Microsoft releases Windows Media Player 11 beta

[SugarCoat]

When i tried winamp a couple years ago i was really displeased at the UI. WMP10 works fine for me. Really how complex do you need your player? WMP syncs without issue with my mp3 player, rips music directly to the music folder in its own little album area, adds songs instantly and plays fine. I always run it in background of MMOs and sometimes FPS and never have any issues with it. Plus i like having access to all the detailed info in the library and able to edit that info on the fly.


Gonna let this beta slide since i dont have issue currently. It will be one more thing to look forward too with Vista . Now if they want to make serious improvments to IE on the otherhand....

 

[Skrying]

Well, Foobar just caters to those who want power over what they are using. It also caters generally to the audiophiles out there. WMP10 simply doesnt sound near as good as Foobar, it also does not have such useful features as replaygain and you can edit your entire collections with just a few clicks with Masstag, it also allows you to be as minimal or as complex as you want.

Again, I think WMP and Foobar both have their places.

 

[ninelven]

Opinions cannot be proven wrong, that's what makes them opinions smartass. The only shame is your ignorance.

Observe the idiocy one finds on the internet closely. Note that in my previous posts I have made no mention of right and wrong. What we have here is the pathetic being creating a false argument to draw attention away from the one he just lost.

Of course, to anyone with intelligence, it would have been clear that my commentary was directed toward the assertion that opinions possessed worth by definition (they do not). Most ironic is that the author of the absurd statement promptly acknowledges this meaning when he states, "Look up opinion in the dictionary." Of course, I was already quite familiar with definition and knew it included no mention of worth. The fact that the author of the statement would even make such a claim would seem to imply that he had not bothered to look up the definition for himself or was incapable of being rational (we must pity these people).

Thus, I did the logical thing and challenged the author of such a ludicrous claim to provide some proof. The fact that he was unwilling (more likely unable) to do so speaks volumes about the validity of his position. As he had nothing else to post, it would seem that he must continue attacking me by fabricating arguments of his own imagination, sad really.

Without further ado:

Main Entry: opin·ion
Pronunciation: &-'pin-y&n
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin opinion-, opinio, from opinari
1 a : a view, judgment, or appraisal formed in the mind about a particular matter b : APPROVAL, ESTEEM
2 a : belief stronger than impression and less strong than positive knowledge b : a generally held view
3 a : a formal expression of judgment or advice by an expert b : the formal expression (as by a judge, court, or referee) of the legal reasons and principles upon which a legal decision is based

o·pin·ion ( P ) Pronunciation Key (-pnyn)
n.
A belief or conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof: “The world is not run by thought, nor by imagination, but by opinionâ€￾ (Elizabeth Drew).
A judgment based on special knowledge and given by an expert: a medical opinion.
A judgment or estimation of the merit of a person or thing: has a low opinion of braggarts.
The prevailing view: public opinion.
Law. A formal statement by a court or other adjudicative body of the legal reasons and principles for the conclusions of the court.

Of course, there is no mention of worth.
Thus we see the absurdity of the statement, "opinions are never worthless by definition, try again assclown."

 

[Dave Glue]

Opinions cannot be proven wrong, that's what makes them opinions smartass. The only shame is your ignorance.

This absolutely laughable statement has already been torn to shreds by ninelven - and rather deftly at that, so I'll leave it alone.

Now, regarding XP SP2:

It's completely unnecessary if you know what your doing, breaks things and causes system wide slowdown.

Wow. Two jaw-droppingly emberassing statements in one post. Kudos.

The vast majority of applications that SP2 "broke" were simply full-screen games that didn't react well to the firewall. Simply make exceptions to them in XP's firewall config or obtain the patches. As for "system wide slowdown", care to provide actual examples?

Hell, care to provide a list of applications that still don't work properly with SP2?

It's pure idiocy not to install SP2 by now, regardless of your level of Windows expertise (especially as useful MS apps are requiring it).

 

[carpediem]

This absolutely laughable statement has already been torn to shreds by ninelven - and rather deftly at that, so I'll leave it alone.

Now, regarding XP SP2:

Wow. Two jaw-droppingly emberassing statements in one post. Kudos.

