By Steven Stoddard
Since the debut of the iPod there has been a war going on. A secret, stealthy war that we've all been apart of, in fact, we're the prime targets of this war. On the outside, the iPod is just a nice, expensive MP3 player. On the inside, it is a device that is used to direct our attentions to Apple's music store and Apple's media player software, known as: Itunes. Shortly after the iPod was released Microsoft began developing it's own kind of monster. They dubbed it the Zune. It was alot like the iPod, but it had more functionality, though everyone liked the iPod, because they all already had one. The Zune tried to persuade it's listeners to use Microsoft's media player software, Windows Media Player. And then there was one more faction at the heart of this war, collaborating between the two, trying to get them to work together in one single, slightly non-commercialized package, Winamp.
Now what side are you going to be on in this war? Are you going to be using Windows Media Player 11, iTunes 7, or Winamp 5.52. We're going to take this decision and make it a lot easier for you in this comparative analysis of each of the best media player software out there by listing the features, pros, and cons, and overall ease of use of each media player.
iTunes 7
The latest version of iTunes is 7.6 and it was released on January 15th, 2008. It's Apple's main free media player software, and it features the iTunes Store, easy syncing to your computer and your iPod, Cover Flow, encode music into a variety of formats, and it also has a big selection of internet radio stations to listen to. It has a really easy to use user interface, everything is at your finterips, and your iPod syncs with the software automatically. Though, I found the iPod syncing a little annoying, because typically it just loads up your iPod with everything it can find in your Music Library, and it doesn't make it very easy to pick tracks to exclude. Also the fact that it just does it automatically everytime I plug in my iPod makes it really annoying, I'd rather have it wait for me to tell it when to sync. The iTunes Store is something that Apple is especially proud of because you can buy over 2 million songs for only $0.99 each, you can also purchase movies for your iPod, and they've just released their movie rental program that seems promising.
Pros:
- Cover Flow is a cool way to look through your music.
- The iTunes store has a huge database of songs, movies, and TV series for you to download.
- Many internet radio stations for you to check out
Cons:
- I find the automatic syncing of the iPod a little annoying
- Typically only has good MP3 player support for the iPod, if you have a different MP3 player you're on your own.
Windows Media Player 11
Windows Media Player 11 is Microsoft's answer to a fully capable media player. It has a less cluttered user interface than WMP10 and the look has been smoothed out so it looks alot nicer than it did before. It features the typical audio, video, media playback, visualizations, MP3 player syncing, good organized library with CD ripping capabilities. You can also connect it to your Xbox 360 to pull songs and videos from your PC to your 360 which is an amazing feature to have so instead of wasting space on your Xbox, and having multiple copies of your favorite songs everywhere just stream it from your PC while you're playing your favorite 360 game. It'll also stream videos so you can watch them from your PC on your TV. This feature alone is something worth checking out WMP11 for, however you can still do this if you don't have Windows Media Player by using Windows Media Connect software available at Microsoft's Website.
Pros:
- Ability to connect your Xbox 360 to your PC for media sharing and streaming
- Spiffy new interface to keep things looking fresh
Cons:
- The format support isn't as good as other programs
- Need a genuine copy of Windows to use it
Winamp
There's something about saving the best for last that makes it all worth while. Winamp is the original ultimate media player, and has been around since ancient times. You can do just as much as the other media players with Winamp, and more. It can sync to your iPod and other PlaysForSure devices. Also comes with visualizations, and extremely easy and good to organize library system. The ability to remove duplicate files from your library. Also features a new skin to keep up with times in their latest release. Winamp also has plugin functionality and a wide database of plugins on their main website. Winamp also has the functionality of connecting to your Xbox 360 and letting you stream music from it, however the system is still in it's beta, and doesn't work as flawlessly as it should when it's ready for a stable release. But instead of just being able to stream your music and videos, it has the ability to take the best of the best from YouTube, AOL Videos and many more video websites and display them on your TV via your 360. That, I think is an impressive feature to have. The only downside is the ripping capability in the free version of Winamp. If you don't have the pro version, the quality and speed of the ripping is hardly worth waiting for, you'd be better off finding another program for ripping through a google search rather than dealing with that. But if you shell out the cash for the pro version the ripping is well worth it, because it has the ability to rip it into practically any format you want, and any quality you desire.
Pros:
- Easy to manage your music library
- Many streaming video and radio channels to choose from
- Ability to connect to your Xbox 360 and stream videos and music to it
- Easy iPod syncing
Cons:
- Touchy software, sometimes crashes while doing random things like loading up your iPod or ripping a CD
- Bad ripping performance until you purchase the Pro version
So there you have it. Each media player has it's pros and cons, there is no one solution, but whatever you prefer, iTunes is for the common iPod audience, WinAmp is for the music power users, and Windows Media Player 11 is suitable for the rest in between.
Steve's Tech Guide - A blog that helps you scratch your tech itch with computer guides, informative how-tos, and important news events.
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