i havn't used media player 10 but, i can speak for 9.. sorry if this is long-winded i'm working on my first cup of coffee for the day. it takes 3 to get me to my norm.
this is my 2c blog on WMP. i can't understand why people trash it.. i use it here at work, and i don't use it at home only because of - amoung things listed below - i prefer itunes' sharing capabilities.
i've always loved WMP. it has a great library, a wonderful set of features, and the windows media audio encoding is fantastic. music is everything to me and i've spent a long time trying different file types and players.. set bit rates, variable bit rates, lossless. player performance, extra bells and whistles.. mp3, wma, aac, org, wav..and some of the experimental crap from Creative Labs in between. i rank windows MP, and the WMA audio format, as a combination with great clarity verses resources.
i don't, however, use it anymore. that is because the only real problem i have with it happens to be a big problem .. it is the extreme limited boundries of subscribing onesself to a WMA file.. you can't play it in an mp3-ready car stereo or cd player, you can't put it on an ipod or sony device, and you can't play it in other audio players as easily as windows media player. that is- in my average joe computer user opinion - the only flaw. likewise - you run into this same problem if you subscribe yourself to AAC format, or roxio's format, or son'ys format. unless of course you have an ipod or walkman. so this arguement is really no different than being in any other company's realm. it is not a microsoft-only phenomenon.
as for a player, it does nothing different than a player from roxio or apple, or real.. yes it will default all of your audio formats to its own player. because it is designed to be a BUILT-IN, easy to use player for windows.. internet explorer is the same way with the internet! safari is the same way.. quicktime is the same way. so some new kid who just got his first computer can double click an audio file and not have to worry about what program is going to fight over it's rights. apple has quicktime. windows has media player. if you install another program, media player freely gives up the rights. you can also manually (and easily, by using the windows help system) set your computer to use only non-microsoft programs.. another shot down arguement people have that windows is completely totolitarian microsoft. it is designed that way because microsoft has been getting sued by small companys on the grounds that they can't compete with a built-in windows player. because real can't make a good enough product for people to notice, they've successfully gotten the EU to ban microsoft from BUNDLEING media player in windows.
media player 9 lacks in overall features compared to something like itunes (which has crossfading and smart playlists and such) but as for resources, ease of use, and sound quality - you have to step outside the box and realize that it is in fact a good player. it uses audio protection - but it asks you on first-use whether you want to enable or disable it - so i don't see how that is a hidden problem, either.
i do agree completely with brad tho - it doens't know what it's face is. the double toolbar always comes out of nowhere, it looks foogled when winfx tries to shadow it, and so on.
ok i'm done.
