@sisya: No. Real Player will never have my access to my files. Ever. What started as a so-so player exploded into bloated adware. And that's all it will ever be.

I let MediaMonkey manage all my music. The ease that you edit tags and sort in every which way is amazing to say the least. I'm proud to have bought the full version.

SamLovesTacos

@pabster: I must be one of the rare people who doesn't like automation/organization of my media. That's why I have no need for iTunes, Winamp, WMP, etc.

foobar2000 is king for me because it's a no bull-shit, I just want to play my music, I do my own tag editing, I don't need extra bloat, thank you player. I don't even install the Album List plugin which is checked by default at installation. I just create my own config, select my music folder to use as the library, and toss all of my tracks into one giant, 5600+ track playlist that is sorted by Artist - Album - Disc Number - Track Number (thanks to foobar's built-in list sorter that you can customize.) I just run Columns UI and Album Art panel and I'm good. Screenshot: [img390.imageshack.us]

MPC unfortunately didn't get mentioned. It's what I use for video in combination with ffdshow.

CaptainBringdown

@The Amazing Ant: For some of us, it's all about having the most efficient program for doing the simplest of tasks. Foobar2000 does a good job of that, highly customizable and a better music manager than iTunes IMO.

Listen2Eurobeat

Out of all of those choices, Winamp is probably the best all-in-one client.

Listen2Eurobeat

hey, nobody uses Classic Media Player?! handles any codec thrown at it.. including .ram. And not even an honourable mention for Real Player?! How ungrateful can y'all get?

sisya

Winamp for Audio in Windows
Amarok for Audio in Linux
VLC for Video in both Windows and Linux

Grimskallen

I use VLC for all of my video playing needs both on Linux and Windows. For my music I ended up buying Media Monkey and have been really happy with it so far. I hate iTunes on my PC, it always runs slows and uses way too much Ram and CPU cycles so I have tried most of the alternatives including Floola which was almost perfect. I prefer to manage my files myself rather so Media Monkey has been great although it does have the ability to sync my iPod if I wanted.

kiwiboyus

iTunes, not doubtly wins with its ease!

I bet in a years time songbird will be real good. At the mo it sucks but with some development it should kick serious ass!

LifesSweetDrug

Winamp (media monkey once theres good last.fm support) for music, VLC for any movies

lilkeith7

@jsmorley: Totally agreed. I use iTunes for music and BSplayer for video.

I've got a question about iPod compatibility. I use iTunes because I can sync my iPod with it. I hate manually transferring music to any digital media player. Do any other media players have this capibility?

detection

Winamp for music, VLC for video. I hate, hate, HAAAAAAATE iTunes. Only reason I even have it on my computer is that my USB Cassette deck requires it (and I haven't been motivated enough to find a workaround). Once I'm all done dumping my cassettes, it's getting the boot.

edicius

For me, Amarok for music, VLC for everything else. I have to wonder why everything's a full screen shot of the program apart from Amarok, which only shows about 1/6 of the display though.

aphexbr

I wish we could vote based on different platforms. iTunes is great but I love amaroK too.

jacobsm

This one is impossible to vote on since the question doesn't make sense. Almost nobody uses a single player for both audio and video. If I am listening to music, I use Winamp, so I could vote for that, but if I am watching a video I use VLC. So if you ask, which do you like better, Winamp or VLC, the answer is "yes".

jsmorley

I still don't understand the iTunes memory complaints...
Am I the only person with enough RAM in their PC to handle the programs they run? Better yet, is it really that hard to go onto Newegg and buy a couple 2GB sticks and be done with it?

The Amazing Ant

My vote went to Amarok. While I think that it still leaves something to be desired from a tag management point of view, I still think it's the best one out there. Media monkey would be in a close second place in my book.

Although Winamp used to be my favorite back in the early days, I haven't been able to stand them since they were bought by AOhell. Have they actually made a return from being crapware?

dangerp

No surprise on iTunes. It may well have a "large memory footprint" but there's nothing better for organizing, storing, purchasing, and enjoying ALL your media. TV Shows, Movies, Music, etc. And the integration with iTMS and iPod just seals the deal.

I always give an honorable mention to VLC because I do use it, particularly on older machines. It works well and is nice because you don't need to download a bunch of codecs just to play an arcane format. That said, the interface stinks, and it cannot compare to iTunes.

pabster

I'm not picky about how my desktop or programs appear, so I can't be bothered with skins. It's all about functionality.

One thing people shouldn't be afraid of doing is using multiple copies of the same program, the second being an older and proven version. Winamp 5.094 is my main MP3 player and 2.76 on both my main partition and secondary partition (those rare times I need to run Lose98). Older software on new machines also has the advantage of working *very* fast and reliably.

I also view videos with multiple players, depending on format and how they look. Some files simply won't play properly because of how they were recorded.

KJones

just discovered ToolPlayer for OSX
[www.apple.com]
unbloated and plays everything i can find , even Nsf and Mods:)

coderneedsfood

@jsmorley

Exactly my point. It should have been best desktop audio player.

Media, which encompasses a larger variety of file types, should have been a different poll.

Try to play flv or mkv files with foobar.

spiderman1369

3/5 of those are bloated memory hogs.

doodoohead

zPlayer, or Zoom Player, works wonders for me. It runs super fast. it is my choice for playing one or two songs without having to open up iTunes, (which honestly, face it you guys, takes a little bit of time to open...)

Oh the drag-and-drop/instant-play interface does not hurt it either.

