i'm a fan of WMP for the layout, i really like it, and its not too bright for me (i cant stand itunes or zune. firstoff because they kinda suck, and second off because they are way too bright for me. itunes also takes over my computer and i dont like that) i also like how wmp can play almost anything with the right codec pack installed. but recently there are a couple of quirks in wmp that i really dont like. i consider 12 to be a step down from 11 in several areas. so i'm looking for a better media player. any suggestions would be welcome. i would like something with dark themes, i dont like white/grey. customizable is good. i would also like it to be able to play just about everything, from mp3 to flac to avi to h264. one thing that is an absolute must is good album art/id3 tag info. i would prefer it if the media player pulled the art from the song every time it played, so i wouldnt have to worry about keeping it up to date, or having single songs in a cd that have different album art not showing up. i also DO NOT want it to separate my albums by artist while i'm looking at them sorted by album. if i have a compilation cd it should show as a single tile or icon when sorted by album, even if it has multiple artists. so if any of you knowledgeable folks have any ideas that would meet or closely match the above list i would be very grateful. thanks for the help!
VLC player will play anything you throw at it, but as for album art, VLC doesn't have that feature (or has it ?) KM player also plays a lot of formats, but again, don't know if it has that feature. Gen555
I'd rather use foobar2000 then vlc but that's everybodies choice. And for the Codec Packs, with the right player you don't need them but if you want mkv, h264, xvid in wmp you should get one, win7codecs works fine, and if you have x64 just get the x64 components. wmp is fine for me, the only thing missing is a x64 lyrics plugin. the ones I could fine only work on x86 wmp.
Exacltly Codec packs can sometimes make things work worse than intended. When building my HTPC - I just used Media Player Classic - Home Cinema version and installed only the codecs for the types of files I wanted to play (ie. MKV)
I use Media Monkey for my music library. Syncs my iPods just fine and handles just every format. For video I use KMPlayer no codecs needed so far. I've used CCCP codecs for Windows 7 before, they work great but haven't come across any issues using KMPlayer minus codecs. /shrugs
WMP 12 is the best media player for Windows 7. It can play divx files out of the box. For mkv, flv and other file formats, you can install codecs from shark007.net and you will never have to worry about anything. VLC player can play anything - but it has no library support and it is ugly as hell - even after applying skins.
i do have shark007's win7 codec pack with x64 addon. it works great for playing any files (though sometimes .flac wont play right, which is really irritating). wmp12 also doesnt support flac or ogg album art/id3 tags. i had to get a plug in for that, and it is rather spotty sometimes too. i really prefer wmp12, but i would really like it if the album art and flac support was better. is there any plugin i could get for those two things to make them better?
Playing Videos - VLC, yeah it uses its own codecs and doesn't have all the post processing features that you can get with something like ZoomPlayer and FFDShow but for watching TVRips and MovieRips it is good enough for me Listening to Music - Foobar 2000, supports pretty much every audio file under the sun and supports cue files for albums/sets that are 1 single file so they can be broken down into tracks Transferring music to my iPhone - Media Monkey
winamp + VLC player = epic win. I've never come across a single file I couldn't play, never had a single codec issue, never had to worry about software messing up my library, etc. As long as you stay far, far away from itunes though, you should be fine. Honestly I don't use WM player for anything except occasionally making video playlists, which is kind of awkward with VLC.
It sounds like your talking specifically about music files. If so, I've always favored WinAmp. The only problem I have with it is the "File Info" for updating song information. I always have to reinput the same info whenever I place the same files on a new machine. The info is kept only on the local WinAmp application. I'm kind of lazy so don't mind WMP so much that I replace it, but, on small machines like a netbook, I Really like GOM player, mostly because it has it's own Codecs built in and don't need any added.
Same here. Both seem to play pretty much anything, and are QUICK. Which is the reason I don't use WMP12; it takes forever to start up and continues to be laggy and unresponsive.