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and. andReplaces, (Win32 version)Replaced by,WebsiteWindows Media Player ( WMP) is a and media library application developed by that is used for playing, video and viewing images on personal computers running the, as well as on and -based devices. Media Player 5The first version of Windows Media Player appeared in 1991, when Windows 3.0 with was released.
Originally called Media Player, this component was included with 'Multimedia PC'-compatible machines but not available for retail sale. It was capable of playing.mmm animation files, and could be extended to support other formats.
It used to handle media files. Being a component of Windows, Media Player shows the same version number as that of the version Windows with which it was included.Microsoft continually produced new programs to play media files. In November of the following year, was introduced with the ability to play files in an, with codec support for and, and support for playing uncompressed files. 3.2 was added in a later release. Video for Windows was first available as a free add-on to, and later integrated into. In 1995, Microsoft released with DirectX Media SDK. ActiveMovie incorporates a new way of dealing with media files, and adds support for streaming media (which the original Media Player could not handle).
In 1996, ActiveMovie was renamed. However, Media Player continued to come with Windows until Windows XP, in which it was officially renamed Windows Media Player v5.1. ('v5.1' is the version number of Windows XP.)In 1999, Windows Media Player's versioning broke away from that of Windows itself.
Windows Media Player 6.4 came as an out-of-band update for, and Windows NT 4.0 that co-existed with Media Player and became a built-in component of Windows 2000, and Windows XP with an mplayer2.exe stub allowing to use this built-in instead of newer versions. Windows Media Player 7.0 and its successors also came in the same fashion, replacing each other but leaving Media Player and Windows Media Player 6.4 intact. Windows XP is the only operating system to have three different versions of Windows Media Player (v5.1, v6.4 and v8) side by side. All versions branded Windows Media Player (instead of simply Media Player) support DirectShow codecs.
Windows Media Player version 7 was a large revamp, with a new user interface, visualizations and increased functionality. Windows Vista, however, dropped older versions of Windows Media Player in favor of v11.Beginning with, Windows Media Player supports the framework besides DirectShow; as such it plays certain types of media using Media Foundation as well as some types of media using DirectShow.
Windows Media Player 12 was released with. It included support for more media formats and added new features. With Windows 8, however, the player did not receive an upgrade.On April 16, 2012, Microsoft announced that Windows Media Player would not be included in, the line of Windows designed to run on ARM based devices. Features Core playback and library functions Windows Media Player supports playback of audio, video and pictures, along with fast forward, reverse, file markers (if present) and variable playback speed (seek & time compression/dilation introduced in WMP 9 Series). It supports local playback, streaming playback with multicast streams and progressive downloads.
Items in a playlist can be skipped over temporarily at playback time without removing them from the playlist. Full keyboard-based operation is possible in the player.Windows Media Player supports full media management, via the integrated media library introduced first in version 7, which offers cataloguing and searching of media and viewing media metadata. Media can be arranged according to album, artist, genre, date et al. Windows Media Player 9 Series introduced Quick Access Panel to browse and navigate the entire library through a menu. The Quick Access Panel was also added to the mini mode in version 10 but was entirely removed in version 11. WMP 9 Series also introduced ratings and Auto Ratings.
Windows Media Player 10 introduced support for aggregating pictures, Recorded TV shows, and other media into the library. A fully featured tag editor was featured in versions 9-11 of WMP, called the Advanced Tag Editor. However, the feature was removed in Windows Media Player 12. Since WMP 9 Series, the player features dynamically updated Auto Playlists based on criteria. Auto Playlists are updated every time users open them. WMP 9 Series and later also supports Auto Ratings which automatically assigns ratings based on the number of times a song is played. Pre-populated auto playlists are included in Windows Media Player 9 Series.
Custom Auto Playlists can be created only on Windows XP and later.In Windows Media Player 11, the Quick Access Panel was removed and replaced with an Explorer-style navigation pane on the left which can be customized for each library to show the user selected media or metadata categories, with contents appearing on the right, in a graphical manner with thumbnails featuring album art or other art depicting the item. Missing album art can be added directly to the placeholders in the Library itself (though the program re-renders all album art imported this way into 1x1 pixel ratio, 200x200 resolution ). There are separate Tiles, Icons, Details or Extended Tiles views for Music, Pictures, Video and Recorded TV which can be set individually from the navigation bar. Entries for Pictures and Video show their thumbnails. Version 11 also introduced the ability to search and display results on-the-fly as characters are being entered, without waiting for Enter key to be hit.
