Good free media player?

[Comp01]

I want a good, spyware-free media player, but, can't seem to find one (I despise Windows Media Player.) So I am wondering, what are some of the best ones?

I like and use iTunes! it's free and I think spyware free ... Scans haven't found anything.

See this thread .. iTunes or Windows MP Link has screen shots too! plus a link to the Apple download page

HTH

dog -

[Detox]

Hmmm well I use a slightly older version of WinAmp I got from a site that Prince Serendip once linked to... I'll hafta think for a day to remember since I don't see it in my favorites list!!

[Weber]

for videos i use Media Player Classic
http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/

and for audio i use foobar2000
http://www.foobar2000.org

[root]

I've been a WinAmp user for years but never could get it to play the RA files on the BBC website.
I finally tried Cowan JetAudio and I love it. It sounds so much better that Winamp and Windows Media player. Plays RA files better than Real Player.
JetAudio has a little bit of a learning curve but I do believe it is the best Media player around right now. I have tried most and never found any better than WinAmp until I found JetAudio.
http://www.jetaudio.com/

[Mullyman]

I have tried and experimented with mostly every media player available and i have found this one to be the over all best...it"s called Quintessential ...give it a try...you won"t be disappointed

Quintessentia Playerl

[Detox]

Ah-ha - I do believe there was a flurry of recommendation for that Q player not long ago, although I forgot to try it out myself

[HandsOff]

I took a look at the Q site linked to above...

I can't believe I just downloaded yet another media player...

...but it sounds so good!

[MakoFusion]

I think a good one is WinAMP 2.95 which is the last build before version 3 came out. I think version 3 and 5 both are a bunch of hogwash crap. One may download WinAMP 2.95 from the site...

http://www.oldversion.com/program.php?n=winamp

After you get this check out the various movie plugins....

VID4WA = http://www.winamp.com/plugins/details.php?id=125487
VIDAMP v1.0 = http://www.winamp.com/plugins/details.php?id=22629

[Mullyman]

Winamp has some security issues...they recommend upgrade to 5.03... the second article suggest how to fix known problem without upgrading...articles below:

http://www.techworld.com/security/ne...fm?NewsID=1343

http://www.nextgenss.com/advisories/winampheap.txt

[Stro]

I was poking around last week and ran across a PC Magazine's Best of 2004 website (you'll have to Google it to find it, I didn't record the address). PC Magazine picked these two media players as the best in this order:
1) Quintessential Player (www.quinnware.com), and
2) Jet Player (www.jetaudio.com)
I don't have any experience with either of these; I'm just passing along some information.
Regards,
Stro

[rdsu]

Audio: JetAudio
Video: Mv2Player

[notageek]

I use Q player. I like it.

[G Man]

For audio I'm now sold on Q... for video I use BSplayer, I'm very happy with both.

Still ready to check out other video media players if you have recommendations.

[HandsOff]

Hi, this is a psuedo-suggestion regarding video:

There is a product called "PowerDVD" by Cyberlink. I have run it up the flagpole once or twice, but there has been a dearth of salutors! There are things i don't much like about it, in fact it is not installed at the moment, however, when it comes to playing DVD video on your computer it is so much better than the rest that I have seen that I cannot recommend another.

The complaints I have heard seem silly to me. The program is too big and the like...well, considering the performance I'd expect it to be bigger.

My personal complaints i take more seriously. I have two free versions, but they are so stripped down as to be worthless. I have a full version, and it has been very hard for me to compare features of my version, against various others. When I uninstalled it, it left a trail of program parts a mile wide that i suspect will be with me for the life of this computer. And, for me a major annoyance that it is very difficult to get the program to run without connecting to the internet for one reason or another. It is very much like M$ Office, or Media Player, in this respect.

what is cool about it? well, it actually functions like a dvd player! you can scan at many different speeds both forwards and backwards. It can bookmark your place in the movie and restart were you left off (like a real DVD player) You have several zoom choices. This is sort of passe these days but it does a very good voice pitch adjustment, so that you can understand dialog in slow motion very clearly. It gives you many intellegent choices for screen size options to make a movie full screen w/o much distortion. It does something with color correction that you simply will not believe until you do a split screen comparison. Sound you ask? I have sort of paired down to the traditional 6 channel analog out for sound on my home theater, and have lost interest in surround for the computer, though i do recall that my PowerDVD version seemed to offer 8 channel sound...anyway, it should provide more sound capabilities than most.

