SMPlayer, as always, comes in different release versions. Users can download a portable version, a web installer, or an offline installer. Existing users can simply copy or install the new version over the old one.

One of the big new changes in SMPlayer 0.7.0 is support for MPlayer 2, a fork of the original MPlayer project, which adds features to the video player that the original MPlayer does not support. This includes precise seeking, seeking while the video has been paused or ordered chapters support in mkv videos.

To integrate MPlayer 2 the following needs to be done. You first need to download the MPlayer 2 binary from the website linked above. Open the options menu in SMPlayer afterwards and select Preferences from the menu. You can alternatively use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-p to open the preferences directly.

Switch to the General > General tab if it is not displayed. Change the MPlayer executable path to the MPlayer 2 path to use it instead of the original MPlayer.

Another change is support for playing YouTube videos right from within the media player. Just paste in a YouTube video via the Open > Url menu to watch it right within the desktop video player. You can alternatively drag and drop video links right from a browser into the SMPlayer window to play the videos in there.

The developers have added a new favorites menu accessible right from the new heart icon placed in the player’s main toolbar. This opens a menu with direct access to favorite videos on the computer, and options to add or edit videos in the new favorites window.

The changes introduced in this version of SMPlayer all make sense. Especially support for MPLayer 2 can improve the video experience significantly.

The developers of VLC Media Player have just announced on their Twitter account that they will release the first release candidate of VLC 2.0 at the end of the week. The latest release version right now is VLC 1.1.11 which is available for Windows, Mac OS X, popular Linux distributions and even other operating systems such as Android or OS/2 (anyone still using that?).

Windows 64-bit version of VLC Media Player running the Spin Demo

Once a suitable release candidate has been found, VLC Media Player 2.0 will be released for all operating systems. Existing VLC users likely want to know what they can look forward to in version 2 of the player. Here is a list of important changes taken directly from the latest nightly build of VLC 2.0.

• Major Video Core and Outputs rework and rewrite: Subtitles, subpictures and OSD can now be sized and blent inside video outputs x11 (Unix), OpenGL (Unix) and Direct3D (Windows) are such video outputs.
• Almost every video filter can now be transcoded
• Port to Android, iOS, OS/2 and Win64
• Multiple files are now supported inside RAR files
• Experimental Blu-Ray Discs support using libbluray
• You can now use ffmpeg-mt in conjunction with vlc, to split decoding load on multiple cores. H.264, VP3, VP8, JPEG-2000, Mpeg-4 ASP/DivX and RV3/RV4
  are notably concerned.
• C64 SID file playback support of using sidplay2
• Support for WMV Images, aka WMVP and WVP2, as used by Photo Story
• New video output based on Direct2D for Windows 7 and Vista (with Platform Update), New video output for iOS platform

Probably the biggest improvements are the 64-bit version for Windows, the port to mobile operating systems and Blu-Ray playback support.

You can get a taste of things to come by downloading the latest nightly build from the VLC build server. Remember that nighly versions are not necessarily stable, as they are development builds. (Thanks Mike)

While we are at it: Which media player are you currently using?

Update: First release candidate builds for Mac and Linux have been posted on the VLC ftp server. You can access the change log here.

Some media players support global hotkeys either by mapping global hotkeys or by supporting media keyboards that ship with keys to play, pause or skip media.

Media Player Hotkeys (MPH) is a free portable software by Donation Coder member Skwire that adds hotkey support for a variety of media players.

The program supports more than 20 different media players, including Winamp, Windows Media Player, Foobar, AIMP or Media Player Classic.

The supported players page lists all player names, process names and compatibility information. The information indicates if certain commands are not supported by the selected player.

New hotkeys are created in the Hotkeys tab. Start by selecting an action from the pulldown menu at the top. Available actions that can be mapped are play, pause, stop, previous, next, volume up, volume down, mute, show / hide player, and show popup menu.

The Add hotkey button opens a configuration menu where the selected action can be mapped to a global hotkey. Available for selection are modifiers, standard keyboard keys but also special keys only found on some keyboards.

The new hotkey is displayed in the program window afterwards. Please note that hotkeys control all supported applications. The order there determines the application the hotkey is submitted to.

Hotkeys are functional right after they have been created, and for as long as the program is running in the background. Please note that configuration information are saved in the same folder the program is started from.