Results are refined based on further characters that are typed. Stacking allows graphical representations of how many albums there are in a specific category or folder. The pile appears larger as the category contains more albums. The List pane includes an option to prompt the user to remove items skipped in a playlist upon save or skip them only during playback.Visualizations. Windows Media Player 11 running in mini mode (in Windows XP MCE) showing the 'Bars and Waves' visualizationWhile playing music, Windows Media Player can show. The current three visualizations are Alchemy, which was first introduced in version 9, Bars and Waves, which has been used since version 7, and Battery, introduced version 8.
'Musical Colors' was removed starting with version 9, but is retained if Windows Media Player was upgraded from version 7 or 8. Version 11 and above refrains from having the former 'Ambience', 'Particle', 'Plenoptic', and 'Spikes' visualizations. The 'Battery' visualization was similarly removed in later editions of version 12. The reason for their removal was that the visualizations do not support full screen controls (either the visualization gets shifted to the left while there is a thick black bar to the right side of the screen, that there are no full screen controls, or that the visualization have DXE Problems). More visualizations such as 'BlazingColors', 'ColorCubes', 'Softie the Snowman,' and 'Yule Log' can be downloaded from Microsoft's website.Format support The player includes intrinsic support for codecs and also WAV and MP3 media formats.
On Windows XP and above with WMP 9 Series and later, the codec is included which supports multichannel audio at up to 24-bit 192 kHz resolution. Windows Media Player 11 includes the Windows Media Format 11 runtime which adds low bitrate support (below 128 kbit/s for ), support for ripping music to WMA Pro 10 and updates the original WMA to version 9.2.Support for any media codec and container format can be added using specific filters or codecs (Media Foundation codecs only in Windows Vista and later). The player will not play MP3 files that contain compressed headers ('tags'); trying to do so results in a 'The input media file is invalid' error message. MP3 playback support was built-in beginning with version 6.1 and audio CD playback was natively supported with version 7.DVD playback features minus the necessary decoders were integrated into Windows Media Player 8 for Windows XP. The player activates DVD and Blu-ray playback functionality with support for menus, titles and chapters, parental controls and audio track language selection if compatible decoders are installed. MPEG-2 and Dolby Digital (AC-3) decoders were included beginning with Windows Media Player 11 on Windows Vista (Home Premium and Ultimate editions only).Windows Media Player 12 adds native support for and video formats, audio and got no codec available for 3GP, and container formats. Windows Media Player 12 is also able to play formats (.
And ).As of Windows 10, Windows Media Player 12 can play, and subtitle, and container formats.Windows Media Player Mobile Windows Media Player Mobile 10 on 6.5 supports, and using WMV or codecs. Disc burning, ripping, and playback Windows Media Player features integrated -burning support since version 7 as well as data CD burning support since Windows Media Player 9 Series on Windows XP and later. 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 and playlists can be added to the CD as well. Starting with WMP 9 Series, audio CDs can be burnt with volume leveling.Audio CDs can be ripped as WMA or WMA 10 Pro (WMA 10 Pro in WMP 11 and later) at 48, 64, 96, 128, 160 and 192, (470 to 940 kbit/s) (9 Series on XP and later), WMA (from 40-75 kbit/s up to 240-355 kbit/s), MP3 at 128, 192, 256 and 320 kbit/s, or uncompressed (WAV ripping in WMP 11 and later). Since WMP 9 Series, 20 bit high-resolution CDs are also supported, if capable audio hardware is present.
Audio can be ripped using error correction and ripped audio can be protected with. Ripping to MP3 is supported only in Windows Media Player 8 for Windows XP and later if a compatible MP3 encoder is installed. Windows Media Player 10 included the Fraunhofer MP3 Professional encoder. Information on CDs such as album name, artist and track listings can optionally be automatically downloaded from the online Windows Media database when the CD is inserted. Version 11 added support for ripping audio CDs to and formats.
