Windows Media Player 12 Sucks Eggs

MediaMonkey is also pretty good for editing tags.

That's all fine and dandy, but pretty much useless unless you can select these tag values in your playlist or direct playback and combine them together, like:

Mood="Groovy" and ( (Ratings=5*) or (Ratings=4*) )

I started tagging in Vista/WMP11 but soon stopped because I could not use this meta-information for playback, even in WMP11.

And the tags are still a fixed list, not sure if ID3 supports adding your own tags, or if you can use keywords in the Comments tag for specific usage, like:

Genre="Celtic" and Comments contains "#SubGenre=Scottish"

I guess I reached a point where the best solution to my needs is a small utility called "Visual Basic"...

Petey7 said:

Now I have to ask, of all the features to get rid of, why tag editing. I'm currently installing WMP11 in XP Mode so I can use the function again. I know there are third party tag editors, but I really liked the one in WMP11. It just doesn't make sense to me.

The Windows Media Player Plus! plug-in will add a new tag editor to WMP, which can be used as a replacement for the Advanced Tag Editor.

Chimel said:

That's all fine and dandy, but pretty much useless unless you can select these tag values in your playlist or direct playback and combine them together, like:
Mood="Groovy" and ( (Ratings=5*) or (Ratings=4*) )
I started tagging in Vista/WMP11 but soon stopped because I could not use this meta-information for playback, even in WMP11.

WMP has had support for such dynamic playlists since version 9, I think. It calls them "auto playlists", more information here.

Thanks for the info on the WMP Plus plug-in, this is genius.
Yes, I use the auto playlists already, but they have limits, namely how many you can practically manage: If I had to create one for a specific criteria in each genre, it's already 20 playlists.

I guess I should have said "on the fly" or "unsaved" rather than "dynamic", a temporary selection you can quickly create from the left bar, not a playlist you'll need to delete after usage. A bit like the selection criteria from shopping web sites, where you can easily choose fixed answers or ranges, such as Manufacturer or Price Between.

Playlists are great for a few favorites or to store complex combinations, but the daily varying tasks should be as easy as selecting checkboxes in the left bar, or right-clicking "Play the best songs only" on a given artist or genre.

I have just replied to your e-mail privately (this isn't really the place for WMP Plus! support). It's possibly because you are running the 64-bit version of WMP, while the plug-in only works in the 32-bit version (which is still the default version in Windows 7 x64).

Back to the beginning of the thread - I totally agree with JBerenyi. I used to be a HUGE fan of WMP, I constantly reminded my Mac buddies to just download it and give it a spin with the SRS Wow effects turned on, and to see for themselves how it compares to iTunes. But unfortunately at version 12 the tables have turned. At least in my experience.

First thing I noticed, is that I'd double click a song, and instead of playing what it's supposed to, something totally different would come up. This didn't happen once, it happens ALL THE TIME :-( I just can't figure out what it is! Then I'd close the program, try again and the song would play correctly but the next song would be mixed up.

The albums artwork gets mixed on top of everything in a totally random order, without a rule. Every time I'd restart the program different songs and cover art would be messed up. Half the time the playback bar doesn't even move, it just remains at 0 seconds and I can't fast forward.

Last but not least - sound quality. This is what I most admired about the program. I must say I'm a finicky listener, but nobody could miss the awful playback when giving it an MPEG-4 - it's just awful.

Maybe it's just my experience, but that's still a lot of problems for one program for one user.

So I looked everywhere online to find a way to officially report the problem to Microsoft, but no luck. Being a Microsoft fan and supporter, I hope this is not the beginning of a fatal slip in corporate identity and standards. At a time like this, when Apple is the obvious star of the show - Microsoft should try extra hard to at least keep consumers and provide some level of support or just an easy platform for feedback.

My 2 cents.