30 replies to this topic

[DennisD]

Noticed this application in the freeware thread.

This media player was discussed on here a while back, although I couldn't find the posts with a search.

Did you guys read the End-User Licence Agreement.



It's a fairly straightforward "You've got no choice" sort of thing. Not trying to be a killjoy here, but if you didn't notice that, I thought you might like to know.

[lotse]

Yes I did read all about GOM player, and thanks to this forum and the warnings it gave, I promptly dropped it.

That left me in a postion of either buying a new player or looking for another freebie.

At the risk of hijacking the thread..

...The best I came up with in the free range is the KM player which seems to play everything I chuck at it. It also has numerous skins so you can dress it up as any other player:



With a slight nervousness I would recommend this player

You have to register on their forum to download the player..

http://www.kmplayer....orums/index.php

and the skins can be found here:

http://www.kmplayer....php?do=cat&id=2

[login123]

Thanks, Dennis. Tried GOM in the sandbox, then dropped it. Different reasons, just didn't need it.

Thanks, lotse, will try it.

[Humpty]

I don't think I've read the entire eula for any app.

Never looked into DRM and don't really know much about it.

Am really liking this player as it plays everything here and doesn't seem to phone home with the auto update turned off.

DRM question?

FileForum Reviews

[login123]

Which player are you using, Humpty?

I know nothing at all about DRM stuff, never had the need to go beyond good ole WMP 10.

[Humpty]

Using GOM on both my XP and Vista installs and it seems to be working fine.

WMP is good as well but I don't like it phoning home every time it starts up.

[login123]

Humpty, on Sep 16 2007, 09:18 PM, said:

WMP is good as well but I don't like it phoning home every time it starts up.

Nor do I. Have it stopped using Comodo Firewall, but it sure does try.

[Talldog9]

+1 for The KMPlayer
edit: +1 for K-Lite mega codec pack too

[rridgely]

Klite mega codec pack with media player classic is my favorite. Streams everything flawlessly in browser, and plays every file I've encountered.

[Talldog9]

Not to be a thread hijacker, but is anyone else excited about Amarok 2.0 coming to windows?

[Andavari]

Talldog9, on Sep 17 2007, 02:53 AM, said:

Not to be a thread hijacker, but is anyone else excited about Amarok 2.0 coming to windows?

It looks very good. However I doubt it can replace Foobar2000 in both lightness, default out-of-the-box features, and extensibility. However I wish them much luck, and I'll probably end up testing it myself!

[Caldor]

Most of the open source and more dodgy closed source players break the law by ripping off other peoples IP. Just because vlc / mplayer / ffmpeg / libavcodec and all the rest of them dont have these sorts of licence agreements doesnt make them legal. Using them isnt necessarily legal either. AFAIK no company has ever gone after open source reverse engineered stuff in my country but there is no doubt if they did they'd win. Other Western countries are similar. Patent pools own the great majority of tech in this space except for a minority like MKV, Ogg, Theora etcetc

I use WMP11, ffdshow, directvobsub and haali's MKV media splitter. And no, that isnt legal in my country. Nor is it likely to be in yours.

Short of needing an ASIO quality playback, WMP11 is the most robust player available for win32 imho. And its fully extensible with direct show filters.

[Andavari]

Caldor, on Sep 17 2007, 03:30 AM, said:

ripping off other peoples IP.

When you say IP are you talking about Intellectual Property?

Who knows what will ever come from it, for instance the MP3 lawsuit of a staggering $1.52 billion dollar U.S.D. where one company Alcatel-Lucent's buys out another, and then tries to sue the likes of Microsoft/AT&T for including previously legally licensed usage of MP3 in their software. In Microsoft's case Windows OS and Windows Media Player.

[rridgely]

Talldog9, on Sep 17 2007, 03:53 AM, said:

Not to be a thread hijacker, but is anyone else excited about Amarok 2.0 coming to windows?

I'm not excited one bit. I dont know if you have used amarok before but on linux is buggy and broken. I used linux mint for about a week last month and used amarok to play music because honestly linux has no good audio players that stand up to WMP , Winamp, or if you like it Itunes.

Amarok's problems:

- Crappy file format support. It would play some songs and fail to play others even when they were in the SAME format(same files work fine on windows.) I had this happen with WMA lossless, and WMA pro files.

- Crappy library features. It organized my music in a way that when a cd had even just 1 song that had multiple artists it would put it in a folder called "various artists". That is the only player I've ever had do anything so dumb, oh and think it would be easy to move them right? Wrong, everytime I told it to put the file in the right place it crashed.

- When you play music it doesn't just show a library view and play the songs you click. It makes you use play lists in a way because it puts the songs in the "now playing". So I click on album to see the songs I want to listen too and it would add them all. Really annoying. If I want playlists I'll make them.

