How can WinAMP play .avi or .mpg? Somebody must be smoking the pipe around here.

Seriously, though, are there any alternatives to the bloated WMP 7? I hate the interface. As bad as it is, it's still better than RPlayer 8 which must be the worst piece of software ever written.
responses to hifi@sunflower.com por favor

Erm...DOH!!!!!!!

Winamp can play video, with the aid of plugins. It plays MP3's...as in MPEG Layer 3....get what I am saying......MPEG.......also avi, and rm files....

do your research before posting.

Whats this got to do with a bonus pack for WMP7??? NOTHING??? hummmm.....

I went to WinAMP's website and searched plugins for ".avi" and ".mpg" and "video". No results.

Now who has done their research?

Sigh, why are people so c***y?

There is a plugin that plays AVI's, and I assume other video. There's another plugin that plays RealMedia. If you really want me to find them for you, I will.

Well funny I have 3 plugins installed, one plays avis, one plays mpeg, and the other rm files....no bull s***.

They are on winamps site...thats where I got em.

Not looking hard enough

there are actually many plugins that can do this... to name a few

Taras Audio Video Pluggin, v1.0 - ra, rm, mpg, avi
Weedsoft Video Plug-in 1.2a - windows media player supported files
VidAmp-v1.0 - AVI, QT, MPEG, ANIM

and one I couldn't find on winamp's website anymore - NiceMC which can be found at http://www.nicemcmedia.com/ and is the oldest one of the bunch and can play all windows media player supported files as well

even though I wasn't asked I do agree,
"Millward Brown shows that three out of four digital media users prefer Windows Media Player 7 to RealPlayer 8 and RealJukebox 8."
although I never use WMP7 in favor of xanim, or WMP6 it still is better than realplayer 8 imo

BetaNews forgot to include the detail which made the article easily misconcieved, and the fact that they misquoted a press release is pretty sad..

New Independent Study Shows That Windows Media Player Is Now Preferred By Three Out of Four Digital Media Users

Why is it that in surveys like this, everyone I ask are that 25%? I don't know a *single* person that *uses* WMP7, let alone LIKES it!!! I'll take 6.4 any day, and only when I REALLY REALY REALLY ABSOLUTELY have to. As for "digital media users" what the hell is that supposed to mean?

That statement is BS, and I would really like to know who did this "independant study". Betcha in some way they're a subsidiary of MS.

3 out of 4 that's it?!?! i would think it's at least 4 out of 5. it probably would be 9 out of 10 if aol didn't automatically install realplayer. but all you people are talking about music. what do all of you watch your videos with? i dunno about you but for as long as i can remember i've used microsoft's media player to play my videos. in the audio market the media player is probably has more like a 1 out of 5 at best.
i don't particularly like the media player. it's ok. but it's a hellz of a lot better than realplayer.
also in your rush to bash ms some of you brought up a lot of misinformation. wma at the same bitrate is the same size as mp3. at bitrates below 128 wma is much better quality. 64k wma is decent enough quality to put on an mp3 player. finally they got a mp3 to wma converter! i'm getting that 1gig microdrive from ibm for the ipaq and loading it up with ~33 hours of wma's!

No, doorknob, this is meaning specifically Media Player 7. At least, that's how I read it. I agree that I use version 6.4 -- it's damned good.

And when they compare it to real player.. that's just not fair because real player is absolute garbage. I'd use 2 cans of orange juice and a roll of toilet paper over real player.

Wow, nice one. Microsoft has enabled WMP7 to look exactly like Winamp after importing skins. It's too bad they didn't spend time FIXING BUGS, like WMP7's inability to properly determine length of VBR MP3s, such as encoded with LAME (www.r3mix.net--live it, learn it, love it).

I have WMP7 installed (for video, not audio) and I use it sometimes ya know... Nothing special. But for freqest WMP users, these tools are pretty cool. I mean, they're pretty useful.. like you can use Winamp skins on WMP, not useful, but still pretty cool.

;
3 out of 4 users?
Wow, Microsoft has 4 people using WinME!

