Windows Media Player 10: Anyone tried it?

[jmmijo 1]

Is the BETA release available for download to the general public or what ?!?

[jmmijo 1]

Thanks for the link APK

[teqguy 0]

IMO WMP10 is slightly more robust than 9, although I don't appreciate all of the advertisements ridden on the main window.

 

It has never crashed on me, even when playing 1GB+ videos.

 

The interface goes further to hide some of the great features WMP has to offer, such as SRS WoW, which was introduced in Windows Media Player 8, but never broadly mentioned by Microsoft.

 

For those of you who have yet to experience what SRS has to offer, go to www.srslabs.com/Demonstrations.asp.

[ross_aveling 0]

WMP has never really been that bad a product IMO but I've always been a fan of Winamp, esp the latest version. I prefer the layout of Winamp and with the amount of plug-in's you can get there is practically nothing that you can't do with it.

 

Saying that, I'm gonna try out WMP10 on my work PC today and see what it offers.

 

I'll post back anything that stands out.

 

 

[BillyG. 0]

I think it just became available on Thursday Alec, lol.

 

Anyway, on my daily Bazooka scan (after Ad-Aware, before SpyBot), I was informed of a Global Uniquie IDentifier (GUID)

registry entry that I have never been notified of before; this was after downloading WMP10 yesterday and NOT checking the box to send my GUID to vendors, etc. At first, I was hoping that maybe they just started checking for this registry entry (hence my first notification), but then I saw discussion in their helpfile IRT previous WMP versions.

 

Other than that, I just use these players for simple music listening during my day-trading so as long as the music plays (FREE!), it's cool with me.

 

Just thought you should know... GLTA.

[adamvjackson 0]

BillyG, that was probably a CLSID or ClassID, just used for internal use by Windows and Media Player, nothing too much to worry about; although if you were really paranoid, you could install a packet sniffer like Ethereal and verify the contents that may be transferring.

 

I have installed WMP10 on both my work PC and home PC, and so far it's pretty nice, although the new Energy Bliss visulation doesn't run well on my Optiplex at work, but hey, it's work

[ross_aveling 0]

Well, I've just found out that the current download only works with Windows XP (and not 2000 which my work PC uses).

 

I am assuming that MS will offer version 10 for earlier versions of Windows at a later date. I wouldn't have thought Microsoft will restrict it to XP only.......

 

EDIT - SuperSite for Windows' Paul Thurrott has written a very comprehensive review of WMP10 if anyone's interested.

 

 

[Edited by ross_aveling on 2004-09-03 10:16:20]

 

[Edited by ross_aveling on 2004-09-03 10:16:55]

 

[Charnel 0]

Yah, I like using windows media player the most. I only really use winamp to rip the vocals off of songs. All you need is this great tool from tucows.com. It's made by anologx, and it's called vocal remover... I suppose that kind of went without saying, though. But I definately prefer the windows media player. I'm downloading 10 right now, but I've been using 9 and can't think of many improvements they could have made. I've never had a problem with it... except for not playing wmv's from kazaa.. that pissed me off... downloading a 600 meg movie... ON DIAL -UP!!! and not being able to play it :-/

[BillyG. 0]

I hear ya Adam, thx for the plug, I'll check it out.

 

FWIW, this entry never popped up before (had WMP9 already) and Bazooka defintely called it a GUID (I did COPY/PASTE above).

 

I wanted to double-check your theory (even though the entry didn't look familiar to others I see everyday) but I didn't save a Bazooka log from that run so I just now created a log, but alas it shows "as is".

 

Anyway, I'll be more attentive next time...

 

P.S. It still works too.

[adamvjackson 0]

I wouldn't doubt in the least that there are all sorts of hooks and CLSID/GUIDs added during installation of WMP10, due to the level of intergration with the music stores, and updated DRM libraries (I'm sure, don't have anything to base that opinion on though).

 

That said, I do own all of the music that I have encoded (WMA9 lossless codec, if you were curious) and WMP10 seems like a nice upgrade, if only for the UI changes.

[PinkPanther 0]

For those who have tried it, do you know if it is possible to NOT use it's new "sleek" design (skin) but have it use the old standard Windows GUI?

 

Thanks

[adamvjackson 0]

Yep, you can use the skin from Media Player 6.4, or as I prefer the "Corporate" skin that MP9 introduced.

[adamvjackson 0]

If you set the "Classic" or "Corporate" skin then it will stay in skin mode upon each launch, so I don't think a command-line variable is needed.

[FlyingPenguin 0]

I refuse to use any version of WMP after 6.4.

 

Unfortunately M$ has refused to make the WMP 9 codecs compatible with older versions so 6.4 is less useful every day.

 

Someone a few months ago turned me on to a media player called BSPlayer. It leaves WMP in the dust. It plays everything, it's got a very small memory footprint, and it supports multiple monitors properly (you can have the player controls on once display and run the player full screen on the other). I can highly recommend it.

 

Best of all it's free: http://www.bsplayer.org/

 

 

[adamvjackson 0]

Not trying to flame you *at all* FlyingPenguin, but the WMP8 and 9 codec installations are available for free from Microsoft, so you can play WM8 and WM9 encoded content in WMP 6.4.

 

Also, According to this review (page 10) BSPlayer actually uses about the same amount of RAM as WMP10.

 

And with most PCs having at least 256MB+ of RAM, the memory footprint is becoming less and less of an issue daily.

 

But hey, the best thing is choice. What's best for me may not be best for you, or anyone else. Just wanted to post someone's findings on this subject.

[FlyingPenguin 0]

Well I'd still be using 6.4 if it played all codecs, but it doesn't. Sometime around WMP 8 I ran into a wall, and trust me I tried. I was a die-har WMP 6.4 fan. No bloat, no fuss.

 

What really sold me on BSPlayer is the dual monitor support. And my own off the cuff testing shows it using a lot less memory than WMP8 (last version of WMP I have installed) so I'm happy.

 

But you're right, choice is good

[bushrat 0]

WMP 10 will not work on my PC. Version 9 was working just fine, and when I upgraded to 10, all I get is "Internal application error has occured". I tried reinstalling, nothing. I tried uninstalling and istalling ver. 9, and it says that newer versio is already instaled. Any one has any sugestions what to do?

[bushrat 0]

There is nothing in Add/Remove with Media player, I uninstalled everything (wmp) but it still says that newer version is already installed when I try installing 9.0. Can't uninstall it, pointless to reinstall it, and can't put version 9 back on.. :x any other ideas ?

[Edited by bushrat on 2004-09-14 22:42:41]