Who knows maybe 2.0 wont suck but if its the same as what I was using I wouldn't even consider switching from WMP 11. WMP 11's library support is just too good.

[JDPower]

lotse, on Sep 16 2007, 08:46 PM, said:

The best I came up with in the free range is the KM player which seems to play everything I chuck at it. It also has numerous skins so you can dress it up as any other player

Thanks for the tip, had just been playing around with Gom, which I like alot, then tried KMPlayer and find it's almost identical - it's like Gom rebadged (and without DRM). I don't think it has the download codec function if it can't play something like Gom does, but I can't be sure as it's played everything I've tried so far!!!

I did some digging and found that Gom and KMPlayer are both based on the open source MPlayer, hence the similarities, but Gom is blacklisted on their site for using their code and not acknowledging the sources.

So a big thumbs up to KMPlayer from me and barring something major cropping up it's a keeper

[BrownSugar]

rridgely, on Sep 17 2007, 02:10 AM, said:

Klite mega codec pack with media player classic is my favorite. Streams everything flawlessly in browser, and plays every file I've encountered.

Media Player Classic is one of my favorites too, but Secunia.com issued an alert for it last week regarding a vulnerability with avi files:

http://secunia.com/advisories/26806/

Someone posted in another forum that there's a later version than 6.4.9.0, but it must be a patch from another developer as it's not on the official Sourceforge url.

[DennisD]

I've tried all these players and a lot more besides over the last few weeks, and for my requirements nothing comes near Foobar 2000. And I've found nothing that uses less resources.

It's beauty is in it's simplicity. And the one thing none of the other players can do (WinAmp excluded), is play gapless tracks seamlessly.

If you listen to Classical music, or concept albums (Floyd, Roger Waters), or anything that needs seamless playback, then that feature is essential. A lot of music players lay claim to be able to do this, but an annoying click between tracks is not "gapless" playback.

And a last comment from me on DRM. If it doesn't bother you that's fine, although you have to stop it phoning home (which is a requirement of the agreement).

To me it's a matter of principal. It's like your local hi-fi shop offering you a free player, as long as they can 1: have a say in what listen to, and 2: come into your house whenever they like to check.

With Windows Media Player you don't have a choice in whether you accept DRM, but with any other player you do. And DRM has been a contentious issue for some time, and a lot of people are working hard to restrict or end its use entirely, as it's only going to get more restrictive and more intrusive if the entertainment industry has its way.

Quote

If this type of invasion of privacy were coming from any other source, it would not be tolerated.

A pretty good explanation of DRM, (including the above quote), and what it could mean to the computer user, can be found here:

LINK:


EDIT: There are some other good links re DRM on that page.

[JDPower]

DennisD, on Sep 23 2007, 03:04 PM, said:

I've tried all these players and a lot more besides over the last few weeks, and for my requirements nothing comes near Foobar 2000.

What do you use for video? I tried K-Lite codec pack and QT Alternative in the hope I could use WMP11, which I actually like, for playing everything but it just didn't work (.mov clips from my camera wouldn't play). I tried VLC with it and that wouldn't play .mov clips without really bad stuttering. Gom Player and KM Player are the only two I've tried that work flawlessly with all the formats I need, and those that Media Player can't play, and both work without the need for a, IMO, bloated and confusing codec pack.

[DennisD]

JDPower, on Sep 23 2007, 03:31 PM, said:

What do you use for video? I tried K-Lite codec pack and QT Alternative in the hope I could use WMP11, which I actually like, for playing everything but it just didn't work (.mov clips from my camera wouldn't play). I tried VLC with it and that wouldn't play .mov clips without really bad stuttering. Gom Player and KM Player are the only two I've tried that work flawlessly with all the formats I need, and those that Media Player can't play, and both work without the need for a, IMO, bloated and confusing codec pack.

I've use FLV player for flash video, and Quick Time Alternative enables me to play my camera movie files in Windows Media player. For DVD, WMP again.

I'm wary of codec packs, and have never downloaded them. It seems that if you don't get rid of some codecs already on your pc, you can get conflict.

To be honest, I don't often watch a lot of the flash stuff I download, just an occasional run through them, so all I need really is a good music player, and a good DVD/home movie player.

Foobar and WMP cover those. I also use WMP for DivX. Works fine and you only need the codec installed.

[JDPower]

DennisD, on Sep 23 2007, 03:52 PM, said:

I've use FLV player for flash video, and Quick Time Alternative enables me to play my camera movie files in Windows Media player.

That was one of my problems, my QT camera clips won't play in WMP11 even with QT Alternative installed but KMPlayer works fine and also plays my mobile phone video clips which only played in Real Player before.