But, really, what else are they going to use?
How many different players of .avi's are there? .mpg's? Do they account for the fact that most people don't know of any other "digital media" players, besides Winamp (and to a lesser extent, other mp3 players)?

MS has made an astounding diversion from the media regarding it's court battle, with commercials even on the local channels! Their advertising budget must be HUGE!

I use WinAMP for avi's and mpg's (and just about everything else). Plugins are the way to go...

I don't think there is anything I hate worse than active setup programs. I don't want to have to download an entire program every time I install it; I might want to save it on a CD or something for later use. At least IE will let you download the setup files. The bonus pack doesn't seem to have that option.

Agreed. The WMP Bonus Pack Active Setup is terrible. It won't pick up if the download is interrupted - you have to start from file 1 again.

I haven't successfully downloaded the whole thing yet. Damn useless Setup program :(

Hate to burst your bubble guys, but there is a FULL download for this bonus pack. You just have to dig for it a little. MPBONUS_FULL.EXE is 2.94MB.

-SUO

here is the path:
http://download.microsof.../EN-US/MPBONUS_FULL.EXE

Or...just go here (http://www.microsoft.com...en/download/default.asp) and choose "full installation" in "type of install"

Fantastic, thanks for that :)

Well i am wondering what about playing DVD In windows media player? It worked in 6.05 but does not work in 7.0. Did microsoft miss something here?

Its still is there, at least it is in Me

its now a separate program now. works very similar to powerDVD (but they arn't the same progam rebadged.) It actually is a bit harder to use, but its ok in a pinch. Look for DVDplay.exe

3 out of 4 WinME users? I really dare to doubt that 75% of all Windows users are using this bloated piece of software.

And who would seriously consider converting one lossy soundformat into another? "double the amount of music stored..." They gotta be joking, right?

Maybe 3 out of 4 people use it to play movies, not mp3s.

pffffft....WMA files are like 10 times larger...I gots an mp3 of a cd track - 2.something mb, the wma is like 30 mb..I waste about 200mb on a cd, where mp3 would be less than 30mb ;P

Your compression settings were incorrect, then. I've used it a few times as an experiment, and found that the two formats are roughly the same when it comes to both file size and quality, but I use MP3 for the simple reason that it is closer to an open standard than WMA.

Actually, Windows Media has MUCH better quality in the lower bit rates.

But why use lower bitrates? Especially with broadband connections becoming so much more common.

Lower bitrates = smaller files = download more files in less time

I use lower bitrates for my streaming media so a) it doesn't take up my bandwidth, and b) so people with lower bandwidth can listen to the music clearly.

Side Note:
Most people are still on at best a 56k connection.

there is also the issue that windows media supports rights, so you have to have a license to play the music that you.

So say, you ripped a CD on your computer with WMP7, you cannot play those files on another system w/o the proper rights, which is stored on the system that the file originated from.

What's with all these MP3 players and their ridiculous playlists? Whatever happened to the basic idea of adding files, directorys, playlists, etc? What I don't like about all these new media players including WMP7 is how they attempt to catagorize your music in sections such as Rock, R&B, whatever...just allow me to add mp3s from my drive without this mess and I may consider using it. For now, I'll stick with winamp.

Just drag 'em right in!

You can drag 'n' drop your own playlists.

And just because YOU don't like doesn't mean that noone else likes, I personally love it.

I found that WMP7 doesn't like to keep them unless you catagorize them. Perhaps it's much easier than that, but I prefer winamps straight forward file type playlist.

CPUguy, where in my post did I say no one else was entitled to their opinion and that no one else should like it? I just gave my own opinion.

why does CPUguy gotta flame so many people by his ignorance? I don't know i'm just going by what i see him write every now and then. I'm not a big computer geek so i just usually see what people write about the product to see how it's like and I usually see him go off making people mad. Oh well, I can't help the way people are, just point it out. That's my 2 cents

CPUGuy is right, and he ain't flaming, he is telling the straight facts...just because one person says this for example..

"The Playstation sucks"..

does that mean that it does suck bar none? absolutely not..

if he had said this..

