazy to get winamp with the ipod plugin 😛 (which I image/hope will be out for WMP soon)
So I came in using Winamp and am walking away using Winamp and WMP until I can settle on one. I hope this helps everyone that reads it find the media player of your choice.
PaperKingdoms 
keep working and tell us
Comment by german — November 5, 2006 @ 10:47 pm
Very helpful post. For the first time in nearly 5 years I’m considering using Windows Media Player instead of Winamp. Thanks for sharing your insights.
Comment by Andrew — November 13, 2006 @ 9:25 pm
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Comment by ForexKiller — November 14, 2006 @ 10:09 pm
I won’t delete that comment despite it being spam because it actually made it through the spam filter!
Well, anyways, I am working on a few more audio player reviews, which I will then compare with these ones when I have free time. Look forward to evil player, musikcube and foobar.
Comment by bardicknowledge — November 14, 2006 @ 11:48 pm
your blog is fine, thx so much
Comment by forex trading — November 17, 2006 @ 6:58 pm
Thanks for the review. It is very helpful. I like the fact that is unbiased. Some people just say “oh, this is the best program…” and they don’t quite explain why or do any comparing. I am a big fan of winamp but I will do some more research into wmp.
Comment by Stash — November 21, 2006 @ 5:20 pm
Your points system for working out which is best doesn’t suit everybody’s needs. EG: I couldn’t give a hoot how good it plays movies, what it looks like (aesthetically) or, to a lesser degree, how much memory it takes up. My computer is 95% used for listening to music, and the rest is watching movies. So I don’t mind too much that it’s a filthy resource hog. Here’s what I give a toss about: how well it manages my music.
I’ve been using iTunes solidly for over two years. I have over 20000 tunes. So far, I haven’t found anything (yet) that beats iTunes in terms of simplicity, and I’ve been looking a LOT. It was the first music library abstracted me from the huge number of unmanageable, allowing me to concentrate on rating & tagging songs directly in the main window. I started adding ‘mood’ comments (eg upbeat, dark, uplifting) and creating smart playlists based on these moods. Pick a mood (or combination of them, like “upbeat catchy rock”) and filter out all the dross – it blew me away. I started hearing tunes I’d forgotten I had!
I have, however, been searching constantly for an alternative. Every version of WinAmp that came out, I tried. And every time, I was completely disappointed with the library. It always felt like a tacked-on feature, whereas iTunes IS my music collection.
I’m trying to migrate to Linux, and while there are some ‘ok’ alternatives there, none come close. WMP won’t help me here, but I’ll give WMP a go just to see. Honestly, is it worth the time it’s going to take to import my music, recreate my smart playlists, update the song ratings etc?
Comment by Raff — November 21, 2006 @ 5:21 pm
I’m sorry you don’t like my grading system, but everything I gave points for is to ensure that I actually tested the program. And personally, performance matters to me and many other people. Just because you and maybe a few others are bothered by the fact that iTunes is a memory whore is fine with me, but I am doing my reviews to appeal to as many people as possible.
As to the video thing, I didn’t even rate video, just gave it passing notice, since it is also something that matters to many others.
I have the feeling you are an Apple boy and no matter what I would have reviewed you still would have declared iTunes the winner. But thats cool with me. People have preferences. I don’t. I simple want the most efficiently program that will allow me do everything, or almost everything I well easily and quickly. iTunes does do that. Hence why it was scored so poorly.
As for media players on Linux, I wouldn’t know. I can’t get Linux to operate on my currently PC because the video card is currently unsupported in the distros I wish to use.
I would also like to point out that iTunes doesn’t not natively allow exporting of its playlists. Its like a greedy whore holding your genitals. lol.