The vast majority of applications that SP2 "broke" were simply full-screen games that didn't react well to the firewall. Simply make exceptions to them in XP's firewall config or obtain the patches. As for "system wide slowdown", care to provide actual examples?

Hell, care to provide a list of applications that still don't work properly with SP2?

It's pure idiocy not to install SP2 by now, regardless of your level of Windows expertise (especially as useful MS apps are requiring it).

Couldn't agree more! (which sounds soo much better than QFT)

 

[Moloch]

bsplayer > mpc > zoom
wmp11 > winamp > foobar

zoom>mpc since it's more much customizable.
MPC sucks, only use it for quicktime and real media.
havent used bsplayer in some time though.

Well, Foobar just caters to those who want power over what they are using. It also caters generally to the audiophiles out there. WMP10 simply doesnt sound near as good as Foobar, it also does not have such useful features as replaygain and you can edit your entire collections with just a few clicks with Masstag, it also allows you to be as minimal or as complex as you want.

Again, I think WMP and Foobar both have their places.

I like that you can close it and when you open it again it resumes playback, same deal if paused.
It also supports gapless mp3 playback.. and you can get a crossfade pluggin for non mp3s.
I hate bloat...

Oh and nice to see ANova has been served.

 

[ANova]

Observe the idiocy one finds on the internet closely. Note that in my previous posts I have made no mention of right and wrong. What we have here is the pathetic being creating a false argument to draw attention away from the one he just lost. Of course, to anyone with intelligence, it would have been clear that my commentary was directed toward the assertion that opinions possessed worth by definition (they do not). Most ironic is that the author of the absurd statement promptly acknowledges this meaning when he states, "Look up opinion in the dictionary." Of course, I was already quite familiar with definition and knew it included no mention of worth. The fact that the author of the statement would even make such a claim would seem to imply that he had not bothered to look up the definition for himself or was incapable of being rational (we must pity these people).

Anyone with half an intelligence knew what I meant and your sad attempt to twist words for whatever benefit is pointless. The original point was my opinion, and regardless of what you, radeonic, or anyone else think, it's my opinion and therefore has worth to me. You can disagree with it all you like, that still doesn't change it's value or validity in any way. That is what makes it an opinion.

Thus, I did the logical thing and challenged the author of such a ludicrous claim to provide some proof. The fact that he was unwilling (more likely unable) to do so speaks volumes about the validity of his position. As he had nothing else to post, it would seem that he must continue attacking me by fabricating arguments of his own imagination, sad really.

Attacking you? You're the one who outright insulted me with your first comment, which had nothing to do with you in the first place. What's sad is that you find it necessary to denigrate someone over something so trivial. "Pathetic being", lol. Your life must really suck. But then I suspect your outlash has more to do with my insult toward something you probably hold in such high esteem than anything else.

Btw, you might find people will listen to you better if you don't berate and talk indirectly to them. Just a suggestion. Thanks though, now I know to ignore you.

Wow. Two jaw-droppingly emberassing statements in one post. Kudos.

The vast majority of applications that SP2 "broke" were simply full-screen games that didn't react well to the firewall. Simply make exceptions to them in XP's firewall config or obtain the patches. As for "system wide slowdown", care to provide actual examples?

Hell, care to provide a list of applications that still don't work properly with SP2?

It's pure idiocy not to install SP2 by now, regardless of your level of Windows expertise (especially as useful MS apps are requiring it).

Two "embarassing" statements huh. Yet you cannot prove otherwise. What I said is based on personal experience. I have played around with plenty of XP SP2 enabled pcs and I can see the difference. I have an old P3 system with SP2 on it and it most definitely ran slower afterwards. Maybe you have just been using it for so long you have forgotten how XP runs without any of these updates or service packs. While the amount of programs that have problems with SP2 may be at a point where it is no longer an issue, it is still a fact that SP2 causes general slowdown, especially in programs integrated into the os such as explorer and IE. Think about it, don't you find it feasible that patching god knows how many files, changing their behavior as well as adding new ones could potentially break something and affect performance. I mean it's only common sense and although one could argue the difference it doesn't change the fact that SP2 is not needed. I have been running without any updates or service packs (except for SP1 because it was integrated into the installation cd) for more than 8 months now and have not once recieved any kind of malware, virus, spyware or trojan; not so much as a hint and I'm not even using an antivirus program.

