Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Windows Media Player 11 (Beta) - Part I

Windows Media Player 11 Beta available herePart I - Test Track!:
Microsoft's Windows Media Player 11.


As some of you know, my faithful PC tanked after nearly 3 years of continual running and forced-labor.

As a side note: I got my new Dell in a record 5 days! Dell is truly an amazing company. I ordered a new soundtrack CD from an online vendor (who shall remain nameless...for now) a day BEFORE I ordered my new PC and I have my new PC running for four days...and no still no sign of the CD. Let's see. Popping a CD into a jiffy bag and mailing it off versus building a PC from scratch and shipping it. Which do you think should take longer???

As I was saying...in setting up my new PC, I found that ol' Microsoft had released a public Beta of the upcoming WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER (v. 11). So I decided to try it out. WMP has been my choice for listening to my music collection for some time...although I have used MUSICMATCH for ripping.

Over the next few days (or so) I'll be posting my thoughts on the new player. You ask, "Why?" Well, inevitably you are using WMP, Musichmatch, WinAmp, or some other media player to listen to your favorite LEGAL mp3s, so I'm hoping you'll find these little postings relevant.

For my first official entry... I'll simply post a screenie and say that I'm very impressed with this BETA. It has yet to crash after to putting it to the test of organizing my library and several CD rips. The new interface takes some getting used to, but it certainly has taken a couple steps forward in its design esthetic.

You can download the BETA here

Next up...more detail on the new layout...