Latobada

I don't think the outcome of this poll will be fair, not until Amarok is properly released on Windows

christophski

@Cheekyal: ditto.

robmcbell

iTunes if you have a newer computer or don't worry about resource usage. VLC if you want it to run fast on any machine.

dpollitt

Foobar gets my vote because it: A) plays music; B) has a music library without a "music store" (don't mix business and pleasure, IMO); and C) feels very lightweight and quick. Perhaps they've changed recently, but iTunes and Winamp feel way too bloated for my tastes.

VLC gets the nod as my video player of choice.

rsmoker

I too am joining the Winamp & VLC club, and I too voted for Winamp...

Cheekyal

I guess I'm joining the "Winamp for music and VLC for video" fan club. My vote, however, went to Winamp.

KuriKokku

@spiderman1369:

Since when is audio not a catagory of media?

jsmorley

I'm a WMP fan, but winamp is a good second choice for windows. Amarok is overall favourite out of the list I was a huge fan of it when I had my linux partition

gamer91

Isn't this a HighFive for the best desktop MEDIA Player???

So why are the first two AUDIO players???

spiderman1369

iTunes / Windows Media Player

that's pretty much all you need if you are on mac/windows

prospero

The memory usage of iTunes on Windows was very annoying. I don't notice it at all on OS X.

aeneas

i like rhythmbox. its not very good at anything but sorting and playing music. but thats all i need. its also integrates well with gnome, and i hate programs that dont integrate...

glaeven

I have to go with other. VLC is an awesome program, but I have 3000 songs, and that is no program to manage music with. So, VLC is my movie player (which it excels at).
But, I have my music on the majority of my day, and movies only a couple days a week. So my vote (other) goes out to media monkey.
Reasons?
*No lag on 3.5k files.
*Easily import/export playlists from other players, as well as ratings from programs like WMP and Itunes.
*Support for drm/non drm files, as well as any format you can think of, including uncompressed (like flac, monkey audio)
*support for podcasts
*internet radio interface
*saving album art to tags
*saving lyrics to tags
*batch art finder lets you pull in files from google images
*renames/moves files based on track data (BEST THING EVER)
*skinnable
*users can write/share scripts

and last but not least, lets you use almost any winamp plugin.

Izzmit

a few years ago I decided, after using almost every media ripper and media player, to stick to a standard. As I have an iPod, I decided that standard was m4a/aac, with iTunes tagging. And I've stuck to that standard ever since. Although I use iTunes as a catalog program, it's too resource-heavy to have running all the time (Windows gah) - I use Foobar for day-to-day playing.

Al Iguana

For video, nothing beats CCCP + Media Player Classic. VLC is nice but it doesn't handle soft subtitles well at all. MPC handles them flawlessly.

CrunchBite

VLC for video, Foobar for audio. I gave VLC the nod since it can do both.

dklipse

Media Monkey

ObtuseMoose

How did iTunes get on there, and not MPC? iTunes is good for exactly one thing: syncing my iPod, that's it.
Winamp is my audio player. Media Player Classic does video. MPC is also configured as my default for all media so I don't nuke my playlist when I open a random mp3 or something.

brainwav

I wanted to mention Billy:

[www.sheepfriends.com]
Billy is a lightweighted no nonsense audio player that allows you to quickly play an entire directory of MP3 files.

I don't know if it was mentioned in the last thread, but it is a very respected media player in certain circles.

math0ne

@spiderman1369:

Well, I enjoy these hive-five articles they have from time to time, I will just wait for the next one. This one is hosed. Absolutely nobody plays their mp3/audio files with VLC, but it's going to come in fairly high in the top five "media players", because this survey was structured incorrectly.

jsmorley

What about WMP11? Sure I use VLC to watch my videos (just because it will play them), but as you said it has no media library tools! I keep WMP on all day for music but only keep VLC on to watch specific videos, so I think the question here was a bit ambiguous.

I shouldn't complain much since these are all well-loved media players but since so many ppl find WMP11 more usable than iTunes, I thought it would make the list

burnblue

Songbird is quickly becoming my dominant player.

With the mozzila framework in place it creates a unique interface for music, namely a tab'd interface for playlist making and library managment as well as webpages.

With playlists tht can include music from internet as well as local music, it is bridging the gap between local and cloud media.

Many plugins for Firefox are already ported to songbird so u get the pleasure of many familiar features in this webbrowsing, tab'd media player. Porting addons isnt that complex as well so there's a good chance u can do it yourself if there are some u must have.

[getsongbird.com]

Antwhan

For anything video in the Windows world I use GOM player. Of course you need the assorted codecs to play the different formats. For that GOM takes advantages of things like the REAL Altnerative or Quicktime Alternative. It just works. I can play DVDs, MPGs, WMVs, DivX, Xvid, MOVs, RMs all from the same player - which is ideal. For audio I just use WinAmp. I do miss the classic winamp (version 2.6x). I don't need something to manage my 20,000 mp3s. I have ripped & tagged all MP3s to my liking over the years, so there is no need for that. However I do like MediaMonkey for adding album art - which was not an item I considered when I first started ripping my CDs to MP3.

Since I am making the cutover to Linux I'll definitely be looking at alternatives to these programs. Certainly VLC will get a look. Amarok may be overkill for what I plan to do, but I'll still give it a look.

thrashnbash1

I love Amarok. It alone is almost worth the switch to Linux.

HeartBurnKid

@astrosmash: What does the iPod do that makes it better than "just another media player" when it's paired with iTunes?

Colage

Without iTunes the iPod is just another MP3 player.

astrosmash

Winamp/VLC for me

Lazarus

i'll have to select other, even though i use vlc for movies. wmp11 works perfectly without adding extra programs that do exactly he same thing.