Oh and nice to see ANova has been served.

LOL, nice to see someone can build up so much hate for someone else over the dissagreement of an inanimate object.

 

[Moloch]

i dont hate you
I just happen to enjoy watching you served.
Btw you the one who "hates" sp2

 

[Blazkowicz]

I feel more secure with SP1 and not using Internet Exploiter than under SP2 and using it.

I have few music and use Winamp 2.95 for that. I like the UI, and most times I right-click on a directory and do "Play in winamp".
then I have MPC associated for all media files. maybe it's not much customizable but it has the perfect UI for me.


WMP 7.x and above is the worst thing you can use to play video (even real one is better). Bloated UI with lots of ridiculous things, and that terrible full screen behavior, bump the mouse and the annoying controls appear, it's unbearable.
but I saw a friend using WMP 9 for his music library and in that case it makes sense.

 

[Bludd]

Though apparently at least some people are having problems getting it to run OGG files

This should be a no-brainer. If Microsoft haven't started including an OGG parser and a vorbis and theora decoder I can't see how it should be able to play OGG files out of the box.

I'd be VERY impressed if they'd liscensed code from Xiph.org or, even better, written their own decoders and parser.

 

[pjbliverpool]

Have the visualisations been updated? Im wondering if they are similar to the X360 visualisations now?

 

[ector]

About the thing with SP2 running "slower", I think it boils down to this:

* I actually percieved a speedup, but I had read that MS had recompiled large parts of Windows using their latest optimizing compiler, so I ANTICIPATED a speedup.

* You perceive a slowdown, because you have an expectation of MS stuff slowing down when you apply patches from some kind of previous experience or rumour.

It's all in your head man... The placebo effect is very real and very powerful.

XP with SP2 does actually run just peeeeachy.

 

[Dave Glue]

What I said is based on personal experience.

Which is why I'm asking for actual data - you know, benchmarks and such. People have "personal experiences" with talking garden gnomes, it's doesn't therefore translate that we should fear an army of dimunitive tacky clay ornaments is lurking in gardening stores across the country, ready to strike at any moment.

Andecotal is not the plural of data.

I have played around with plenty of XP SP2 enabled pcs and I can see the difference.

I have played around with hundreds of XP SP2 enabled PC's at my former place of employment, and have applied it to 3 systems of my own and several friends machines. None of them noticed any difference in speed.

Considering your "evidence" countered.

Yes, you can retort (as you have been doing with parrot-like precision) that it's "just my opinion". Opinions however, are not created equally. To garner respect for your opinion, it helps to base it on actual evidence. You have not done so.

While the amount of programs that have problems with SP2 may be at a point where it is no longer an issue, it is still a fact that SP2 causes general slowdown,

Oh, so it's a fact now? I thought this was only your "opinion"?

If it is a fact, then please respond to my request and demonstrate some hard evidence to elevate this above the ramblings of your average troll, will you?

Think about it, don't you find it feasible that patching god knows how many files, changing their behavior as well as adding new ones could potentially break something and affect performance.

Think about it: Why are you the only who has noticed this when SP2 was put through the wringer from countless tech sites, network admins, and end users? If it is so obvious, why don't you simply craft a benchmark scenerio that can be replicated which will clearly demonstrate this phenomena that has somehow escaped the entire industry?

I mean it's only common sense

Depends on your neighbours I guess. You don't perhaps live near a halfway house do you?

and although one could argue the difference it doesn't change the fact that SP2 is not needed.

SP2 is sorely needed for the vast majority of the population. Even with careful users the security enhancements for IE alone make it worthwhile.

I have been running without any updates or service packs (except for SP1 because it was integrated into the installation cd) for more than 8 months now and have not once recieved any kind of malware, virus, spyware or trojan; not so much as a hint and I'm not even using an antivirus program.

This is just mind-boggingly ignorant. You must truly live in a constant state of bliss.

LOL, nice to see someone can build up so much hate for someone else over the dissagreement of an inanimate object.

