Re: WMP11 For XP Release Announced
Been checking out the leaked version today, still taking a look at it but one of the main features I loved in 10 does not seem to be there which has me pretty upset. I will get to that a little later.
Firstly the interface is similar with an obvious lack of the Vista transparency but it starts up very quickly with very little fuss.
No problems with the interface their at all.
The library function has had a vast update and now displays in a different format, as we know from the Vista version
When you minimise it and have the relevent taskbar option set you will also see an updated version of the toolbar tray application, hopefully it will work in x64 this time around as well:
The database of music is now easiliy searchable based on track name or album artist and works instantly, very cool. Searching for a track title will also show the entire album:
The issue I have is that I change alot of my music, if I have a double album I will change things so that they all appear under one entry as seen here:
In 10 this was just a simple case of dragging and dropping and the relevent details would be updated. I don't seem to be able to do this in WMP11 and this is very frustrating for me. I really like to be incontrol of my music and these seems to be taking it away from me a little.
I listen to alot of music that you can't buy in the States, or even over here (the last CDs I purchased were imported from Iceland (weird) and Germany. They won't show up in the browser alot of the time so I really need to add custom entries, merge albums with as many details I could find - 10 was fantastic for this and I just can't do it at the moment in 11.
I am meeting with Microsoft in 2 weeks in Amsterdam, so I will be bringing this up.
At CES I was told that I should be able to play media directly from my MTP device onto my PC and I was really excited about this but then everything fell quiet. With the announcement of WMP11 for WindowsXP this week, I saw a similar bit of imfromation saying I would not only be able to play my normal media on my PC but also DRM content as well - sweet. So I was eager to try it out.
I was hoping to get into the beta for this application alot earlier as I had alot of great suggestions as well as many questions about the application itself.
Well it shows a picture of my device which is cool, the same as the Vista version, but are the functions to play my media there? No. To be honest, I knew they wouldn't be. I follow the Creative forums alot and happen to know that Creative are not using many of the functions that MTP allows - so basically I can't play media directly from my device.
It will let me simpyl sync media back to my PC though and thats new, it will let me sync DRM content as well but it won't let me play it directly, I need to login again and decrement my licence count which I have done already. Hopefully Creative can add those functions.
I really hope someone can tell me how to change the album a song is in via the interface, I really need that feature!