Why do they have to take a great product and make it suck? Or should we forgive a little sucking? I don't know the answer, but to make a long story short...If you watch DVDs on the computer, and you have the primo hardware set-up...then you could easily forget the drawbacks.

Agree/Disagree?

-HandsOff

(heh, heh, heh...this sort of looks like a separate thread...i do ramble...)

[optigrab]

Originally Posted by MakoFusion

I think a good one is WinAMP 2.95 which is the last build before version 3 came out. I think version 3 and 5 both are a bunch of hogwash crap.

I agree (along with the majority of Winamp users) that v3 was pretty awful. I stuck with 2.95 until a few months ago, and I've got to say that I'm happy with v5.

Have tried Q player and thought it was great - perhaps faster starting than Winamp 5 - but other than that I prefer the more "traditional" interface of Winamp. I'm intrigued by the recommendations for JetAudio and will give that a try.

[Rainwalker]

I thought i would check out Quintessential after reading this and then went to shoutcast to try it.....huge buffering problem...a few seconds of music and then 3 or 4 times that time waiting for buffer load...any ideas Also it is really slowing my browser down...this may be due to constant buffer loading. Set it up for 56k

[Rainwalker]

Loaded Jet but same problem with buffering....i use to run Netscape Radio Plus but they got wrapped up with AOL so i dropped them....too bad as i liked it and had no buffering problems....anyone have any thoughts on what i might do to correct buffering......OS XP Home

[Rainwalker]

One more thing ....the Q player wants to install a globel shell hook....now why would it want to do that...and is it needed and is it safe to allow it should i get this buffering thing worked out

[Mullyman]

Well for your buffer problem it could be caused by numerous things.... shoutcast is affiliated with Winamp...using Winamp might solve your problem[but i doubt it]maybe you have to many things running at once...i have never experienced any problems with the Q player...as for globel shell hook..see below

Globel Shell Hook

[Rainwalker]

Thanks for getting back Mullyman but that thread does'nt really say much....still don't know if it's a good idea to allow the hooks.....also it is not the heart of the problem as my puter has the same problem with Windows Media Player Classic....

[Rainwalker]

Had a thought....should i have loopback ( 127.0.0.1 ) allowed as a UDP rule ?
Right now i have it blocked....... except for mail

[Paranoid2000]

Rainwalker has opened a thread for his issue at the Outpost forum - if anyone would like to make a suggestion, please consider doing so there to avoid taking this thread off-topic.

Going back on topic, I would second the recommendation for FooBar2000. It's free, mostly open source, has a minimalist UI (no skinning, which means it works better with Windows themes and global skinning programs like WindowBlinds) and the ReplayGain feature can be handy for those who have tracks recorded at differing volumes. The only downsides are it performs poorly with very low bitrate MP3s and the filetype icons it uses look awful IMHO (but can be changed).

[NICK ADSL UK]

Originally Posted by root

I've been a WinAmp user for years but never could get it to play the RA files on the BBC website.
I finally tried Cowan JetAudio and I love it. It sounds so much better that Winamp and Windows Media player. Plays RA files better than Real Player.
JetAudio has a little bit of a learning curve but I do believe it is the best Media player around right now. I have tried most and never found any better than WinAmp until I found JetAudio.
http://www.jetaudio.com/

I personally go along with root on this. I do both my recordings and my occasional radio broadcasting with jet audio. But win amp with the stream ripper plug in is also good

[Detox]

Well, after reading this I went ahead and got the Qplayer and I really love it. Immense improvement over my outdated version of WinAmp