As I’m sure you have figured out, I am not impressed with iTunes. I will continue watching its new versions though in hope that it may be redeemable though…
Comment by bardicknowledge — November 22, 2006 @ 1:21 pm
Thanks for the review, I’m pleased to see WMP getting a good look in, as it has always been such a hog and a terrible library in the past. It seems they’re really getting on top of this nowadays. I am a Winamp fan and have been for around a decade now. It has always been nice and clean, and very lean. There are things I like and dislike about both though, which I will try to summarise below:
On Screen Controls: WMP lets you put play, pause, forward, backward buttons directly on the task bar by minimising it. I love this feature and plugins for Winamp never do it quite as nicely.
Screensaver Disabling: WMP (to my knowledge) has no way of disabling the screensaver JUST for video. You have to manually switch this on and off for different types of media which is very annoying as I DO want the screensaver when I am just playing music. Winamp does this wonderfully.
Album Art: WMP handles album art very nicely, but Winamp doesn’t even seem to care about album art at all. This is a shame when you have a portable player that likes to display the art.
Security: It seems that Winamp is much more secure than WMP. WMP supports communications with servers over the net and could download trojans etc. And has been known to in the past.
WMV Support: Winamp seems to dislike WMV a lot. If you pause a WMV and then skip back and forth whilst it’s paused, it almost always crashes completely. WMV is of course WMP’s native video format.
Anyway, that’s a few things, I’m sure there are more. I wish they could come together and make the most awesome player known to man instead (well known to Windows anyway)
And with regards to iTunes … on a Mac it IS the best player because it runs so smoothly and links into the OS so well … on a PC it is an awful conversion and absolutely rapes your hardware. Anyone who has a computer JUST for music and videos is a fool … get a portable player instead!!
Comment by Stuart McHattie — November 30, 2006 @ 9:05 am
Thanks for your comments ^_^ I agree with ya there on … everything really lol. I have personally switched media players to foobar2000 though. My mp3 player has the app built into it, so I don’t need one to handle it, making my life much easier.
You may like foobar. Its very similar to winamp in many ways, but its smaller. Not as pretty either but you can do a lot to customize it.
Comment by bardicknowledge — November 30, 2006 @ 12:38 pm
I think your score is a bit out. I’m counting a 1 point lead by Winamp over Wmp.
Winamp still wins but I thought I would still point it out since I grossly dislike just about everything about wmp. 🙂
cheers
Shione
WMP + 1
WMP/Winamp + 0.5
Winamp +1
Winamp +1
Winamp +1
WMP/iTunes – 0.5
WMP/WA + 0.5
WMP/Winamp + 0.5
total:
wmp 3
winamp 4
itunes .5
Comment by Shione — December 29, 2006 @ 4:01 am
I found free music downloads and more on this blog that I thought was illegal to do. Why or how can someone offer copyrighted materials like that
Comment by mp3 music downloads — January 5, 2007 @ 7:58 pm
I agree with you as well…itunes is horrible and always has been. Due to the fact I have an iPod, it is needed, but I am in no way an apple fanboy, a chose a HP laptop over a mac in a heartbeat.
My main issue with media player programs is the equalizer. I find that you can get used to and like certain features of library mangement, skin choices, etc. If the equalizer is bad, well there no gettin used to that.
The equalizer on WMP is actually very powerful. You can take any preset and customize it, changing drastically the bass and the loudness. The problem with this is, theres no preamp and a very limited choice of presets making a good setting harder to find.
iTunes actually has a much smoother sounding equalizer then WMP and has double the number of presets combined with a preamp. Dispite the smooth sound, the EQ is weak. Preamp at 12 on techno setting (copied and created mine own based on WMP) doesnt compair to a +3 custom techno setting on WMP by standards of bass and loudness, though the quality still wins out.
In my opinion, to talk about WA EQ is a waste. Its sound quality is worse then WMP and its loudness worse then iTunes. I have tested this on a few sets of speakers (laptop, desktop+sub, full blown DJ equipment)
Seeing as known of the above players have an amazing EQ or library management, I’m still searchin. I’ve just downloaded Yahoo! music jukebox..thoughts are its the same as iTunes.
