Which Media Player?

I've narrowed down my list of possible media players to Real, Musicmatch, and Jet Audio. What I value most in a player is the following:

Free!
Like Jet Audio, and Zoom, but I'm willing to pay if it's absolutely necessary

Playlists:
What I like about Real is the playlists. The main weakness in Jet Audio is the playlists.

Buring capabilities and good Database:
I'd like to use the playlists to make compilations, and I'd like the data base to fill in the album info so I don't have to type it all in manually. Real does very good at this. But, Real doesn't let you control song volume, so some burned CDs have one song very loud, and the next song very quiet. Very big bummer. The paid version gives you that control, but it would be great to find a free player that does it.

So, to sum up, I want a player with a great database, great playlist capabilities, (like Real) some control on the recording volume, (like Jet Audio) and all for nothing, like Jet Audio!

How does MusicMatch compare to these, and if I end up buying a player, should I get Real or MusicMatch?

Thanks for any help/advice you can give me.

Eric

 

I would avoid Real. That company has a very bad rep, and their player is notorious. I'd sooner use WinAmp 5.

What's wrong with Jet Audio's playlists?

 

I have used music match, and personaly i didnt care for it. One thing for sure it was hard transfering files to my mp3 player. I dont do much with music so Media Player is good enough for me.

cooked

 

i never use anything other than winamp, its simple, free, no spy/adware, lots of plugins and such. if you are looking for something that supports real audio, id reccomend real alternitive...ill see if i can find the link to it

 

I couldn't figure out how to make playlists with Jet Audio. Maybe I just didn't give it a chance, but I like the layout of Real when it comes to playlists. I can simply click on "My Library", look at the songs, drag them over, save the compilation, and burn it if I so desire. Very easy.

What's Reals reputation? Also, is WinAmp 5 good for playlists, and burning?

Thanks for your response, BTW. I appreciate it.

Eric

 

winamp 5 is really good for playlists, but you cant burn unless you get winamp pro

 

No, I'm not looking for something that supports Real Audio, I just like the ease of use. (Real Alternative is available here at MG, by the way)

Can I import all my music into WinAmp, make playlists, save them, burn them to CD, etc? When i insert a CD in the drive, Real will play it and ask me if I'd like to save the CD to my hard drive. It then scans it's database and usually finds the info for my CD, and saves it to my hard drive. Then, I can easily make my playlists and burn them to CD anytime. It's very nice, except for the fact that it won't let me control the volume consistancy when I burn CDs, so one song will be louder then the next. Some songs will be very loud, while others can be barely audible, depending on the song.

Tell me what you don't like about Real, and also about the ease of use with WinAmp. I tried it once last year sometime, and I wasn't sold on it, but maybe it's been improved since then?

I appreciate your advice,

Thanks,

Eric

 

Well, Real is about 20 bucks, so is MusicMatch, so if I buy, which would you suggest, and why? Also, does winamp pro have a good database?

 

ok, im not gonna answer in any particular order, but...

winamp will play a cd immediatly that is inserted into a drive and dl its info from CDdb.

you can rip to your hd with winamp, but to rip in anything other than aac(which i prefer) or wav, you have to get pro. it will automaticly create a playlist of that cd

the eas of use of winamp is geared toward the more advanced pc user. but it is fairly easy to ues if you can move a mouse. the interface is simple, and can be skinned.

i dont like real because it takes over my media, also, it installs so much ad ware and spyware

i take back what i said abot not being able to burn, you can burn with winamp free, as well as rip, but they limit the speed at which you can do it

 

Real Alternative is here on MG

 

since i used winamp with the MilkDrop visualisation, i couldn't care less for all the other players

 

I've been using Jet Audio for a while now...I really like the sound and the interface. But, like eclayton, I don't think the playlists aren't organized very well. (Or, at least I've been unable to find a good way to organize them). I like Windows Media Player's ability to have album title or artist organization, but Jet Audio just lists every song in one huge list. For example, in my My Music folder I have an artist folder and then within that artist folder I have album folders with the various songs (i.e. My Music/Ben Harper/Live From Mars I/Ground on Down.mp3) So, when I import into Jet Audio I'd like to keep that kind of organization, but I haven't figured out a way to do it yet.

If you know a way, let me know please and I'll probably be a complete Windows Media Player convert (execpt for the internet radio...I can only get WCPE on WMP).

Does WinAmp let me keep the kind of organization I like from WMP?

 

Quintessential?

 

I've looked at it. Again, I'm looking for the following things:
1. Nice orginization of playlists (like mdowns said)
2. burning capabilites
3. good database, so I don't have to enter in album info manually.

How does Quintisenntial rate with the above things in mind?

 

Tried Quinntsential, and I don't thinki you can burn with it.

If Jet Audio had the playlists, I'd go with that, but ease of use and database of Real lead me to think that that is the program I''m going with. I hate to pay for it, since I usually praise programs that are true freeware...I don't like being baited, and then finding out that all the good features are available only after you pay. But even so, 30 bucks is cheap for a program, and it will do what we want.

That's why Ad-Aware, Spybot, Spyware Blaster, AVG, AntiVir, RegCleaner, AI Robo Form, BigFix, and other programs are so awesome, they give you the whole package, and upgrades to Plus or Professioanl packages is usually only for extra things. Bravo for free programs!!

Thanks for your help, folks! If ya find anything that I missed, and think I should try, I'll give it a shot.

Eric

 

Myself i use Winamp 5 for keeping a log of all my MP3s, and playing them, and Zoom Player to play videos, since its got a small footprint and takes no time at all to load, and is very "tweakable". Supports any codec you have installed... but not QuickTime which is rather annoying.

Theres my input