Songbird: Sing a song of freedom!

iTunes is one of the most used and well known music players, currently, but that doesn't mean that there's not free, open-sourced alternatives that are just as good, if not better. Songbird is one of those alternatives.

Usually, I don't like to "compare" freeware right off the bat, but the reason is because Songbird (at least in my mind) is a open source, better iTunes. It has alot of the same look and feel, but with better features.

First off, Songbird runs on XUL, the same thing that runs all Mozilla products (Firefox, Thunderbird, InstantBird, Miro, Spicebird, and of course, Mozilla), meaning that it really has the feel of a Mozilla product to it. Secondly, this means that it is completely cross platform, even though it is not as supported on Mac or Linux or Solaris as it is on Windows.

Addons.

So what makes Songbird so great? Good question! It really is the "Firefox of media players" in that it is extremely customizable. Just like Firefox and Thunderbird, it has addons that can be installed to further increase just how you want your media player to be. This can range from a different media view (like cover flow) to an alarm clock to displaying the Wikipedia article of the artist right there in your library. Granted, the addons are definitely not as vast as Firefox's, but they are growing every day.

Browser.

Another extremely noticeable difference from other media players is that it has its own web browser built in. That's right, it has a little Firefox(ish) browser, with addons and everything. The reasoning is that you can use that browser for searching for music, which I find very refreshing. But please, don't think this will replace your everyday browser, because it does not have all the features of a full fledged web browser, and it's not intended to.

Features.

So it has a web browser, and plugins. What else? Well, it also has the ability to add different stores, to search for concerts, and to play online streaming radio from within Songbird. It has features like an Equalizer built in, and different media views, expanding it beyond the three of iTunes. It also has "feathers" (skins) that REALLY allow you to customize how it looks. Besides the obvious "iTunes" skins (which are in abundance), you can get a practically whatever look or feel you want. The feathers do tend to run darker, but you can usually find one to fit your wants.

Ambition.

The main thing that I love about Songbird is the ambition. It has a very clear roadmap, and has stuck to it thus far (except for version 1.3, which is apparently put on hold...) The developers know that features are lacking, and are working on them.

For example, CD ripping is a new feature in 1.4 Beta. (Many believe that it should have been in 1.0, but that's a different discussion.) Currently, it only allows you to rip into OGG, FLAC, or WMA. Now Linux people might be rejoicing (even though you can only rip on Windows...), but most people I know don't use FLAC or OGG, and if you use WMA, you should be burned at the stake. (Just Kidding!) My point is, they're currently missing the very obvious MP3 option that most users desire.

Confusion.

All of that being said about ambition, I do have to admit that I'm slightly concerned about Songbird's future in terms of features. Indeed, their roadmap does look promising, but it worries me that people want it to be more than a music player. I read a comment on the Songbird blog that said "Please make songbird able to view PDF files". My point is, because it kind of "overdoes it" with the internet browser (in my opinion), people seem to want too much from Songbird. It seems like the developers are going in the right direction, but let's hope they stay the course.

iPod.

I want to talk very briefly about iPod support. You might say "Jon! I don't have an iPod! You're totally blocking out 1 of the 5 people that actually read this blog!" Well, tough.

I want to start off by saying that Songbird does have iPod support, though it might be a little touchy at times. Really, Songbird does have most of the features when it comes to iPods. There are a few that I've found that I want to change before I switch over.

1. Rip CDs to compatible format

It's great that Songbird can rip CDs, but if it's not MP3 or AAC, that doesn't help. MP3 will definitely come in the future, but it is a necessity, in my opinion.

2. "Remember position" and "Skip when shuffling"

Unfortunately, Songbird does not have support for these yet. Hopefully, it can be something as simple as an Addon, but it needs to be there for me. Why? Well, I need "Remember position" for movies or long things like maybe audiobooks or church sermons, and I need "Skip when shuffling" for things like comedy or church sermons. Again, not a necessity, per se, but it really should be there, and I don't understand what the difficulty would be in adding it.

