Banshee 2.0: Major update, major improvement
If you are just now getting into the Linux foray and you plan on listening to music or other forms of mult-media, you are one lucky person. For those of us who have spent years struggling with various media players, the time has finally come for something really special. That something special is Banshee 2.0. With this new release comes a lot of improvements (in both performance and features.)
I want to walk you through the upgrade process for Banshee 2.0 on Ubuntu. You don't have to be using the most recent beta release of 11.04, but you really can't go back any further than Ubuntu 10.04. With that in mind, let's see what Banshee 2.0 will bring you and how you can get it installed.
New Features
Here is a list of the new features offered in 2.0.
Artist/Album Browser Track Actions: Finally you can right-click on an artist or album and select an action to act upon the selection. From that list you can Add to play queue, Play after, Add to play list, write to CD, edit track information, and more.
'Play After' Queue Options: From the Play After menu option you can insert a track or an entire album after the currently playing track. This makes listening to must on the fly very easy.
User Interface Improvements:Â Several changes have been made with a goal of having a clearner and user-friendly UI. These changes include:
- Removal of active source titlebar.
- Search now beside volume button.
- Smaller icons.
- Hidden counts for libraries.
- Name group-separators..
- Seek slider and search area can be resized.
- Podcast episodes now shown in grid and include descriptive lines.
Ubuntu One: The Ubuntu One Music Store is no longer an extension, but a part of the core Banshee application. No more enabling this feature. SoundMenu extension also enjoys this same change.
Subtitles: Support has been added for embedded and external subtitles.
Enhancements
There have been a ton of enhancements that are now available in Banshee 2.0. Some of these enhancements include:
- Support Amazon Cloud Player browsing and downloading
- Remember sources' column configuration
- 'Shuffle by' respects user-selected artist/album
- MultimediaKeys: Support Pause, FastForward, Rewind, Repeat and Shuffle
- Album grid has tooltips for ellipsized text
- MusicBrainz cover art search supports CDBaby and Jamendo
- Allow to clear the play queue while in Populate mode
- Add a new 'Recently Played' default smart playlist
- Blank track editor spin buttons when 0
- Remove Home and Photo folder import sources
- Improved write-metadata-to-file performance
- Many improvements and fixes to the F1 user guide
- Add support for handling u1ms:// links
- AmazonMp3.Store: amazon.ca support
- Daap: Keep a list of recently used remote servers
- Windows build (alpha-quality) now available
- Mac build (beta-quality) has been updated
Installation
The installation of Banshee 2.0 is actually quite simple, if you follow these steps:
- Open a terminal window.
- Issue the commandÂ
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:banshee-team/banshee-daily - Issue the commandÂ
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
You will notice, during the installation process, the Ubuntu One extension will be removed, this is normal and must be done, since this service is now rolled into the core.
Once the above commands are run open up Banshee and you should now see a much-improved interface as well as a far better performing player.
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The warning message about AAC streams when you load streams is because you don’t have the free Orban AAC/aacPlus Player Plugin installed.
http://codecpack.co/download/Orban-aacPlus-Player-Plugin.html
Justin, thanks for the information.
does this support AAC ? or only mp3 streaming
I’d say it supports all pls streams but I have not tried that so cannot verify it 100%.
Thank you Martin for a most informative and viable solution (it allowed me to play streams from a Netherland internet radio station in my WMP)! Continued success to you!
Barnabas (USA)
Your steps’ recommendation is still valid until 7th October 2012.. Thank you very much !!
Thank you!
You must convert file.pls to file.m3u
because file.pls open with winamp and file.m3u open with wmp.
Hi
2017 still kicking on Windows 7
Thx a ton
Hey, even i can do it, i stumbled through it and it works great! The only instruction advice i will add as i had to figure this out, when the wmp box opens that says save or open the bar on right says wmp click that drop down and select “open pls in wmp” once you do that it will work . Took me quite some time to discover that as i am no computer expert by any means. Having said that, previously i had downloaded codec packages and something about aac. None did any good. This rocks, i listen to a lot of internet radio and a number of them have dropped flash player and getting wmp to work had been a nightmare. So many thanks for this great solution to another problem that Micro-Hell will not even address. Peace- Out
openplsinwmp came in a zip file. I unpacked it, and didn’t find anything that looks like an executable, and even the files in the “doc” folder were in a format windows didn’t recognize. I’m not stupid. you said it would open effortlessly. It didn’t. This a rabbit hole I don’t want to go down.