Is WMP9 really as bad as it sounds?

[SilentRob]

For music, I prefer Winamp3, but for vids, WiMP9 (i like vowels... and I thought "i" fit in nicely... forgive me if anyone else has used that quasi-joke before) is excellent for the most part.

The only beef I have with it is that if any vids are unplayable (for bad CRC, no codec, or whatever), WiMP9 won't give a very clear reason (like the specific codec needed). However, with other utils like PAR and GSpot, CRC and codecs are found nicely.

All-in-all, I just want a codec detector to be built into WiMP 10, and I'll be quite the happy camper.

[Evan]

My personal favourite is Media Player Classic. It's free and constantly updated, you can do a search for it in www.softnews.ro

Do you remember the old media player 6.4? The one with the stock Windows interface. Well this one is based on that, but adds tons of extras under the hood (i.e. custom zoom modes, pan&scan for widescreen videos, codec configuration etc).

Basically, the main difference in all those players is the interface and the functionality. They all use the system codecs and drivers to display the videos so all of them do the same thing. I personally prefer a player with no eye candy, one that is quick to use and goes easy on system resources. If you are like me, then do check out MPC.

[cspm2003]

I don't like WMP9 that much. I perfer Winamp2 for music, I love the media libary, and use ultra player for videos. WMP uses to much ram, allmoast 15 megs

[R600]

I've heard that WMP9 had some kind of spyware on it that tracks users' activities.

I don't use WMP9 at all, I prefer using the Classic version in the Windows Media folder.

[ceez]

I have no prob with it. download/install/patch.

[Unwonted]

I've heard that WMP9 had some kind of spyware on it that tracks users' activities.

I don't use WMP9 at all, I prefer using the Classic version in the Windows Media folder.

If you really wanted to, you could enable the setting that sends your listening/viewing info to MS, but I leave it disabled. WMP 9 works fine

[Marztabator]

I discovered lately that there's some sort of bonus pack for WMP9. But the two download links provided on Microsoft's site don't appear to work. What does this pack do exactly, and why does it seem like MS removed it from their servers? Was there something wrong with the pack that they had to withdraw it?