Comment by BabyC-- — January 9, 2007 @ 7:48 pm
This is a reply to BABY C. I don’t know why you even bother trying to use the equalizer for winamp when you have one for your soundcard too(if you have one). Plus the DSP/efx plugins they have on winamp makes your songs sound wayyyy better. Try JAMMIX and use xbx preset and compare it to a any equalizer and I bet you, you’ll love it. There’s also ENHANCER which is also awesome. Winamp wins hands down due to its support and plugins. I don’t use the library its a waste of time just organize it in explorer by music type makes it a whole lot neater. I’ll have to see when the iPHONE COMES OUT and see how everythin is integrated. Till then Winamp for now.
Comment by ultra — January 12, 2007 @ 12:59 am
I agree with all of you who think that iTunes is horrible. I prefer Winamp over WMP because of its cool skins that allow you to dock the player on the side of the screen. Probably a lot of skins do this but the one I’m talking about is called Multipass.
Comment by Kazuma — January 17, 2007 @ 6:08 pm
did you forget that itunes rips CDs, Syncs the ipod, has built in web browser, can automatically orgainze your library of music, has podcasts, and is origionally meant for the MAC OS X?
what a bout winamp. can it do that shit.
tsk tsk, i didnt think so.
i’d say this review is a little one-sided.
Comment by paul j — February 4, 2007 @ 8:27 pm
i think you’re a mindless mac fan boy ^_^
winamp syncs ipods and other players, it organizes your librar, CAN rip cd’s in about…. 10 formats, can do podcasts and radio, doesn’t have a shit browser to lag the program down and isn’t for a mac.
do some research little fan boy.
Comment by bardicknowledge — February 4, 2007 @ 8:39 pm
what about quality of playback? has anybody tried to compare them side by side? of course without any stupid EQ and loundness and other crap. and i do agree that iTunes has the best library management. i have fresh installation of vista now with wmp11, before i used to use just winamp but i am really surprised with the quality of wmp11. and i have noticed something strange, *.flac sounds better on wmp than on winamp.
Comment by hexx — February 7, 2007 @ 6:30 am
iTunes is much better, it’s slow because it has to run on crappy windows. It’s simple, effective, and really easy to organize tons of music, unlike winamp where everything is just thrown in, or wmp where you can’t find anything. PC fans are not used with ergonomic interfaces, you would rather use keyboard shortcuts and spend time skinning and installing, than concentrate on playing, organizing and burning music (which is what the program is meant for).
Comment by Vuli — March 12, 2007 @ 10:14 am
The only feature I dislike about WMP 11 is that it does not give the option to disable screensaver for video only.
On Windows, iTunes sucks. Eats so much RAM and processing power to play mp3 files!!
WinAmp is good for low configuration comps I think.
Comment by Iman — March 12, 2007 @ 8:43 pm
Fuck your motherfuckin website. you dickheads. i bet you are all a bunch of nigers who have nuthin to do but to sit around and masturbate all day.
Comment by bob — April 11, 2007 @ 8:41 am
fuck u vuli thats a crap reply you left you r a crazy nigger
Comment by bob — April 11, 2007 @ 8:42 am
Don’t know where you get your CPU useage numbers from. I’ve been looking at the processes running on my machine with WMP running and it barely registers with the CPU with no visualizations and only jumps to 7% but mostly around 3% with them on. It uses about 9 megs of ram with no vis and about 37 megs with it on. Again that is hardly nothing for this machine. Mind you I’m only using WMP 9.
One problem with this new technology is DEP. Now there is a pissoff. It is invoked mostly when installing or upgrading microsoft shit. I just might have to fire up the newest Fedora build if I can figure out how to get it to dual boot from my second SATA mode AHCI enabled no RAID drive.
Comment by John Buick — April 18, 2007 @ 11:03 pm
Urgh, I hate WMP with a passion. It scans folders I don’t want it to scan, totally messes up my library, pulls tags out of god knows where.. I edit all my tags using Tag&Rename, which is a very popular and commonly used editor.. yet somehow WMP disagrees with what I’ve written and makes up it’s own damn artists for my songs. Plus it acts like a total **** when I want to connect to my 360, which is the only reason I have it in the first place.
iTunes is awful for all the reasons people have mentioned, and Winamp is now bloated full of 3rd party software like this MusicMagic Mix crap.
