Best media storage player advice please

[TWardy]

I watch a lot of movies from my external HD

I have a lot of music I want to store and sort out into a media player

I really want the best - I dont mind paying for quality

Thanks guys

 

[TWardy]

I really don't like WMP - not DivX or VLC - I want the full Monty

Thanks

 

[dsperber]

For playing music and managing a considerable music collection, I highly recommend a terrific (free) program named Jaangle if you are a serious music collector who gets great joy from multiple "organization" and presentation options, album art, artist bios and pictures, playing MP3 and FLAC, simple and advanced search, etc., etc.

I myself do NOT use Windows' Music Library functionality, nor do I use Windows Media Player for music. I generally use Winamp as my "external player" for playing music (and displaying album my high-quality 500x500 album art in a 500x500 window).

And... I also use Jaangle, as my music collection organizer. It will do EVERYTHING you're asking of Music Library and much much much more. It has a built-in music/video player (which plays MP3, FLAC, and much else) or you can invoke an external player (e.g. Winamp) if you prefer. I myself don't use it for playing videos but it can.

But it's Jaangle's music collection organization and presentation options (e.g. 10 different sort sequence arrangements which all music collectors inevitably use at different times, multiple "themes" for display of artist/album/title, etc.), automatic retrieval of album reviews, artist bios and pictures, cover art (if you don't have your own), etc., that make this product such a treat.

I know... you're probably a long-time user of Windows functionality. But you sound like you don't like it, so you should at least consider Jaangle as a terrific alternative.

 

[TWardy]

Thank you. I will check it out

 

[TWardy]

Arc soft total media platinum

Is this software any good?

 

[TWardy]

Arcsoft total media platinum- is this any good?

 

[boohbah]

download the trial and have a play around with it.

 

[lehnerus2000]

I use these programs:

• Winamp for music.
• Media Player Classic - Home Cinema and VLC for DTV/video.

 

[TWardy]

Nah that's crap. I may be going with jaangle

 

[TWardy]

Is there nothing that does all in one? Music, movies storage and sorting

 

[dsperber]

Is there nothing that does all in one? Music, movies storage and sorting

Jaangle plays videos as well as music.

I don't know what kind of "movies" you're asking about, but you could certainly investigate for yourself. Just try it out.

I also have CyberLink PowerDVD 9 installed, theoretically to support playing BluRay movies from the BluRay drive in my machine. Turns out I have NEVER watched a BluRay movie that way, preferring to play the disc on my real Oppo player with my real HDTV and real multi-channel sound system.

For occasional videos played on my PC I'd just use WMP or VLC. I don't know how extensive is your video/movie/DVD collection or what you want to do with it, but I do know Jaangle can also play videos.

 

[dsperber]

Thank you. I will check it out

Let me know if you have questions. There is LOTS in this product that you will discover for yourself by exploring the settings and options, or just trying out different things.

For example my screenshots show a particular "skin", not the default. Same with the particular sort sequence of artist\album, font size, thumbnail size, etc.

Also, I have my own collection of high-quality 500x500 album art (same used by Winamp, and also my Cowon J3 PMP) installed into Jaangle so that's what is shown any time an album is selected. The other photos and images are automatically retrieved by Jaangle from LastFM and Amazon, along with artist bios, album reviews and track lists, etc., when you define where your "collection" lives (one or more folder locations) on your hard drives.

 

[rraod]

If you have a HDTV and want to watch the movies in high definition and listen to music directly on TV without the use of computer, you can try the WDTV from Western Digital.

This is an excellent product which will allow you to watch movies of different formats like mpg, avi, mkv, mov etc., music of different formats like, wav, mp3, wmv, and much more formats and also view photos of different formats like bmp, jpg, gif etc.

This is a hardware multimedia device with a remote control which allows you to control the device like a DVD player. You can connect two HDDs (max 2 TB each) through USB ports, and a TV with either HDMI port or component jacks.

This device will organise and aggregate the video, audio files and images separately from both the hard disks.

You will also find similar devices in the market which will do the same job.

 

[TWardy]

Ok. Thanks for all the info guys. I am just gonna keep it simple for now and will try either Jangle or Winamp.

Thanks

 

[lehnerus2000]

Most of the players mentioned will play videos and music

Most (if not all) of the players mentioned will play videos and music.

I use separate video players because of the curse of codecs.
Also, for some reason VLC and MPC-HC won't tune into all of the available DTV stations (on my PC).
Each one gets about 2/3 of the available stations, so using both of them I get 100%.

Interestingly enough, Window Media Centre has no problems tuning into 100% of the available DTV stations.
I don't like the UI and the way it interacts with the W7 Libraries .

Winamp

• Can play video.
• Has a DTV plugin, but I couldn't make it work (on my PC).
• Displays album art (~700 x ~700 pixels) using the ClassicPro plugin.
• Has a large number of skins available for it (I use a modified WMP 11 lookalike skin).