0zSpitt

@spiderman:

I agree. Media encompasses audio and video. So how can they include an audio player as a 'media' player. It will NOT play ALL media, just audio 'media'.

How someone votes most likely will be influenced by what they value the most video 'media' or audio 'media'. 3 of the players are true 'media' players on the list though, (foobar and Amarok are the audio only players). So you could restrict your voting to just those 3. Maybe they'll add a poll for best audio player, and best video player :P

I love VLC. Can play virtually any movie in any codec.

closeupman

I'm still using Winamp 2.80 from 2002, I click on a song and it plays, what more can you ask for?

tonynyc

Most people seem to be saying "one program for audio, one for video", but for me, I use one program (iTunes) for managing my music/video/iPod in general, and one (VLC) for playing individual files that I don't intend to keep in my library. If I want to just click on a file and play it, there's no point in invoking all of iTunes to handle just that. VLC is small, simple, and does a great job.

I've never really noticed a problem with iTunes' memory usage... and I keep Visual Studio, Outook, and several memory-intensive programs I use for work open at once... right now I have 26 separate windows open, not including iTunes, and my total memory use (commit charge) is still less than the amount of RAM I have installed. With swapping, I still have almost 1/3 of my RAM available.

Also, iTunes is the only program I've really been happy with for managing my iPod. Floola has been the next best, but still not quite there. I do like Amarok and Banshee as well, but right now I need my iPod more in Windows than in Linux, so iTunes it is.

krn

Zune got a lot of love in the original post. Makes me wonder why it didn't make the short list.

Anyways, Zune and VLC FTW!

Nato!

@Idrive: I don't use foobar, but media monkey has a specific built-in plug in to sync with ipods :)

lacrimaeveneris

@SamburgerHandwich; Any chance you want to share your resources? Can deal with scripts and plugins to fix those things - I already enjoy system-wide hotkeys via quicksilver

JackandJohn

I like KMPlayer on Windows, It looks great and does everything I need a media player to do. It also works with TV tuners!!!

benjgvps

I am highly shocked that XBMC is not in this list...
Now with the advent of a linux port, and the very nicely done OSXBMC ( [www.osxbmc.com] ), you now have the single best reason for owning an old xbox with the power of a modern PC.

I constantly use this on my macbook for video watching (Practically all formats), music listening, picture viewing, etc with native support of the apple remote, among others (xbox 360 controller, etc).

A close second to me is Amarok, but since the HD upgrade; all my music lives on the macbook anyway.

My vote: XBMC
Second: Amarok (Audio) / VLC (Video)

JackandJohn

@Izzmit: Thank you for listing the main pro's of media monkey...very helpful. I use VLC for movies and it does a great job with sync problems other players commonly have. I do wish it had more of an user interface that would allow you to show the movie poster or something like itunes does. I will be checking out Media Monkey and Foobar2000 for my Audio needs as Itunes just kills to much memory on Windows. I do like iTunes but it really is a sinking ship on memory. Does Foobar2000 and Media Monkey sync with iPods?

Idrive

@edicius: @brainwav: @ all other itunes haters:
I hear a lot of complaints about itunes but I never know, specifically, what the problem is. It it just the footprint? Poor performance? Stability? UI? Features?

My main gripe is that I can't listen for new files in a directory and have them automatically added, but plug-ins do this.

Also, it frustrates me that you can't (as far as I know) edit the type of video (tv show, movie) for multiple files at a time, unlike other meta data. So, all of my south park episodes were showing with my movies. I've made an autohotkey script to address this.

Quibbles aside, I'm pretty happy with iTunes.

SamburgerHandwich

No Zune??! Oh c'mon, I thought it had a good chance. VLC's really good though, winamp... meh, I've used it for a long time, but the UI's just too complicated nowadays (yes I know about skins, but they don't conceal the ugly on the inside)

Sam_Zebian

I call shenanigans! i'm kinda sad songbird didn't get some love. (on future hi-fives could you put how many votes there were for certain items?)

Swizzler121

I've never known why Windows Media Player is always disregarded in these lists. I've never had a problem with it, and it filters and sorts my music fine. It syncs up all my hardware devices correctly, and it's fairly lightweight since it's built into the operating system.

shamess

KMPlayer. I believe it's a variation of Winamp, but it plays literally everything I throw at it, perfectly. I've had issues with VLC.

aphex242

I use VLC since I organize my music in the file system. I just need a player that won't complain about missing codecs.

LankanDude

@roxpace: Agreed, but it's still pretty early in its development to use as your day to day media player.

Edd Mills

Boo iTunes

endorphin

Media Monkey = awesome. iTunes, at least for Windows, is an abomination.

Edd Mills

Amazing that you missed Songbird, one fantastic player.

roxpace

iTunes would be the best if:

1. MUCH smaller memory footprint - I've seen it use use 600MB if open long enough.
2. Quicker start/shutdown times - It can take up to 30 seconds to start/shutdown even on a fast computer.
3. Need advanced searches - I want to be able to do a search like this: (This_Band AND That_Band) NOT Some_Band ...this is essentially a smart playlist, but just let me do it as a query.
4. Does not handle large libraries well - I have a 80+ GB library of music and iTunes crawls when opening/closing/moving through the library.

iTunes has major problems, but it also unfortunately is the only thing that can sync with my iPod Touch. It happens to suck less than the other options, but it certainly does suck as well.

xxdesmus

I still prefer Windows Media Player (for me). Good library management, device sync, easy to burn and copy. If I ever started using iTMS I'd probably switch, but for now I still buy physical CDs, get files from friends, or use bit torrent.

sweetchuck

@lhcomment: Zune did have an impressive showing, but ultimately it only got about half of the votes of the two honorable mentions.

