My wife has a fairly extensive mp3 collection on her computer, and she is currently using "Real Player" (free version) as her library system and player.

She's asked me to find something better.

So.... what do you audio buffs use? She wants something that is easy for her to organize her mp3's, simple to find things, to play them, and if possible to integrate with her Sony minidisk player to allow easy transfers, etc..

Simple is better. She's not interested in tons of options and features, etc...

Thanks for any recommendations.

I use Windows Media Player personally, but a lot of people hate it so there you go :D

I use winamp.

I use winamp too.

Windows Media Player on my PC, and iTunes on my Macbook.

I find iTunes although good is very slow under Windows, and crashes frequently.

Dan

Since AOL buyed Winamp and stopped the developpment as it was before I completely stopped using it.

Since then I use WMP 10 waiting for something different :S

Any comments on sonique ?

Well ... something I didnt found yet (else than WMP or iTunes [wich I can't stand]) is a media player that can be hidden in the taskbar and be able to be controled by there.

I use Winamp and Windows Media Player

I generally use windows media player and it is the easiest to use with my iriver or other mp3 players.

iTunes due to the fact that I have an ipod mini. It's really a great system.

I use Winamp and Sam Broadcaster (Yes, I know it's not meant to be just a media player, but it works well as one.)

Winamp for music, and WMP / VLC Media Player for video.

I use Winamp.

I have always been a fan of WMP. I know people don't like it, but I really really do...

...or did, until I installed WMP11 Beta. OMG, what a piece of garbage! It looks pretty, and that's the beginning and the end of its usefulness. My two biggest beefs are that it no longer shows you buffering or gives you any indications of how your connection is doing (you could sit in front of your computer for a few minutes before realizing it's not a buffering issue with a stream, it's a complete connection failure - stupid software), and when you load up something outside of your playlist and then return to your playlist, it starts it all over at the beginning, instead of at the point where you left it, like WMP10 does.

They took a pretty nice piece of software and made it dumb. Thanks guys.

(P.S., if there is a way to view connection information, they didn't make it easy or intuitive to find. So it's still poorly designed)

I use winamp, I love its live search feature of your library and masses of skins avaliable for free download on their website.

I included a screenshot, here (http://img325.imageshack.us/my.php?image=060619winamp9bv.gif).

It is light weight and specifically for music, making it fast with not really any loading times or slow points.

Well, no one's recommended it but I'm a real fan of the paid version of jetAudio but the free version's just fine for most people's needs. Here's my clipboard manager's content. :)

jetAudio Basic:
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/jetaudio.html

(It is my oft recommended replacement for ripping and burning instead of WMP which, frankly, should have stuck as a player. WMP is good for playing, well I like it, but jetAudio does the same with all the bells and whistles and is pretty easy to work with and light on system resources so your wife might like it. Mine does at any rate.)

KGIII

I use iTunes. It's really a nice program. You can have folders, and keep everything organized.

Well, no one's recommended it but I'm a real fan of the paid version of jetAudio but the free version's just fine for most people's needs. Here's my clipboard manager's content. :)

jetAudio Basic:
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/jetaudio.html

(It is my oft recommended replacement for ripping and burning instead of WMP which, frankly, should have stuck as a player. WMP is good for playing, well I like it, but jetAudio does the same with all the bells and whistles and is pretty easy to work with and light on system resources so your wife might like it. Mine does at any rate.)

KGIII
I downloaded and installed the jetAudio program, and it looks great.

The only problem though... is that there doesn't appear to be any kind of "organization" system to manage the 4500 mp3 files on my wife's computer.

ie: With Windows Media Player, there is a library system which organizes everything by artist and album, etc...

Does something like that exist with jetAudio? All I could figure out was to import all her files, but it created only a single playlist with all 4500 files in it. There is no way for her to pick a specific album to play, or a specific artist to see what albums are "under" them, etc...

??

There is but it's not so simple... There's an album creator, fortunately it only needs to be done once... It's not so easy to do when you're starting with that many files but you can also right click on the media files (highlight them in various configurations etc) and select to add to an album. If things are already moderately organized, in folders or the likes or even by genre, it's not too hard either to make albums. However that's a not-so-easy task when it's that huge a file list to start with but really easy if you start from scratch.

Album management is much easier with WMP in those regards as it groups and reads ID3 tags and will let you dig down to specific artist, genre, year, or even media type if you really wanted. Where jetAudio excels is with the additional functions such as ripping and burning so it's a toss up as to what you really want do, do you want to undertake the chore of sorting them or just let her whack at it until she's happy? For my wife it was a long simple process in which she simple trashed my entire collection basically separating it into good music vs. bad or, her's vs. mine with, of course, her's being the bad music. (One can only stand Rhianna from Fleetwood Mac so many times before they go ballistic and set fire to random buildings.) Either way, she might like poking about at it and making her own albums and/or putting them into folders, etc...

KGIII

I've been using Media Monkey (http://www.mediamonkey.com/)for a few months... Not bad, -A

For me I like winamp for music, since I can also broadcast it!
I like to use Windows Media Player for movies.

I've used winamp for years, would never even consider any alternatives. I love the way it blends in with my browser and takes no space.

www.task9.com/winamp.jpg

Windows Media Player,Winamp,RealOne,iTunes

I use Winamp and Windows Media Player
I use the same as you.

Winamp 2.91 works well for me.

Winamp with classic skin. it only uses ~2mb minimized to tray for me. which is ALL I want.. don't give me all this stupid bloat with WMP and other crap.

interface -> music -> speakers. just load up some mp3s and hit play. select an EQ if you like (i do). Simple

who cares if there's no more development? all the newer could-have-been versions of Winamp would have done what? play music. just like the current versions do. unless it offered neuron implants or enhancements for virtual reality i wouldnt bother or even consider it.

winamp and foobar (very low on resources)

as for me, i use Media Monkey. im a satisfied user! :D it's great... i haven't had any problems.. and it's very well organized. love it!

Media Player Classic

Plays just about everything. I don't need quicktime, real player, windows media player, etc...

So far, my wife is really loving the Media Monkey software. Specifically, she likes:

1) The organization system is fantastic.

2) The ability to "retag" her files, by clicking the "get amazon info" link (CTRL-L) and then hitting "update". This puts the proper ID3 tags into her files, etc..

3) The volume leveling feature.

We're going to give it a few more weeks, and then possibly upgrade to the gold version ($20).