Media Player Hotkeys is a great lightweight program for Windows users who’d like to use global hotkeys when playing media on their system.

The program is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system. It can be downloaded from the developer’s website.

Some users may like this feature that much that they may decide to switch to VLC as their main media player. If you do not have it installed already, you can download it from the official website. VLC is compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems, and the conversion options should be available in all versions.

Start VLC and click on Media > Convert / Save. You can alternative press Ctrl-R to open the dialog window. The File screen is used to add media files that you want to convert. Just click the add button and use the file browser to add a media file.

You can add a subtitle file if you want or activate the Show more options setting to display advanced options that usually do not need modification.

A click on the Convert / Save opens the final step of the configuration. The destination folder and conversion profile are selected on this screen.

VLC ships with a good dozen profiles from that convert the selected video into another format. Supported formats among others are mp4, webm, ts and ogg. Options are also available to convert only the audio source or to create custom transcoding profiles.

A click on the New Profile button opens a configuration screen where a new video conversion profile can be created.

This includes selected a video and audio codec, encapsulation and subtitles. Additional video and audio codecs as well as encapsulations are available for selection here.

VLC will process the selected media in the main application window. This is indicated by a Streaming status and the fast forwarding of the selected video file.

And that’s all there is to it. It is convenient to use VLC to convert videos if the program is installed on the system. The advanced profile options should be suitable for most conversion jobs.

It seems that it is not possible to convert multiple videos at once and save them as separate files, at least not in the GUI. If you know a way how to do that let me know in the comments.

In their listening, many people grow partial to a particular music player. Quite a few prefer iTunes, but programs like WinAmp, VLC and even Windows Media Player have healthy followings that are loyal to the program. The idea of using another program for any reason is simply unacceptable. After all, once a user has spent a few months getting used to the navigation and features of a particular program, it can be very difficult to adapt to a different system.

This is all very well and good until someone introduces other computer tasks to the mix. Having other windows open blocks your media player, causing unneeded inconvenience where there should be ease of access. Some keyboards include control buttons to circumvent this problem, but they are fairly uncommon these days and can be difficult to set up for a particular program.

All of these problems certainly hold true for the internet as well – or almost. Unlike with other program windows, some web browsers allow you to install add-ons that provide a music player interface, allowing you to control what you are listening to without disturbing your web experience. This tutorial will outline one specific program that has been mentioned in passing here but that has never been fully considered – FoxyTunes for Mozilla Firefox.

To download the latest version, simply navigate to Firefox’s online add-on store here. Download the necessary files and then sit back and let your computer do its work. Restart Firefox, and when it opens back up you should see your new controls along the bottom of the window.

That’s right, they are absolutely tiny. This is a change from previous versions of the application, which put a larger bar across the bottom of the window. That did not sit well with users with smaller screens, who lost out on much of their viewing area. If you need a larger interface, however, you can get one by following this link to FoxyTunes’ own website where you can apply skins to make the interface larger.

Because there are many, many different music players out there and because users of those players are not very willing to try something else just to have these controls in their browser window, FoxyTunes allows you to choose exactly which player you would like it to control from several choices.

Clicking on the arrow that points down beside the default Windows Media Player icon brings up a list of all supported players, and there really are quite a few. Select yours, then open that music player and start something playing. You will notice a display appear to the left of the control buttons that lists the artist, song, and album for you. From there, use the navigation controls to skip forward or back, pause and play, and even control volume, right from Firefox.

The developers of VLC have released a new version of the program yesterday that patches another security vulnerability in the program.

It took the VLC team less than five days to fix the vulnerability which was first disclosed on April 7. The security advisory on the Videolan web page describes the issue as a heap-based buffer overflow in the mp4 demuxer.

Workarounds have been posted on the very same page, which are however no longer necessary as the issue is fixed by the VLC update to version 1.1.9.

The built-in update checker does not seem to recognize the new update yet, which means that VLC users need to download the update from the homepage of the project to install the program update manually. Downloads for all supported operating systems are available on this page.

You can verify the version of VLC by clicking on Help > About in the program interface, or with the keyboard shortcut Shift-F1.