Every single one of those usage stats is horrifying. 21000K just to hear a song? I’ve recently switched over to foobar and it’s perfect. All my songs laid out exactly as I want them, never does anything without asking, doesn’t have any plugins or 3rd party apps I didn’t choose to install.. and uses about 4000K max when playing a song, idle usage is around 500K.
It’s complicated to install, and if you’re not willing to learn or have little computing knowledge I’d advise against it.. but for those who do/are, it’s the way to go.
Comment by DDR Midian — April 29, 2007 @ 12:23 pm
[…] 1, 2007 Posted by Michael Andreas in Sidenotes. trackback Sedikit usang, tapi Paper Kingdoms punya post menarik perihal 3-way shootout antara Windows Media Player, Winamp, dan iTunes. Mungkin iTunes berhak […]
Pingback by The battle of media players « Be not afraid of life.. — April 30, 2007 @ 1:05 pm
anyone know how to keep wmp11 from popping up whenever i dock my mp3 player to my Vista machine?
Comment by m — May 9, 2007 @ 11:28 pm
m try WD40
Comment by ben — May 27, 2007 @ 4:43 pm
It’s a shame…. I used iTunes from version 1 when it was Mac only, until version 7 on the PC and I’ve now finally switched to Winamp, due to the huge number of plugins (FTP, mIRC etc) and it’s out of the box support for AAC. WMP is a bitch to get working with AAC (with tags and codec), which is my format of choice, since I own an iPod. So I’d recommended Winamp. The reason I switched the stupid amount of RAM and CPU usage iTunes used.
I still fire up iTunes to sync the iPod and download podcasts, because I have a game and s few albums I purchased form the store.
Comment by Marc Wickens — May 27, 2007 @ 5:06 pm
thats a good comparo but im not sure i agree with the skins part, because most of winamp’s skin just blow.
I’m using WMP11 now because it’s got a great media library, good support for video after i got the FFDShow codec, and I like having a media player that can play music and video, wish it does great. using two media player’s for music and video I find just dumb. I think I dont like winamp for video is becuase it cant be all in one windows and my maximized.
Also why wasn’t Virtual Memory factored in? On average WMP uses about half that of Winamp.
Comment by warchief_ryan — May 29, 2007 @ 10:57 am
ive been reading this agreeing with some stuff and totaly disagreeing with other stuff, i currently use wmp11 eversince i got a new computer which i put vista on, perviously i used winamp since like forever maybe even since version 1 i think, anyway ive used itunes before several times… i dont like it, i dont mind the fact it uses up heaps of resources but the fact that it lags when u scroll down through your songs… totaly crap… lagging like that anoys me no end and no my computer isnt crap.., and the search thing is pretty average and the genreal layout pesonaly doesnt sute me the programs a bit big for my liking i takes up too much of my screen.
the new wmp is quite an improvement over the other versions i used to hate it.. not anymore, the album art is awsome the search is good, it looks way better than old versions and runs nicely, i belive it can be improved tho just a few things here and there im a bit picky, maybe its just my love for winamp comming through, for example: no artist in the playlist…. gay.. lol its just a few things like that
winamp, well winamp i love it u cant go past the classic skin ive tryed useing others.. its not the same classic skin all the way runs fast as no laging while scrolling! search is awsome press “j” and que songs up! i love that feature ive never seen a play that compares to that, i do agree with people that say the new winamp versions are getting cloged up with extra shit… i dont use any of it tho cos i only have the main window and playlist editor with all my songs on it, i use a plug in called toaster which brings a popup fade in thing that displays title artist album art and whatever else u want which looks awsome, also the keyboard short cuts kick ass in winamp also the thing i love about winamp is the size and shape(the way i use it anyway), its thin and tall that added with a widescreen monitor = very nice, even with 4:3 still good, another nice thing about winamp is the fade feature where u can get songs to fade into eachother, sounds good runs nicely
in the end i think if ur into albums probably go with wmp11 if u have lots of single songs probably go with winamp, i like both, itunes is crap as far as im concerned maybe its good on macs…. frainkly i dont care
for videos i used media play classic it totaly kicks ass for videos i havent found a format it cant play yet and theres no need for installing or codecs, just one small exe, did i mention it runs like a dream
btw anyone using equalisers… buy good audio equipment fools! artists uses equalisers when they record things suprisingly enough so you dont have to!.. unless ur using wmp11 or itunes in in a hall or somthing if so.. its called a cd play yay!
