[trueblue]

PROBLEM -

Every now and then I assess whether some favorite ancient application or another should be upgraded or replaced, and the time as come to do something about MusicMatch Jukebox. I liked MusicMatch Jukebox very much before Yahoo bought it and screwed it up. I even (very grudgingly) used the Yahoo Music Jukebox for awhile but I have gotten tired of the nagging message that comes up each time I start the player to listen to my music or to burn a CD.

What is the best self-contained (I don't want to manage my music library online) non-subscription (I don't want to keep paying for it after I've bought it once) multimedia player that most closely approximates the wide variety of features that MusicMatch Jukebox offered? I particularly liked the IP3-tag editor, and the fact that I could 'tag' multiple tracks at the same time. I also liked that I could change the filename(s) on the hard drive of one or more tracks in one operation directly from the tag editor. Listening to CDs, ripping them, tagging the tracks (or whole albums or playlists), managing my 27,000+ title music library, and burning whatever compilations I wanted to CD was fairly easy with MusicMatch Jukebox.

I am looking for some PCWorld-community recommendations for a replacement (in a Windows XP (SP3) environment) for this venerable application. Finding one that will let me import my already-tagged MusicMatch Jukebox library would be very nice. Something that uses the MS Access database for the library would be great.

What would be the appropriate FORUM for this discussion?

Bubba

[smax013]

First, this is the right place/forum.

trueblue said:

Something that uses the MS Access database for the library would be great.

What you mean by this? Do you have an MS Access database that you maintain yourself with your library information?

In general, any music/multimedia player will read the IP3 tags that are imbedded in the MP3 files and can import in your new library with all that information. That is part of the whole "bit" with MP3s...the information is embedded in the file itself.

You could try iTunes or Windoze Media Player or Winamp.

I don't use Windoze Media Player too much, so I can't say how well it will do what you listed.

It has been a long time since I used Winamp, so again I can't say how well it will do what you listed.

I do use iTunes a decent amount. It should be able to do most, if not all, of what you listed. It can do batch editting of the ID3 tags, but don't know how it will stack up to MusicMatch. The only thing that it might not do is edit the file names from within iTunes.

And FWIW, I stopped using MusicMatch when Yahoo bought it and screwed it up.

[jeffwindowsteam]

I came across this and see there hasn't been much action on the post lately so I thought I would give it a bump. With XP, you already have Windows Media Player 10 (11 is available, too). You can easily add and manage tags with this program or create burn lists with a few clicks. Here are some of the key features that I think will appeal to you: http://www.microsoft...10/jukebox.aspx

Cheers

Jeff

Windows Outreach Team