If you see VLC Media Player 1.1.8 there you need to update the software. Manual update checks are available via Help > Check for Updates. It is likely that the developers will enable automatic updates soon.

VLC 1.1.9 includes an update for the libmodplug which is security related as well.

Let’s start with an overview of the product itself.  I said it was small an indeed it’s diminutive form-factor means that while it’s not as pretty as an Apple TV you’d barely notice its there.  To compare directly to the afore-mentioned Apple TV it’s obviously not as small as its Cupertino competition but it does the same job and does it far better in many ways firstly as there’s no requirement to have the iTunes software installed on your computers, and secondly its worth noting that not all network streaming appliances your may already have in your home support Apple protocols.

On the front of the box there’s a single USB port for adding media via a pen drive or other device and an SD Card slot so you can view photos direct from your camera on your TV.  On the rear of the device is a further USB/eSATA combo port for adding an external hard disk should you wish, a network port, component video and the all-important HDMI.
Then there’s the remote control which is a sight to behold.  It’s extremely well laid out and one of the prettiest things I’ve seen in years.  It’s piano-black high-gloss front, which sadly doesn’t extend to the NeoTV itself, is accompanied by a rubberised back that just encourages you to stroke it when it’s in your hand.  It also features a large central four-way cursor and select button arrangement that makes navigating the NeoTV 550′s on-screen menus a breeze.

I found the interface for the device a mixed-bag.  In some ways its extraordinarily pretty as you can see from the image here, but generally speaking the plain text links it offers don’t hold up quite so well as I’d have liked against  modern competition from some other devices, and it’s certainly no Windows Media Centre.  In fact you may find some of the small text and buttons hard to read at a distance unless you have a large TV.

It’s not the menus that you’ll be using the device for though, it’s media and this is where the NeoTV 550 really shines with support for 1080p H.264, WMV, MPEG-1, 2 and 4, H.263, AVI, Xvid, MOV, MP4, ISO, VOB, MKV, DivX, M4A, DVR-MS… honestly there’s no end to the list of codecs this box supports.  It coped brilliantly with every music and video file I threw at it, no matter how obscure I thought the codec was, and didn’t miss a beat.  The icing on the cake is support for new Blu-Ray video formats, something the company is very proud of indeed because it sets the NeoTV 550 apart from the bulk of the competition.

Music and video playback is quick too.  There’s no messing around with this device as it’s ready to start playing video the moment you select it.  This is opposed to some other devices which can spend a few seconds buffering content before playback.  You’ll get none of that with this box, just push the play button and you’re away.

Picture support for digital cameras and photo libraries is good too with JPeG, BMP, PNG and TIFF supported so you’ll always be able to view your digital photos.  RAW is a notable omission but there are so many different implemtations of this that few devices will ever support it.

The icing on the cake is support for no less than nine different subtitle formats, making this set-top box perfect for people who need this support.

In addition to playing back a bewhildering array of music and video types it has full access to several Internet services too including YouTube, some Internet TV services and Internet Radio.  You can listen to radio services from around the world or choose stations local to your own area.  The box comes localised for your country and, though support is currently a bit thin, it works well, even knowing from my IP address where I was and helping to deliver local radio content to me. 

Oddly the local and international radio services are currently accessed from two seperate options on the main menu and I would hope for this to be rectified with a future firmware update.  Support for more Internet TV services will also be rolled out in firmware updates NetGear tell me, and this will make the NeoTV 550 a powerful alternative to the more commonly known media devices.

Firmware updates are painless too.  You can perform the entire operation from your comfort of your armchair and it’s as simple as pressing a couple of buttons.  This is very important given the people the box is likely to be used by.

I had the NeoTV 550 streaming video from a NAS box, another NetGear device I had on test, and the access was extremely quick, the streaming extremely stable and the quality superb.  I have no doubt though that this box would work equally well streaming video from any other NAS device, hard disk, PC or media-enabled hi-fi.

When it comes to Hi-Fi I should point out that the NeoTV 550 has full HD 7.1 surround sound support with Dolby Digital and DTS built-in as standard.  This really does shape up to be a very impressive device indeed.  It did crash a few times on me, requiring me to go over and restart it, but it’s far from often and could equally have been caused by electrical interference from everything else I had laying around or the cat!