Comment by Richard — June 4, 2007 @ 9:49 am
Are you crazy, guys?!
foobar2000 is the king!
winamp is pretty good, but can’t cope with fb2k
WMP is bad, very bad. all of you like the colors and everyhing that’s inside it, but deeper you know that it is ridiculous. damm it, Microsoft! you’re so idiot…
iT is girlish and doesn’t have one useful thing in it. no need more words…
foobar2000 is the king!!!
Comment by Jairon — August 16, 2007 @ 11:09 am
Personally I don’t like WMP 11. Version 10 was ok but I prefer a simple listing whereas WMP 11 insists on using album art which makes the listings way too long, unwieldy and generally it makes it harder to find things. The fact that I can’t display the comment tag also bugs the hell out of me as I store record label info in the comment tag and sometimes want to sort by record label.
Those two factors lead me to try winamp and I’m now a complete convert. Winamp is just so smooth and easy to use, I can display my comment tags ,I can select and browse multiple genres, I can hide views I don’t need just by using the slide bars. Winamp rocks for audio but I’ve retained WMP 11 for video.
itunes just sucks, period. I have to admit I’m not a fan of Apple in general but I think I’d rather die than install that piece of junk and it’s retarded cousin Quicktime on my PC.
Comment by TomW — November 2, 2007 @ 9:11 am
WMP 11 is the best! reasonz:
-best quality sound of playback. no.2 i tunes, may better in mac than windows. winamp natively sucks but it has many plug in to fix it after
-supporting plug in codecs,equal with winamp. i tunes is a poor shit boy
-show full metadata in library like pics, author, etc, not like others,
-the fastest instant search for searching the songs, it always indexes
-skin, wmp11 is the most beautiful, simplest but useful, elegant. i tunes graphic sadly
-and many many more other things that will kick ur ass hi i tunes f**ck**ng shit lovers. sorry by that, but hi it’s the fact
Comment by GOD — November 17, 2007 @ 10:03 am
if #7. is such a ‘apple boy’as you suggest ,then why is he continually looking for an alternative? perhaps, he is weary, as i am, of the way in which itunes takes over. or perhaps he dislikes the limited choices that itunes, in its simplicity, offers.
that his criteria differs from your own does not necessarily constitute ‘fanboy’ status. that you seem to have an axe to grind regarding apple and itunes, however is more apparent.
Comment by confuchsia — December 24, 2007 @ 6:25 pm
Just a point for sound quality : Winamp allows the user to use “waveout output”, which allows to shortcut all hardware acceleration and greatly improves sound quality on computers that to not have a real soundcard (motherboards chipset are really lofi). Onsce this option is checked, for the majority of users winamp will have a better sound than WMP/itunes.
New skin in winamp >5.5 also changes a bit the library and adds album art.
Not too sure about the memory usages between winamp / WMP, I have slightly different values. And would have been nice to see the memory usage once reduced.
Comment by Document02 — January 13, 2008 @ 11:24 am
wow…
how did you get 21k in memory usage for wmp 11?
Im playing music right now, and im using the DFX 8 plugin for wmp and its only using 8k…
personally, wmp suits me. i tried winamp, its good too, but somehow i just prefer wmp.
and itunes sucks.
just in case you were wondering…
Comment by Lev — January 29, 2008 @ 9:50 pm
In my honest opinion.
