2 Feb 2006

Category: Media players (audio and video)

Filed under: Software and Technology by Hari
Posted at 17:39:52 IST (last updated: 7 May 2009 @ 21:17:44 IST)
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The next set of recommendations are for the category Media players (audio and video in the top 50 Linux apps. Here are my top 5 in this category. As always, feel free to make your own recommendations and suggestions.

xine My favourite video player for Linux. Need I say more?

MPlayer Another very good general purpose media player for Linux. Can play most audio and video formats and is one of the more popular media plugins in Linux.

amaroK This is a good audio player for KDE. I like the way it integrates with KDE (being a KDE user) and its playlist feature.

TiMidity++ A software MIDI synthesizer for Linux. Unless you are one of the few lucky people to own a sound card which actually has hardware MIDI support in Linux, you'll need this to play your MIDI music. Must have if you need MIDI playback in Linux (you also need to download some free sound patches to use it though).

X Multimedia System Surprisingly, many people still prefer this slightly dated audio player for Linux. The wide variety of plugins and skins available for it seem to keep it popular as ever.

So what do you think?

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11 comment(s)

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  1. I have heard that amaroK is very itunes like. Can you verify this? Does it work with other windowing systems (not just KDE) - I'm working on a top apps article myself... :) man I need to get a linux box.

    Comment by titanium_geek (visitor) on 3 Feb 2006 @ 14:58:54 IST #
  2. Well, I don't know what iTunes is like. But you can see the screenshots at the amaroK site.

    Comment by hari (blog owner) on 3 Feb 2006 @ 19:07:17 IST #
  3. thanks for the screenshots link. Looks like itunes a bit.

    Comment by titanium_geek (visitor) on 4 Feb 2006 @ 06:48:05 IST #
  4. I finally got around to installing the XMMS audio-CD plugin, so I can finally play CDs without ripping them first :) It's a great little player!

    Comment by Dominic (visitor) on 5 Feb 2006 @ 03:59:46 IST #
  5. BMP (Beep Media Player) is a must. It's a better replacement for XMMS.

    Comment by Mike Martin (visitor) on 19 Apr 2006 @ 09:43:43 IST #
  6. What about VLC, the most useful linux player

    Comment by Matt Whitehorn (visitor) on 19 Apr 2006 @ 12:42:22 IST #
  7. Thanks for the recommendations. Since I wanted to have a mix of audio, video and MIDI applications I couldn't include more in the top 5.Maybe VLC will be included in the final list. But does BMP really replace XMMS? What are the extra features that really make it a must-have? And the availability of plugins etc. etc. I'll have to look into that.

    Comment by hari (blog owner) on 19 Apr 2006 @ 12:53:25 IST #
  8. Just last week I rebuild my linux box and during that process I tried to locate replacments for what I was using. Xmms was one of them, BMPx was the first music player I came across but it still needs a lot of work, no streaming, using the slider to skip around songs wasn't working, play list was screwy (I can't recall the exact issue). Then I tried Audacious and its rock solid, everything works just as it should.

    Comment by James Gagnon (visitor) on 19 Apr 2006 @ 22:00:54 IST #
  9. amaroK is THE KILLER LINUX APP. I've used iTunes extensively and I prefer amaroK for several reasons.1. Database. iTunes stores your library as an XML file whereas amaroK uses (your choice of) SQL databases. For a person with over 100gb of music, database over xml is MUCH FASTER.2. Context Browser. Click the tab and you're taken to a lyrics page or the wikipedia article on the artist. You're connected automatically with MusicBrainz and Last.fm to supply suggested artists, etc.3. Stats. I like to know what I'm listening to. On top of being able to rate songs on the star system, amaroK also has an internal system of popularity based on a 100 point scale.4. Library Updating. I like not having to drag files into iTunes to add them to my library. amaroK automatically scans your specified folders for changes.This isn't to mention the cover art browser, skinnability using css, extensions, etc.

    Comment by Josh (visitor) on 19 Apr 2006 @ 23:56:50 IST #
  10. Yeah, I've not yet used amaroK in a full featured way since I don't have a large collection of music on my laptop. I'll have to rip a few CDs and then look at amaroK's greatest features. :)

    Comment by hari (blog owner) on 20 Apr 2006 @ 09:33:52 IST #
  11. "But does BMP really replace XMMS? What are the extra features that really make it a must-have?"GTK+-2 is the easiest to see. BMP was originally a fork of XMMS to GTK+-2.BMPx and Audacious are more actively developed than XMMS &amp; still share most of the features XMMS has (though much of the codebase is now new &amp; no longer based on XMMS).

    Comment by R (visitor) on 23 Apr 2006 @ 08:22:53 IST #

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