iTunes alternative

Hello,

Does anyone know of a good alternative to iTunes? This alternative should have (nearly) the same functionality in terms of sorting playlists (yeah, I like my music to be organized ). Also, be able to encode in AAC. I don't like the fact that iTunes installs the mobile device services and Bonjour even though I don't need them. If only Apple would allow us choose which components to install...

 

aside from the more popular foobar200, you can also take a look at musikCube

 

Jetaudio or Mediamonkey

 

i second media monkey. its what i used to replace itunes and never looked back. encoding in aac maybe hard.
aac can be read by media monkey by itself without needing quicktime installed as long as your willing to pay £5 for the plugin. i think you should post on the media monkey forums. i would be interested to know if the new media monkey plugin can encode aac as well as play it without needing quicktime.

i hope you understand the above. if not feel free to ask.

 

MediaMonkey seems like a good one. I tried Winamp and found it okay. I will try MediaMonkey and see if it fits my needs.

 

hey,
if you want it to read and play aac for the time being you need quicktime installed.

 

media monkey or JRiver Media Center

 

MP3Toys is quite a beast (unfortunately the developer seems to be on a slow beat those last months).

 

You can uninstall Bonjour and mobile media devices. If you get an alert on startup, go into preferences and 1)disable sharing and shared libraries in Parental Controls 2) disable remote speakers/airtunes and iphone/ipod touch remotes in Advanced.

 

I use Jriver media center. Its not free but is the most powerful and felxible media manager. I use it for pictures and videos too.

 

It looks to be an amazing piece of software. I tried to find a torrent for it...I don't intend to pay for a program who's support forums are actively hunting for the developer.

 

admitting to pirating software on a public forum isnt a good idea. no matter which way you look at it its still illegal.

 

I find that I am liking J. River so far. Thanks for suggesting this media player.

 

Will be picking up an ipod soon for my listening pleasure at work (= blocking out the Boss ). Will one of the suggested alternatives work\recognize the ipod ?

 

Winamp, J River Media Jukebox (free), and Media Monkey are all iPod compatible.

I am currently testing J River Media Jukebox and liking it a lot (only one process!). I think I finally found my replacement to iTunes. If you want to encode in MP3, however, you'd have to pay for a license. Also, you have to install a DirectShow filter (Google CCCP codec) to play AAC files. Other than those two, it is a great media player.

EDIT: AAC encoding is not possible out of the box, but there's a workaround. They say that the license for AAC encoding is too expensive. Thus, you'd have to rely on free alternatives such as Nero's AAC encoder or FAAC (Freeware Advanced Audio Coder).

 

1. People admit to using Limewire here and other P2P all the time.

2. Turn me in.

3. Catch me.

4. Well, actually I don't have a number 4, I just got in a writing mood

Edit: Lol, that post looks really rude. I didn't mean anything snide Lodore, I understand what you're saying. Lots of people openly talk about it though, here and on all sorts of publicly available forums. You can admit to anything you please, you still have to actually be caught (we at least have THAT part of the justice system intact still).

 

Hey dw426,
i wasnt in the best mood yesterday
i didnt mean to sound rude. i just dont like people stealing software since its earning somepeople a living.

 

@ Ambient_88. Thanks for the info. Exactly what I needed to know.

 

Don't sweat it Lodore, I haven't been in the best of moods either I completely understand your point, I don't always live on the up and up, even though I do try. I'm still nervous about handing over cash to a dev that seems to have fallen off the face of the earth, lol, but I do get your point

 

Yes, it is. I used it for the last 12 months and am often finding new functionalities.

Well, yes, this situation seems weird to me too, but the author is very responsive to emails, in my experiences. He says is at working on its software, and he has released some "internal" builds when he was aware of possible bugs. He send me a new version 2.5.8.6 that I'm using right now.
After trying about all the alternatives out there, I bought a lifetime license and the guy sounds as a nice person. Not seeing him posting in their message board may be a bit strange, but I can live with that being the quality of the product and the openness of the developer.

 

He's alive? Lol, some of the posts I saw there looked as though people figured the guy for being long dead, mummified in the desert and the project buried with him. I don't know him but glad he's still kicking at least. Looks like I might have to throw some greenbacks his way after all.