I’ve tried many a media player.
Everyone has their specification.
I’m not too stingy.
As long as the graphical interface is nice,Playability is a factor, Doesn’t crash on me.I’m good to go.
Hence “crash=winamp”
yes,
that’s why I’ve searched for a wmp11 vs winamp comparison.
I’ve got tired of opening winamp & having the window flicker repeatedly because of an msn plugin.
It even malfunctioned in that manner without one.
So, a microsoft machine with a microsoft windows media player suits my fancy.
As for Nullsoft.
When AOL builds a computer , I might decide winamp.
Until then, It isn’t going to occur anytime soon.
As for Itunes.I’d gave it a spin.
look at your start up menu.
Like zoh my gawd so much stuff is added no thanks to apple’s installer >.>
My dissertation on this whole review.
every computer differs in speed and functionality.
so his numbers were accurate & inaccurate dependeing on ram, cpu, etcetera.
Windows Media Plyer 11, My only complaint,when you play a video,it will add it automatically to the library.
and well,
on winamp’s side.
to play a video,You must add a codec which doesn’t inform you is missing or not, will just play audio.
In my own personal elaboration.
Itunes is bad, as well as winamp.
I’m a microsoft hater.
but, their media player is my top choice.
and their equalizer pwns winamp’s so it excels greatly.
all in performance.
do a little referencing in comparison to how quickly winamp opens to wmp11.
who will hear their song first?
My point closed almost
as for being minimized.
itunes carries a toolbar as does wmp11.
winamp has a system tray.
Sometimes , I’ll open it when a song is nearly over and it has this tendency to freeze.
The newest winamp. even the pro version seems mediocre at best.
with that integrated web browser.
I have mozilla firefox for a reason >.>
To browse the internet.
and windows media player for music hence “media”
and also for video.
But, sometimes.
I like vlc’s features.
Sorry winamp fans.
It may appear light, but, Microsoft programs run best on microsoft machines.
As for their internet explorer i will deny access to it lolz =D
.so, to conclude this little storyline.
Itunes does all that converting of wma formats and takes a while to scan, so Itunes takes from time conservation.. Setting up windows media player is simple. install. ready to go. no annoyances.
winamp.
you have to add a folder to the library and select the option to rescan folders at start up.
Each top their own requirements.
Microsoft isn’t so bad.
Learn to love them.
If they find out you’re trying to overthrow them for offering this magnificent operation system. my will they be angry, as if not already.
btw, vista is terrible, drm copyright garbage >.>.
I love xp with service pack three.
I won’t upgrade to it neighter. seems like a fluke, similar to when the xbox was first released lolz.
but. wmp11 all the way ftw!
speed.reliability.customization.ease of playability.
Sincerely
-Raul S.
Comment by Raul S. Archetype Rawr xD — February 11, 2008 @ 5:25 am
Have you done a review of media players for the MAC? I love Mac over Windows (XP or Vista) and there WAS a time when Windows was better (Win98 and Win2000) but since Mac OS X, Mac has consistently had fewer problems in every category. XP has it’s share of unintuitive features and is VERY virus-prone, making it only suitable for serious gaming and basic web browsing and email in a controlled anti-malware environment (but why not use Linux with no cost and no malware for that?) Vista (unfortunately currently on my primary computer) has too many problems to count. The instability, unnecessary DRM control (which I believe DRM will die a slow and painful death), and countless other problems. Mac (which I have used since System 7, when it truly was crappy) has become the best operating system for anything but serious gaming. But then again, any modern Mac can use Boot Camp to easily dual-boot Windows (and/or Linux) for gaming, while no non-Apple hardware can (legally and/or without serious stability problems) run Mac OS!!
