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Songbird Media Player

26 posts · originally from https://geek.digit.in/community/threads/songbird-media-player.122879/

Phantom Lancer
Phantom Lancer Original post #1
Nov 27, 2009 at 11:37 PM
For those of you who have not yet tried out songbird , now is a good time ! . It is available for most Operating Systems (windows , mac ,Linux) . Developed by the people behind WinAmp and Yahoo music search engine it is an open source software . This is positioned as a web media player as it integrates with the web seamlessly .

features that set it apart

-> Retrieves metadata such as Band information , Album Art etc from Amazon for free while your media plays
-> Can be used as a browser (uses firefox base) and has tabbing functionality similar to Firefox
-> Multitude of audio/music specific add-ons similar to firefox
-> Feathers - a theme manager lets you easily skin your media player .

Its still not present in the ubuntu's official repository so you ll have to manually download and install it in ubuntu

Songbird in my Ubuntu 9.10
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*i597.photobucket.com/albums/tt52/Indianrep/Screenshot-11.png
thewisecrab
Nov 28, 2009 at 12:00 AM
I'm using it as my primary media player in WinXP . .loving every minute of it. . .I tried it during it's beta days in Ubuntu, was impressed then too . .the addons are different yet better. The "feathers" is like Personas, and nice too.

Though I sometimes find it sluggish (during the loading of the app) but once it's open, it's smooth sailing :)
Krow
Krow #3
Nov 28, 2009 at 1:43 AM
/me is the foobar guy. :)
Faun
Faun #4
Nov 28, 2009 at 2:36 AM
/me is the Quodlibet guy in Linux and foobar guy in Windows. :)

I tried Songbird, its really like the firefox of media players. Props to the developers !
Phantom Lancer
Nov 28, 2009 at 3:42 AM
I'm using it as my primary media player in WinXP . .loving every minute of it. . .I tried it during it's beta days in Ubuntu, was impressed then too . .the addons are different yet better. The "feathers" is like Personas, and nice too.

Though I sometimes find it sluggish (during the loading of the app) but once it's open, it's smooth sailing :)
yup its a bit of a resource hog . Takes a second to start up , not something you see very often in Linux apps .
But i dont mind turning a blind eye to that , sound quality is top class and its makes great eye candy .
I hope they iron out all the minor issues , this media web browser concept is really a winner all the way imo .
desiibond
Nov 28, 2009 at 9:11 AM
last time when I tried it was when it was in beta and it was terrible. let me check now :)
x3060
x3060 #7
Nov 28, 2009 at 9:12 AM
thanks for this...never knew of about it. been a media monkey person for a long time now. will give it a try.
Krow
Krow #8
Nov 28, 2009 at 10:04 AM
^Your avatar says that. :nanananana:

I prefer a lightweight music player. I don't mind a lack of features like lyrics and album art, etc. I just need a minimalistic one. Foobar2000 consumes about 3mb of ram when minimised in windows, of course after a painfully barebones install.

However Songbird is good (addons, browser :) ) , along with Media Monkey too. I hate Winamp, is very buggy on systems with low RAM. The classic 2.x versions were brilliant. Not the 5.x ones. :(

I use Rhythmbox in Linux. Can't really come to terms with Amarok. Looks like I gotta try the Quodlibet thingy kanjar mentioned.
thewisecrab
Nov 28, 2009 at 10:30 AM
@kanjar, krow

AFAIK, Songbird uses the same platform and engine as FF, hence the similarity.

Actually, I stumbled upon it a long time ago, when I was looking for a player that could provide CoverFlow and not be a HUGE resource hog (a la iTunes).

Songbird could do that. And of course, mashTape, Lyrics, Concert Swag, etc. were just more things that made it better (addons for Songbird are awesome, I must say)
desiibond
desiibond #10
Nov 28, 2009 at 10:59 AM
just finished installing it and damn, it looks superb on windows 7.

and i can tweet directly from this player :)
thewisecrab
Nov 28, 2009 at 11:06 AM
^^
Using feathers? And I doubt whether you'll have drm probs with this one too
Rahim
Rahim #13
Nov 28, 2009 at 7:58 PM
I use Songbird on Debian and tried Amarok 2 on Arch( just for consistency) but BOTH lags a lot during song searching and it takes almost 10 seconds to get active.

Songbird, on the other hand, do take resources but has many intuitive features but I am an Opera lover, so don't use Songbird's browser.
A
Nov 28, 2009 at 8:09 PM
how is it compared to VLC.
Rahim
Rahim #15
Nov 28, 2009 at 8:22 PM
^Wrong comparison bro, as Songbird is media management capable while VLC is an all-in-one media player. Both are different.
hellknight
Nov 28, 2009 at 10:00 PM
installed latest version of AmaroK on Fedora 12.. the graphic equalizer option is there but it is greyed out.. any advices.. i'm using Xine Lib as the backend..
ssk_the_gr8
Nov 28, 2009 at 11:16 PM
was a media monkey guy on xp, have shifted to WMP with Windows 7, will give it a try.
the last time i tried it was good but buggy.
Rahim
Rahim #19
Nov 29, 2009 at 12:15 AM
installed latest version of AmaroK on Fedora 12.. the graphic equalizer option is there but it is greyed out.. any advices.. i'm using Xine Lib as the backend..

Phonon still doesn't fully support this feature YET. So it might get sorted in future releases.
Faun
Faun #20
Nov 29, 2009 at 12:20 AM
However Songbird is good (addons, browser :) ) , along with Media Monkey too. I hate Winamp, is very buggy on systems with low RAM. The classic 2.x versions were brilliant. Not the 5.x ones. :(

I use Rhythmbox in Linux. Can't really come to terms with Amarok. Looks like I gotta try the Quodlibet thingy kanjar mentioned.
I heard AIMP2 is better than Winamp. Havent tried it as I use foobar in windows and hardly boot into windows unless I need to play some game.
6x6
6x6 #21
Nov 29, 2009 at 7:59 AM
does songbird has equilizers?
I use mostly rythmbox but could not find equilizers in it. so sometimes use audacious, which reminds me of winamp 2.xx
desiibond
desiibond #22
Nov 29, 2009 at 8:48 AM
yes. it has. you can download equalizer extension pack :)
thewisecrab
Nov 30, 2009 at 5:16 PM
Most addons on FF (Adblock plus, greasemonkey, Stylish etc.) are on Songbird. Posting on forum now while listening to Lamb Of God at the same time :D
Cool G5
Cool G5 #24
Nov 30, 2009 at 5:31 PM
I use XMMS on Linux & Winamp on my windows system. Will try this out once I get some free time by my hand.
Krow
Krow #25
Nov 30, 2009 at 6:30 PM
Rhythmbox FTW! :flamethrower:
D
danova #26
Dec 14, 2009 at 7:06 PM
I tried it during it's beta days in Ubuntu, was impressed then too . .the addons are different yet better.
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