Windows Media Player vs. iTunes (Read before voting, and explain your reasoning please)
Mar 26, 2008 at 4:49 AM Thread Starter Post #1 of 48

pez

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Ok, I have been going through the decision of whether or not I want to continue using Apple products or just go straight out Windows. As Vista has had updates, I have no problem with it now, and I am very pleased how quickly and well integrated WMP works with Vista. Here's my dilemna. I love iTunes, but I think I'm biased because it integrates so well with iPods, but Windows has done a good job of doing the same with MTP players. Also Amazon offers almost every artist I listen to (which is a rarity) and the selection is just as good as iTunes, and they're MP3's that will work with all my players, so one of the things keeping me from making the full Windows conversion is all 300+ of my iTunes bought songs. So I want to know, do you guys think I should just put all of my iTunes stuff on CD's and just re-rip them to WMP and make the full conversion or what? I'm really impressed with the MP3 players that work w/ WMP, but I would like to be minimal and keep only one media player. Besides iTunes takes up a whopping 40K of memory where as WMP takes only 10-12K.
 
Mar 26, 2008 at 5:09 AM Post #2 of 48
Why limit yourself to just those two players? If I was to leave iTunes it wouldn't be to WMP.
 
Mar 26, 2008 at 5:10 AM Post #3 of 48
None of the above. foobar2000 with the FoR configuration. Library functionality and management, advanced conversion tools, the works. If you're using XP, there's no competition that can match it. Under Vista it's occasionally quirky, but it's still my player of choice even with the quirks.
 
Mar 26, 2008 at 5:35 AM Post #4 of 48
does foobar allow you to sync the iPod too? Also, does it support codecs, that will at least allow me to put my stuff from iTunes already in it's library?
 
Mar 26, 2008 at 5:53 AM Post #6 of 48
That's what I'm trying to avoid, is having to use 2 different media players. Foobar can't sync the iPod?
 
Mar 26, 2008 at 6:00 AM Post #8 of 48
Foobar stated on their site it support Vista, but don't use old plugins, I guess that's the reaso why it's crashing like crazy for me on Vista. Foobar is the fastest player I've experiences and it seem support the most codecs. Other players can do asio and kernal stream, but main reason I'm using it is speed. There are ipod plugins for foobar, one is called foo_dop (iPod manager), but it seem to be in alpha version and no sync yet. The down side is foobar look bland out of the box (but advance users can make it look very nice) and it might take times to get use to since it's not as user friendly.

But I don't think foobar support DRM music, so I guess it wouldn't play those old itunes bought songs.

I don't think WMP can compete with Itunes as a music player, which is clearly shown in the consumer market right now. They need to make a whole new playlist feature first. But as a video player, I would have to choose it over Itunes (or Quicktime). I would rather use Winamp over WMP, it has syncing support for ipods.
 
Mar 26, 2008 at 6:13 AM Post #9 of 48
Ok, I just attempted foobar, and that was an epic fail, that wasn't intuitive at all. I've tried media monky, but it really didn't look aesthetically pleasing.
 
Mar 26, 2008 at 6:24 AM Post #10 of 48
You would have to take your times with Foobar, it takes a while to learn. Even when I first downloaded it, I had it installed and left alone for a month or two before I really started using it. But, I don't know if amazon music are drmed and if foobar can play it, can any one confirmed?
 
Mar 26, 2008 at 6:38 AM Post #11 of 48
amazon's music isn't drmed...I think in fact they had to have very recently updated media monkey, and it looks very nice, and can sync both my iPod and my Samsung YP-T9. Now I just have to find a way to transfer video. Grrrrr.
 
Mar 26, 2008 at 7:37 AM Post #12 of 48
My biggest quirk with foobar is that it doesn't have drag-n-drop library function. I have enormous amount of library and it's such a pain to import folders one at a time. (So does MediaMonkey)

I don't want to add some of the songs to the library that haven't been tagged but the only way to do that is to drag-n-drop.

Maybe there's a plug in for it?
 
Mar 26, 2008 at 8:32 AM Post #13 of 48
i cannot believe i voted on this: shows how far i have come. i used to detest itunes as it was bloated, slow and too unresponsive. now i have a mac and find it a pleasure to run and even on windows, the drag and drop capability to a portable player is great (works very well on any player that properlly supports id3 tags - meizu m6, sometimes cowon d2).

yeah, i was an old winamper and then foobarer for years, but other than excellent recording capabilities (for old field recordings done on non-uploading md), i don't use it anymore. itunes lets me get to anything i want quickly and in a nice no frills yet easy to understand system.
 
Mar 26, 2008 at 9:47 AM Post #14 of 48
Quote:

Originally Posted by analogbox /img/forum/go_quote.gif
My biggest quirk with foobar is that it doesn't have drag-n-drop library function. I have enormous amount of library and it's such a pain to import folders one at a time. (So does MediaMonkey)
Maybe there's a plug in for it?



? Well yes I agree, I do have to do a manual library update, it doesn't auto update the library it seem. I have all my music in a single drive and I just add that drive to the 'Media Library' so when I do a scan it auto update everything. I create a playlist for each genre of my music and drag the 'genre list' over from the 'Album List' so I can get through the music really fast, but that is because I narrow down the genre in the tagging, otherwize I would have to make a new genre for every band I listen to.
 
Mar 26, 2008 at 11:55 AM Post #15 of 48
I use iTunes mostly because I sync two iPods and I'm too impatient to use third party apps. As with shigzeo, I hated iTunes when I first migrated from WinAmp v3. Library navigation was very clunky and, really, it still is. iTunes really needs a high res monitor (I'm using 1600x1200) to work its best so you can see a lot of information at once. I've grown accustomed to iTunes so it really doesn't bother me too much anymore but it still is a little clunky.

The other thing I hate about iTunes is that it doesn't patch update. With every new release (approx. every 2 weeks) you have to download and install the whole thing all over again. It gets old. And then, after it's installed, you have to redo all your shortcuts because the old ones break for some odd reason.

If not for the iPods, I might still be using WinAmp.
 

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