I was initially unsure about the NeoTV 550 purely judging it by its looks.  It’s definitely not the prettiest device, but it’s absolutely tiny for what it is and has the best audio and video support I’ve ever seen in a device.  If the most important criteria for you is that it should just cope with absolutely everything you’re ever going to throw at it, and this is always high up anybody’s priority list, then the NeoTV 550 is one of the very finest media set-top boxes you can buy.

MPlayer WW is another variant for Windows users. It features a slick interface, great customizability and good resource management. It reduces the resource usage in Windows for a 700 Megabyte video file by about 15 Megabytes of computer memory when compared to SMPlayer, and even more if the video file size increases.

A configuration window is displayed on the first start of the program. It displays hundreds of available settings, which may confuse inexperienced users. Lots of settings can be changed here, from keyboard shortcuts to the video and audio decoder order, subtitle handling, file associations, and direct audio and video settings.

mplayer

The preferences can be accessed in the player as well, which means it is possible make use of the default settings in the beginning, before making gradual changes to the player whenever necessary.

mplayer

The MPlayer WW interface is minimalistic by design, and exactly what most users need. The default skin displays controls at the bottom in a small bar. The controls include play, stop, and seek options, access to the playlist, a see bar, volume, equalizer and fullscreen. Additional skins are available that can be activated directly, including Windows Aero skins.

Additional options are available via hotkeys and the mouse. The mouse is configured to trigger various options, including the ability to change the volume, to go forward and backward, stop the video, or enable full screen mode.

MPlayer WW is a solid media player with lots of features and options. It offers everything users expect from media players, and then some to please professional users as well.

* Multithreaded H264、MPEG-2 Decoder (ffmpeg-mt).
* Support DirectShow Demuxer and Decoder.
* Fully compatible with CoreAVC Decoder.
* PMP Demuxer for PSP media file.
* Better compatibility with TS, TP, HDTV.
* Skin and Windows Native Theme Support.
* Support Winamp’s DSP plugins.
* Native Playlist and Video Equalizer Window.
* MEditor2 (MPlayer Preference) Graphic Setting Program.
* Direct3D and OpenGL Video Output.
* Auto Play Next file and so on (thinks for KK’s patch)

Windows users who want to try the media player can download it from the developer website over at mplayer-ww.com.

The first question that comes to mind is this: Why is there a font cache at all? It’s video, not some textual content that is displayed in the program window. The font cache apparently is used for subtitles and On Screen Displays (OSD). Both VLC Media Player and MPlayer (and variants like SMPlayer) make use of a font cache to display subtitles and OSD.

Both media players seem to create the font cache regardless of the fact if it is needed or not to view the video.

building font cache

In theory, the font cache is build once, and stored in a directory on the hard drive for faster access to the required data.

Font Cache Location

VLC stores the font cache in the AppData folder in Windows 7, more precisely under username > AppData > Roaming > vlc. The file uses a long cryptic file name and makes use of the extension cache-2. Windows XP users will find the font cache in Documents and Settings > username > Application Data > vlc.

font cache directory

The most common MPlayer font cache locations are username > fontconfig > cache for Windows 7 (and Vista probably as well), and Documents and Settings > XPMUser > fontconfig > cache for Windows XP.

The cache file is as cryptic as the VLC one, seems to use the same generator, but uses the cache-3 extension instead.

Troubleshooting Building Font Cache Issues

The most common problem related to the font cache is the repeated generation of the font cache, followed by crashes and hangs during the building of the cache.

VLC offers no option to disable font caching, at least not directly in the Windows client. Users who are experiencing issues with it should check the VLC directory under user to see if the font cache file is generated. If it is not it could be a rights issue or permission problem.

Deleting the contents of the cache directory to force the player to build the font cache again could resolve the issues as well. Several users have reported problems building the font cache if the AppData folder is stored on a network drive.

It is a bit different if MPlayer is concerned. SMPlayer for instance can pass parameters to MPlayer, and one of those parameters can be used to prevent the building of the font cache.

To test that press CTRL-P in SMPlayer to open the options. Switch to Advanced > Options for MPlayer and enter -nofontconfig in the Options field.

no font config

Some users may also need to change the subtitle display format. This is done by clicking on Subtitles > Font and colors. A click on Enable normal subtitles should resolve the issue.

