[vulc4n]

Okay Mac users... I'm soon going to be starting on a rather ambitious project to create a true iTunes alternative for OS X. More than that I want it to be an all-in-one media management tool that lets you do things the way YOU want to.

I already have a good idea of what I would want, but first I want to hear what Head-Fi users find desirable.

So hit me with your ideas... Suggestions for the ui, how the back end should be designed, basically anything

Also, if anyone that has experience in developing applications for OS X and would like to get involved, feel free to contact me.

 

[auee]

Off the top of my head, and in addition to the features and capabilities already in iTunes, I would like to see the following:
Flac conversion in addition to ALAC
An album only list view similar to Foobar
An artist only list view similar to Foobar

After I give this some real thought, I will post again.

 

[gardnermj]

You say "media management tool", which implies more than just audio. Personally, I don't need or want video support in my audio player. I also don't need it to handle ripping CDs or transcoding or any of that stuff; it should just let me organize and play my music.

My ideal Mac audio player would basically be a Mac-native version of Quod Libet: simple, open source and completely customizable. I may be unusual in this regard, though.

 

[csommers]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gardnermj /img/forum/go_quote.gif You say "media management tool", which implies more than just audio. Personally, I don't need or want video support in my audio player. I also don't need it to handle ripping CDs or transcoding or any of that stuff; it should just let me organize and play my music. My ideal Mac audio player would basically be a Mac-native version of Quod Libet: simple, open source and completely customizable. I may be unusual in this regard, though.

+1
IMHO the bare necessities, but with the ability to tweak, ala Foobar. Skip video/cd ripping, media players never handle it very well and it always ends up looking cluttered.
Simplicity>Complexity

 

[Uncle Erik]

I'd also prefer something that was audio specific. Support for FLAC would be great, as would support for hi-rez formats. I've thought about starting to do needledrops in 24/96 (or higher) and I'd love to be able to output that in hi-rez to a DAC.

Forgive me if something like this exists - I've been out of computer-as-source for a couple of years now. However, the CD collection has grown (

) and I'm looking for a way to better manage it. iTunes will do that, but I'd love something that I could use with a pro soundcard for better than Red Book reproduction. I'd think that would be popular in the audiophile community.

As for the UI, simpler is better. I would love to have it display album artwork, though.

Open source would be best, but I would pay for shareware or an inexpensive commercial version.

 

[krmathis]

Basically Foobar2000 for Mac OS X.
Something with quite basic looks/features out of the box, but extensible to perform almost any audio related task. That goes for codec/container support, secure ripping, ABX testing, bit comparing, CD burning, iPod syncing, ...

AirTunes support and bit-perfect playback is a must for me to even consider switching.

 

[lyricalmoments]

For me, it'll be a media player with ripping as good as EAC. Don't need all the bells and whistles

 

[Ruahrc]

Drop-in drop-out library support. What I mean is if I store half my music on my internal drive and the other half on an external- if I launh the program without the external connected that half of the library shouldn't show up (or be greyed out). But if I plug the external back in it should detect that and ungrey those songs.

For a better explanation see the way Adobe Lighteoom handles photos on multiple drives. I would like something like that for my music.

 

[paaj]

If you combine iTunes with XLD (for ripping/conversion) I'd be happy

It could use a more customisable GUI, e.g. I don't need the left menu bar and had to hack the itunes store arrows out.
I'd like a full screen album-art-rasterized window (like in iTunes8) where the CD's flip over like in the iTouch coverflow interface to show songtitles.here@6:40

And maybe add automatic sample rate processing to change the audioMidi settings on the fly when needed.

 

[krmathis]

Some great ideas and thoughts in this hydrogenaudio thread as well.
Euphonos - Mac OS X audio player project - Hydrogenaudio Forums

Quick summary:

1. Written in Objective-C/Cocoa (Xcode project).
2. CoreData (SQLite) for media library.
3. Spotlight support for metadata handling.
4. XML/XSL/JavaScript for playlist formatting.
5. Plugin architecture for easy addition of extra functionality.
6. CoreAudio. Additional codecs through the AudioCodec API.
7. AppleScript support.
8. Audio Units support.

 

[[L]es]

how about amarok 2 ? there's a beta build if you click on download.

 

[Okenezak]

I like the interface and lightweightness of Cmus (C* Music Player), but I'd like to see better compilation tagging/browsing, and the ability to edit ID3 and FLAC/Vorbis tags on-the-fly without using something else.

I found it incredibly irritating to have to tag all the music with a separate program (iTunes) if all I wanted was to correct a typo.

Cmus is what I use currently on my little netbook because it's so lightweight.

 

[shortkidsrus]

Something with on-the-fly transcode. That would make me sooo happy!

 

[poo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by paaj /img/forum/go_quote.gif If you combine iTunes with XLD (for ripping/conversion) I'd be happy It could use a more customisable GUI, e.g. I don't need the left menu bar and had to hack the itunes store arrows out. I'd like a full screen album-art-rasterized window (like in iTunes8) where the CD's flip over like in the iTouch coverflow interface to show songtitles.here@6:40 And maybe add automatic sample rate processing to change the audioMidi settings on the fly when needed.

All exactly what I would love to see!!

I would also like 'folder watching' so that you can specify folders to be 'watched' and the media within those folders to automatically be added to the library.

I don't mind the idea of a more general media player (unlike those above who want audio only), but I would love to be able to specify exactly which media to include/exclude and be able to separate media when required. That way you could have the best of all worlds if you want it, or remove those sections you don't use - a bit like Voltron (yeah the toy robot cat thing). Comes together as a whole, but the parts can be used individually, saving memory, clutter and being more user specific based on media preferences.