It seems your definition of "hate" is about as grounded as your definition of "fact".

So, put up or shut up. Drop this bomb that will no doubt garner you considerable attention. Give us a benchmarking method that will demonstrate, once and for all, that your opinion has actual merit, and thus can be respected.

 

[ANova]

I'm not going to waste time attempting to prove something to you when I'm certain I could neither say nor show you anything that would change your mind. I will however say that in my experience with SP2 installed, explorer freezes randomly and IE has rendering issues among the more major side effects.

Btw, it's quite ironic that you would demand evidence but fail to provide any for your own counter argument.

Yes, you can retort (as you have been doing with parrot-like precision) that it's "just my opinion". Opinions however, are not created equally. To garner respect for your opinion, it helps to base it on actual evidence. You have not done so.

If factual evidence is available an opinion is no longer an opinion, but a fact.

Think about it: Why are you the only who has noticed this when SP2 was put through the wringer from countless tech sites, network admins, and end users? If it is so obvious, why don't you simply craft a benchmark scenerio that can be replicated which will clearly demonstrate this phenomena that has somehow escaped the entire industry?

I'm not, and it hasn't.

SP2 is sorely needed for the vast majority of the population. Even with careful users the security enhancements for IE alone make it worthwhile.

For the computer illiterate maybe, but that hardly means it's necessary. Using something other than IE greatly reduces your chances of infection regardless of whether you have all updates available installed or none at all.

This is just mind-boggingly ignorant. You must truly live in a constant state of bliss.

More like just beyond your brainwashed understanding of the windows platform.

 

[Dave Glue]

I'm not going to waste time attempting to prove something to you when I'm certain I could neither say nor show you anything that would change your mind.

As spelled out many times : benchmarks. You may have heard of them in the PC industry - they're commonly used to factually demonstate performance differences, rather than rely on the highly fallable and biased perceptions of the user.

Hell, how about just providing a link to a site that has its own benchmarks demonstrating this phantom SP2 behavoir?

I will however say that in my experience with SP2 installed, explorer freezes randomly and IE has rendering issues among the more major side effects.

And naturally, myself or millions of others haven't experienced this, or advice against installing SP2 would be far more widespread instead of nonexistent (the rare shut-in on forums excepted).

Note you're describing erratic behavoir btw, not necessarily performance issues as you prevously claimed. Ever think that a patch released post-SP2 may have fixed the issue with your particular configuration as well?

Btw, it's quite ironic that you would demand evidence but fail to provide any for your own counter argument.

Not surprinsgly, that point went right over your head - there's a reason "evidence" was put in quotes. That's entirely the problem with using personal anecdotes as a form of proof - they can easily be nullified by another set of anecdotes.

Furthermore, I'm not the one making the extraordinary claim. You are proposing that a major patch released to tens of millions of users produces significant performance and stability concerns, a "fact" that has apparently gone unnoticed by thousands of websites that have reviewed SP2, thousands of developers, IT personnel, columnists, etc - individuals who routinely perform extensive testing and at least some who have far more intimate knowledge of the OS than you do.

An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence, rather than the highly fallable personal opinion. In this case, extraordinary evidence is actually rather ordinary - simple benchmarking which is the backbone of performance comparisons in the PC industry for decades.

If factual evidence is available an opinion is no longer an opinion, but a fact.

Wow. You're getting it. Now all you need to do is apply this to your argument. So how about it? How about some actual evidence for your claim?

For the computer illiterate maybe, but that hardly means it's necessary. Using something other than IE greatly reduces your chances of infection regardless of whether you have all updates available installed or none at all.

Agreed, part of the reason I use Opera. However, your main complaint above was that IE was crashing and has rendering issues - now you say you don't use it regardless, so what's the problem with applying SP2 then?

Um...whoops?

More like just beyond your brainwashed understanding of the windows platform.

"Brainwashed" understanding? A truly nonsensical comment.

Please stop throwing yourself against the rocks for our amusement and provide something concrete.

 

[Xmas]

Think about it, don't you find it feasible that patching god knows how many files, changing their behavior as well as adding new ones could potentially break something and affect performance.

The purpose of patches is usually to fix something and/or improve performance.