3. Separate sections for video/audio

Right now, Songbird does not have good support for video. In the next release (1.4?) The developers do promise a ton of stuff for video support, but that is a MUST for me. "The Dark Knight" should not come on on shuffle.

4. Good podcast support for iPod

I likes me some Ask A Ninja, and I'm not going to give that up when I change media players. Again, this is a definite plan, but I'm just stating it as something that you should be aware of.

5. Smart Playlists for iPod

Songbird does have the ability to create playlists and sync those to your iPod. It also has the ability to create "Smart" playlists, but those are unsyncable.

6. Album art

Songbird does have the ability to have album art on your computer, but cannot transfer that to your iPod. To me, this is an extra feature, and really doesn't effect how I use my iPod, but some people may find it more of an issue.

So that's my little rant on iPod support. Songbird is an amazing media player, but it doesn't make sense to use Songbird to manage my media, then use iTunes to sync my iPod (especially since I'm a "play count nazi"...) So until Songbird steps its game up (which it already is), I'm stuck with iTunes.

But I personally believe that Songbird has the most potential for being an iTunes replacement. People might say "Are you saying Songbird is better than other media players?" No, I'm just saying that when it comes to transitioning from iTunes to another media player, Songbird might be the smoothest, whereas foobar2000 or MediaMonkey might be a little harder just because it feels different.

Problems.

I've had trouble sufficiently using Songbird for an extended time just because I use iTunes, but I have noticed that Songbird tends to be a bit buggy. Do note that the developers are trying hard to remove the bugs, but just don't expect it to be perfect. I've noticed that it crashes sometimes, more than I would like. The main problem I have is that it is rather resource hungry. True, iTunes is slow as a dead raccoon, but Songbird can't really offer much more sometimes. But the developers are working to fix it, as I've said, since I've seen remarkable improvements just in a few short version jumps.

Conclusion.

Overall, Songbird is a wonderful media player. It does good dealing with a large amount of music, and very well could bring iTunes to its knees. However, it still has a ways to go. It might be a bit lacking compared to other media players, but it will get there eventually, and it's already on its way. If Songbird has enough features to make you happy, then switch over and rejoice. But if it's still lacking a few things, then wait, and watch. Bright things are ahead for Songbird.

PS - I know that's not the "official" Songbird icon, but I refuse to use the "goldfish" application icon. Long live B&W!

Visit Songbird website for download

M3: Sweet action media player

M3 is a sweet little song player, weighing in at only 100kb! First impression: it's got a really sweet look and feel to it. The creator uses a few Tango icons (I believe they're Tango), or you can swap out your own very easily.

When you run it, a small window pops up above your taskbar, and displays the message "Drop files to play". That's about it. You can hit a little down arrow and minimize it to tray, or you can leave it open. While it's in the tray, you can control it by the tray menu (pause, next, previous, etc), and you can even make it "Track change popup", which will bring the main dialog up for a second when a new track plays, then hide it again.

The program has Shuffle, and even a playlist. Clicking a clipboard in the main dialog will show a playlist of whatever songs you've dragged onto M3, almost like a "Now Playing". You can even search the list!

M3 is surprising, in that it looks nice (even though I am quite partial to black), and it works nicely. It has everything you could want, except maybe volume controls. I need to comment on one thing though, and that's the transitions between tray and dialog. It's very smooth, and doesn't look clunky.

Overall, it's a wonderful little music player, amazing for its size. It's also very light, only consuming 7mb of RAM when playing, around 4 when idle. It's also portable, meaning you can take it anywhere. What's also nice is that you can pass a music file as an argument to it, meaning you can make it the default handler for song files like MP3s.

The only, literally only, thing I can find fault with when it comes to M3 is file support. It is a tad limited, as it is only able to play MP3s, WMAs, and WAVs. It would be nice if it could play AAC, OGG, or even FLAC, but it is just a tiny 100kb music player. Considering how much smaller it is than the other music players out there, I'd say three formats is definitely enough to make it a great find.