A last resort is the use of a process monitor to see if a specific font cannot be loaded by the video player. Process Monitor is a free Microsoft tool that displays those information. The easiest way to use the program is to create a new filter for vlc.exe (or the name of the video player that is used on the PC) to see only the activity of that player.

Using portable media players

Another possibility is to make use of portable media players. This can be especially helpful in cases where the font cache file is not generated, or generated whenever a video is played.

The portable version of VLC is available here, a portable version of SMPlayer can be downloaded from the official project website.

Portable VLC will still generate a font cache, but it will be stored in the portable directory, not in AppData or another Windows system directory. This alone could resolve several of the issues users have with the building of the font cache.

The portable version of SMPlayer makes use of the -nofontconfig parameter so that the font cache is not build during usage.

Share your tips: Have you noticed the building font cache message in your video player? Let us know in the comments.

Additional changes have been made to the HD capabilities of the media player. MKV HD support has been improved by adding support for 7.1 channel codecs and seeking fixes, the playback experience should be a lot better for many users now.

New codecs have been added to this version of VLC. The player now supports Blu-Ray subtitles, VP8 which has been mentioned earlier and MPEG-4 losless on the video side and Vorbis 6.1/7.1, Flac 6.1/7.1, MPEG-4 ALS and a handful more on the audio side.

vlc media player 1.1

Audio CD playback in Windows was improved by including CCDB access and CD-Text support when listening to audio CDs.

Users who are interested in the full changelog can take a look at it here, but be warned, it contains more than one hundred entries.

VLC Media Player 1.1 is as always available for Windows, Mac OSX and various GNU/Linux distributions. Binaries and source code releases are offered for download at the official VCL website. A portable version of VLC 1.1 is also available for download in zip and 7z format.

Update: The latest release version at the time of writing is VLC Player 1.1.11 which is also available for download on the official VLC website. The developers are currently working on version 2.0 of the media player. You can read up on the latest development with a click on the following link: Get Ready For VLC Media Player 2.0. It is likely that the final version will be released in February 2012.

The plugin adds several useful features to Windows Media Player including a more comfortable tag editor that can be accessed by right-clicking songs in the player’s interface.

Windows Media Player Plus can also display song information in the Windows Media Player title (nothing’s displayed there otherwise with the option to customize the title using an Advanced Title Formatting.

A type as you find search is integrated into the Media Player library. The plugin will automatically find the first instance of the typed in phrase while the user is typing.

There are also two settings to restore media and plugins in the player. The Restore Media at Startup option can restore several items on startup of Windows Media Player including:

• Restore last active playlist
• Restore last active media item
• Restore last play state
• Restore last playback position

It is possible to select multiple items in the options. Windows Media Player will automatically disable option plugins on startup if the player has crashed in the previous session. The Restore plugins after crash setting can be used to quickly re-enable the disabled plugins.

Users who use Windows Media Player as their default media player may want to consider installing Windows Media Player Plus to extend the player.

Installation of WMPP is straightforward. Instances of Windows Media Player need to be shutdown before the plugin can be installed.

Windows Media Player Plus can be downloaded from the developer’s website.

SMPlayer is an mplayer frontend that belongs to the second category of media players. The software comes with all codecs needed to play all popular and lots of lesser popular video and media files on the system.

Today version 0.6.9 of SMPlayer has been released by the developers. The release fixes a freezing problems under Linux, a bug that prevented the player from finding subtitles, the possibility to display the video resolution and frames per second in the status bar.

What can SMPlayer do besides play almost any video out of the box?

• Can play videos, DVDs, and VCDs
• Configurable subtitles. You can choose font and size, and even colors for the subtitles
• Audio track switching. You can choose the audio track you want to listen. Works with avi and mkv. And of course with DVDs.
• Seeking by mouse wheel. You can use your mouse wheel to go forward or backward in the video.
• Video equalizer, allows you to adjust the brightness, contrast, hue, saturation and gamma of the video image.
• Multiple speed playback. You can play at 2X, 4X… and even in slow motion.
• Filters. Several filters are available: deinterlace, postprocessing, denoise… and even a karaoke filter (voice removal).
• Audio and subtitles delay adjustment. Allows you to sync audio and subtitles.
• Advanced options, such as selecting a demuxer or video & audio codecs.
• Playlist. Allows you to enqueue several files to be played one after each other. Autorepeat and shuffle supported too.
• Preferences dialog. You can easily configure every option of SMPlayer by using a nice preferences dialog.
  Possibility to search automatically for subtitles in opensubtitles.org.
• Translations: currently SMPlayer is translated into more than 20 languages, including Spanish, German, French, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Japanese….
• It’s multiplatform. Binaries available for Windows and Linux.