Adam Pash

I use winamp since v2.0, and still like it so much. I'm using it to manage my ipod classic and also I like so much the built in radio stations. Another feature that I apreciate is the abilitie to play all the media files in a folder, right from a mouse click.

Rafaell

VLC all the way. Big No for iTunes crap.

lhcomment

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned KMPlayer.

It is awesome for watching videos, and uses winamp plugins for audio playback (although I prefer WinAMP for listening to music).

the only thing it really doesn't have is a good media library interface.

drnimrod

I personally Use the Zune Software 2.5 for all my music playing needs. It works great, has a wonderful interface, and sounds great to.

Cruleworld

i use both vlc and foobar2000.. vlc is the best for video files etc and foobar with music.. the addons for foobar and the ability to customize it to your exact requirements are what in my eyes makes it the best media player around..

itunes is a one trick pony in my eyes.. it "looks nice" and has a lot of visual flair to it which attracts a lot of casual users i did use it for a while but i actually prefer the winamp ipod support over using itunes any day.

purdz

I'm using KMPlayer. It plays just about anything and there is a portable version you can run from a key. I use it the most for playing video. I have it on my flashkey and I can just go somewhere, plug it in and play DVD's (if the computer has a DVD player).

da5id_nz

Still voting for Banshee for the integration reasons - but its nice to have one linux media player in it. Thing is Banshee is very cumbersome and tbh I think its really ugly.. lots disagree though I guess.

ElliotH

I'm shocked that songbird didn't make it!

koalasthewise

@spiderman1369: WinAmp plays video also. In fact, it handles .avi files better than a lot of alternatives. My vote goes to WinAmp first and then VLC.

lizzybee

In what I've seen of iTunes, I have two complaints. I couldn't figure out how to just play a single song, and it uses ID3v2.2 tags (most programs uses 2.3, a few 2.4, but those two are generally compatible; 2.2 is noticeably different).

sample032

WMP11 ftw!

Jamo

MediaMonkey for audio and GOM Player for video hands down! Neither open source but best in its class for Windows - have yet to come across a file they wouldn't play. GOM Player plays .mov files better than QuickTime. If I want Open Source on Windows, I'd go with MusikCube and I use Amarok on Linux.

bohemicus

@rsmoker: it's simple to share music on multiple computers with iTunes, go to options and select the share tab. Then on the other computers select "look for shared libraries". Pretty painless. Although if you're having problems with DRM music, well, that's not the players fault per-se, you shouldn't really buy DRM music if you want to go multi-machine, thats a whole heap of trouble whatever software you're using. Buy from Amazon or something.

Al Iguana

Also, I forgot to mention the one true reason I despise iTunes: managing my music on multiple computers (3 machines@home, 2@work) is too much for my wee brain to handle. I tried it a few times and when I consumed my licenses to music I purchased I decided that iTunes was not a viable music library.

rsmoker

Amarok, this is what finally pushed me over to Linux full time. Just wish it was written in GTK instead of QT so it integrated with Gnome a touch better, but I guess you can't have everything.
Oh and for videos I use VLC.

sloped

+1 for KMPlayer

fourte3n

Why does music software have to be SO BLOATED? I saw this list and thought,"iTunes? COME ON!!" That thing is a fat pig to run. Then again, as a faithful Rhapsody user, I can't really point the finger because Rh's player is a giant mess and won't handle netcast subscriptions.

Personally I like my system of organizing mp3s, Windows Explorer. Actually I rip using WMP, but rarely need all of the fluff of album covers. I know what I'm looking for, and I can read.

dmccall

Winamp. iTunes sucks.

Blue88

@The Amazing Ant:
A lot of us are running a TON of other programs besides whatever media player we are running and Itunes isn't just a memory hog, it's services are also needless CPU hogs even when it's not doing anything. It's a sloppy wasteful app in Windows and deserves to be condemned on that basis alone.

GodsPetMonkey

+2 for KMPlayer

Fedorov

This one was tough for me. I used to be a die-hard Winamp user, and even when I got an iPod I only used iTunes to transfer music. But then I started listening to shared iTunes music at my fraternity and wanted to keep mine shared, and so went in all the way and haven't turned back since.

VLC for video and streaming audio, Banshee on my linux box.

jjcamp

I keep changing what I use. Winamp is still in there, Foobar is good and light, but I can't be bothered spending the time to get it looking like I'd like. Do they have pre-made mods?
I agree WMP11 should be on there, despite it being from the evil empire, it looks good, starts quickly, and has a very easy to use interface. iTunes doesn't do it for me on a windows box, plus the hourly updates get a bit boring.

antman70

There realllllly needs to be an "Honorable Mention" to Media Player Classic -- it deserves the spot that WMP got, really. Too few people know about tis amazing, tiny, standalone-exe freeware app. It plays any format your system has the codecs for (which, with the ffdshow packs, is "every"), and has precise controls for everything including aspect ratio (it's the only player, as far as i know, that allows you to stretch or shrink a picture in any dimension).

