Windows Media Player 11

[Thomas_AR]

I just had the _pleasure_ to install the latest Beta version of the WMP11 on my XP System, and i must say wow! Seams to be a big step further from version 10. Some opinions and experience yet from you folks?

[communist]

Is it more of the overdone and totally lame glossy crystal UI?
Does it play my files better?
And last but not least would you recommend it to people who prefer small and efficient programs over large and bloated apps?

[siddharthagandhi]

Very low memory usage. Amazingly fast startup time. And it looks so slick...

[m99]

Very low memory usage. Amazingly fast startup time. And it looks so slick...

Hmm, suspicious. Are you sure that the OS doesn't preload anything?

[foxyshadis]

If you want something like winamp 2 (or 5 with classic skins), foobar, mpc, musikcube, etc, don't even bother. It's nice but not made to be as lightweight as them. If you're used to wmp7+, itunes, or real, it's faster and feels smoother than any of them. The entire package is less than 5 megs, and a big media library doesn't bog it down.

Still no explorer plug-in support for tags in the newer file types it supports (ogg, aac/mp4), sadly. Also can't import my other non-wmp librarys' ratings and playcount. And those visualizations are so low-resolution. ;_;

However, it did annoyingly associate itself with a few formats even though I asked it to do none.

[siddharthagandhi]

"Hmm, suspicious. Are you sure that the OS doesn't preload anything?"

That was my original suspicion as well. I checked the running processes. Didn't see anything. But that was a cursory glance, I'll have to check it out later.

[zambelli]

Make sure you read the release notes before installing the beta:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/11/readme.aspx

[zambelli]

Still no explorer plug-in support for tags in the newer file types it supports (ogg, aac/mp4), sadly. Ummm... WMP11 doesn't support those filetypes. Are you sure you didn't just have them associated with WMP before the upgrade?

And those visualizations are so low-resolution. ;_;You can change the resolution for Battery in Options | Plugins.

However, it did annoyingly associate itself with a few formats even though I asked it to do none.
Which ones? Might be a bug.

[celtic_druid]

Beta for XP Pro x64 when?

[zambelli]

Beta for XP Pro x64 when?
I don't know, but unlikely before Vista.

[foxyshadis]

Ummm... WMP11 doesn't support those filetypes. Are you sure you didn't just have them associated with WMP before the upgrade?
I've never used or had wmp installed before this (took it out of the xp disc). It reads all my ogg and aac files fine, when I load a new lbrary folder, so I don't know, maybe it just tries to open every file in directshow and adds it if it works? Hm, cool.

You can change the resolution for Battery in Options | Plugins.

Noticed this evening, sorry.

Which ones? Might be a bug.
Every one that was not checked by default in the installer. (midi, au, aiff, maybe dvd video?) I unchecked everything when I first installed to try it before I associated anything, but when I looked in the options some of the formats were associated. I wish I could retest to make sure I could repro, but my system isn't clean now that I've changed it.

[Thomas_AR]

If you're used to wmp7+, itunes, or real, it's faster and feels smoother than any of them..
That's true, its less overloaded than the earlier version.

The actual Beta is also still buggy i think. Found no way to update the albums, etc. if i changed some ID3 Tags. wmp11 won't update them.

[Bathrone]

For its crashing using Videomixer 9's latest ffdshow but he's perched himself onto an anti-Intel dribble with it. Theory is that there is some AMD specific items in the build

[check]

I can report that with Haali + ffdshow it seems to play every permutation of video I can think of which uses those two components 100% fine. matroska, anamorphic, h264, multiangles, etc etc all work fine. Really, the only technical problem with WMP10 playback was occasionally it didnt pick up the AR of some anamorphic files.

[videomixer9]

Btw. is there some design that makes WMP11 have WMP11 style in designmode too? Would be much nicer than these ugly old designs ...

[mattymanx]

Media Player Classic

[videomixer9]

now how about some proper answer instead of a troll posting? I don't need MPC trolling, btw. whoever uses that only cause it looks like shit old style must be really ... besides Classic style Windows at all not being faster than most claim but usually slower due to lack of acceleration usage, just a some kbyte less memory usage I couldn't care less about.

I also use MPC but rather than some troll comment I'd still like an modern style WMP11 skin for WMP11, since WMP11 is really slick compared to 7-10 and I still like the WMP bar for the taskbar which is decent if you use TV out mostly, you can have the controls in the taskbar and still have a minature video screen as control. Really miss this bar for many other players, so I'd like to have modern WMP11 design for Design Mode too, as I don't like the old styles. The Black-Blue style has some elegance to it.

[Avish]

I also use MPC but rather than some troll comment I'd still like an modern style WMP11 skin for WMP11, since WMP11 is really slick compared to 7-10 and I still like the WMP bar for the taskbar which is decent if you use TV out mostly, you can have the controls in the taskbar and still have a minature video screen as control. Really miss this bar for many other players, so I'd like to have modern WMP11 design for Design Mode too, as I don't like the old styles. The Black-Blue style has some elegance to it.What do you mean by Design Mode? Did u mean skin mode of WMP?

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Three reasons why I won't use WMP11 :mad:

1. It doesn't show which DirectShow filters are in use and there's no way to configure those filters!
2. No way to choose Video renderer, like in MPC. I want to use VMR9 (Renderless) with "BiCubic (PS 2.0) resizer!
3. No way to disable/prefer filters!

