Songbird Media Player

thatmariolover · 10-31-2006, 07:31 PM

It's an open-source program that aims to be the Firefox of Media Players. It's open source - is based on Firefox - and is already supported with extensions and themes (cleverly called Feathers). It'll sync with your iPod, connect with LastFM, and automatically pull up the Wikipedia entries on your Artists as their music plays (plus quite a bit more).

I just downloaded it like an hour ago and I'm giddy over it. I've been looking for an iTunes replacement for a while now and this is pretty sweet. I'd give it a look - I know it's only a developer's release at the moment, but it's definitely stable.

http://www.songbirdnest.com/

manasecret · 10-31-2006, 08:08 PM

Hmm it sounds interesting. The best sounding part for me is the automatic looking up the Wiki articles on artists.

You said you've been looking for a replacement for iTunes -- what about iTunes turned you off out of curiosity? And does Songbird fix what you don't like about iTunes?

The only thing holding me back from going into this Songbird is because of the things I like about iTunes. I like the sharing of songs, I like the way playlists and smart playlists are done and can also be shared, I like the rankings, and I like the overall simplicity with usability. I also started using an alarm clock in conjunction with iTunes. (Hmm I guess I like quite a few things...

) You said Songbird syncs with iPods, so does it also have these iTunes functionalities?

What I don't like about iTunes is that it seems to hog a lot of my memory and CPU time. Also, I'd like for this Wiki thing.

thatmariolover · 10-31-2006, 08:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by manasecret

Hmm it sounds interesting. The best sounding part for me is the automatic looking up the Wiki articles on artists.

You said you've been looking for a replacement for iTunes -- what about iTunes turned you off out of curiosity? And does Songbird fix what you don't like about iTunes?

The only thing holding me back from going into this Songbird is because of the things I like about iTunes. I like the sharing of songs, I like the way playlists and smart playlists are done and can also be shared, I like the rankings, and I like the overall simplicity with usability. I also started using an alarm clock in conjunction with iTunes. (Hmm I guess I like quite a few things...

) You said Songbird syncs with iPods, so does it also have these iTunes functionalities?

What I don't like about iTunes is that it seems to hog a lot of my memory and CPU time. Also, I'd like for this Wiki thing.

iTunes has just gotten too bloated. My whole system lags between song changes and it's really just unacceptable that playing something as simple as an MP3 file should have such an impact on my PC's performance.

I honestly haven't bothered with Sharing. As for playlists and ease of use, it feels pretty close to an iTunes clone as far as navigation and the like is concerned. You can rate your songs with a bar to the right of the songs (sort of like the stars on iTunes).

You can sync it with your iPod with an extension but I honestly haven't done it yet to look at it - I'll play around with it more later. At this point though, I'm happy to give up a number of features if it means I still have the ease of use with better performance. And I'm just not concerned about features yet - it's a developers release to show off the application. More features will be added into the base program later and tons more through extensions.

I moreover just posted it here to show that something better is coming.

Null · 10-31-2006, 09:03 PM

well i'd have to say something is wrong somewhere on the computer if itunes is lagging it. i have it running on some quite old computers and it runs perfectly. theres gotta be something else that its effecting thats lagging it. shouldnt do that.

doesnt really matter, im not a fan of itunes, i just use it for some quick sorting of files and such for my ipod. And i download a free tv show when they offer some for my ipod also.

i like winamp with the ipod plugin for the ipod. if this has an option to save files off the ipod onto the computer, i'd be more interested in it. (winamp has this option, itunes lacks it.)

i'll be keeping my eye on this. theres some things i'd like to have all in 1 player that would be possible with this and the extentions. so i'll be watching it. maybe try it out soon.

thatmariolover · 10-31-2006, 09:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Null

well i'd have to say something is wrong somewhere on the computer if itunes is lagging it. i have it running on some quite old computers and it runs perfectly. theres gotta be something else that its effecting thats lagging it. shouldnt do that.

I guess I'll check it out. I never experienced lag on iTunes until version 7. Perhaps that's the difference?

Null · 10-31-2006, 09:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thatmariolover

I guess I'll check it out. I never experienced lag on iTunes until version 7. Perhaps that's the difference?

7 had some issues. have you tried the 7.1 update? they fixed a lot with it.

KillerGremlin · 10-31-2006, 10:09 PM

i don't have an ipod yet so i don't have itunes, although i planned on getting some open source software when i get my ipod because i'm not a huge fan of itunes, i'll check it out and get back to you, i just installed it so we shall see how it goes.

GameMaster · 10-31-2006, 10:34 PM

Just downloaded the XP version and used the iTunes import extension. All the songs are in there and it looks beautiful. I love the black and dark grays.

Edit: Just noticed it doesn't recognize smart playlists yet. But for only being in preview 'beta' build, I'm very impressed.

thatmariolover · 10-31-2006, 11:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Null

7 had some issues. have you tried the 7.1 update? they fixed a lot with it.

Yeah I did. I had to, or I got that nasty popping and distortion whenever I tried to run iTunes in the background with WoW. But 7.1 still didn't fix the system hang-ups I started getting.

Null · 11-01-2006, 12:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thatmariolover

Yeah I did. I had to, or I got that nasty popping and distortion whenever I tried to run iTunes in the background with WoW. But 7.1 still didn't fix the system hang-ups I started getting.

thats odd.

wonder if someting went wrong with the install over the old version.

ah well tho, doesnt really matter anyway. its not like itunes is the best player. hehe.