Drakar2007

MediaMonkey if you are OCD about keeping your library tagged and maintained. Very good program. I even paid for it. The free version has everything most would need.

iverevi

Itunes is the one of the most non-intuitive piece-o-crap I've ever had to deal with.

tricky69

Honorable mentions to banshee and songbird :)

boredcollegekid

I was watching a DVD this week for the first time on an external monitor attached to my notebook via a standard 15 pin VGA cable. Windows Media Player is usually my tool of choice on this device, but it would not play in this setup due to the cable in use not being DRM free. That stunk, but a quick check of the web took me to VLC, and a 2 minute download later I was watching the DVD. NICE.

WMP can go back in it box...

howardd21

root@srudes2:~# whereis songbird
songbird:
root@srudes2:~# :(
-bash: syntax error near unexpected token `newline'
------
Songbird all the way, I love how it integrates with skreemr. And downloading music via skreemr is legal in The Netherlands so... can't get any better.

srudes2

What happened to WMP? I am shocked that iTunes made it, it causes me way too much trouble. Stupid iPods won't sync with anything else, nor is there a better online store. But the iTunes Client has caused me way too much trouble.

Vote: Other (WMP11)

randynobx

I just started using the newly released aTunes media player(www.atunes.org). I'm surprised it's not mentioned. I'm using it in place of Winamp. I love how it auto-finds album art so I don't need to keep pic files in my music folders.

MPC for video.

kilroy2

Amarok=Linux only. Therefore, butt fugly.

michaelleung

VLC is very powerful, but its user interface leaves little to be desired for, oh, let's say, 98% of all computer users.

But based on LH readership, I'm not surprised it got a lot of votes.

Deprong Mori

VLC plays so many formats but the default interface is still off-putting, and its UI quirks are unpleasant. If it could be polished up more to better pair its power with presentation, it would be an easier swallower for computer novices.

More apps could also benefit from QuickTime Player's elegance, e.g., easy encoding presets and simple frame-by-frame scrub/loop.

Torley

I like Zune software for both audio and video. The new 2.5 release is wonderful and worth checking out.

[www.zune.net]

antmilla

As long as you stay clear from outdated components and find a simple enough how-to, foobar is really the best audio player. Not only does it have the fastest launching time, but navigating huge databases is a breeze.

I strongly recommend the Facets UI extension. It is an extremely simple and elegant way to implement the Three-panels-side-by-side-artist-album-title setup that you can find in some linux players such as banshee and rhythmbox.

Screenshot at the homepage: [foobar2000.audiohq.de]

dudeski_robinson

There's nothing intuitive about iTunes. Getting "Tunes" on to the iPod was an exercise in frustration. Firing up iTunes makes my firewall ask permission for days, services need to run in the background even when iTunes isn't running (I fixed that) and it just sucks. Someone suggested buying more RAM so iTunes runs better. Why? I thought I was being a curmedgeon about iTunes but it looks like I'm in good company here.
I started using Foobar a few weeks ago (from Winamp) but I like it. Click on Winamp, go to the kitchen, make a sandwich, eat it, come back to the computer, and it might have launched by then. In fairness, it's light years beyond iTunes. As my collection grew, Winamp slowed down. I don't use plugins so I'm not sure what the holdup is. Click Foobar and there it is.
Something cool about VLC that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere in the 600 or so posts from earlier is that VLC streams to other computers, in addition to everything else it does.
My vote is for Foobar & VLC; kinda like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, you can't have the chocolate without the peanut butter.

Mark

I love the fact that no one's mentioned QuickTime -- is there a better waste of space/time?

But someone DID mention RealPlayer, which is as invasive, if not worse.

What's great about WinAmp is that it doesn't bother you -- it just plays the songs.

saintseminole

I am going to try to get keyboard shortcuts to work with foobar on my mac. That's the dealbreaker between iTunes and foobar2k for me.

NathanK

Audio in Windows: Winamp 5.5
Audio in Linux: Amarok
Video: VLC

wayne

Two things I forgot to include:
•iTunes is excellent when it comes to album art/organization, and I'm OCD about that type of stuff. It HAS to be neat. It's also really intuitive for tagging music.
•iTunes is built for my mp3 player of choice.

qualia

iTunes is the best for me. It's built into and made for the operating system I use, its intuitive and powerful organization is something I completely understand and adore. I know nearly everything there is to know about iTunes, which gives me a solid reason to use it.
However, that's not to say I enjoy the iTunes Store. I HATE buying music from iTunes. It's DRM'd up the wazoo, the bitrate is horrible, and the artists barely gain anything from it. If I'm going to buy music - which I rarely do these days - it's going to be DIRECT from the label (unless its a major, because usually major labels don't sell directly) and I'm going to properly support the artist.
Also, VLC is good to play things with certain codecs/filetypes that iTunes doesn't recognize, but it's horrible for organization. That's simply not what it's built for.

qualia

Audio: Songbird is still at the top of my list. Version 0.6.1 was just recently released, with many improvements to memory usage and speed. It has a relatively small memory footprint (around 40 MB at the most, with 4000+ songs in the library) and it's great at organizing music and getting new songs. Best of all, it's based upon Firefox, which means it's VERY customizable with addons and the like.

Video: Zoom Player. It's able to play even the most obscure formats. In addition, Zoom Player is very customizable, has a quick startup, a small memory footprint, and comes with the Combined Community Codec Pack ([www.cccp-project.net]) all ready to go.

Angelic579

I voted amarok only because as a music player it wins in my book (can't wait for the next release)

But as a all around media manager WMP11/WMPVista (since they seem slightly different to me) wins in it's ability to manage all of my pictures/music/videos

rothgar

@The Amazing Ant:
It's quite simple, you can tweak foobar so that minimised, it only uses 3-4 meg. Whilst I have 2 gig to play around with, I'd rather use that memory on actual work.