SMPlayer 0.6.9 can be downloaded from the project’s homepage for Windows and Linux.

SPlayer uses binary codecs. The player was able to play all formats that we threw at it including video formats such as avi, mpg, mkv but also audio formats like mp3. Even better is the fact that it can also play movies from DVD, Blu-Ray or remote locations.

The player uses a basic interface much like the new Windows Media Player lite does in Windows 7. The controls only become visible if the user moves the mouse cursor into the interface. It is then possible to load movies or music, configure and control playback settings and various other options.

We had to use Google Translate to translate the Chinese information on the developer’s homepage into English. The homepage does contain a table comparing SPlayer to various other media players including KPlayer and Real Player (but unfortunately not Windows Media Player, Quicktime, VLC or a MPlayer variant).

Some of the features that speak for SPlayer are that it is Open Source, uses GPU acceleration, has a low installation size, rather low memory and cpu footprint and uses binary codecs to playback videos. The only problem could be the non-English homepage which could make it difficulty to get support or questions answered.

SPlayer is available from the developer’s website. It worked fine in Windows 7 Professional and is likely to work in other Windows operating systems as well.

Winamp by default comes with the option to import the iTunes media library. It does however not include a similar option to import media from Windows Media Player which is why the software program has been created by the developer.

The application can import the Windows Media Player library into Winamp. This includes audio and videos files, all metadata including ratings and play counts.

The software comes with a few options to customize the import of the Windows Media Player library. It is possible to import all media files or only audio or video files. There is also an option to only import audio and video from an existing playlist.

Three additional options are available. It is possible to ignore files that are already in the Winamp Media Library, remove files from the Winamp Media Library that are not in the Windows Media Player Library and to automatically import on Winamp startup.

The program will not make any changes to Windows Media Player no matter which settings are selected in the application.

Windows Media Player Import is available at the developer’s website. It requires Windows 2000 or higher (means it is compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7), Winamp 5 or higher and Windows Media Player 9 or higher.

The changelog lists all of the changes and additions that the developers have packed into the new release of the VLC Player including live recording, finer speed controls, new HD codecs (AES3, Dolby Digital Plus, Real video 3.0 and 4.0), formats, video scaling in full screen or zipped file playback. VLC Media Player can still play most video and audio formats out of the box without needing third party codec installations to do so.

VLC Player is still cross platform which means that the new release is available for all supported operating systems including Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OSX and Linux. Users can download the new release directly from the developer’s website.

A viable alternative is SMPlayer which uses less resources than VLC Player while providing most of the benefits.

I have been using a lot of different ones over the years, but I never really came to like any of them because I either missed features, found them too complicated to use, and I never ever managed to maintain a we ll organized collection, especially with ratings.

I have used Foobar, Media Monkey Winamp, iTunes, and just as in last weeks post, I returned to the most simple one, Windows Media Player 11.Yes, Foobar is simpler, but it is a pain to get to look nice and WMP 11 is built in from the start. I actually like Media Player 11 a lot, I thnk it looks great and handles great, although there could be better features, and frankly, it’s video capabilities are really bad, but I like it for music. So, how do you use your media player?

Windows Media Player never officially supported CD-Text which is where WMPCDText comes into play. The plugin for Windows Media Player 10 or 11 is capable of reading and displaying CD-Text information in Windows Media Player.

The Windows Media Player plugin comes with an option to automatically load the CD-Text information if present on the CD. The alternative would be to right-click on the tracks of the CD to load the CD-Text information into Windows Media Player.

This obviously only works with CDs that make use of CD-Text information. Many burning software programs can burn CD-Text including Nero, ImgBurn or iTunes. The Windows Media Player plugin will run on Windows 2003, Windows XP and Windows Vista with administrative rights required on XP and 2003.

