Being able to play audio files on my computer is a seriously big deal to me. My first Apple purchase was a mac book pro which the sole purpose was to rip and catalog my audio collection. (which subsequently I had to repeat the entire process because it defaulted to using .m4p <apple store> and .m4a <I think...> anyhow I was unable to easily playback those file types on my other systems - which was a Sun blade running Solaris and a few Linux systems) I digress...
I have always been a HUGE fan of XMMS. Even since 2001 when they seemed to have the only player worth mentioning for Solaris. Fortunately not much has changed with XMMS in 10 years (it looks almost identical, if I recall the original) and unfortunately a lot has changed with my music demands. XMMS still uses a pretty basic method cataloging your collection, whereas the "modern" audio players seemingly use some type of database to store the metadata of your collection. Certainly it's not the end of the world, but it makes scanning your audio files rather time consuming at 12000+ audio files.
I don't have complicated demands regarding a player, but I am growing more attached to some of the functionality that has been added to the players. I would like ability to: search (easily), rate the song, create dynamic a playlist, and shuffle. Now some players will display lyrics, automatically retrieve song/album information, display album covers.
Banshee (for Linux) has grabbed my attention for now. It's clean and simple. Yet it still provides all functionality I require, and then some. I really liked Amarok for all the additional features it had, but I could simply not make the app do what I needed. Lack of dynamic playlists are a deal breaker and I was unable to make them work. Realistically iTunes is an ideal audio application. It handles podcasts, retrieves metadata, has dynamic playlists and does a great job ripping from physical media. It just doesn't run on Linux ;-)
Lastly Banshee is a GTK-based app and I prefer Gnome over KDE currently. Also - I still rip all my music on a Mac using iTunes. It just works.
I have always been a HUGE fan of XMMS. Even since 2001 when they seemed to have the only player worth mentioning for Solaris. Fortunately not much has changed with XMMS in 10 years (it looks almost identical, if I recall the original) and unfortunately a lot has changed with my music demands. XMMS still uses a pretty basic method cataloging your collection, whereas the "modern" audio players seemingly use some type of database to store the metadata of your collection. Certainly it's not the end of the world, but it makes scanning your audio files rather time consuming at 12000+ audio files.
I don't have complicated demands regarding a player, but I am growing more attached to some of the functionality that has been added to the players. I would like ability to: search (easily), rate the song, create dynamic a playlist, and shuffle. Now some players will display lyrics, automatically retrieve song/album information, display album covers.
Banshee (for Linux) has grabbed my attention for now. It's clean and simple. Yet it still provides all functionality I require, and then some. I really liked Amarok for all the additional features it had, but I could simply not make the app do what I needed. Lack of dynamic playlists are a deal breaker and I was unable to make them work. Realistically iTunes is an ideal audio application. It handles podcasts, retrieves metadata, has dynamic playlists and does a great job ripping from physical media. It just doesn't run on Linux ;-)
Lastly Banshee is a GTK-based app and I prefer Gnome over KDE currently. Also - I still rip all my music on a Mac using iTunes. It just works.
Comments
Post a Comment