The same reason I choose uTorrent over Azuerus - sure both are useable, but one sucks the ram.

Amarok is amazing, but Linux only is the killer. I'd offer a hon-men to Windows Media Center for a non-desktop solution.

salmonmoose

regarding itunes and memory: it's not a matter of someone's machine not being able to handle itunes. just because i have the ram to run it doesn't mean i want to use my ram on it. if i'm playing music while i work, i care about the music, not coverflow. i therefore want a minimalist music player like Billy, so i can use my ram on other, more important things. plus yamipod for ipod sync, and mp3tag for organizing music. if i really feel like using a graphical front-end to my collection i'll open uberview. see a pattern here? small, portable software. it's about efficiency folks.

garbanzo-bean

If I wanted my resources wasted, I'd create some program to do nothing but take up CPU cycles and eat RAM. Wasting someone elses system resources should be something any decent programmer strives to avoid at almost any cost; bloat and memory-intensive crap should be opt-in - and that's where Foobar2000 excells. It's completely possible to make foobar2000 do EVERYTHING Itunes does with the possible exception of the worthless "Itunes store". ANd if I can get everything I'd ever need without bloat and with complete customizability, then why the hell should I use Apple's bloaty crap?

Anyways, making me choose between foobar2000 and VLC is kind of stupid, but I guess VLC has its problems (like subtitles sometimes just disappearing), while I've yet to find any serious issues with foobar2000.

krank23

It's a shame Billy didn't get more attention. It's the best lightweight audio player I've ever seen.

alstki

also i am a loyal winamp user from way back in the day (version 1) all you could do way play and stop (no fwd or rwd) i think it was around 1994
But i wouldn't install it now

hal9000

i would suggest looking at [www.aimp.ru] (but it appears down at the moment - to me)
there is a portable version [www.humyo.com] if you wana try it out

it's like winamp (so that's a good thing) except without all the bloat.
Winamp has pissed me off recently due the the 'opening up with all windows including video and web browser' when starting up.
It's all gone downhill since AOL takeover.
Also VLC is shite. If you have any codec pack installed you will have media player classic installed and that is the best thing for playing anything back FULLSTOP

hal9000

As a player foobar, so many features for so little ressources. And fast.

But I need yet to find a program that's as MediaMonkey for organizing files.

itunes and WA are crap, and the windows Version of amarok is... not as good as the real thing^^

Christoph Wagner

sounds: AIMP (lets me rip radio if I want)
video: GOM
Both beautiful, well thought out, non-hogs.
You lot are sooo yesterday!

idodialog

i don't find VLC that good for the simple reason is that it is making do almost using brute force to play back media.
Where as when i click on a video file of any type i was an almost instant to load player with minimal fuss to just use the correct availible installed code that was designed to decode that video file.
i know vlc will do this if the codec is there but nothing is as fast and clean as MPC (media player classic)
Ideally vista or xp would have something as fast and clean as preview (space) on osx 10.5x (assuming you have perian installed as well!

hal9000

This is kind of an unfair test, It should have been split into audio and video cause I love Foobar for audio but VLC certainly wins the 'media player' aspect.

leperisland

Also, forgot to mention: for video I use totem, or when that doesn't work there's the magnificent VLC to the rescue, but I still like Totem better.

TeKniKal

Foobar2000 is without a doubt the best if you want to take the time to configure it to your likings. In my Windows days, I had a great basic setup, convolved to suppress echoes from different speakers etc. (I haven't found any other player who can do that). Foobar has by far the best DSP system and great tag editting skills. I never liked iTunes and WMP only version 7 when it was sort of brand new; but both suck at tags, quality and speed (iTunes on Windows is slow as hell, on Mac it is rumored to seem faster).

On Linux, nowadays, my best replacement for foobar, is quodlibet. No Amarok, since I use gnome and KDE apps mostly look ugly. quodlibet has great tag-editting skills, sometimes acts a little shaky, but makes that up with great searching abilities.

TeKniKal

WMP 11 as my default (it's works and I like it)
VLC (when in doubt use VLC)

iTunes and Quicktime will never make it on my rig. I use QuickTime alternative and Real alternative.
Along with K-Lite I'm set.

ThaMofo

VLC for the Win

Internet-TV

cfg - how about crossover?
failing that get vmware fusion and install one of those lite cutdown xp installs such as TinyXP
you can then run winamp directly on your osx desktop
it works i tried it just for a laugh.
This is how i run Tag & Rename on osx cos it's the best and there isn't anything on osx as good as it

hal9000

I've given up on Windows a few years ago and now only using Macs and Linux boxes. The only thing I really really miss is Winamp. Listening to music is a huge deal for me, and Winamp is the best music player I have ever seen. So intuitive, so usable and so lightweight. Then comes Amarok on Linux, which is a really good application, despite it's iTunes-ish way of managing music.

And you know what's really sad? Nobody's going to write a Winamp clone for Macs. Because everyone just adores iTunes.

cfq

With me, Quintessential Media Player is the best. Take a look at: www.quinnware.com

jasperlotus

If you are interested in AIMP2 i have upped a screen grab here
[flickr.com]

hal9000

It would be very interesting to see this (maybe at some future date) broken up into two surveys. It would be nice to see a shootout for "best video player" and "best audio player" where we are more likely to see results that make sense. VLC looks to win this survey, and yet it is almost never used by anyone to play audio. iTunes looks to come in second, and yet it is rarely used to play video.

