Most of the time, Windows Media Player is great. For example, its great for syncing my non-iPod generic MP3 player, and I think it has a great default user interface, (though kindly allows you to change it).
There are some niggles, such as sometimes it magically switches from viewing by Album cover, to A-Z view. (Anyone know how to change this?)
But on the whole I find it to be a very good application.
I was wondering, what do other people use, and what are the bad points of WMP and others?
Windows Media Player
I'm a whore to Winamp - it's very extendable and Jump to File is so very very very nice.
Have to say, for music, I'm another WMP fanatic... which makes me feel all sad and microsoft-y but, like Office, it's one of the few programs they have really done a good job on.
For video, tho', you can't get better than Videolan's VLC Media Player... it can play anything, including broken/partial videos, files inside zips, videos which have obscure codecs, streams, broken-down DVDs and menus (naturally not honouring User-Operation Restrictions!), image files, and can even play out video input sources and transcode formats - you name it... including those FLV files (flash video) which is dead useful if you like to download videos from YouTube, Google Video etc. You also get total control over Aspect Ratio settings and Crop settings meaning you can make your media fit pretty much any screen, and you get good selections of de-interlacing. And it uses an innovative keyboard-shortcut navigation feature, combining the arrow keys with increments of the Shift, Ctrl and Alt keys to skip forward/back. And you can take screenshots of video. And set your video as an active wallpaper. And set up a video screen (to numerous outputs). And supports mouse gestures for nav. And preamp up to 12db and output amp up to 4000%. And full EQ settings. And filters such as disorsion, inversion, blurring, transforming and zooming which can apply to video. And support for RSS feeds/atom feeds. And Bluescreen (chromakey). And total control over Hue, Sat, Gamma etc. And really advanced playlist stuff. And support for SRT s/titles files. And motion detection logging. And scientific de interlacing settings. And the ability to overlay a graphics file over your video. And settings for ABSOLUTELY everything, and advanced settings on top of that. And Always-On-Top Mode for watching video in the corner while web browsing. And support for video in a modal frame. And hardware overlays. And skin support for different GUIs.
And what's most impressive is that it's only 9MB and x-platform! (And open-source and free which make you feel all ethically correct!)
Here's a quick overview of the keyboard commands (necessary in fullscreen mode since there's no mouse interface, but useful elsewhere anyway)
Skip Forward: [Increment Modifier Key]+Right Arrow
Skip Backward: [Increment Modifier Key]+Left Arrow
Increment Modifier Keys: Shift, Alt, Ctrl, [Ctrl+Alt]
Enter/Exit FullScreen Mode: f
Play/Pause: Spacebar
View current position in video: t
Increment/Decrement volume: Ctrl+Up/Down
Cycle aspect ratios: a
Cycle crop settings: c
Cycle deinterlacing settings: d
If you REALLY can't stand keyboard short cuts, you actually only need to know:
Bring interface to foreground while in FullScreen: i
Other settings are available by right-clicking
...but that really is a pain!
For video, tho', you can't get better than Videolan's VLC Media Player... it can play anything, including broken/partial videos, files inside zips, videos which have obscure codecs, streams, broken-down DVDs and menus (naturally not honouring User-Operation Restrictions!), image files, and can even play out video input sources and transcode formats - you name it... including those FLV files (flash video) which is dead useful if you like to download videos from YouTube, Google Video etc. You also get total control over Aspect Ratio settings and Crop settings meaning you can make your media fit pretty much any screen, and you get good selections of de-interlacing. And it uses an innovative keyboard-shortcut navigation feature, combining the arrow keys with increments of the Shift, Ctrl and Alt keys to skip forward/back. And you can take screenshots of video. And set your video as an active wallpaper. And set up a video screen (to numerous outputs). And supports mouse gestures for nav. And preamp up to 12db and output amp up to 4000%. And full EQ settings. And filters such as disorsion, inversion, blurring, transforming and zooming which can apply to video. And support for RSS feeds/atom feeds. And Bluescreen (chromakey). And total control over Hue, Sat, Gamma etc. And really advanced playlist stuff. And support for SRT s/titles files. And motion detection logging. And scientific de interlacing settings. And the ability to overlay a graphics file over your video. And settings for ABSOLUTELY everything, and advanced settings on top of that. And Always-On-Top Mode for watching video in the corner while web browsing. And support for video in a modal frame. And hardware overlays. And skin support for different GUIs.
And what's most impressive is that it's only 9MB and x-platform! (And open-source and free which make you feel all ethically correct!)
Here's a quick overview of the keyboard commands (necessary in fullscreen mode since there's no mouse interface, but useful elsewhere anyway)
Skip Forward: [Increment Modifier Key]+Right Arrow
Skip Backward: [Increment Modifier Key]+Left Arrow
Increment Modifier Keys: Shift, Alt, Ctrl, [Ctrl+Alt]
Enter/Exit FullScreen Mode: f
Play/Pause: Spacebar
View current position in video: t
Increment/Decrement volume: Ctrl+Up/Down
Cycle aspect ratios: a
Cycle crop settings: c
Cycle deinterlacing settings: d
If you REALLY can't stand keyboard short cuts, you actually only need to know:
Bring interface to foreground while in FullScreen: i
Other settings are available by right-clicking
...but that really is a pain!
Since a few days ago it appears that everytime I try and go to full screen, the video refuses and goes back into the original playing size. This isn't just a WMP problem as it is also the case on Real Player. 
Is it a video of a neighbour, recorded through your telescope?lewsnews wrote:Since a few days ago it appears that everytime I try and go to full screen, the video refuses and goes back into the original playing size. This isn't just a WMP problem as it is also the case on Real Player.
Knight knight