Songbird - new audio player Options

[zima]

http://www.songbirdnest.com/

Not quite sure what to think about it...but if it'll have tight integration with such web services as Last.fm (I'm still waiting for guessing what to play next based on few songs already played BTW) and MusicBrainz, why not...

This post has been edited by zima: Dec 26 2005, 16:29

[jimhaddon]

Yeah, does look promising

[Cosmo]

I'm very interested in the customization aspects of it.

Songbird's underlying programming technology is called XML User Interface Language, or XUL. Along with letting people create their own look for the software, this will allow music services or developers to write their own plug-ins, letting them add features or tap directly into their own digital-download stores.

Tho' it may be quite a while before we'll get to see if it lives up to the hype.

Lord cautioned that little of this has actually been built yet. The version that will be released early next year will largely be a demonstration of how a media player can be built on top of the Mozilla technology. Most of the advanced features people now expect from modern music software will be added over the course of further development, he said.

"What we've built is a user preview," Lord said. "This is meant to inspire and show the road map--and a glimpse of where we are on that road map.

Quotes are from: http://news.com.com/A+Firefox+for+music/21...ml?tag=nefd.top

[Andavari]

Yeah, does look promising

My thoughts exactly. When it gets to a beta stage in its development I'll give it a go. The GUI is very nice!

[Teqnilogik]

It does look promising but it looks very similar to iTunes. Now I'm not a legal expert but is it possible Apple could get involved if this player takes off because it looks so similar to iTunes?

[xequence]

It does look promising but it looks very similar to iTunes.  Now I'm not a legal expert but is it possible Apple could get involved if this player takes off because it looks so similar to iTunes?

They could get involved, but remember... Creative holds the patent to the menu system the iPod uses. They might not want to do something over a patent when they wouldent want creative to do something =P

[Societal Eclipse]

It looks nice but at the same time still too much for me. I can't recall anytime I needed all that information when I couldn't just open a browser myself.

[Teqnilogik]

They could get involved, but remember... Creative holds the patent to the menu system the iPod uses. They might not want to do something over a patent when they wouldent want creative to do something =P

I was thinking the samething. If I were Apple I'd want to stay as far away from cases such as "your menus look just like mine I'm sueing!" LOL

[Andavari]

It does look promising but it looks very similar to iTunes.  Now I'm not a legal expert but is it possible Apple could get involved if this player takes off because it looks so similar to iTunes?

The whole copycat me too syndrome ("or blatant compliment") is everywhere, not just in software. It's visible in cars, applicances, food, music, etc., which in reality isn't such a bad thing since it's what people are used to, albeit unoriginal.

It looks nice but at the same time still too much for me.  I can't recall anytime I needed all that information when I couldn't just open a browser myself.

Valid point. I've never used a media player with all that going on in it which is probably the underlying reason why I don't use WMP -- other than not liking it.

[edekba]

It does look promising but it looks very similar to iTunes.  Now I'm not a legal expert but is it possible Apple could get involved if this player takes off because it looks so similar to iTunes?

i read that apple has a patent for 3 paned display to organize multimedia files.

so songbird might run into a hitch w/this gui.

[kl33per]

Any XML based GUI is going to have performane disadvantages. Still, should be interesting once it really gets going.

[Lyx]

Funny thing is that regarding syndication and networking, i proposed a related idea a while ago - and people said that it wouldn't work.

[Societal Eclipse]

Open Source for iTunes arrives

Talk about a misleading article title.

[Qjimbo]

I wouldn't worry about apple suing, RhythmBox also has an Itunes like gui and hasn't run into any problems yet. I'm not a huge fan of that kind of interface though so I'll probably stick with Winamp.

[keytotime]

It's has web intergration, might lead to some really nasty security holes. Personally i'm gonna stick to foobar.

[ckjnigel]

A new version, called 0.1, was released today and mention at digg.com has crushed their servers. http://www.songbirdnest.com/ It seems only to work on MP3s.
I strongly agree with

... web integration, might lead to ... security holes.

This post has been edited by ckjnigel: Feb 8 2006, 19:36

[foosion]

It seems only to work on MP3s.

It managed to play some Ogg Vorbis files here, though it did not recognize the tags on these.

The "Scan for media" function completed rather fast, but I had to wait awfully long until the background scanning was done and the files showed up in the library. The thing I noticed most about the keyboard usability was the lack thereof, perhaps the developers consider this one of the "advanced features people now expect from modern music software". Neither the default black skin nor the alternate red skin did appeal to me, the colors are too intense and the contrast too low (column labels, etc). The visual appeal surely depends a lot on personal taste, but my first impression is that they still have a long way to go.

[Otto42]

It seems only to work on MP3s.

No, it works with pretty much anything VLC will play, since it's using VLC as the backend. I was able to play some AAC (iTunes M4A) files.

However, it doesn't seem to get metadata for M4A files. Of course, neither does VLC, which is the source of that particular problem since it's relying on VLC so heavily.

[david_dl]

oh no, hit reply not edit. sorry.

This post has been edited by david_dl: Feb 10 2006, 04:25

[david_dl]

Hmmmm, I opened it, selected "Open file" and chose Dream Theater - Stream of Consciousness.mpc. It started playing something, which sounded oddly familiar. I realised it was playing the soundtrack from a .avi episode of "24", stored on a different drive to the .mpc. I have no idea how/why it found it, or how it could even play it (must be the VLC thing).

As for the topic title, nothing that takes 10 seconds to start up and loads content off the web is in any way competition for foobar.



Edit: spelling

This post has been edited by david_dl: Feb 10 2006, 04:26

[WarBird]

For people listening to podcasts, its nice tho. Just load up you favorite podcast site in the browser, and you get a playlist of all the .audio files on the page. Thats maybe the only thing i miss in foobar. a rss aggregator plugin.

[Wintershade]

nothing that takes 10 seconds to start up and loads content off the web is in any way competition for foobar.

Amen!

[Cyaneyes]

hmm.. it reports incorrect lengths for VBR mp3s.

Not impressive.

[q_b6]

hmm.. it reports incorrect lengths for VBR mp3s.

Many media players report incorrect lengths.
I have made a VBR mp3 with Cool Edit 2.

FB2K, Winamp, iTunes report the correct length.
Windows Media Player reports the incorrect length, which is near the correct one.
mplay32.exe, mplayer2.exe, Media Player Classic return the incorrect length, which is far away from the correct one.


by the way, Songbird is like iMesh in some ways.

[Oge_user]

Not bad, I like this!