I think skins, and desktop themes for that matter, are the biggest amounts of MS bloat. How many of us have seen the systemwide impact that occurs by turning on 'Active Desktop' and other so-called appearance features (animated cursors and icons, etc.)?
What I like about WMP 9 & 10 is that it can be minimized to a seperate toolbar (or to the system tray if you get the bonus pack) to be completely non-intrusive. What I don't like is the skins that you are forced to install with WMP7 and up.
I really don't get the obsession with appearances of a video player. If I'm watching a movie, it's full screen and I don't want to see any controls. All standard manipulation should be done via keyboard shortcuts. For all other times, a simple, clean interface like MPC provides is all that's needed. The really important part of a media player is support as vtech mentioned.
Cramming both audio and video playback into a single program doesn't work. To quote Skull (http://www.pvponline.com) - It's a football _and_ a telephone!
Separate solutions are so much better... I use Winamp for audio - even though it tries to be a video player as well, it's lousy for that; and BSPlayer for video - nothing better exists. Media Player Classic for realvideo clips, when I absolutely can't avoid them.
I don't understand why anybody uses this crappy player. Subtitles? Deinterlacing? Cropping? Aspect-ratio changes? Nothing. Just few megabytes of lousy skins.
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Mgz - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - link
WTF?No word from the new Windows Media 9.1? No word from the new FhG ACM MP3 Encoder 3.0.22?
Mgz - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - link
mbhame - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - link
Where's the "Pornability" factor in this review? :PAquila76 - Monday, September 20, 2004 - link
I think skins, and desktop themes for that matter, are the biggest amounts of MS bloat. How many of us have seen the systemwide impact that occurs by turning on 'Active Desktop' and other so-called appearance features (animated cursors and icons, etc.)?What I like about WMP 9 & 10 is that it can be minimized to a seperate toolbar (or to the system tray if you get the bonus pack) to be completely non-intrusive. What I don't like is the skins that you are forced to install with WMP7 and up.
SKiller - Monday, September 20, 2004 - link
I really don't get the obsession with appearances of a video player. If I'm watching a movie, it's full screen and I don't want to see any controls. All standard manipulation should be done via keyboard shortcuts. For all other times, a simple, clean interface like MPC provides is all that's needed. The really important part of a media player is support as vtech mentioned.Gholam - Monday, September 20, 2004 - link
Cramming both audio and video playback into a single program doesn't work. To quote Skull (http://www.pvponline.com) - It's a football _and_ a telephone!Separate solutions are so much better... I use Winamp for audio - even though it tries to be a video player as well, it's lousy for that; and BSPlayer for video - nothing better exists. Media Player Classic for realvideo clips, when I absolutely can't avoid them.
Avalon - Sunday, September 19, 2004 - link
I use WMP because it's not Realplayer.Glassmaster - Sunday, September 19, 2004 - link
MPC forever!!!Glassmaster
vtech - Sunday, September 19, 2004 - link
I don't understand why anybody uses this crappy player. Subtitles? Deinterlacing? Cropping? Aspect-ratio changes? Nothing. Just few megabytes of lousy skins.leohuf - Sunday, September 19, 2004 - link
sprockkets - Sunday, September 19, 2004 - link
The best part of WMP10 is that it's XP only, which is so ridiculous but why not, make it seem that XP can only handle it.JustAnAverageGuy - Sunday, September 19, 2004 - link
I assume you're still writing the article?