With their 2015 implementation in Windows 10, Version 12 also added lossless and formats for ripping and playback. For burning, version 11 shows a graphical bar indicating how much space will be used on the disc and introduced Disc spanning which splits a burn list onto multiple discs in case the content does not fit on one disc.Portable device sync Windows Media Player allows the user to connect, share and sync data with portable handheld devices and since version 7. Media can be optionally transcoded to a format better suited for the target device, automatically, when synchronizing. When deleting playlists from devices, Windows Media Player can automatically remove their contents. Devices can be formatted using Windows Media Player 9 Series and later. Version 10 and later support the and Auto Sync.
Auto Sync allows users to specify criteria such as recently added music or highest rated songs, by which media will be automatically synchronized with the portable device and other advanced features like setting the clock on the portable device automatically, communicating with the device to retrieve the user's preferences. Windows Media Player 10 also introduced the -based Windows Portable Devices API.Version 11 has improved synchronization features for loading content onto -compatible portable players. WMP 11 supports reverse-synchronization, by which media present on the portable device can be replicated back to the PC. Shuffle Sync can be used to randomize content synced with the portable device, Multi PC Sync to synchronize portable device content across multiple PCs and Guest Sync to synchronize different content from multiple PCs with the portable device. Portable devices appear in the navigation pane of the library where their content can be browsed and searched.Windows Media Player's 'Sync' function has options that allow it to be set to automatically down-convert (transcode) high bit-rate song files to a lower bit-rate. This down-conversion function is switched on by default. This is useful for providing low bit-rate files to those portable devices that need them, and to save space on portable devices with smaller storage capacities.
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For high bit-rate capable devices with sufficient storage capabilities, the down conversion process can be omitted.In versions 11 (2006) and 12 (2009), the Quality settings that the user has selected in the Windows Media Player settings for Sync, for that specific portable device, are used to control the quality (bit-rate) of files that are copied to the portable device. Leaving the Quality settings to Automatic will often result in 192kbs files being copied to the portable device.
Manual settings can also be made. 192kbs is the highest quality down-conversion bit-rate that can be manually selected when the Sync function's down-conversion function is turned on. Lower bit-rates can also be selected.For portable devices that can handle high bit-rate files, the best quality files are obtained by leaving the down-conversion process switched off (unchecked) for that specific device. In Windows Media Player Version 11, switching off the down-conversion function is done in the Quality tab of the Advanced Options of the Sync settings for the device.
In Windows Media Player Version 12, switching off the down-conversion function is done in the Quality tab of the Properties for the device in the Select Settings for the device in the Sync Options menu.When set up in such a way, Windows Media Player's 'Sync' function can be used to sync unchanged high bit-rate song files to suitable portable devices (i.e. Those capable of using file formats such as WMA Lossless, mp3-360kbs, etc.). For example, some users have created large song libraries on their PCs containing.wma formatted song files using the high bit-rate WMA Lossless (WMA-LL) protocol, or using other high bit-rate song file formats.
The WMA-LL protocol is selectable in Windows Media Player as an option when ripping songs from CDs. The resulting bit-rates seen on ripped WMA-LL files are often 3 to 6 times higher than 192kbs, and can typically fall anywhere in the range of 600kbs to 1200kbs, depending on the quality of the source file that was present on the CD in the first place. The sound quality is much improved over the default rate, although the file size is larger.At the time that Versions 11 and 12 were released, the capabilities and capacities of portable devices typically required down-conversion of the bit-rates of the files placed on the portable devices. Thus, Sync down-conversion was turned on by default. This was to ensure playability of the files and to ensure that the file sizes were small enough to efficiently fit a reasonably large selection of songs on the portable device.In recent years (circa 2012), portable devices became available that could natively play these Windows Media Player produced high bit-rate WMA-LL files (and others), and that have storage capacities suitable for large collections of high bit-rate song files. This made it much more practicable and desirable to use software programs such as Windows Media Player to synchronize previously PC-bound libraries of high bit-rate songs to these new portable devices.For example, the (2012) can natively play unchanged high bit-rate Windows Media Player WMA-LL files.