Best Audio Players:
Winamp
iTunes
Amarok
Windows Media Player
Media Monkey

Best Video Players:
VLC
Windows Media Player
Media Player Classic
GOM Player
Miro

jsmorley

Hey try out AIMP2 - an advanced audio player - [www.aimp.ru]

avinashsonee

Vote: Media Player Classic

ICEBreaker

WinAMP all the way.

Except video, for which I use VLC (Meaning I don't lose my playlists :>)

Phoshi

Winamp / VLC that is the perfect combination!

ChambrasWeed

I really like Songbird, but Songbird and Foobar have real problems with the size of my music library. For now its iTunes and Media Player. I feel like iTunes is better at organizing music than media player though. Gosh I wish Songbird was more robust.

drstrange32

mplayer. FTW.

word_virus

I tried to love iTunes back when I had an iPod. At that time, it was the only reasonable way to sync that beast up. But it was extremely bloated at that time and had a nasty habit of moving and renaming files without my permission. And yes, I did have the options set up correctly. When I ditched the iPod, I went in a lot of directions. Sticking to the options in this list, though...

Foobar is great if you take the time to customize it. It can do everything I want, it's just a hassle. Winamp is good, especially with the updated interface, but I don't care for the tagging interface and don't want to hunt down a plugin. VLC just doesn't handle things the way I want it to.

I stick with MediaMonkey. It handles my library how I want to and easily enables me to manage it as I see fit. The tagging and organization features are awesome. It hasn't crashed or choked. It just works.

Transient

Winamp 5.5: I have a portable full verious, WITH NATIVE SUPPORT FOR ALMOST ALL MP3 PLAYERS. I can move music around on any of my or other people's MP3s from nearly any PC. It's priceless...

iTunes fanboiys, I can afford the memory, it's just that so much of what iTunes does is bloated, clunky and unnecessary. I'll stick to my portable software that doesn't run several processes in the background/at startup, doesn't make 800 registry enteries/alterations and require extra RAM.

I really don't need my hand held for most of what iTunes does, apparently you do -which is probably why you're on a 1-button mouse mac to begin with.

Amarok is amazing, the speed at which is indexes songs is unbeatable.

l337_7r4d3r

@Drakar2007:
Exactly. Though I voted for Winamp and VLC.. because they're HallofFamers.. I insist that everyone here check out Media Player Classic. And you're right.. I am yet to see any player match Media Player Classic's versatility.

sisya

I listen to music all day long and have an 20K song, 80GB collection of music, so I am willing to pay for a media player that does EVERYTHING very well. I pay for J. River Media Center and in a world of free media players, a media player vote in $$$ is worth more than hundreds of votes on a mishmash of free, half-baked media players.

haggie

Video: Media Player Classic: with the k-lite Codecs or
VLC: if you don't want to install codecs.

Audio: foobar: but all the customization takes time and work
itunes: bloated,works well but people are used to it
winamp: old but nice and simple

Overall Media player: I would say songbird. an up and coming cross platform media player from Mozilla the same people who made Firefox. it is kind of an itunes look-a-like as it is the most common media player. But it has VLC integrated into the media player so you will be able to watch almost any video or listen to almost every song with one app. it allows a lot of customization and will be able to do all the things the other media players have to offer. It has been in beta for a very long time and doesn't work extremely well with Linux as it does with windows but it is very promising.

ilato88

My vote will have to go to Amarok. Even though I now use foobar2000 99% of the time since I went back to Windows (gaming addiction blah), I love Amarok. Frankly, it is the main thing I miss from my Linux-only days. As soon as Amarok for Windows is released I am going back to that...

Foobar2000 is a close second but nothing beats Amarok.

Mewgia

Yes! I'm using KMPlayer too. cool player. I will recomend to anybody

Benzin - Gasoline

Winamp for music and MPC+CCCP for videos.

Ashen

Like others, I am really, really shocked that Media Player Classic was not in the list.

For audio, XMPlay is an incredibly light yet full-featured player. If you just want a simple, versatile audio player that doesn't hog resources, definitely check out XMPlay.

mkerr23

I voted Amarok.
Mention for VLC but I couldn't have the for my music library but it's great for videos!

dougaitken

VOTE: Quintessential Player (a.k.a. QCD) is a feature rich media player for Windows. It supports all popular audio formats including MP3, WMA, Ogg Vorbis, and CDs. QCD is highly skinnable and has a robust plug-in architecture. CD performs CD Ripping and Encoding, streams Internet Radio, and can Clean and Tag all your audio files. QCD uses Gracenote for the best music recognition. QCD even plays videos. These great features are just scratching the surface. QCD is Freeware. (from [www.quinnware.com])

hover-it

@Idrive:
Media monkey syncs great with all ipods out so far, but its just audio, and maybe podcasts (never bothered with podcasts)

MediaMonkeys memory usage on my laptop is currently 57m of memory, been playing straight for about 3 days, and on a playlist of ~3500 songs.

On my parents computer, MM uses about 34mb.

Im pretty sure its my laptop, tho. Its oldish, and things seem to use more then they do on other computers.

Just a FYI, MM is a free program, with a paid version.
The free version can do just about anyhting the paid does, and I have never really needed the paid version.

Izzmit

After reading through all the comments I see one theme that pops up a couple times. If you have ever used MediaMonkey, you have fallen in love. I have never used any other program that is designed so well. Even the tray icon is interactive (click and drag left and right to go forward and back, drag up and down for volume control, all without opening a menu). And being OC about tags is easy as pie. Just try it, see what it does for you.

SamLovesTacos

foobar2000 for audio and VLC for video. Amarok in Linux.

