RSSMicrosoft Finalizes Windows Media 9 Series
By Nate Mook | Published January 7, 2003, 11:59 PM
UPDATED Four months after making its public beta debut, the final version of Windows Media 9 Series was announced on Tuesday. The new Windows Media Player 9 was joined by the completed version of Movie Maker 2 for Windows XP, which made the beta rounds in November.
Among the new features in Windows Media Player 9 Series is Smart Jukebox functionality for managing digital music, new audio and video codecs and performance improvements. While leaving the interface similar to Windows Media Player 8, Microsoft has added a Premium Services tab to Windows Media Player 9 Series that allows users to access a variety of subscription services. Skins have also been added and updated, in addition to a Mini-Player Mode that shrinks Windows Media Player onto the taskbar.
"Windows Media Player 9 Series and Windows Movie Maker 2 represent our continued commitment to offering customers of Windows XP the best digital media experience for their PCs," said Microsoft's general manager of the Windows Digital Media Division, Dave Fester, in Tuesday's announcement.
Movie Maker 2 is targeted at users wishing to create home movies on the PC. It includes 30 new video effects, 60 transitions and support for Windows Media Video 9.
"Whether you want to listen to your favorite songs with the highest possible audio quality, watch a movie online with 5.1-channel surround sound, or create your own edited home movies in minutes instead of hours, both of these features really make it easy for mainstream PC users to tap the full potential of their computers," said Fester.
Windows Media Player 9 Series and Movie Maker 2 are available for download via FileForum and Windows Update.
Since i can remember i have always preffered winamp untill aol released that bloated pile of dung they call winamp3. I stuck with winamp 2 untill i used an early beta of this, this player is the greatest i have ever used, its fast it has great skins and its not owned by AOL. Looks like satan ehh hemm i mean Bill did it again.
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|It's much better than WMP8 and is now my player of choice, over winamp for the first time since i downloaded my first Mp3.
I really like the new media library and the way it downloads information and updates the tags on all of my songs. Now they are all correct. It also starts much more quickly than Winamp and uses the same amount of RAM.
Now the bad parts: It completely rearraged my playlists when I updated (i never used the beta- this is straight from v8). Instead of keeping the old order it just arranged them by artist! Arghhhh....
Second, its endless push for internet content and pay services is irritating. It feels almost like ad-ware in some respects now.
If i could rate it, it'd get 4 out of 5 stars
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|It's hard to believe that Winamp destroyed itself through version 3, but I will honestly say that WMP9 is 10x better than Winamp 3.
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|How can it bother you? You only get confronted with such 'ads' if you select the "Premium Services" tab.
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|I have no Premium Services" tab on my player? maybe it's only in the US version, not in the international one?
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|> It's hard to believe that Winamp destroyed itself through version 3
Why is it so hard. Everything that gets into AOL hands has the same fate. Remember ICQ where you now must watch commercials while chatting.
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|FINALLY .. reliabilty across the XP platform for Windows Player.
thore
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|@jrepin:
if you need ogg support, install these programmes:
http://tobias.everwicked.com/
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~spitsw/VorbisExt/
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|This version 9 is no better then version 9. It's still slow bloated app. it still doesn't support excellent Ogg Vorbis audio format. MP3 decoder is not very good. Default skin is a bit better then in 8 but still I don't like it.
I'll just use small and fast Winamp 2.81 for audio and Zoom Player and BSPlayer for video.
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|You must have an ancient crap pc or you dont know how to streamline your system tray so format and try again nutsack
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|Well Said! I love the term..."Nutsack"...LMAO
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|can't get movie maker 2 in german. windows update says nothing. and I can't install microsoftxp plus digital media edition, because it requires movie maker 2. where do I get the german version of the programme?!
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|As far as I can tell, the setup is not in the MSI format !
Can anyone tell why so ?
Maybe it is too difficult to apply the 13499 patches coming soon :) to a MSI based setup hehe.
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|hmm, normally the MS guys are more professional. what a mess! the mp3 radium codec was deleted. once again. actually this was mentioned by radium nfo, but stopped in media player 8. now the bug is back. another point, asked on this thread: after installing media player 9 dvds playback is slow. this is due to the plugins - you have to reinstall your dvd application (+ filters) to register all necessary plugins in media player. in my case (I have windvd platinum) dvd playback became slow like hell, but after reinstalling windvd everything works fine again. loss of time, of course. another problem is that during installation media player stole all associations - although I told it not to associate itself with mp3, midi, au etc, it still did. these programmes just don't listen - same with windvd - it also always registers itself for dvd playback, though I tell it not to do it.
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|My favorite thing about moving to the final version of WMP9 is that my Media Library is empty now. It's fun adding my MP3 folders on teh network back in. Sons of b...
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|I just search for all mp3s and then delete the ones that I don't want from the playlist.
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|They need to fix the media library updating. This was a problem even in wmp7.
that's why i back up the database and after upgrading i replace the database back.
the database is situated in
Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Media Index\
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|That's what you get for using beta software without reading the warnings that came with it.
When you installed the beta version you were told that you would not be able to carry over your media library list or ratings to the final version.
Whent he final version came out you were told again that you would not be able to bring over your media library list or ratings from the beta.
So, having been warned twice, why did it come as such a surprise to you?
If it was an issue for you, then you shouldn't have installed the beta version in the first place.
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|When watching DVD movies on my Laptop (Pentium II, 400 Mhz) the movies hack.
This is no problem using PowerDVD 4 XP. I guess Windows Media Player uses much more CPU power?
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|Yea software based dvd players are never any good, i alwasy stick with powerdvd
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|PowerDVD is software DVD player also. It has hardware-assist feature though.
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|Any onr have a clue when this will go out on windows update?
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|its on there now
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