It can also be equipped with a micro-SDXC (flash NAND) memory card chip to expand the storage capacity to a size that is suitable for large collections of high bit-rate songs (up to 80GB total storage). By 2012, the maximum total solid-state (flash NAND) storage of such portable devices available had reached 96GB. In the case of certain models of the, this is achieved with up to 32GB of NAND flash storage integrated into the device and an additional 64GB mSDXC NAND flash storage 'memory card' inserted into the micro-SD expansion card slot.Enhanced playback features Windows Media Player features universal brightness, contrast, saturation and hue adjustments and for supported video formats. It also includes a 10-band graphic equalizer with presets and audio post-processing system. Windows Media Player can also have attached audio and video plug-ins which process the output audio or video data.
Video Smoothing was introduced in WMP 9 Series (Windows XP and later only) which upscales frame-rate by interpolating added frames, in effect giving a smoother playback on low-framerate videos. The player supports subtitles and closed-captioning for local media, video on demand streaming or live streaming scenarios.
Typically Windows Media captions support the file format but can also carry embedded closed caption data.The player can use video or (Video Mixing Renderer) surfaces, if the video card supports them. In Windows XP, it uses VMR7 by default, but can also be made to use the more advanced mixing mode by enabling the 'Use high quality mode' option in Advanced Performance settings. This turns on deinterlacing, scaling and improved color accuracy. WMP 9 Series introduced native playback for deinterlacing for TV output. Version 9 introduced DXVA accelerated playback. Version 11 introduced improved support for DirectX accelerated decoding of WMV video ( decoding).
Up to version 11, it supported static lyrics and 'Synchronized Lyrics', by which different lines of lyrics can be time-stamped, so that they display only at those times. Synchronized Lyrics also were accessible through the Advanced Tag Editor which was removed in version 12.Since Windows Media Player 9 Series, the player supports crossfading, audio dynamic range (Quiet Mode) for WMA Pro and WMA Lossless, and auto volume leveling for certain media which includes volume level/gain information such as MP3 or Windows Media. The player also supports extensive configurable privacy and security settings.Shell integration The player has shell integration to add files and playlist to the Now Playing pane and other playlists can be controlled from the Windows Explorer shell itself, via right-click menu. The My Music folder also includes a separate My Playlists folder where playlists are maintained.
When the player is closed and reopened, simply clicking the play button restores the last playlist even if it was not saved. Starting with Windows Media Player 10, the playlist pane is also visible from the Library view. Handlers in Windows expose various Windows Media Player tasks. Windows Media Player 11 running in mini mode in Windows Vista and Windows XP respectively.
Notice the difference in the logo.Up to version 11, it featured a taskbar-mounted Mini mode in which the most common media control buttons are presented as a toolbar on the Windows. Flyout windows can display media information, the active visualization or the video being played back. Mini-mode was introduced as a shell player powertoy for Windows Media Player 8 in Windows XP and integrated later into WMP 9 Series. Mini-mode has been removed in Windows Media Player 12 in favor of controls in the taskbar's interactive thumbnail preview which lacks volume control, a progress bar and information displayed whenever a new song is played.The user interface has been redesigned in Windows Media Player 12 such that the Now Playing view plays media in a separate minimalist window with floating playback controls, and also gives access to the current playlist, visualizations, and enhancements. Enhancements are housed in individual undocked windows.
The library view includes the rest of the media management functions. It also can preview songs from the library when users hover over the media file and click the Preview button. Windows Media Player 12 can play unprotected songs from the library. The taskbar-integrated Mini-player has been replaced with controls in the taskbar's interactive thumbnail preview (called the Thumbnail Toolbar), albeit minus the volume control function, track and album information shown whenever a new song is played and the progress bar.
The taskbar icon also supports jump lists introduced in Windows 7. The thumbnail viewer of Windows Media Player 12 in Home Premium Extensibility The player has had support since Windows Media Player (WMP) 7 and includes a color chooser since the WMP 9 Series. Not all functions are usually exposed in skin mode. Windows Media Player 10 allows setting the video border color.
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Color chooser has been removed in WMP 12. It supports visualizations and Info Center View (Info Center View in WMP 9 Series and later) which displays media metadata fetched from the internet. Full screen visualizations are supported in WMP 9 Series and later. It supports Background plug-ins, window plug-ins and Now Playing plug-ins to control media playback besides DSP and renderer plug-ins. Plug-in support was introduced in WMP 9 Series.Online features The player integrates web-browsing support to browse online music stores, shop for music and tune to internet radio stations since version 7. It provides an embeddable for so that developers can play on web pages. Windows Media Player 10 and later feature integration with a large number of online music stores and selecting a music store switches the Info Center view, radio and other online features to use services from that store.