Comment by SK — February 17, 2008 @ 10:51 am
VLC is a fantastic media player but can’t organize music well. I use it on Linux with Amarok on KDE (for iPod, Creative Zen, and music library management as good as iTunes), and Rhythmbox on GNOME (with all the same features, and now experimental iPod support. YAY!!) I am yet to try Winamp (currently installing it actually) but while WMP is fantastic for WMA/WMV (but then again, everything can play unprotected WMA now) and if you want to stare at a pretty moving screen while listening to music, VLC is my media player of choice. I prefer iTunes for music library management and iPod control (it technically voids the warranty to use anything else, though I use Amarok on Linux) and VLC for playing media.
Comment by SK — February 17, 2008 @ 10:57 am
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Comment by dianafx — March 12, 2008 @ 1:18 am
Hi guys!
Wonderful review and wonderful discussion.
I started as a Winamp user, and converted to WMP when XP came out.
Well, after moving to Vista, I started being so annoyed my WMP 11: I did not go as deep as the review, but I found so much troubles with the management of my full library that I decided to give another chance to Winamp, and found it so smooth and simple!
Would anyone that went deep into it, try to summarize all the troubles that WMP creates with lists? Of course I noticed that he likes to check folders that I did not selected (and it is not easy not to let it do it!), adds songs after playing, etc.
Moreover: if you have an incomplete selection of album arts, the representation becomes just crappy as hell…
There is just one point I prefer in WMP11 with respect to Winamp: editing tags is easier. Ah, well, of course the graphic is gorgeous at the moment.
IT is just bad: heavy and it misses so many options.
Looking forward to reading all your comments!
Michele
Comment by Michele — March 19, 2008 @ 6:14 am
iTunes is pathetic. Everything about Apple assumes that 100% of it’s customers will want to do things in ONE singular way & offers almost no control. Here’s a metaphor: If owning a Windows machine is like owning a car, owning a Mac is like taking the train. Both have advantages. I’ll take the freedom over convenience any day.
Comment by Brian — April 26, 2008 @ 4:32 pm
you are absouloutly right but WMP is good at video it handels a lot of formats iTunes is good at it too but it’s pathetic and slow makes music browsing hard even the iPod has a better firmware and winamp has a lot of bugs but you can find records on the go WMP is good but importing new music is hard because there is no progres bar but you can listen to music at the same time the most important thig your review is great and awsome
Comment by slim zouari — June 27, 2008 @ 10:32 am
I think Media Center is great, it’s all that iTunes could have been, it’s like mediamonkey with video support=)
Media Center blog: http://www.driftingdots.com/float/mediaplayers.html
Comment by Niko — August 1, 2008 @ 3:57 pm
Nicely done I totally agree with you and your grading system i personally prefer winamp and only have itunes to sync my nano. Another good video program is TCMP which has lots of pre installed codecs and although it looks horrible and so 98 it uses very little memory, has lots of cool features and is excellent for watching movies. (:
Comment by Woody — August 28, 2008 @ 8:35 am
Basically, what I’m seeing here is a whole lot of fanboy bitching.
WinAmp (5.541) eats 40MB of memory already without me doing anything. Playing a song makes it eat upwards to 55MB. AKA, playing songs take 15MB.
WMP11 (11.0.6001.7000) takes only about 16MB of memory without doing anything with MiniLyrics open and DFX 8 active. Playing a song takes 20MB. AKA, playing songs take 4MB.
Hell, it’s playing the same song now using ONLY 5MB in TOTAL. Goddamn it Micro(Bloat)soft, you finally did something good.
I’m not going to comment on iTunes – I hate it with a passion after it attempted to grab control and organize everything ITS way. Not MY way. RAM hog too – even on a Mac.
Comparing the amount of RAM used – WinAmp dies. Badly. Seriously, even those Windows programmers made it use only 4MB for the same song you require 15MB for.
Titanic, anyone? Apparently WinAmp leaks worse.
Even with DFX 8 off, WMP11’s audio quality wins WinAmp’s. FYI, my ear’s aren’t those of audiophiles. If even I can hear a difference… That’s just… really really sad.
