The best Media manager?

[kartal]

Hi

I am looking for a media manager application that would let me watch, listen catalog etc. I am not looking for a media catalog, dvd librry kind of thing. WHat I am looking for is an app that can play all kinds of media formats, organize stuff based on folders, format, etc. It would be nice to have conversion skills. It should be  multi platform as well.

In the past I have tried Jriver, which was nice but it does not support Linux.

On the other hand I tried some of the media box kind of stuff, while they look nice I did not like certain functions like auto album cover downloading. It is mind boggling to me to see that such features are hard coded. I looked into disabling some of those features in their forums without much luck. They download album, dvd covers automatically. Why on earth this is an ubiquitous feature that should be hard coded is beyond me really.

Anyways I would appreciate some solid suggestions.

[CWuestefeld]

Take a look at XBMC (XBox Media Center, http://xbmc.org/ ). Despite the name, it runs also on Windows, Linux, etc.

It supports the whole gamut of formats, has library support, and so on.

I'm currently running this in my family room on an old XBox, and in my bedroom on an EeePC netbook with Ubuntu.

[kartal]

Hi

thanks for the suggestion but unfortunately this is one of those that I have tried which downloads album dvd covers automatically which is a behaviour I hate. I could not find a way to disable that nasty behaviour. Also it had problems playing some quicktime movies on Ubuntu.

[sgtevmckay]

I will be watching this thread as well, as I am interested to see what the DC members use and suggest 

[JavaJones]

Hmm, tall order. Organize *and* play a large variety of media formats, but *don't* be a "media center" type app, *and* must be cross platform? I'd say something like KMPlayer, but it's Windows-only. Honestly I'm not terribly familiar with Linux options aside from the various "media center" apps.

It really seems like there should be a way to disable the functions you don't want on those apps - many are open source, and should be tweakable (maybe simply removing the "download album cover art" plugin?).

The only other app that comes to mind is VLC, which has *basic* support for many of these things, but probably not as mature as you'd like.

- Oshyan

[Tuxman]

Hmm, Winamp?
For Linux there might be some other players which do these things. What about Amarok?

[superboyac]

I don't know of any.  Like JavaJones said, you're cross-platform requirement really limits what little options there are.  Can you be a little more clear of your requirements?  You said:

I am looking for a media manager application that would let me watch, listen catalog etc. I am not looking for a media catalog, dvd librry kind of thing.

-kartal (February 16, 2010, 01:08 PM)

You want to catalog, but you don't want a media catalog?  i don't get it.  Do you want to be able to organize your stuff within the software?  Or do you only want it to play stuff?  This part I don't understand.

[kartal]

I am not looking for  catalog application, like one manually or automatically enters extensive information about available media collection, dvd collection etc. What I am looking for is probably closer to JRiver Media center that is cross platform. As I have mentioned I have tried alternative media center apps but most are towards end users who want a keyboarless media center in their living room. I am not one of those.

[superboyac]

Ah!  Ok.  J. River is nice.  I don't know of any as nice as that AND cross platform.  I'm guessing your best bet would be to try one of the good freeware video players.  Like suggested already, KMPlayer, VLC.  Go through the list and see which one is cross platform.  I started a thread about the video players, you can go through those suggestions and see if you like any:
https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=20880.0
I know a few of those are cross platform.

[MrCrispy]

Have you tried Songbird or Amorak?