Purchased music from a particular store appears in a separate library node under the respective category.Media streaming Previously, Microsoft had released for Windows XP to stream media content with its built-in UPnP media server. With version 11 of Windows Media Player, was integrated and allows content (Music, Pictures, Video) to be streamed to and from enabled devices such as the, and Roku. This includes DRM protected content. WMP 11 on Windows Vista can also act as a client to connect to remote media libraries using this feature; this is not available on the Windows XP version.With version 12, media streaming was further improved.
While previous versions streamed media to compliant devices (Digital Media Server role) and could play media by fetching it from a network share (Digital Media Player role), Windows Media Player 12 can access media from the shared media libraries on the network or HomeGroup, stream media to 1.5 compliant devices and allows itself (once the remote control option is turned on) to be remotely controlled by Digital Media Controller devices which stream media (Digital Media Renderer role). Similarly, the Play To feature once enabled for remote PCs, by turning on remote control of the player, allows compliant devices and computers to be discovered and controlled remotely from a computer running Windows Media Player 12 (Digital Media Controller role). If the devices do not support the streamed format, Windows Media Player 12 transcodes the format on-the-fly.
Media from a home network can also be streamed over the internet using an Online ID Provider service, which handles discovery of the computer's IP address, authorization, security, connectivity and Quality of Service issues. Skin Mode Windows Media Player also features skins. Currently, Windows Media Player has two default skins: 'Corporate', which was first introduced in version 8, and 'Revert', which first shipped with version 9. In versions 7 and 8, there were many unusual skins such as 'Heart', 'Headspace', 'Canvas', 'Goo', and 'Atomic', which were removed starting with version 9, but are retained if the player is upgraded, although some can still be downloaded from an archive of the Microsoft website. 'QuickSilver', 'Compact', and '9SeriesDefault' were removed starting with version 11, but are similarly retained if upgraded from version 9 or 10.
This Corporate skin is not deletable.Security issues Runtime in, and contained a bug that permitted 'remote code execution if a user opened a specially crafted media file'. Such a file would allow the attacker to 'then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights', if the account on which the file was played had administrator privileges. The problem was addressed in a critical update issued on September 8, 2009. Other versions Microsoft has also released versions of Windows Media Player for other platforms including,. Of these, only the Windows Mobile edition continues to be actively developed and supported by Microsoft.
Version 1 of the software was also based on Windows Media Player; later versions are not.Windows Mobile. Windows Media Player 10.3 Mobile on a Windows Mobile Professional deviceWindows 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 640×480 with stereo sound, and the same interface aesthetics also seen in.
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.Windows Mobile 6 includes a copy of Windows Media Player 10 Mobile, but with a similar (but not quite identical) theme as Windows Media Player 11.Mac OS X Version 9 was the final version of Windows Media Player to be released for before development was canceled by Microsoft. It was developed by the Windows Media team at Microsoft instead of the and released in 2003.
On release the application lacked many basic features that were found in other media players such as Apple's. 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 encoded media (up to version 9) enclosed in the format, lacking support for all other formats such as, and Microsoft's own format. On the user interface front, it did not prevent 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 codec (also known as the WMV3 codec by the ), 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 Mac. Microsoft now distributes a third-party called WMV Player (produced and maintained by ) which allows some forms of to be played within Player and other QuickTime-aware applications. European Commission case In March 2004, the in the 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 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. Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8 are also available in 'N' editions.
I'm getting 2 Sylvania 'Smartbooks' this week, running Windows CE 6.0. They are running VIA chips, which are ARM chips, which are not Pentium compatable, which means that the answer to your second question should be, 'No.'
The links that the first responder will come in handy for the smartbook that I give to my mother, while I use the one that I am keeping to explore the vast open-source goodness known as Debian GNU/Linux and their vast repository of software that runs on ARM processors. I'm just waiting for delivery, so I can see if I can use a CD or if I have to use a USB drive.