I really don't need a program to "organize my media for me" because I do that myself. OCD FTW!

josejuan05

Still using windows as my default player but....I use winamp to "talk" to my ipod it just feels clunky as a player. And windows after a little tweaking does a great job handling all of my media.

hippykidz

I am amazed at the omission of MediaMonkey. It is a straight-forward application of elegant, functional simplicity worthy of the respect of any geek. Or anyone else...

The free version is barely crippled and adequate for most users, and no nags, but at only $20 for the full version you can afford to go all the way with it.

empkae

J river media center gets my vote :) Very easy network implementation:)

freznel

itunes just lacks the codec support i want to use.. flac support is non existant as far as i know..

foobar does have ipod support and its ok but i still maintain that winamp has the best support around..

im intrigued to know what that other member meant by itunes makes ipod more than a normal mp3 player.. imo installing rockbox on your ipod makes it better than a normal mp3 player..

purdz

@Grimskallen: I have to full heartedly agree with this almost to a T.

Only difference for me is for special circumstances. When wrangling a total mess of an audio library I love MediaMonkey for all of its awesome and easy media library handling/editing capabilities. Plus the plugin/api capabilities are outstanding. When it comes to handling some low quality videos I absolutely love the only the fly advanced video controls of KMPlayer. It allows you to adjust nearly every setting of the video, hues and all. When I found those advanced controls I fell in love. Makes it so much more bearable when switching between format types, imported videos, to DVDs, etc.

As for iTunes, I could understand why some people like it, but I find it ironic that LifeHacker readers are part of that group... emphasis on the 'hack' part! I just have a special kind of hatred for iTunes to be honest. I was so happy when Apple was pushed to remove the requirement of having iTunes if you wanted QuickTime.

jimredbaron

Yeah, this is definitely a too-vague category, for a few reasons.

1. It seems most people prefer different programs for music or video.

2. Comparing media players across platforms gets pretty messy. I'd rather see separate "hive five" lists for each major OS!

That said...

Winamp 2.91 has been my music player of choice since it came out. Media Player Classic, with the proper plugins (read: CCCP) beats out VLC at rendering, especially subtitles. Off of Windows, I find Amarok highly unintuitive, iTunes highly unnecessary, and MPlayer painfully unreliable.

But hey, to each his own.

mDuo13

I like Songbird better than any of these, although I use VLC. Is it just me, or is the question a little vague? Or is VLC being included alongside programs like iTunes the problem?

interficio

gotta agree with @bohemicus on this one: musikCube all the way
i'm realllly upset that it didn't make the list- i literally use it on every windows machine i come into contact with.

reversial

I agree with Torley's comment about VLC: while it is capable and cross-platform, it's butt-ugly.

For video, on Windows at least, GOM Player is my favorite. In my experience, while VLC will play Flash (.flv) videos it's impossible to navigate through them. GOM has a wonderful set of keyboard controls that can fast forward or rewind, even change color temperature and saturation or contrast ratio, among many other options. And it looks nice, too.

I don't know if one has to install codecs, maybe I'd already installed them and GOM automatically availed itself of them. In any case, I don't remember having to do anything after I'd installed it. It handles xvid and ripped DVDs well, too.

RabidHat

I find myself using VLC more and more--even for audio (while evaluating whether or not to import tracks into the iTunes library, because it opens almost instantaneously). Has of course never failed to play a video for me. Last night though, I tried KMPlayer and was mighty impressed...and as a bonus it looks a bit slicker than VLC--looks like some serious competition here.

And yes, I use iTunes for my 160GB/36000-track music library only because it organizes the tracks for you (I cannot figure out why anyone would want to have music scattered all over their drive instead of in one place); but yes it is a beast of a thing. It's also far less fiddly than Mediamonkey, Winamp, etc... so the rest of my family can easily listen to music too.

jtoz

Personally my favorite is the GOM Media Player. It has all the codecs and plays everything. Much better for video.

johnsonsteel

Media Monkey does it for me for the following reasons:
- iPod support and superior to iTunes with no Apple store crap to deal with
- multiple format support
- cd ripping and burning
- excellent tagging and autotagging

Metaphors

iTunes for Music, Korean Mediaplayer(windows) for everything else - no codecs needes

holybigbang

MPC

I just wish someone updates MPC, just to refresh it. I use it watch several Music Video, most of them xvid, divx, mpg, vob, but from times to times I have a crash so it's annoying.

For that reason, sometimes I go to VLC, but VLC also has its things too sometimes.

khamikaze

+3 for KMPlayer... I just love how nice and smooth it feels

AzureWolf

Media Monkey is amazing, especially with its auto-organize and tagging from Amazon features; keeps your library perfect in every way. Sad that iTunes is the 2nd most popular - I personally hate it. The fact that to add music from places other than iTunes itself you have to go in and manually add it to the library is a major turn off.

PBHuss

AIMP should have been mentioned. It rules all.

quazimodem

@pabster:
i don't agree with large footprint. i'm using iTunes 6.xx and it takes usually arount 25mb of ram, 4mb while minimized. which is far less than winamp with library or foobar2000 with added itunes-like functions.

only downsides of itunes on windows is QT dependency and slow start.

lucasbuzek

Also worth checking out is Jajuk: [www.jajuk.info]

CuchulainnPrimus

Winamp for music, and Media Player Classic for video. Too bad MPC didn't make it to the list.

spunky_fuffy

iTunes??? OMGWTF! My vote went to VLC.
Greetings

juampa240182

Is MCE on Vista not considered desktop?

curls

Media Monkey is the king!
Changing file names and tags for tons of music files is a breeze with this program.

killtuna