Skip to Content

Get the latest on Wrath of the Lich King on WoW Insider!
AOL Tech

Posts with tag media-player

Filed under: Audio, Internet, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Mozilla, Freeware, Open Source

Songbird 1.0 RC1 now available

Songbird 1.0 RC1
Open source, Mozilla-based media player Songbird is inching closer to version 1.0. This week the team behind the cross-platform application made the first release candidate of Songbird 1.0 available.

So what's new in the latest build? First up, Songbird 1.0 RC1 uses GStreamer to handle media playback whether you're running the Windows, Mac, or Linux version of the program. The Songbird team says that should mean better performance and reliability. The latest build also includes a number of performance enhancements, including the ability to import media into Songbird more than twice as fast as before.

Here are a few of the other changes/improvements in Songbird 1.0 RC1:
  • Users can also drag and drop images to add album art to a song.
  • Addition of new keyboard shortcuts
  • Smart Playlists can be used as rules within other Smart Playlists
  • Improved search speed
  • Faster startup times
  • Scrolling large libraries is more efficient
While this is a release candidate, which means it's a bit more stable than your typical beta software, there are still a number of known bugs and issues. You can read the complete list in the release notes.

Filed under: Audio, Video, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Open Source

VLC 0.9.2 released: New interface, better codec support

VLC 0.9.2
The developers behind the popular open source VLC media player have released VLC 0.9.2. The update brings a new user interface for Mac, Linux, and Windows versions of the player. One feature I'm extremely happy to see are playback controls that show up when watching a video in full screen mode.

There are also new, simplified settings menus, and new filters. VLC 0.9.2 adds to the already long list of video formats supported. While VLC 0.8.6 could play FLV files, I find that the new version does a much better job. For example, I downloaded a YouTube video as an FLV and tried to play it in each version. VLC 0.8.6 opened and played the video, but when I tried to skip ahead, it closed the video file. VLC 0.9.2 had no problem starting the same file from any point in the timeline.

VLC 0.9.2 also supports playback of YouTube, Google Video , and Daily Motion videos by entering their URLs. As previously reported, the media player also now works with last.fm.

The VLC wiki is being hammered at the moment, but you should be able to find a list of some other other features in the latest release at the What is cool in 0.9 page. And you can check out a video of VLC 0.9.2 in action after the break.

Read more →

Filed under: Audio, Internet, Mozilla, Open Source

Songbird 0.7 RC1 is out: Mozilla-based music player is growing up

Songbird 0.7
Songbird, the music player built on Mozilla is inching a bit closer towards a 1.0 release. Last night the developers pushed Songbird 0.7 Release Candidate 1 out of the nest, and it includes a whole slew of updates including improved memory usage, UI refinements, and a new setup assistant that makes it easy to import media libraries and configure Songbird to work with an iPod or other portable media player.

Here are a few more of the changes:
  • Support for iTunes-like smart playlists
  • Optional concert calendar displays upcoming shows in your area based on the artists in your music library
  • Last.fm support allows you to scrobble tracks
  • Now uses GStreamer as the media core
  • Faster metadata scanning
If you haven't used Songbird before, here are a few others reasons you might want to check it out. First, it's kind of like having a cross-platform version of iTunes that runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux but also supports multiple tabs. Second, you can use Songbird as a web browser and when you visit pages with links to MP3 files like The Hype Machine, Songbird will automatically detect the music files and bring up links for you to play those tracks.

The latest version seems much faster and more stable than earlier versions.

[via gHacks]

Filed under: Audio, Windows, Freeware

Evil Player: Light weight audio player for Windows

Evil Player
Free media players for Windows are a dime a dozen these days. Or umm, no dimes, because they're free. But while some media players try to set themselves apart from the crowd by piling on the features, Evil Player goes the opposite route. This media player has the simplest interface we've ever seen. Yet it still has most of the features you could need including support for streaming audio, global hotkeys, and playlists.

What Evil Player doesn't include is a flashy player window. There aren't even dedicated play, pause, stop, forward or rewind buttons. To access most features you either need to right-click on the player window or on the system tray icon.

You have a choice of installing Evil Player or downloading an installation-free file which you can run from any directory or load onto a flash drive. Our favorite not-quite hidden feature? When you install the application one of the language packs you can choose is called "Elmer Fudd." We'll let you figure out what it does.

[via The Portable Freeware Collection]

Filed under: Video, Windows, Open Source

Media Player Classic Home Cinema Edition: All in one media player

Media Player Classice HCE
Media Player Classic is an audio and video player for Windows that looks like Windows Media Player 6.4, but works a bit more like all-in-one media application VLC. Each application is open source, and each can handle almost any audio or video file you throw at it. But that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement.