"The playstation sucks in my opinion"..

that makes more sense. Not to mention that most people just post here without getting the straight facts. WMP7 in my opinion happens to beat the hell out of any other music player. I mean, RealPlayer has it's good parts, but it doesn't run as well, my bass is crackly in it. WinAmp is no good either because it doesn't even support my 4 channel speaker system and it the bass sounds like microphone feedback. When I run WMP7, I get all of the formats I want, with my 4 channel and perfect bass. CPUGuy doesn't flame people, he just knows the facts before he posts and makes sense of them all. It's one of those obvious things such as Gore should conceed because he has lost, look at the facts. Netscape is dead, because AOL touched it and the ratio of IE to NS is about 100 to 10, those are facts, and so forth. In my opinion, WMP7 is the winner because I have tested out the rest, and it came on top...CPUGuy probably knows more than you guys do anyways because he doesn't just straight forwardly say stupid comments. He is telling the truth..something that isn't done here very much.

right.... now how much did that cost him for you to say that? Hopefully not alot since it's only a freaking reply board! Nobody knows all, I'm sure his opinion plays a factor when he's writing his comments down. Seriously though, what gives YOU the idea his facts are tried tested and true? What i'm about to say has nothing to do with computers but gives some idea what i'm trying to get across. Before they used to say 3 meals a day is all you need, now they say that six smaller but more frequent meals a day is better for you. Now who's to say facts and numbers can't change? Hopefully I have taught you something useful. Thank you, bye.

I never said WMP7 sucks or that just because I don't like the PLAYLIST means that everyone else shouldn't either. As a matter of fact, I find WMP7 to be very good besides the playlist, resources it uses (including a NT service it installs and does not uninstall during the WMP7 uninstall), and no minimize to tray. Other than that, the sound quality is pretty damn good. I was trying to get the point accross that the playlist is a mess. I don't need to hear the most basic of things such as drag and drop, but how to clean up the mess still there. Can I remove all that other wasted garbage like the Rock, R&B, My Music, whatever, etc etc folders? Basically, I want a clean playlist. Advice on that would be much better instead of accusing me of jamming my opinion down peoples throats.

BTW, the comment netscape is dead because AOL touched it, is an opinion and not a fact. Also, a person that claims someone else is the master of all knowledge is just as ignorant as the person who thinks he is.

All that stuff is just the stuff in your Media Library, which is where you'd go to organize the stuff, or just delete the data.

And.... I was in no way, shape, or form flameing anybody.

I like your awesome spelling mistakes! "flameing"? I don't know how hard it is to check for spelling mistakes. Whatever, I've seen you in other instances where you think you're top dawg of some subject and I think I just grounded you. Obviously, you have some arrogance to you and you need to know the facts before you speak. That's my story and I'm sticking to it, later.

Hmmm... I only see one spelling mistake, and no, I do not check for them, because I really don't care.

Need to know the facts? Need to know the facts on what? I use Windows Media Player 7 for all my media, and ALL I stated was the facts. If you want to see arrogance, why don't you re-read your post.

Taken from MaximumPC.com (http://www.maximumpc.com/content/2000/11/27/12280). Nuff said:
------------------------------
Prepare to Patch: MS Details Media Player Security Flaws
~Maximum PC

Besides being ugly, crash prone and nearly as all-controlling as RealPlayer, Microsoft's bulked-up new Windows Media Player also potentially allows malicious hackers to wrest control of desktop systems. In a statement detailing new security vulnerabilities affecting the widely distributed multimedia player (which ships with Windows ME), Microsoft outlines hacker attacks that could come disguised as a streaming media file or a Media Player skin.

Patches for the two vulnerabilities, for both Media Player 6.4 and 7.0, have been bundled together at Microsoft's website. Though the security flaws result from entirely different bugs, they both affect Media Player.

The ASX Buffer Overrun bug opens a security hole by allowing Windows Media Player executable code to be rewritten by data from an overrun buffer. Once downloaded, a booby-trapped ASX file could automatically expose data or open the affected machine to remote control.....

(it goes on)
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