Favorite PC/MAC Audio/Media Player?
Mar 7, 2009 at 7:00 PM Post #16 of 58
I think some people don't like foobar because they didn't put the time into customizing it with plugins. You really need the UI Columns plugin to get a nice GUI and a permannent search box out of it, otherwise it is quite barren looking compared to the likes of MediaMonkey and some others.
 
Mar 8, 2009 at 9:18 AM Post #19 of 58
I use J. River Media Center as my primary media player. It turns my collection of CDs into a library that I can search, tag, and organize. It also can play albums gapless, just like the original CD. Very few media players do gapless right. J. River Media Center does, and so does Foobar.

I use Foobar as sort of a utility program. If I have a CUE image and want to split it into tracks I'll use Foobar. If I have an audio file I want to listen to, but it's not in my Media Center library, I'll open it in Foobar. My problem with Foobar is I can't grep its UI. I don't want to bother with learning how to customize the UI with scripting and whatever else is necessary.
 
Mar 8, 2009 at 1:13 PM Post #21 of 58
Quote:

Originally Posted by Ham Sandwich /img/forum/go_quote.gif
My problem with Foobar is I can't grep its UI. I don't want to bother with learning how to customize the UI with scripting and whatever else is necessary.


UI Columns you just drop the .dll into the foobar/components folder and then enable it in the preferences screen. What's so hard about that?

I used to use free version of J.River for a short while but it tries to connect to the internet every time you start it up which made it slow to respond when I was not connected to the internet. There was no way to disable that behavior either so it got uninstalled.
 
Mar 8, 2009 at 11:07 PM Post #22 of 58
Mac
Music --> iTunes
Video --> QuickTime Pro
Podcasts --> iTunes

Linux
Music --> VLC
Video --> VLC

Never on Windows anymore, but I used to use Winamp. Never tried Foobar so i'll have to try it one day.
 
Mar 9, 2009 at 3:56 AM Post #24 of 58
Quote:

Originally Posted by milkweg /img/forum/go_quote.gif
UI Columns you just drop the .dll into the foobar/components folder and then enable it in the preferences screen. What's so hard about that?

I used to use free version of J.River for a short while but it tries to connect to the internet every time you start it up which made it slow to respond when I was not connected to the internet. There was no way to disable that behavior either so it got uninstalled.


True, UIColumns is easier to get going than the previous UI system (panels?). It's just not my cup of tea. It works for what it is, but not what I want in a primary media library manager/player.

I do like Foobar for what it can do. Gapless playback, variety of input plugins, a focus on audio quality, etc.

MJ12 does want to connect you first to Amazon and the web. And there is no way to bypass that. That's probably because J. River is trying to get some money out of MJ12 through Amazon purchases and such.

MC12 and MC13 are more flexible and can be configured not to open a web page at startup.

My view/experience is that Foobar and MJ12/MC12/MC13 are the only players that meet my requirements of audio quality and proper gapless playback. Every other media player I've tried has fallen short somewhere along the line.
 
Mar 9, 2009 at 4:41 PM Post #27 of 58
Mac audio = iTunes
Mac video = VLC

When I last used Windows some 3ish years ago, I used Winamp and VLC or Media Player Classic.
 
Mar 10, 2009 at 1:19 AM Post #29 of 58
Foobar simply for its stable asio output...love the EQ Spectrum visualiser. Quite accurate.

smily_headphones1.gif
 
Mar 22, 2009 at 6:51 PM Post #30 of 58
Well, after a long time away from Play (for Mac) I decided to look into it because Cog doesn't have album art nor does it have a tagger. It is still a wonderful lightweight player but I like how Foobar developed into just about anything you want it to be. Cog is slower in development because it is basically just one guy.


Anyhow, I grabbed Play this week and it looks great! It is very flexible and stable with FLAC files (it was horrible with them for a while and hence me going with Cog). With Play now in partnership with Max and Tag, we are seeing a quick development timescale and I really like what I'm seeing. So for now, Play is my go-to app on Mac, though iTunes + Doug's scripts is still very very powerful. If only iTunes had FLAC support without hacking.

Foobar is still the way to go on Windows for me, and I guess I'm stuck with Amarok on Linux.
 
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