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Windows Media Player is a proprietary software digital media player and media library application developed by Microsoft that is used for playing audio, video and images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as on Pocket PC and Windows Mobile-based devices. Editions of Windows Media Player were also released for the Apple Macintosh and Solaris operating systems, but have since been discontinued.

In addition to being a media player, Windows Media Player includes the ability to rip music from, and copy music to compact discs, synchronize content with a digital audio player (MP3 player) or other mobile devices, and let users purchase or rent music from a number of online music stores.

Windows Media Player replaced an earlier piece of software simply called Media Player, adding features beyond simple video or audio playback.

The default file formats are WMV (Windows Media Video & Audio), WMA (Windows Media Audio), and ASF (Advanced Streaming Format), and supports its own XML based playlist format called WPL (Windows Playlist).

Features

  • Playback of audio, video and pictures, along with fast forward, reverse, seek and time compression and dilation.
  • Supports local playback, streaming playback and progressive downloads as well.
  • Support for any media codec and container format using specific DirectX filters.
  • Full media management, via the integrated media library, which offers cataloging and searching of media. Media can be arranged according to album, artist, genre, date et al.
  • Video Smoothing which upscales frame-rate by interpolating added frames, in effect giving a smoother playback on low-framerate videos.
  • Includes 10-band graphic equalizer and SRS WOW audio post-processing system. Windows Media Player can also have attached plug-ins which process the output audio or video data.
    • Features a taskbar-mounted Mini mode in which the most common media control buttons are presented as a toolbar on the Windows taskbar. Flyout windows can display media information, visualization or the video being played back.
    • Can use video overlays or VMR9 surfaces, if the video card supports them.
    • Can offload media decompression to video card if supported by hardware.
    • Features integrated CD-burning support for audio as well as data CDs. Data CDs can have any of the media formats supported by the player. While burning Data CDs, the media can, optionally, be transcoded into WMA format.
    • Audio CDs can be ripped to either WMA format, as well as MP3. 24 bit high-resoultion CDs are also supported, if capable audio hardware is present.
    • Features synchronization support with many hand-held devices. Media can be optionally transcoded to a format better suited for the target device, automatically, when synchronizing.
    • Includes intrinsic support for Windows Media codecs which support multichannel audio at upto 24-bit 192 KHz resolution.
    • Supports subtitles and closed-captioning, if present in the media.
    • Features "Synchronized Lyrics", by which different lines of lyrics can be time-stamped, so that they display only at those times.

    Criticisms

    • Windows Media Player does not support Fast Burning, i.e., performs transcoding of media format before burning and not "on-the-fly". However it can be achieved by using third-party plug-ins.

    Windows Media Player 11

    Windows Media Player 11 is the upcoming version of the player, which will be available for Windows Vista as well as Windows XP. Currently, the player is an open, public beta. This new version features many changes. The Media Library is now presented without the category trees which were prominent in the earlier versions. Rather, on selecting the category in the left pane, the contents will appear on the right, in a graphical manner with thumbnails - a departure from textual presentation of information. Views for audio, video, pictures and record TV are separate and either can be chosen at one time, from the navigation bar. Entries for pictures and video show their thumbnails.

    Other features include:

    • Stacking - Stacking allows graphical representation of how many albums are there in a specific category or folder. The more items there are, the larger is the pile.
    • Word Wheel - Searches and displays results as characters are being entered, without waiting for Enter key to be hit. Results are refined based on further characters that are typed.
    • CD Burning - CD Burning now shows a graphical bar showing how much space will be used on the disc.
    • URGE - The new music store from Microsoft and MTV networks is integrated with the player.
    • Global Status - Global status shows a broad overview of what the player is doing. The information presented include status information regarding buffering, ripping, burning and synchronization.
    • Improved synchronization features for loading songs onto PlaysForSure-compatible MP3 players. WMP11 supports reverse-synchronization, by which media present on the handheld device gets replicated on the source machine.
    • Support for ripping audio CDs to WAV format.
    • Streaming content to Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) enabled receivers, over a network.
    • Integrated web-browsing support to browse online music stores.

    Microsoft has released a public beta of Windows Media Player 11 for Windows XP (excluding Media Center editions before 2005), codenamed Polaris, on May 17 2006 . The beta was distributed to the press a few days earlier for review purposes. Windows Media Player 11 will also be included in Microsoft's upcoming Windows Vista operating system when it is released in late 2006 (for businesses) and early 2007 (for consumers); the Vista version will include some features not found in the XP version. As a result of a European antitrust ruling, Microsoft will also be required to produce "Windows Vista N" editions which do not include Windows Media Player for the European Union market. *

    The License Management tool available in previous versions of Windows Media Player has been removed from version 11. This affects online music services such as Wal-Mart Music Downloads that do not have a system for deauthorizing and reauthorizing secure DRM protected content. This prevents users of those music download services from backing their licenses up and restoring them to another computer via Windows Media Player 11.

