lazyweb: media player/manager

[desh]

Hi, LiveJournal. Question for you. I've been using Winamp to play my MP3s for about 10 years from now. And I think it's finally time for a change. Here's what I want in a media player:

* Plays DRM-free music tracks of various types
* Has a good, smooth GUI that leads me to believe that the programmers were fluent in English and in user experience design
* Manages my library, so that I can easily randomize all songs by artist X or play album Y in order, save playlists, and perhaps even determine which songs I listen to most often and crap like that (and my MP3 meta tags are in good shape, if that's a requirement for the software)
* Plays shoutcast streams
* Is ideally open source, but freeware from some random guy or a small company would be fine too (meaning that I'm not intererested in iTunes)
* Runs on Windows

Actually, I guess it's possible Winamp can be made to do this with the right plugin. If that's the route you've gone, let me know that too.

Anyway, anyone have suggestions for me?

Comments

grumble grumble

[djembe-boy.livejournal.com]

im a mac native so i have never run into the particular situation that you have encountered. the brief web surfing i have done turns up http://www.musikcube.com/
i have never used it but it comes relatively well recommended from a website i tend to trust. let me know what you find.

FYI i considered just listing the half dozen MacOpenSource aps that fit the bill and telling you to bite the bullet and come to the dark side. another day perhaps.
-Uel

Re: grumble grumble

[desh]

Whoa, you still use LJ?

Re: grumble grumble

[djembe-boy.livejournal.com]

thinking about starting again. i will prob create a new user. ill let you know if i do.

[arigi.livejournal.com]

don't abandon winamp! the new version comes with winamp remote, a really handy tool for streaming your media anywhere - i'm using it at work right now!

out of curiosity

[jessebeller.livejournal.com]

why not itunes?
not only is way way way better than winamp, it looks like the only criterion of yours it doesn't meet is that its itunes.

Re: out of curiosity

[flyinbutrs.livejournal.com]

I have to agree here... itunes sounds like exactly what you're looking for. Somewhat sadly, it has the best library management interface of any mp3 player on the market.

If not, you might try songbird, which is an mp3 player based on firefox. It's pretty good, but not quite there yet in my opinion.

I'd also recommend keeping an eye on amarok, which is open source. It's quite good, but for now it's linux only. They just released their first pre-alpha release for windows though, so by the end of the year, you may be able to get that. I'm using that on my ubuntu desktop here, and it's pretty darn good. The library management is not as good as itunes, but it has a lot of very cool features aside from that.

[josh-marantz.livejournal.com]

Being a mac man I know nothing of this winamp you speak of... but you should check out this thing called songbird. Think itunes built on the mozilla platform. Also integrated with the web in case you listen to any mp3 blogs (?)

Re: out of curiosity

[below-the-belt.livejournal.com]

i'm thinking because it doesn't fit his ideas of what kinds of business he wants to support, and i'm infuriated because it means he is more radical/progressive/lefty/whatever than me in this regard. we will have to fight*. [i use itunes. desh, lemme know what you find!]




* jk.