New player in da house

After reviewing several alternatives, my choice in Media Player has changed. Due to using a dual processor PC with 1 gig of very fast RAM for almost three years my complacency with Windows Media Player had closed other doors. After some torture at the beach house by a PC with much less memory my preference is changing. Thanks goes out to Beagle, Mudslingr, and West End Deli Dude for opening my eyes to Musicmatch Jukebox. This is the download location of "free" version 9 which is tailored for Windows 2000/98 users and there is a 'click here' for version 10 which is the XP flavor.

Windows Media Player is an absolute hog. The computer that is presently on the bench has had a horrible amount of CPU usage while using Windows Media Player and the client was complaining about not being able to multitask. This provoked some web research and Musicmatch Basic has been utilized. This is a much more efficient player yet the constant nagging to upgrade will worry the piss out of a bullfrog. Default settings immediately let it take over many different file types which turned out okay, but the system tray icon had to go. After going into settings and turning it off it was decided to leave the desktop icon for a launching point.

The interface is about as straightforward as it gets. You can do wonderful vudu with this application like creating playlists on the fly, recording to CD, offloading to a portable player, etc. It does has the capability to gather info from the internet about music on your computer. There are skins available that will let one customize the look. Tag and track editing are easily done as is organization of tunes. MusicMatch is by no means a new application, but it seems I've been remiss in taking a 'hard' look at a very decent alternative to Windows Media Player.

All in all, this is a nice player. If the nagging persists a way will be found to stop it. Might even give in and try the upgrade for pay version; just don't like software that utilizes popups to try and coerce. If you are looking for a media device that uses very little resources this is an alternative that should be considered. The ability to build playlists on the fly is also very neat. Sorry it has taken so long to get around to looking at this software, but better late than never...

"Music is spiritual. The music business is not."
-Van Morrison