    Image:WMP.PNG|Windows Media Player 11 for Windows XP Image:WMPP.PNG|Picture management in WMP 11 Image:WMPV.PNG|Video management in WMP 11 Image:WMPF.PNG|Folder view in WMP 11

    Non-Windows versions

    Microsoft has also released versions of Windows Media Player for other operating systems including Pocket PC / Windows Mobile, Mac OS, Mac OS X, Palm-size PC, Handheld PC, and Solaris. Of these, only the Pocket PC / Windows Mobile edition continues to be actively developed and supported by Microsoft.

    Pocket PC / Smartphone

    Windows Media Player for Pocket PC was first announced on January 6 2000, and has been revised on a schedule roughly similar to that of the Windows version. Currently known as "Media Player 10 Mobile", this edition (released in October 2004) closely resembles the capabilities of the Windows version of WMP 10, including playlist capabilities, a media library, album art, WMA Lossless playback, support for DRM-protected media, video playback at 640x480 with stereo sound, and the same Energy Blue interface aesthetics also seen in recent versions of Windows XP Media Center Edition. It also supports synchronization with the desktop version of WMP 10, and additionally supports synchronizing and transcoding of recorded television shows from Media Center. Media Player 10 Mobile is not available as a download from Microsoft; distribution is done solely through OEM partners, and is typically included on devices based on Windows Mobile.

    Mac OS X

    Version 9 was the final version of Windows Media Player to be released for Mac OS X before development was cancelled by Microsoft. WMP for Mac OS X received widespread criticism from Mac users due to poor performance and features. Developed by the Windows Media team at Microsoft instead of the Macintosh Business Unit and released in 2003, on release the application lacked many basic features that were found in other media players such as Apple's iTunes and QuickTime Player. It also lacked support for many media formats that version 9 of the Windows counterpart supported on release 10 months earlier.

    The Mac version supported only Windows Media encoded media (up to version 9) enclosed in the ASF format, lacking support for all other formats such as MP4, MPEG, and Microsoft's own AVI format. On the user interface front, it did not prevent screensavers from running during playback, it did not support file drag-and-drop, nor did it support playlists. While Windows Media Player 9 had added support for some files that use the WMV9 codec (also known as the WMV3 codec), in other aspects it was seen as having degraded in features from previous versions.

    On January 12, 2006 Microsoft announced it had ceased development of Windows Media Player for MacMicrosoft now distributes a third-party plugin called WMV Player (produced and maintained by Flip4Mac) which allows some forms of Windows Media to be played within Apple's QuickTime player (and other QuickTime-aware applications).[http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/flip4mac.mspx. Mac users may also be interested in the freeware media player VLC, which is also able to play most Windows Media files.

    Release history

    1998

    1999

    2000

    2001

    2002

    2003

    2004

    • August 10 Windows Media Player 9 for Windows XP Service Pack 2 bundled with the OS on its release
    • October Windows Media Player 10 for Windows XP bundled with Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, which is released on 10/12/2004. Windows Media Player 10 Mobile for Pocket PC and SmartPhone. Included in Windows Mobile 5.0

    2006

    Image:Windows Media Player.PNG|Windows Media Player 6.4 pre-installed on Windows XP Image:Morgandrivevid.gif|A standard skin of Windows Media Player Image:Windows Media Player-Skin.gif|One of the many skins for Windows Media Player 10, Quick Silver Image:WMP11Vista.png|Beta version of Windows Media Player 11 running on Windows Vista

    Windows Media Player version 7.0 (and above) for Windows includes version 6.4 as a separate application, which can be accessed via the mplayer2.exe executable in the installation directory.

    European Commission case

    In March 2004, the European Commission in the European Union Microsoft antitrust case fined Microsoft €497 million and ordered the company to provide a version of Windows without Windows Media Player, claiming Microsoft "broke European Union competition law by leveraging its near monopoly in the market for PC operating systems onto the markets for work group server operating systems and for media players". The company has made available a compliant version of its flagship operating system under the negotiated name "Windows XP N," though the product has not been very successful. *

    See also

    External links

    Mac OS media players | Microsoft software | Tag editors | Windows media players

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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Windows Media Player".

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