The Adobe Media Player is divided into two key areas. The first are the Genres like Documentary or News that loads a list of shows that can be watched in that category. All the shows are prerecorded so don’t expect to be able to watch tonights shows live in the player.The genres do not contain the shows of the networks, or not all of them which is kinda confusing.

If you want to watch the latest episode of CSI for instance you have to click on networks > CBS > CSI and select the show in that menu. You cannot click on the Entertainment category or Drama (which is not existing) to access the show.

The image quality is surprisingly good and can be compared to that of Hulu, far better than the image quality of Youtube for instance. The interface however feels a little bit sluggish, it always takes a second or so before the next menu is showing up which would be fine for a web application but not for a desktop player.

There is no country restriction currently in place. This means everyone from all over the world may watch the latest episodes of Jericho, CSI or The Hills. You will see advertisement though. The Adobe Media Player will be popular with networks and content creators because of its ad displaying capabilities. It is not limited to in video ads which is a major advantage I guess.

One nice feature is that CBS has added many original Star Trek episodes to the player. If you are a Trekkie you are probably going to love that player. Streams started right away with no delay whatsoever. It surely depends on the Internet connection though and users with slower connections might experience those delays in the beginning until the buffering is sufficient to stream the show.

I won’t be using the Adobe Media Player after this day because it is not offering anything that I would really need. I will closely observe the progress though and make the switch once they add content that is more interesting. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice media player but it does not offer anything that the other media players do not offer.

The distribution has a size of 8.9 Megabytes and comes with an unbelievable amount of features. It is a self-bootable Linux distribution based on the excellent Mplayer which assures that it can play (almost) any file that you throw at it. It plays MPEG 1/2/4, Real Media, Windows Media, Ogg and Matroska and audio and network streams.

The multimedia files can be loaded and played from various sources such as CD, DVD, HDD, LAN or even Internet. It’s all there, it’s tiny and booting really fast. It should not have problems with most hardware setups. The requirements are 64 Megabytes of RAM, a Pentium class cpu (400+ Mhz recommended) or a Mac G3+ (G4+ recommended), an an ALSA compatible sound card, a VESA 2.0 compliant graphics card and a CD or DVD drive.

You can download a prebuild ISO image, sources or Debian repositories from the developers website. There is also a list of supported hardware available which is great if you run into troubles or want to build a computer that can run the Linux distribution.

The one thing that bothered me though was that I could never add a song of my choice to my profile. I’d stumble upon a favorite artist or band but they just wouldn’t have the song I was looking for. Luckily, plenty of people feel the same way, which has led to a fix for this ‘problem’.

This is where Profile Pitstop comes in. This site helps you add songs from your hard drive to your Myspace profile. In the first step, you select the basic look for your player. Basic GUIs range from a cassette or walkman to an Ipod-like interface or just a simple playlist.

Once you decide on a player, you can go ahead and customize it to your liking. This is a great option because you can make your player fit in with the rest of your profile layout. At this stage, you can also decide if you want your songs to begin playing the moment someone visits your page. In addition, you can specify if you want your songs to be played in order or randomly.

The third step involves actually putting the songs into your player. Unfortunately, Profile Pitstop itself does not allow you to upload files directly. You need to upload them to a file storage site and then paste the URLs on the Profile Pitstop page. The key here is that your uploaded file should have a link ending in ‘mp3’. The site itself recommends FileDen for uploading but you can use whatever you like.

Alternatively, you can add links from a site like Skreemr. Just do a search for any song and then paste the link into the Profile Pitstop page. The only downside is that you have no control over how long the song stays online.

Once your playlist is ready, the next page asks you to login or if you would like to register. Registration is not compulsory but if you do register, you will be able to edit your playlist, as well as make changes to your player itself. If you don’t want to register, you can simply click on ‘Skip sign-up’.

In the final step, all you have to do is copy the code which appears and then paste it wherever you want, in your Myspace profile. Or, you can type in your Myspace login details, select a particular section and the player will automatically be placed there. In case you skipped the sign-up, I recommend you copy and paste this code in a text file somewhere on your computer.

This method is the ideal way for someone to add a bunch of songs that are created personally. Maybe you want to relieve a drunken karaoke session or you’d prefer to have the music from your kid’s school recital. You could even record some voice clips and put those up!