Seems like all they did since last version is creating a new skin :p
I'm happy we have MPC :D

[videomixer9]

Well you can choose the videorenderer and even VMR9, well it doesn't use renderless mode. I never even remotely wanted to use VMR9 though as I see it as a big CPU waste and the pixelshader resizers are total needless stuff. The picture quality overlay hardware resize produces for me looks very good, and conversion to RGB is also done in hardware properly. Btw. WMP is the only player that can change Renderer without stopping playback and need to reopen files, it will continue from where you left. What's with the kids all using VMR9 anyways, you can use it to include videos in game.

The filter thing is imo a minor issue as most people do not really care about it, neither do I check which filters are used all the time as I know anyways which are used via my setup. And if you're not using a bunch of codecs all doing the same thing it's not major problem. Audio/Sub streams seem to be properly selectable by now, MPC doesn't offer proper automatic selection of those either and Haali kicks in for this nicely. The ignorance towards alternative formats is kinda annoying but it adapts to it and Haali seems to have made the installer add mkv and mp4 as acceptable types.

WMP does a fine job as a player for the masses that have no interest in which filter do what, or others that don't care either. Besides it's media playback seems to be pretty stable and so far my expierence showed that plenty of problems people had with MPC or Zoomplayer never appeared in WMP.

The new media library looks really decent, the inbuilt color controls and equalizers usually work without hassle and for Stereo Systems SRS is really nice.

Just dissing MS without any real arguments is just sad. And who'd need all this childish features. MS implements stuff they know that usually works. So far I couldn't move many non-techies to MPC or Zoomplayer e.g. MPC they miss features for their funny MP3 Players, or they I can help them with problems here and there, they try using VMR9 and get slowass teared playback or it gives other hassles for them. The inbuilt codecs tend to be broken for this and that and it requires them to get new builds every so often which most don't do.

And this constant hate against Skins, that's so bullshit. And what's with resource whining, most got enough anyways, and now comes the shock, one and the same video and the all so evil skinned WMP11 uses less resources than MPC without any skin! During media playback MPC even blows up to 10-15MB more memory usage.

For those who don't believe me ... idle and working, working never minimized so it doesn't flush to swap and played for some seconds. No buffer tricks.

idle:
http://xs301.xs.to/xs301/06221/mpcvswmpidle.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs301&d=06221&f=mpcvswmpidle.jpg)
working:
http://xs301.xs.to/xs301/06221/mpcvswmpworking.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs301&d=06221&f=mpcvswmpworking.jpg)

now which one is bloated ... other than that I mostly use MPC too, but don't overdo the stupid fanboyism. And if I watch on tv out with random chatting I tend to use WMP for the small control bar with mini window :o

[LoRd_MuldeR]

1. IMO the PS 2.0 resizer looks better than Overlay, because it's sharper

2. YUV to RGB conversion doesn't work in WMP for me, no matter what renderer settings I select. Even using RGB output in ffdshow doesn't help! With MPC I have no problems and colors look correct.

3. IMO skins are the less important thing of a player at all. The new WMP skin is rellay okay, but the skin doesn't make a player any better/worse.

4. I want to be in control of my DirectShow filters, no matter if MS thinks I need to or not...

5. Memory usage isn't much important when you have 1024 MB of RAM or even more. If MPC occupies a few Megabytes more than WMP, who cares?


And don't forget: It's just my oppinion. If you prefer WMP feel free to use it 24/7 :)

[weaver4]

Here is what I have found when testing three players. These are playing the same movie and measurements taken in the same place in every movie. The Memory usage is the amount of memory difference between memory before the player was started and the memory when the movie is playing; after testing was complete I quit the player to verify memory went back to what it was before the application was started. WMP 11 shows only 22 meg of actual memory but it seems to use more elsewhere.

Windows Media Player 11
Memory 41Meg
CPU Usage 50%

Media Player Classic
Memory 33 Meg
CPU Usage 50%

Divx Player
Memory 41Meg
CPU Usage 70%

[mod]

Can you compare the same video also with VLC? Just to have another 1.. :)

[crypto]

With WMP11 Beta I had some stuttering on high bitrate WMVHD which was not there in WMP10. I then found out that WMP11 is running on CPU1 only. Very strange and reproducible. When I switch on CPU0 in taskman everything is ok again.

This only happens when I start the the wmv file by clicking in explorer. When I start WMP11 from the start menu, it runs on both CPUs.

Can someone confirm this?

[weaver4]

Can you compare the same video also with VLC? Just to have another 1.. :)

OK

VLC Player
Memory 42 Meg
CPU Usage 55%

[Eretria-chan]

Is it just me or does WMP11 tend to sometimes desync the audio and video? Those videos seems to play fine in Zoom Player.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Well, WMP11 seems to *not* drop frames, even when "Drop frames to keep A/V sync" option is enabled.

I've tested with super-high-resolution Superman trailer. Both WMP11 and MPC don't play smooth. But the difference is that MPC drops a lot of frames and A/V is almost in sync. WMP11 seems to not drop any frames, so video plays in slow motion and audio isn't sync at all. Maybe a bug in the beta release... (BTW: I used latest ffdshow as decoder for both players)

[mod]

OK

VLC Player
Memory 42 Meg
CPU Usage 55%
Thanks :) Seems that I'll have to switch..