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Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player is designed to make it easy for you to
discover, download, organize, and play your digital media, from
music to video, pictures, and recorded TV. Browse the first
Digital Media Mall to find, sample, and download music from a
choice of leading online stores and services. The Player provides
faster access to top activities, such as ripping, burning, and
syncing. You also can fine-tune the layout and choose from a range
of online music and video stores and services.
Microsoft wants Windows Media Player to be your one-stop
multimedia headquarters. After a less-than-speedy installation,
the app proposes to become the default player for a number of
media formats. Make sure to uncheck any formats you want other
programs to handle. The overhauled interface lets you manage your
media library, rip CDs, burn discs, shop for tunes, and listen to
Net radio stations from the full-screen view, but many users may
prefer to listen to music or watch video in skin mode. Windows
Media Player offers nearly two dozen skins from which to choose,
ranging from the pedestrian to the outlandish. You'll also find a
wide variety of visualizations and a 10-band equalizer for
improving your audio-visual experience. In our testing, ripping
CDs to MP3s and WMAs was a speedy and hassle-free process. The CD
burner worked without a hitch, and importing and organizing our
music library proved equally painless.
The Net radio offerings, which include a number of presets and
almost 1,000 stations from around the United States, impressed us.
Like many competitors, Windows Media Player's music store features
$.99 downloads with some restrictions placed on use, although none
seemed unreasonable. The music store's selection didn't seem as
voluminous as others we've seen; the Alternative section contained
only 24 albums, although the store was in beta mode when we looked
at it. However, if it doesn't have what you're looking for, you
can browse other stores such as Napster, Musicmatch, and Wal-Mart
from directly within the application. All told, this version of
Windows Media Player isn't missing much and should give its
competitors a serious run for their money.
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