The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 4 (of 5)

Media players

anyone know of decent media player that can play all (mp3, mp4, aac and wma) these files.

I have been buying a lot of stuff from itunes, walmart & music rebellion - and the worst part is that most of the protected wma files play only on Windows Media Player, and the AAC ones - only on the itunes.

thanks,

Prakash S
Thursday, February 5, 2004

You can burn iTunes songs (in whatever format) as MP3 to a CD then copy them to whatever player you want. (not as seamless as ipod <-> itunes, but there you are...)

Chris Winters
Thursday, February 5, 2004

There are no players that do all formats. If you want WMA and/or AAC, you have to pick a side in the battle.

Brad Wilson (dotnetguy.techieswithcats.com)
Thursday, February 5, 2004

It's missing a bit on the UI end of things, but the mplayer project ( http://www.mplayerhq.hu/ ) supports basically everything. There appears to be a windows port available at http://csant.info/mplayer.htm , though I have not tried it (no windows install right now).

I've been extremely impressed with mplayer: among other things, they've successfully reverse-engineered the sorensen codecs, something I do not believe (correct me if I am wrong) is available anywhere else. It's a really great piece of code.

Mike Swieton
Friday, February 6, 2004

try VUPlayer

http://www.vuplayer.com/vuplayer.htm

apw
Friday, February 6, 2004

"If you want WMA and/or AAC, you have to pick a side in the battle."

That's certainly true for now, but does it really have to be that way? For example, (on Mac OS X at least), if your application uses the QuickTime framework, then your application can play iTMS encrypted files. So it should be possible for (say) MS to release a WMP version that uses QuickTime to play iTMS files.

I'm pretty sure the QuickTime framework works pretty much the same on Windows as the Mac, but I haven't yet tried building a Windows app that plays iTMS files.

Anechoic
Friday, February 6, 2004

This reminds me of something I gave up on researching a while back:

Are there any open source codecs out there to allow "open" players (such as Winamp) to play Real Networks audio/video?

Or has Real set up legal blockades to prevent this?

I hate Real Player's intrusive annoyances and track record of spyware practices so much that I refuse to install it.

Thank goodness for VMWare! :)

Tim Lara
Friday, February 6, 2004

Doh. Reading my previous post, I just realized "pluggable" would have been a better word to describe Winamp than "open"...But you get the point...

Tim Lara
Friday, February 6, 2004

<quote: to play Real Networks audio/video? >

mplayer does play them ;)

c

csant
Friday, February 6, 2004

>> mplayer does play them <<

Really? How?

Tim Lara
Friday, February 6, 2004

"That's certainly true for now, but does it really have to be that way?"

No. Microsoft's WMA decoder is freely licenseable without cost. It would take very little work for Apple to put it into their player.

But, Apple has a vested interest not supporting WMA in iTunes, since iTunes is a vehicle to sell iPods, which don't support WMA. Similarly, don't be surprised when Microsoft jumps into the music store business.

Brad Wilson (dotnetguy.techieswithcats.com)
Friday, February 6, 2004

"No. Microsoft's WMA decoder is freely licenseable without cost."

I don't think that's true - see http://tinyurl.com/g2dk
Unless I'm missing something, WMA decoders seem to cost $0.20 per unit (with a cap).

"It would take very little work for Apple to put it into their player."

Agreed, and similarly it would be little work for MS to put iTMS into their player is they used Quicktime. My point though, is that a 3rd party should be able to develop a player that plays both by licensing WMA from MS, and using the Quicktime frameworks.

Anechoic
Friday, February 6, 2004

Actually, I meant to say "software decoder". Yes, they charge for the hardware decoder, but I was trying to point out that iTunes could play WMAs with little effort and no licensing costs.

Brad Wilson (dotnetguy.techieswithcats.com)
Saturday, February 7, 2004

And, sorry, it should go without saying, but I'm talking about the original poster's issue (software on Windows). I don't know if the software decoder costs money on non-Windows.

Brad Wilson (dotnetguy.techieswithcats.com)
Saturday, February 7, 2004

"My point though, is that a 3rd party should be able to develop a player that plays both by licensing WMA from MS, and using the Quicktime frameworks."

If it's really that simple to do encoded AAC, then I don't understand why nobody else has done it. Nevermind the fact that the iTunes music store requires iTunes; once it's down, it should be playable elsewhere.

Why not Winamp? You should even be able to write a plugin for it, I bet.

Brad Wilson (dotnetguy.techieswithcats.com)
Saturday, February 7, 2004

>> mplayer does play them <<

> Really? How? <

click & play ;)
you need the codecs you can find on the codecs page of my site <URL: http://csant.info/mplayer.htm >, or on the mplayer hq <URL: http://mplayerhq.hu >.

enjoy...

csant
Saturday, February 7, 2004

My apologies, csant! When you said "mplayer", I assumed you were referring to Windows Media Player. Thanks for the links - I will have to check this out...

Tim Lara
Saturday, February 7, 2004

"If it's really that simple to do encoded AAC, then I don't understand why nobody else has done it."

Well I think Real has done it, since their new jukebox app claims to play iTMS files. Admittedly, I don't know the specifics. Also, it could involve licensing issues, but I haven't looked into the matter that closely.

I definitely know that this approach is (technically) feasible on the Mac since I've written a demo RB app that plays iTMS-protected files.

Anechoic
Sunday, February 8, 2004

Jriver Media Center 10 will play ALL of them (quick time, AAC , OGG, mp3 mp4, any video file, WMA).
It will also Play and record TV rip and burn DVD and organize your music, supports ASIO. Get the QuickTime alternative here

http://www.free-codecs.com/cgi-bin/TopDown/download.pl?file=00400

The only problem: you still need to download the Real player to play real media through MC 10.

Get a 30 day trial here:
ftp://ftp.jriver.com/pub/downloads/music/MediaCenter10064.exe

Michael Kutsen
Monday, February 9, 2004