Comments on: Billy a simple but awesome music player

By: Hack Your Day » Top 10 must-have apps after a Windows install

Hack Your Day » Top 10 must-have apps after a Windows install — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 07:17:14 +0000

[...] concentrate. Anyway, all I need is a simple music player which can play MP3-s and that’s it. Billy is a new addition to my must install list, I worte a quick reveiw about it on gHacks not long ago, [...]

By: Xaro

Xaro — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:55:00 +0000

Hey! great to see you did a post on billy, I discovered it years ago, it was specially usefull to listen to music while playing WoW, because I could just leave it there and it didn’t slow my game.

By: archer

archer — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:22:13 +0000

joe, something i want to be sure you understand; smplayer is mplayer. it's dependent on mplayer. mplayer is the engine it uses. you can configure smplayer to have exactly the same minimal display and behaviour as mplayer, but you have the bonus of a ton of features at your disposal should you need or want them.

By: Daniel Pataki

Daniel Pataki — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 10:03:05 +0000

Thanks Joe :)

Do I see a paradox in this sentence?

“what i like about mplayer is that it’s invisible. it’s like there IS no media player, it’s just the media itself. when the video file is done, the player disappears.”

So if there was no mplayer, where did the player disappear to after the video file is done? :D

I do understand what you’re saying, and you’re right, mplayer is pretty unique :)

By: Geert

Geert — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 09:41:46 +0000

If you like Billy because of its no-nonsense style, then you should definitely try “1by1″ (http://mpesch3.de1.cc/1by1.html)

By: garbanzo

garbanzo — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 08:36:28 +0000

been using Billy for ages. while foobar is my primary player, i use this for music not yet in my library.

i was recently in touch with the author and he said a major update is on the way :)

be sure to check out his other software, there’s some great stuff there!

By: joe

joe — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 08:10:09 +0000

yeah daniel, mplayer definitely requires a separate app for music (i use winamp).

thanks for the post though, i too prefer small footprint, focused apps (like billy).

i just discovered ghacks a few weeks ago and it’s consistently interesting. keep up the good work :D

By: joe

joe — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 06:40:58 +0000

ok i checked out smplayer and it’s a conventional media player

what i like about mplayer is that it’s invisible. it’s like there IS no media player, it’s just the media itself. when the video file is done, the player disappears.

that, and i have complete control without a GUI.
left mouse = fullscreen toggle
right mouse = pause/play toggle
wheel = skip forward/back 5 seconds
forward/back buttons = volume up/down

left/right arrow = forward/back 10 seconds
up/down = f/b 1 minute
pgup/pgdn = f/b 10 minutes
space = pause
f = fullscreen
m = mute
plus all the other keys to control audio streams, subtitles, framedropping, etc.

it seems perfect to me, what i don’t understand is why so many people prefer media player guis when they could just watch their video without a gui at all

By: Daniel Pataki

Daniel Pataki — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 06:40:41 +0000

Hi Joe!

Sorry about that, I can’t read minds yet :) However, mplayer is more of a video player than a music player.

All I needed was an app that can play mp3-s, nothing, and really nothing, else.

I am making the switch to a more powerful laptop in a few weeks, but until then, if I want to run Photoshop, Word, 10 browser tabs, and programming stuff side by side, I need the simplest “additional” tools I can find.

By: archer

archer — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 02:46:03 +0000

joe, if you like mplayer for vids, check smplayer, which is mplayer perfected.

By: joe

joe — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 01:59:40 +0000

i was disappointed you didn’t recommend mplayer, that software has changed the way i use my computer.

i will definitely check out Billy though, thanks for that

By: Zim

Zim — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 23:03:51 +0000

Nice! I’ll consider it where I need to save memory :)

By: archer

archer — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 22:21:09 +0000

…guess i should mention that i downloaded the most recent beta version

By: archer

archer — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 22:12:35 +0000

strange that they don’t mention that billy plays flac, but he does. not ape, though. didn’t try any others.

By: Enigma

Enigma — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 21:52:30 +0000

Meh not every one wants simplicity, my foobar2k config uses around 200mb of memory with every album i own loaded in to a playlist which if i do the math is around 330gb of music.

That and i like all the metadata, album art and lyrics.

By: Amaron

Amaron — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 21:52:01 +0000

It can’t play .asx files.

By: Shane

Shane — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 21:43:59 +0000

I discovered Billy from the same “how you use your media player” post you refer to and I have been using it ever since.

Media players these days are way too bloated and confusing and I find Billy to be the complete antithesis of the media players I have grown to despise (like iTunes and Windows Media Player).

I still have Foobar2000 handy for when I want to burn, tag, etc.. but more often than not I simply want to play my mp3 albums while I multi-task on my computer and Billy is the perfect player for that because it takes virtually no resources away from my other efforts.

By: Pelushe » Billy a simple but awesome music player

Pelushe » Billy a simple but awesome music player — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 20:02:50 +0000

[...] You can also add your media folders and set up some format rules, the ability to launch [...] Source file » Leave a message [...]

By: sniping_dreamer

sniping_dreamer — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 19:38:55 +0000

I definitely have to try this out. Sounds great for gamers who wants to play music while gaming without having their Media Player take half of their resources.