I have been running without any updates or service packs (except for SP1 because it was integrated into the installation cd) for more than 8 months now and have not once recieved any kind of malware, virus, spyware or trojan; not so much as a hint and I'm not even using an antivirus program.

If you're not using an antivirus program, in many cases you wouldn't even notice.

 

[Dave Glue]

Remember this kiddies?:

I have been running without any updates or service packs (except for SP1 because it was integrated into the installation cd) for more than 8 months now and have not once recieved any kind of malware, virus, spyware or trojan; not so much as a hint and I'm not even using an antivirus program.

Well, looky-loo. From May of last year:

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19487

Ok, tonight while browsing B3D with nothing else open I got a popup window claiming that I had agreed to installing some sort of web search and accelerator crap which was obviously malicious junk. I closed it out, then Norton detected the virus winupdt.exe. I opened task manager and low and behold found a process called toc_0008.exe running. I shut it down and another poped up. I had to disconnect my ethernet cable to stop it. I then cleaned my computer, reconnected it and everything was fine. About an hour later I visited B3D again and again it happened, almost immediately. So far Firefox is immune but not IE, at least not IE SP1.

This is a pretty serious virus guys, it tries to gain access to your computer through an IRC server via a backdoor in the windows remote procedure call. Yes I know what I'm doing, no it was not from another site and no I did not have anything installed beforehand. I'm quite anal about having a clean computer.

This should be in a VISA ad it's so fucking priceless.

 

[ANova]

Note you're describing erratic behavoir btw, not necessarily performance issues as you prevously claimed. Ever think that a patch released post-SP2 may have fixed the issue with your particular configuration as well?

So you admit to the possibility then. Yes, eratic behavior would probably better describe the issue. I have not heard of any patch, why would there even be one since you're so adament that what I'm saying is all in my head.

Furthermore, I'm not the one making the extraordinary claim. You are proposing that a major patch released to tens of millions of users produces significant performance and stability concerns, a "fact" that has apparently gone unnoticed by thousands of websites that have reviewed SP2, thousands of developers, IT personnel, columnists, etc - individuals who routinely perform extensive testing and at least some who have far more intimate knowledge of the OS than you do.

Oh how soon we forgot the problems associated with SP2 when it was released and the same people you list refusing to install it. I never claimed the problems were significant either, your putting words in my mouth.

Agreed, part of the reason I use Opera. However, your main complaint above was that IE was crashing and has rendering issues - now you say you don't use it regardless, so what's the problem with applying SP2 then?

I used to use IE exclusively until I switched over to Opera as well. I'm quite familiar with how it performs in the various scenarios. Ever hear of the term 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'? Something apparently foreign to the majority of the computer industry.

"Brainwashed" understanding? A truly nonsensical comment.

Just as nonsensical as your claim of ignorance.

The purpose of patches is usually to fix something and/or improve performance.

The purpose of most patches is to fix a security issue but those holes are usually a result of improper setup, rarely does a patch ever improve performance in the case of windows.

If you're not using an antivirus program, in many cases you wouldn't even notice.

I'm not oblivious to what my computer is doing at any given time, when you get infected it's quite obvious if you know where to look.

Remember this kiddies?:

Well, looky-loo. From May of last year:

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19487

This should be in a VISA ad it's so fucking priceless.

Notice I mentioned for more than 8 months when I said I hadn't been infected. And yes, at that time I was using IE and it was to a site that was supposed to be safe. I was also using an antivirus program at the time. Try again buddy.

 

[Bludd]

Oh how soon we forgot the problems associated with SP2 when it was released and the same people you list refusing to install it. I never claimed the problems were significant either, your putting words in my mouth.

Most of the problems I've seen people have had installing SP2 stemmed from the fact that they were using the webinstaller and not the proper network installer.

Even better, slipstream SP2 to a WinXP install and burn a new install CD. It's awesome.

But this isn't an SP2 thread. It's about WMP11 beta. Maybe we should get back on topic, no?

 

[ANova]

There does seem to be a positive difference when the updates are applied to the installation rather than to an already installed windows, granted.

I attempted to get back on topic way back but ninelven and Dave Glue decided to make a big issue out of it.