From: Simon Wistow Date: 11:51 on 29 Sep 2003 Subject: media players I tried to limit this to maybe one media player, or maybe just one OS or something but no, I realised I hate them all. Streaming, static - it doesn't matter ... I'm an equal oppurtunities hater. I hate the fact that they all try and grab all the file types. I hate the fact that half the time a given file is an "unrecognised format", I hate Real Player for, well, lots of stuff actually but because it trys to open a file and then goes to "download software from Real.com" and then fails to do anything. I hate the fact that I can't drag a file into Quicktime. Windows seemed to be going somewhere with it's installed codecs thing - theoretically that should mean that, no matter what player I loaded up, it should all 'just work' [tm]. Does it? Does it bollocks. I hate mplayer - it spews loads of debug stuff out to STDOUT. In fact I don't know which is more irritating - the fact that it does that or the fact that so many enconders seem to produce junk. I hate the fact that some clips I discover it hangs on unless I forceably skip past the problem spot. I hate Xine for being so fricking difficult to compile and install. Media players are a simple concept. Files comes in, choose codec based on magic, play file through codec. IT'S REALLY NOT THAT DIFFICULT. *sigh*
From: Philip Newton Date: 12:51 on 29 Sep 2003 Subject: Re: media players On 29 Sep 2003 at 11:51, Simon Wistow wrote: > Media players are a simple concept. Files comes in, choose codec based > on magic, play file through codec. > > IT'S REALLY NOT THAT DIFFICULT. Oh, and what about the user interface? In Windows 95, the media player was a little application with a title bar and windows default colours and a slider and some buttons. Now, it's some sort of monstrosity that's not even rectangular and has funky tabs and stuff. Other players aren't much better; they tend to come in funny oval or rounded-corner or blob-shaped default skins, and if they're skinnable, the most popular ones don't look much better, either. (Let's not even mention how some of them seem to think they must look like a car radio, hifi deck, or other hardware player.) Is there anything fantastically wrong with just playing the audio or video clip? An application that looks like 90% of the other $PLATFORM applications should be able to do the job equally well -- and the user can transfer his UI knowledge to this application. This seems to be a common theme that runs right through all media players, so yes, I'm an equal opportunity hater here, too. Cheers, Philip
From: peter (Peter da Silva) Date: 13:57 on 29 Sep 2003 Subject: Re: media players > Other players aren't much better; they tend to come in funny oval or > rounded-corner or blob-shaped default skins, and if they're skinnable, If they're skinnable, they're shite. Skinnable apps are the worst user-interface disaster in the past decade and a half, NOT excluding the click-start-to-shutdown button and Lotus Notes. > This seems to be a common theme that runs right through all media > players, so yes, I'm an equal opportunity hater here, too. Quicktime 4 seems to have started this trend. And people go on about Apple's user interface skills -- sheesh. I'm sorry, Apple's had their fair share of user interface blunders and then some. But at least they're usually consistent blunders... which explains why the godawful Quicktime 4 UI is spreading like cancer through Mac OS X.
From: Gavin Estey Date: 14:10 on 29 Sep 2003 Subject: Re: media players On Monday, September 29, 2003, at 06:51 AM, Simon Wistow wrote: > > I hate the fact that I can't drag a file into Quicktime. > > I hate Quicktime for making me click "Later" every time I want to watch something. I don't want Quicktime Pro but I'll probably end up buying it when Apple's persistence finally drives me crazy. Gavin,
From: Arthur Bullard Date: 02:05 on 04 Oct 2003 Subject: Re: media players Gavin Estey <gavin@xxxxx.xxx> wrote: > On Monday, September 29, 2003, at 06:51 AM, Simon Wistow wrote: >> >> I hate the fact that I can't drag a file into Quicktime. >> >> > I hate Quicktime for making me click "Later" every time I want to watch > something. I don't want Quicktime Pro but I'll probably end up buying > it when Apple's persistence finally drives me crazy. 1) Set date to 2030 2) Run Quicktime Player, click "later". 3) Set date back to 2003 4) Enjoy ~27 years of nag-free brushed-metal loveliness. Oh yes. (At least, that trick *used* to work) -Art
From: Earle Martin Date: 14:20 on 29 Sep 2003 Subject: Re: media players On Mon, Sep 29, 2003 at 11:51:50AM +0100, Simon Wistow wrote: > I tried to limit this to maybe one media player, or maybe just one OS or > something but no, I realised I hate them all. Streaming, static - it > doesn't matter ... I'm an equal oppurtunities hater. Don't be a player hater! (I'll get me coat)
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