M3 may be a tad limited, but it is very good at what it does. It's fairly new, v1.0, released Feb 2009, so drop a line to the developer, and let him know what you think of it. And if you happened to want to tell him that you heard about his software at FreewareWire, well, that'd be mighty fine as well.

Visit M3 (l.madhavan) website for download

Media Player Classic: They don't make media players like the used to.

While it may look like a Microsoft product, Media Player Classic is not. Though it's designed to look like the old version of Windows Media Player, it is actually open source, and holds alot more than WMP.

The best part of MPC is that it can play nearly every media file (both Video and Audio) right off the bat, and it doesn't even need to be installed. So let's talk about that for a minute.

MPC is fairly small, and standalone. It weighs only around 6mb, which may not be the smallest player, but considering how many built-in codecs it has, I'd say it's very worth it. It is also portable, meaning that you can take it anywhere, to a computer with no codecs, and still be able to play many files.

In terms of functionality, MPC has everything that I currently need to play in terms of audio and video.

-DVD player: Yes, it does have a DVD player. It may not be very flashy in terms of interface, but it is fully functional.

-Favorites: You can mark a file as a favorite so it can be easily accessed, and you can even make it remember the position of the object, so if you quit a movie, you can pick up right where you left off.

-Subtitles: To be honest, I've never used it. I don't even know how. But it's there, and that's what matters.

-"Open Device": Though I haven't used it much, it is a pretty nifty idea. For example, I can open my webcam, and view myself, typing this post.

-Keyboard shortcuts: Maybe not the most original idea, but almost everything has a keyboard shortcut, making it easy to go fullscreen, pause, view information, etc.

To be honest, that's all I can think of, at the moment. There's alot more customization, like you can open things in the same window or a different window for each file, you can change the icon for the main screen when no media is playing, and you can even specify an action to be performed after a media has finished playing (like shutting down or standbying.)

MPC is that it is the smallest, fully functional media player I've seen. When it comes to media player classic, I just want a program to play all my files. I'm not concerned with how it looks, just as long as it works. MPC opens files very, very fast, and I'm happy with that.

But if you guys think that my review was pathetic, let me know. I'm not very knowledgable on codecs and whatnot, so if something just works, I usually don't question it.

Visit Media Player Classic site for download

MiniMedia: Holy crap, it's small.

MiniMedia has got to be the smallest media player in existance. The program itself is 2kb. Thats kilobytes, not megabytes.

Of course, for being so small, there is little interface. When you run the program, an Open dialoge pops up. You can play anything that DirectShow recognizes, such as WAV, AVI, MP3, WMV, etc. There are no controls on the movie windows, and there are absolutely no controls for the audio. That means the only way to stop playing an audio file is to kill the process in the task manager. (For videos you can just close the video window.)

That's about all. It's a very simple program, but very handy. Also, because it's so tiny, it is portable, I believe, as long as there is DirectShow. Correct me if I'm wrong. And on the developer's page, just search "MiniMedia." It's thrown in there. You can also download the source, meaning it's open source as well.

Visit MiniMedia (Catalin Patulea) website for download

Swiff player: For playing those SWiFf files.

Swiff Player is a very small media player devoted to one thing: SWF files. It's a very tiny, 700kb standalone app that plays only SWFs. It's a really simple app, so there's not too much to say.

-Tiny: As I said, 700kb. Very tiny, and also....

-Portable: Yes, it is portable. There is no portable download on the site, but if you use Universal Extractor, you can get the EXE. Or you can install it, copy the files, then uninstall.

-Full Screen: You can now watch a SWF movie in full screen. Most excellent.

-Seek bar: It's a little weird, since in interactive SWFs, it jumps from frame to frame, but if you're watching, say, a flash movie, there is a seek bar.

That's about it. No downsides, its a good little app. However, if you get a media player that does alot of codecs, such as Media Player Classic or VLC media player, those will most likely play SWFs, which would make Swiff Player kinda redundant. But I have noticed that Swiff Player might open SWFs faster than MPC or VLC.

Visit Swiff Player website for download