Itunes Or Window Media Player

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iTunes is way better for making playlists and stuff, but, if I want to just hear something quickly, I tend to use Windows Media Player.
 
Umm, why only those two programs? They're both bloated. Sometimes a user just wants to play a file, and there are way better programs for that sort of thing.

I personally use Winamp 2 on Windows, because it doesn't have lots of unwanted bloat when all I want to do is play files on my hard drive (and have support for all sorts of formats like Ogg Vorbis). It has a playlist window, playback controls, video/visualization window, and equalizer. That's all a media player ever really needs, to be honest. For Linux, I haven't decided yet, but MPlayer looks to be a pretty good contender.
 
This topic would be much better if this topic allowed more of a choice of media players.

I use WMP for now. I use Ogg DirectShow Filters for WMP so I can play an ogg file when I need to. I used to use WinAmp for a period of time, but I am unsure why I stopped using it.
 
I always use Winamp. Unless I need to burn a CD, in which case I use WMP.
 
I'm actually using Windows Media Player 11 entirely now because it has a very, very efficient collection organization system, and very simplistic yet powerful rip tools. I haven't experienced any bloating issues.

iTunes on the other hand, I have tried once before and had a significant performance detriment with it running. Nothing of the sort with either Winamp or Windows Media Player.
 
I find it funny how everyone in this topic who says that a program is bloated doesn't explain why.
 
Foobar2000. Its a VERY lightweight music player and has support for tons of plugins without eating your RAM. With my 17~ plugins, it only takes up 10 MB of ram as compared to Winamp's 78~ MB with almost no plugins including the built-in ones. Plus, Foobar2000 has support for unicode file names and tags without launching it in a different local like japanese. Foobar2000's replay-gain support is very nice if you don't like getting your ears blown out because you had to turn your volume up to hear it or if you have a very loud song from something like say; touhou, it can lower the volume without messing without messing with the system or program's volume and without editing the song's audio stream.
 
BlueZero4 said:
I find it funny how everyone in this topic who says that a program is bloated doesn't explain why.
A bloated program is one that wastes resources compared to others. I've definitely noticed Windows Media Player dropping my computer's performance slightly compared to other programs that do the same thing. Never had a reason to even try iTunes, so I can't make comparisons there.

Personally I use MPlayer or Media Player Classic, depending on the situation. I really should reinstall Winamp 2 for music files.
 
Actually, in this instance I was referring to bloat as having a cluttered interface showcasing features that a user would never want to use. Look at some of the instant messenger programs out there. There's chat, Direct Chat (kinda silly, really), group chat, games, voice chat, webcam chat, whiteboard, nudging, file transfers, even incredibly ridiculous stuff like per-user join/part sound effects (a "feature" in the new Live Messenger, if I recall), all while you have to deal with things like advertising that's lodged into the interface as well.

The point isn't necessarily that this slows the computer down (although a case can definitely be made for that. More bloat does mean slower performance), but that most of this isn't really needed for someone who just wants to bring up a chat window with a single person from time to time and send a simple message asking about last night's homework or whatever. For some people, monolithic programs might be useful, but for others, a Keep It Simple Solution would be far preferable (and then there are projects like KDE, an environment which seeks to strike a balance in between the two extremes).
 
Ah, now I remember why I stopped using WinAmp. I couldn't find a way to make it stream music downloaded from the web. I will try this foobar2000, since it has a plugin for that purpose.
 
If it's a MIDI, I try to use PrintMusic! 2002, because I want to watch the sheet music as it plays.

However, every time the MIDI starts, the CPU instantly goes up to 100%, and no other programs on the computer do that when playing a MIDI. So for MIDI's, I choose the most bloated (in one sense).
 
Yeah, I really hate interface bloat as well, which is why I tend to use older programs or really simple programs with very few features.
 
I just use plain Windows Media player.
1. Because it's the default player, and I'm too lazy to change it to anything else.
2. Because I can't be bothered to get some new program, when I already have one there.
I don't use media players much anyway, so it doesn't make much of a difference to me.
 
Windows Media Player. I don't have iTunes. Well, I used to have it... But when I play any music or movie, it's WMP for me. I like it because it can change color (the Windows Vista player is the one I have even though I have XP).
 
I use windows media player 11.
I often listen to music as a standalone activity...but I want to stare at something, so I add my own album art through WMP. And I'm self-learning Japanese, so for all the Japanese music that I have, I insert hiragana and katakana lyrics through WMP, and read it as I listen. I started out with slower songs so that I could read quick enough, and am moving on to faster ones xD. It looks like like this:
(oh yeah, I hate how WMP doesn't resize album art >.<)

Pic.png
 
I don't use either iTunes or Windows Media Player. I like listening to music while using my PC all the time, so the lighter a media player is on my system's resources, the better. On Windows, I usually just run SnackAmp. It's light, runs OGGs as well as MP3s, and doesn't have a bloated interface.

When booted into Ubuntu 8.04 or 9.04, I use Amarok. It's not that light, but it functions a lot like SnackAmp, so that's why I use it. The newest version of Amarok is kinda bloated, though, so I've been looking for a debian package of an earlier version. If not, I'll just use MPlayer on my 9.04 install.
 
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