Media Player Classic Home Cinema Edition takes the basic version of MPC and adds a few extra features, including:
  • Support for additional decoders, including H.264 and VC-1 with DXVA support
  • Improved support for Windows Vista, including a 64 bit release
  • Translation into additional languages
The media player takes up just a few megabytes and doesn't require installation, so you can throw it on a USB flash drive and carry it around with you.

[via gHacks]

Filed under: Audio, Internet, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Freeware, Open Source

aTunes: Cross platform, open source media player

aTunes
Looking for an iTunes/Winamp/Amarok killer? No matter whether you're a Windows, Linux, or OS X user, you might want to check out aTunes. This media player uses the open source MPlayer engine and is built on Java, which means you can run it on pretty much any devices that supports Java. There's also a Windows installer which makes running aTunes on Windows a snap.

The program has all the features you'd expect from a modern media player, including the ability to play MP3, ogg, WMA, WAV, FLAC, MP4, RA, and RM files. You can also listen to internet radio streams. There's no support for DRM though, so if you've got restricted music files on your desktop, this might not be the player for you.

One of the niftiest features in aTunes is Last.fm integration. While you can't use the software to play music from Last.fm, you can sign into your account and submit your played song list to Last.fm. aTunes also takes advantage of Last.fm's audioscrobbling service, which means you can see a list of artists that are similar to the one you're listening to in real-time. When available, aTunes will also automatically display album art and song lyrics.

Update: It appears the web site is down, but you can still download aTunes from SourceForge.

Read more →

Filed under: Audio, Video, Windows, Freeware, Open Source

Kantaris media player makes VLC pretty

Kantaris
While Videolan Client (also known as VLC) is a great cross-platform application for opening pretty much any video file you can throw at it, the interface is a bit sparse. Sure, you can add custom skins, but developer Christofer Persson decided to go a bit further and build a whole new program based on the open-source media player's code.

Kantera is an audio/video player that can handle all of the same media formats as VLC and then some. It features an attractive skin, some trippy audio visualizations, and integration with Last.fm and Apple movies trailers. While the Kantera homepage touts the program's ability to handle audio codecs that VLC won't normally play, we've never had any problem opening WMA or other closed source file formats with VLC.

Kantaris doesn't appear to have support for hotkeys yet, which is a bit of a drawback. But version 0.3.0 which was released this week adds support for playing archived RAR files without extracting them first which is a pretty awesome feature. Kantaris is only available for Windows, but the source code is available so we wouldn't be surprised to see a Mac or Linux port sometime down the road.

[via Sourceforge]

Featured Time Waster

Forumwarz - a potentially offensive time waster

I pwn UAfter spending the better part of an hour on Forumwarz I still can't decide if it's just sick or if it's kind of fun. It's a bit like a car wreck on the highway. I know I shouldn't be looking but I can't quite turn away.

It's sick, it's twisted, it's the internet on it's worst level and darn it, it's kind of fun. At least for a little while.

Forumwarz is a parody role-playing game that takes place on the internet - or at least the Forumwarz version of it. Your goal is to complete missions that are given to you through a mock up of GoogleTalk called Sentrillion.

Your first "friend" is ShallowEsophagus who begins giving you missions to pwn various forums by being a troll. Depending on the character type you are assigned at start up, you have tools like drooling on the keyboard or bashing your head on the keyboard that you can use to destroy forum threads and eventually, pwn a forum.

Future missions involve buying illegal software from the Russians, pwning more difficult forums and other internet oddness.

Completing missions gives you cash, called Flezz in game, and items that you can pawn or use in other missions. The game is NOT for those easily offended. It's crass, coarse and there are frequent f-bombs in the fake chat sessions.

This is also a game for a more mature audience as it requires you to shop at the Drugs R Fun store to get various concoctions to improve your playing, engage in certain cyber activities to get more Flezz and just generally use a more adult perspective.

If you can get past that, here are the more enjoyable and time-wasting aspects.

View more Time Wasters

Featured Galleries

Defective by Design, London: Protest Pictures
Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals
Android First-look: Amazon.com MP3 Store
Android First-look: Twitroid
Google Reader Android
Android Hands-On
Twine 1.0
Photoshop Express Beta
SXSWi 2008 Schwag Unboxing
SXSWi 2008 Day 1
Mozilla Birthday Cake
Palm stuff
Adobe Lightroom 1.1

 


Follow us on Twitter!

Flickr Pool

www.flickr.com

BloggingStocks Tech Coverage

More Tech Coverage

Joystiq

TUAW

BloggingStocks

Autoblog

Xbox 360 Fanboy

Engadget

WOW Insider

Switched.com

FanHouse