Speaking on video… WinAmp failed to play my video at all. I could hear sounds, but no video. WMP11 played it perfectly. That’s just… really disappointing. I can even hear the audio in the video played in WMP11 (Without DFX8) much more clearly than WinAmp’s.
Some say WMP11’s heavy. OH REALLY?
It’s a heavyweight, alright. Placing WMP11 against WinAmp is indeed like placing a Heavyweight (WMP11) against a featherweight (WinAmp). One -GODDAMN- Hit K.O.
And for video – Despite WMP11’s competency, I still prefer Media Player Classic. I like to keep my video and my music separate.
And for other players like Real Player? That player can go burn in hell.
For installation, both WMP11 and WinAmp was very smooth.
Plugins? Hell, Microsoft owns at this. Searching for a particular plugin hasn’t been this hard with me getting distracted by other great plugins.
Well, WMP11 does look a bit shabby in skins as compared to WinAmp, but hey, who’s gonna keep looking at your music player?!
Hot Keys, Schmot Schmeys. Not a criteria for me, but for those people, WinAmp wins in this.
Sharing media’s decent on both WMP11 and WinAmp. Nothing to write home about, but nothing shabby either – a (VERY) stark contrast to iTunes.
Layout. WMP11’s layout seemed more iPod than Microsoft to me. Smooth, clean, uncluttered. The same cannot be said about WinAmp. Finding a song in WMP11 was a simple click and type affair. While WinAmp was the same, in terms of presentation, it lost. Terribly.
Playlists. Both’s 50-50.
In conclusion? Microsoft goes against the norm of it creating BloatSoft, and here’s a streamlined audio player that is both Spartan yet luxurious. It accomodates both ends of the spectrum, those seeking performance, and those seeking quality.
The same cannot be said for WinAmp.
Well, as the saying goes, one man’s meat is another’s poison. You may like BloatSoft – I don’t.
Comment by Arashi — September 8, 2008 @ 12:20 am
Arashi…..
last winamp uses more memory..because of plugins…..
If you want low memory just use a previous version…Ex: Winamp 2.65 uses aroun 2,300kb while playing a song. Is all up to you what plugins you want to have…If you look for lean applications than use older versions..they just play music, without all the blitz. Well any extra blitz requires memory…lol
xenon
Comment by xenon — December 31, 2008 @ 1:43 am
ok well i dont know about everyone else but i think windows media player makes itunes look like shit (srry for language)i mean really, i played the same video in full screen on both here are the videos “stats”
quality: 1080P
length: 6hr.12min,4sec (not that it matters)
fullscreen
i ran that video on both and itunes crashed my computer even though nothing else was running. and then i went to windows media plaeyr and did the same, i put it in fullscreen at max available quality 1080P. and it only used 2% cpu while itunes used 100% on all 4 of my cpu’s cores. and i had nearly 30 tabs in google chrome open all playing youtube at 1080P and only used 52%. so, i say windows media player conquers on performance.
but compatibility is very important to right? well i couldnt play my flv, avi and what not files in it so… i downloaded a codec pack and got full compatibility with everything itunes did and then some! hell i was able to open powerpoint files (slideshows) in it to. so its covered in compatibility as well.
but one last thing thats very important. and its called (playlists) i mean itunes has a very simple way of making playlsits right? well i “hacked or modified” windows media player and added a little + icon at the bottom of the screen just like itunes so i could make a playlist that way. so windows media player for me totally kicks ass in all departments! if you want the hacked/modified version i can give you a download link just send a email to zanorth@yahoo.com if you do!
as you noticed i didnt say anything about winamp because i tried it before and itunes made it look like kitty toys and windows media player made it look like pure crap melting on a sidewalk. so it didn’t qualify.
Comment by roberttwildman — April 29, 2011 @ 4:24 pm
Got 37k+ of songs… the only one which can handle them right in a single playlist is winamp? got many powerful and useful plugins like managing your playlist remotely using a web browser 🙂
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