Why are media players so awful?

Let me just say that I hate 'em ALL!

WMP12 - just poor, despite it's good sides
Winamp - overbloated, buggy crap
Songbird - open source bugged RAM-hog
foobar - Please read this 356 page manual to learn how to set the damn thing up. You want skins? Here's vol. 2!
iTunes - *twitches and shivers*
Zune - no HE-AAC support of any kind, pretty version of WMP (bleh)
MediaMonkey - I'm NOT fat, I'm just big boned (placed in all the wrong places)
Helium Music Manager - lagggggg
aTunes - Java, lol
jetAudio - if you hate music and want to give your friends a shot on your music collection, go right ahead, drag them into hell
Media Jukebox - just... no
Quintessential Media Player - wish I could be blind just thinking about it
Real Player - what's this? you have other processes besides Real? Let me kill those for you


i.e. music players, both for Windows (and those found on Linux) are crap! The only thing I even remotely enjoyed using is Helium Music Manager, which is an amazing piece of software despite it's laggy flaws, Sony Media Go, which is like Sony's version of WMP (music+videos+pictures).
The only thing I haven't tried yet (that may be worth trying) us MusicBee. Looks promising, but seeing as how I am (quite clearly) very picky, I doubt its capabilities already xD

Gornot said:

Let me just say that I hate 'em ALL!

WMP12 - just poor, despite it's good sides
Winamp - overbloated, buggy crap
Songbird - open source bugged RAM-hog
foobar - Please read this 356 page manual to learn how to set the damn thing up. You want skins? Here's vol. 2!
iTunes - *twitches and shivers*
Zune - no HE-AAC support of any kind, pretty version of WMP (bleh)
MediaMonkey - I'm NOT fat, I'm just big boned (placed in all the wrong places)
Helium Music Manager - lagggggg
aTunes - Java, lol
jetAudio - if you hate music and want to give your friends a shot on your music collection, go right ahead, drag them into hell
Media Jukebox - just... no
Quintessential Media Player - wish I could be blind just thinking about it
Real Player - what's this? you have other processes besides Real? Let me kill those for you


i.e. music players, both for Windows (and those found on Linux) are crap! The only thing I even remotely enjoyed using is Helium Music Manager, which is an amazing piece of software despite it's laggy flaws, Sony Media Go, which is like Sony's version of WMP (music+videos+pictures).
The only thing I haven't tried yet (that may be worth trying) us MusicBee. Looks promising, but seeing as how I am (quite clearly) very picky, I doubt its capabilities already xD

I have foobar, Mediamonkey, and iTunes all installed, and they all have their uses for me. The only thing I use WMP12 for is watching videos...and I don't use its library either....just open the videos from Explorer.

I was talking more about music. I seriously do NOT want to have dozens of players on my machine. I use VLC for videos I never watch (quite literally) and have found Winamp's aacPlus encoder the best one out there by far, mostly because it's regularly updated. But Winamp is godawful for the most part, just like all the other players.

As the OP I should update my comments.

WMP10
I use this player in XP for music.

Media Player Classic
I discovered why it wouldn't play .rmvb files.
See this thread if you are having this problem:
https://www.sevenforums.com/1151048-post6.html

I use it to play all of my video files.
I also use it for DTV, although it isn't very user friendly.

Winamp
I use this player in W7 for music.

Just make sure you don't edit tags in the files included in your library, because Winamp completely at random deletes them forever! Unless you check "automatically remove missing files at startup" or something like that... Screwed up half my collection of 25000+ songs

Gornot said:

Just make sure you don't edit tags in the files included in your library, because Winamp completely at random deletes them forever! Unless you check "automatically remove missing files at startup" or something like that... Screwed up half my collection of 25000+ songs

Interesting how different installations experience weird problems.

I've had no problems with Winamp.

On my installation WMP12 screwed up my files (truncated file names, details changed or deleted).
I had my files set to "Read only"and I had unchecked the update media info option.

Also see this thread:
WMP 12 is moving/combining albums

I discovered this problem with Winamp last year by pure coincidence, when some of my files included in the library weren't being played. Ever since I've tested every new build to see if this was fixed, but no, Winamp still at random deletes files if I edit tags internally.

Since I use aac exclusively for my music, it's either Winamp or *twitches* iTunes. But iTunes truncates filenames like crazy, which is beyond annoying; not to mention that it's beyond bloated for someone like me whose country isn't supported for the iTunes store, so I have no use for most of the features Apple *spits on the floor* brags about xD
Only Winamp and iTunes regularly update their encoders; I often found the open source FAAC solution to be too complicated to set up, and I can never get the same quality at lower bitrates. With Winamp I can go as low as 64kb/s with absolutely no audible loss in quality whatsoever. But also I'd be annoyed having Winamp installed just to rip and organize music, then spend a couple of hours (indeed) installing and bugfixing a foobar skin...

It must be some weird interaction between various programs (Winamp, WMP?, iTunes, etc.).
I don't have iTunes (no iPod).
Maybe it's a glitch with .aac handling (I use 192-320 kb/s mp3).

I experienced a weird interaction between Real Player and MPC.
You used to have to have Real Player installed, if you wanted to play .rmvb files in MPC.

At some point they changed MPC (or Real Player) and if you had Real Player installed, it would prevent MPC from playing .rmvb files.

lehnerus2000 said:

It must be some weird interaction between various programs (Winamp, WMP?, iTunes, etc.).

Don't think so, I don't use WMP anymore, I don't even set it up, I just keep it enabled to have the "now playing" option available in Messenger. if I disable it, this feature doesn't work.
Also, I NEVER install two programs of the same type at the same time.

lehnerus2000 said:

I don't have iTunes (no iPod).

*high five*

lehnerus2000 said:

Maybe it's a glitch with .aac handling (I use 192-320 kb/s mp3).

Happens with other filetypes, too, especially if they have "special characters" like Á á É ú æ Ø ç etc.

As for the Real Player, just avoid it... massively! Instead, use MPC-HC and install Real Alternative, or a codec pack like K-Lite or Shark007.

Gornot said:

lehnerus2000 said:

It must be some weird interaction between various programs (Winamp, WMP?, iTunes, etc.).

Don't think so, I don't use WMP anymore, I don't even set it up, I just keep it enabled to have the "now playing" option available in Messenger. if I disable it, this feature doesn't work.
Also, I NEVER install two programs of the same type at the same time.

I suppose you have already tried reinstalling these programs.
Sometimes the order you install programs affects their stability (different versions of the same shared dlls).

Gornot said:

lehnerus2000 said:

I don't have iTunes (no iPod).

*high five*

lehnerus2000 said:

Maybe it's a glitch with .aac handling (I use 192-320 kb/s mp3).

Happens with other filetypes, too, especially if they have "special characters" like Á á É ú æ Ø ç etc.

As for the Real Player, just avoid it... massively! Instead, use MPC-HC and install Real Alternative, or a codec pack like K-Lite or Shark007.

I got rid of it (Real Player) last December.
I was only using it for CD ripping (It's CD database was highly effective).
Once I discovered that it was screwing up MPC, it was gone.

Ubuntu media players "spit the dummy", if there are any special characters in the file names (at least on my PC).

I guess it will remain an unsolved mystery.