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Best Media/Music Player for Windows 7 x64?

Asked by MariosX,

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MariosX

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Hello!

I'm currently using Media Player Classic Home Cinema (without any codecs) for any video playback and Winamp v5.61 for music playback.

But I got bored of Winamp, I believe I need a better Music player that can have a better quality playback and as well 5.1 music support for any music file

For the time being I'm good with Media player classic home cinema but I would like to know if there is any better Video player or any codecs you would recommend to increase it's playback quality as well as colors, sharpness and etc.

Please recommend me any players that consider better than Winamp & Media Player Classic Home Cinema including payed and free ones.

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Proficient

MariosX

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Windows Media Player and VLC, and you'll be covered. ;)

I hate VLC

iTunes is your best bet. You can organize your library like no tomorrow. Music, Movies, Books, Radio, and more.

Well, I'm not in favor of any Apple software, don't get me wrong, I just don't like Apple

splayer

VLC

Foobar2k

I hate VLC.

foobar2k though has become very popular lately.

Does it have 5.1 support?

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Community Regular

TexasFlood

Posted
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foobar2k though has become very popular lately.

Does it have 5.1 support?

Foobar is extremely light-weight and a very good music player. It lacks in the visual department though and can be very technical. If you don't mind the plainess of it, it is a very good music player!

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Grand Master

alexalex

Posted
Posted

Hello!

I'm currently using Media Player Classic Home Cinema (without any codecs) for any video playback and Winamp v5.61 for music playback.

But I got bored of Winamp, I believe I need a better Music player that can have a better quality playback and as well 5.1 music support for any music file

For the time being I'm good with Media player classic home cinema but I would like to know if there is any better Video player or any codecs you would recommend to increase it's playback quality as well as colors, sharpness and etc.

Please recommend me any players that consider better than Winamp & Media Player Classic Home Cinema including payed and free ones.

You there is a 64bit version for MPC-HC. With the right codecs and configurations it's a great player (it runs 1080p on my aging XP with ATI 64MB memory graphic card :-) )

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Rising Star

dknm

Posted
Posted

WMP 12 + MPC-HC 64bit (+haali splitter).

First thing's first: I would disable any video processing done by video drivers and/or monitor and then do a color calibration

MPC-HC does have settings you can change as you see fit (renderer settings, filters , shaders) so read what each does if you've got PQ issues.

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Grand Master

remixedcat

Posted
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Vids: Realplayer or Media Player Classic

Music: Mediajukebox or Foobar.

Mediajukebox pwnz the hell outta WMP or zune or itunes....

This is what mine looks like:

post-361542-0-18665600-1306655355.jpg

Foobar--->you cna get it to look pretty awesome with skins from deviantart. It just takes a while to get it to look the way you want. I would totally use it but I prefer mediajukebox's plug-n-play.

The DSPs on media jukebox are amazing. You have tons of control over it.

Now with realplayer you can download youtube vids as well now and realnetworks have improved so much as a company. realplayer has actually been pretty good for vid playback. I am currently running CCCP codec pack and no issues.

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Grand Master

remixedcat

Posted
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Video: VLC (Personally I don't know why you don't like it since it can also plays region locked DVDs =]) and MPC Home Cinema

Music: Songbird or Musicbee.

How are the DSP plugins for Musicbee? do they have any virtual surround plugins? that really helps with headphone fatigue.

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Proficient

furyshinobi

Posted
Posted

How are the DSP plugins for Musicbee? do they have any virtual surround plugins? that really helps with headphone fatigue.

Sorry, but I haven't tried any virtual sound plugins for Musicbee yet xD I might give it a go now. I think it does have DSP support but I haven't mucked around with it yet.

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Apprentice

phurtive

Posted
Posted

I prefer WMP 12. VLC is OK but the way I queue songs just doesn't work right in it. I do not use playlists, libraries or allow them to be saved in them. I navigate my songs through Explorer only. My music collection is intricately organized, especially the classical. WMP 12 context menu choices work the best for selecting specific files and playing them in the correct order I want them played. Other programs just don't get it right. I do appreciate VLC's versatility being able to play virtually any media filetype. Especially FLAC and FLV. I've always wondered why WMP doesn't support all filetypes. Licensing issues?

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Grand Master

remixedcat

Posted
Posted

Thanks PKP....

and phurtive....

media jukebox has a built in file browser. You can even create playlists from folders. and it also has lots of file controls as well. it has an awesome file manager for that.

and it has much lower page fault delta and I/O reads then WMP does. I stopped using WMP becuase of that. my disk would grind away constantly with WMP.

MJ has a very low I/O footprint making media management fast and easy on your drives. even while doing complex management tasks that are "intense" for MJ are very easy and AVERAGE LOAD USAGE is intense for WMP and if I dared do anything complex with WMP and media management my drives would grind and halt and any other multitasking would be chocked like a chicken. My average (semi-idle) P/F delta with WMP was around 1,500-2,300 and for average medi stuff would be 6K and peak would be 8-9K!! MJ would normally hover around 60 playback normal and 250-400 for encoding/transferring and spike to 800-1500.

my I/O reads for WMP would be 30,454,860 over the span of 8 hours! Media jukebox has been opened for 8 days and it's 430,854 right now

so you are raping your PC using WMP for anything other then extreme light usage. I/O is everything with media.

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Mentor

ajua

Posted
Posted

As remixedcat said, Media Jukebox (free, last updated almost two years ago) and its big brother, J. River Media Center, are the best when it comes to music management. Trust me, nothing beats them. JRMC is not free, but its worth every penny.

J. River Media Center supports 5.1 and 7.1 audio output. It even has a proprietary digital encoder to output 5.1 or 7.1 to a/v receivers if your sound card doesn't support Dolby Digital Live or DTS Neo.

You can configure the library views to your liking, add your own, combine existing panes and more.

It has easy to access options to customize the naming scheme for folders and files that are to be burned to a disc which is just great. It even sorts OST or Compilations in VA - Album Name folders automatically if you don't customize the scheme. The library automatically shows this albums in the same way too.

About DSP, I use 5.1 digital output to have granular control over the volume, frequency and other things for each of my speakers.

The audio normalization works wonders. It will automatically scan every file added to the library and you can choose album-based or track based when playing music. You can also pre-amp the audio output to have louder output. This is useful because you can match the volume of other applications or devices in your setup so you don't need to worry about settings the volume for each one.

To top that out (and to end my reply so you can read it before falling asleep ;)), it support images and videos. You can use any external codec you want if you choose so. Has a Theater View which a Windows Media Center-like interface that can be used for big screens or TV's. If you already have a MCE remote, you can use it to control JRMC as well. Another feature is DLNA support for streaming to/from devices in your network or remotely. There a lot of settings for this.

It always surprises me that this awesome application doesn't get the exposure it deserves.

I use MPC-HC x64 to play my video files because of easy access for quick playback of said files.

Another free alternative besides Media Jukebox is Microsoft Zune. It has a great interface and many features. The only thing missing is the ability to use and customize audio normalization.

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