Songbird, the open-source, Mozilla-based music player, has a bunch of new features in version 1.2 that make it worth taking a look at. The most important addition is 2-way iTunes syncing, so you can import and export songs and playlists back and forth between Songbird and iTunes. If you thought the whole point of Songbird was to keep you from having to use iTunes, this feature won't make you happy, but if you have an iPod or iPhone that you want to put music on, this is the closest Songbird gets to letting you do that.

The other new features include an integrated Last.fm radio add-on. Songbird already supported Last.fm scrobbling, but now it supports Last.fm listening, too, so you may be able ditch your existing Last.fm client and just go with this. There's also automatic library organization, which is something you might be familiar with in iTunes. It can move all your music files to one location and sort them based on artist and album metadata. Last, but not least if you're an audiophile, is a 10-band equalizer.

Just over a month after the first release candidate made its ways to the masses, Songbird 1.0 is available for download. Songbird is an open source music player built on Mozilla code.

The cross-platform music player comes in Mac, Windows, and Linux versions, and can handle playback of most music formats. Like most Mozilla-based software, Songbird supports plugins, including a QuickTime Playback plugin that adds the ability to play music purchased from the iTunes store. There's also a plugin that allows you to sync your music with portable media players including an iPod.

Songbird is much more than a music player. It's also an online music browser. You can visit web sites using the built in browser and automatically stream or download MP3 music from those pages. And thanks to the Last.fm integration, you can get additional information about songs and artists you're playing, or stream related songs from Last.fm.

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.

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]

Yesterday, the Songbird team released version 0.4 of their Mozilla based music application. We took a quick look at it, and were pleased with what we found.

While at first glance Songbird may seem like an iTunes clone, it is actually much more than that. It's sort of what iTunes might have been were Apple not an evil Monolithic corporation. It serves as an open platform that allows any content provider to integrate their stores, podcasts, communities, or whatever else they can dream of into the program's interface.

Although is is still in Alpha status, this developer preview boasts many new features, including "display panes", enhanced iPod support, and much more. It is certainly one of the better jukebox type applications for Linux, and we were delighted to see it integrate the 22 Gigabytes of music on our test machine almost instantly with no hiccups. This is less than we can say about the more sluggish Banshee.

Preview builds of Songbird are available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

The developer pre-release version 0.3 (code named "Bowie") of Songbird, Mozilla's answer to music management, is available now.

For the uninitiated, Songbird is an open-source music player, built on the Mozilla's XULRUnner platform (the same platform as Firefox, Thunderbird, etc.), that in their own words "is a desktop media player mashed up with the web." In past releases, the promise of web-music player integration was starting to peek through, but the potential is especially evident with this release.

There's a whole flock of programs out there for playing and managing your music collections. But Songbird stands out as an open-source program based on Mozilla.

Version 0.2.5 is still a long way from version 1.0, but there's a whole slew of improvements in the latest release.

• Support for playback of Windows Media and Quicktime files with DRM
• USB mass storage evice
• iPod device
• Web library that includes a filterable list of all the MP3 files you've seen while surfing
• Fullscreen video in Linux
• And a slew of bug fixes

I guess support for playback of files with DRM is a necessity in this day and age, especially if you want to use Songbird's feature to import an iTunes library. But I usually like to keep my open-source programs and my DRM separate. You know, by not using anything with DRM at all.
Songbird is still a bit of a memory hog, but it should run pretty well on most modern machines. It may not be ready for primetime yet, but it's getting closer with every release.

[via digg]

Songbird, the Mozilla-based desktop media player that's been in alpha since last year, has finally moved to beta status - or, as the Songbird crew is calling it, "test flight." Version 0.2 is available for download for Mac, Windows, and Linux.

Songbird, as we've mentioned before, is a combination media player and web browser that can connect to almost any audio or video content on the web. When I first heard about it several months ago, it was available only for Windows. Enamored with the cute little farting bird icon, I sighed, bookmarked Songbirdnest.com, and hoped that one day it would be available for Mac.

That day has come, and I eagerly downloaded the "test flight" tonight. I'm sad to say I was a bit disappointed. I'm trying not to be overly judgmental; this is still a beta version, after all. But aside from the web browsing features, I really didn't have much luck at all with Songbird. When I tried to scan for audio files on my computer, Songbird insisted there was "no media to add!" When I tried to import an iTunes playlist, I received a cryptic error message. Sometimes the 'cancel' button on dialog boxes wouldn't work. And the interface for subscribing to podcasts has me flummoxed; I entered the URL of a podcast feed, but instead Songbird just took me to the URL via its built-in browser.

I still have high hopes for Songbird. If done right, it could be the next big thing in desktop media. It's open source, built on Mozilla's XULRunner platform, touts support for practically every media format out there - and don't forget the absolutely adorable mascot!

So, what are your thoughts about Songbird? If anyone has had a more positive experience, I would be very interested to hear about it.

Update: Songbird developer Nivi points out that this actually isn't a beta release, it's a pre-beta release. Thanks, Nivi!

Songbird, the Mozilla-based web-enabled music player that has occasionally been causing a stir since late last year, has finally opened its source repository to the public, making it a really-and-truly open source project. Songbird is still very alpha software, meaning you shouldn't expect much, especially in the speed and stability departments, but for the brave  today's "not-yet-0.2" release is also available in binary form for Windows, Linux, and OS X. As always, the real action is on the Songbird blog.

[Via Slashdot]

Got a tip this morning that Songbird was finally out (meaning versioin 0.1). Songbird is a proof-of-concept for now, an open-source music player built on Mozilla's XULRunner platform. It's like a browser and iTunes mushed together, but better. Why better? Because Songbird connects to almost any video or audio content on the web. The idea is opposite iTunes, where you buy songs from a centralized, DRM'ed source. Instead, given the platform, developers of any stripe can plug in to Songbird, and ply their wares. The guy spearheading Songbird is none other than Rob Lord, who once honed his chops on a project known as Winamp.

I like the idea of turning the content back over to the producers, instead of marketers. Songbird, as Rob says over in his interview on BoingBoing, isn't a "walled garden online service," which he compares to the old days of AOL and Prodigy. True, but one thing about a walled garden: those tending the garden can make sure everything is working for the user. The key here will be the experience, as the average user will typically choose the path of least resistance. Since we got the tip the story has been dugg, which means the site is down, save a tiny download link. Anyone out there like it? Hate it? Leave your opinions in the comments. [Read link goes to Google cache of the Songbird site]

The Mozilla platform already plays host to a handful of web browsers, an e-mail client, a calendar app, and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting. So what's next? A media player, of course. Songbird is a desktop media player build on the Mozilla platform. The Songbird team is comprised of "digital media innovators whose previous incubations include the Winamp 5 and Y! Music Engine media players and Muse.Net," and they're putting a focus on interoperating with digital media web sites like Odeo and Last.fm, as evidenced by the built-in web browser. Visually, Songbird has more than a passing similarity to iTunes, a criticism which the developers have addressed on their blog, and there are currenly a lot of details missing, like whether it will be open source, what audio (or video?) formats it will support, but it looks like a great project to me. Songbird will be cross-platform and they're aiming for a Windows preview release in mid-December.

[Via Waxy.org]