When music files start flying between cyberspace, your computer, and out into your portable MP3 player, the integrity of your hardware and software can either make or break the experience. To better understand the state of the art, let's look at three software players: RealOne Player, iTunes, and Windows Media Player. Each player is constantly supplied with an endless channel of upgrades and updates, some free and some at a price. To keep things simple, and to keep things as equal as possible, I used the current basic players, without any purchased upgrades. But be warned, by the time you read this the software will have changed! I use three computers in my daily life — a Dell Latitude C400, a Dell Dimension 4100, and an iMac. I tried out the programs on all three computers, except for iTunes. I ran iTunes on an iMac with OS9.2 (I know, it's time for an upgrade!). They are all excellent players, but there are some important differences. Here's a breakdown of the players.

iTunes 4

iTunes
For simple music management, iTunes can't be beat. Currently, it is only available for Macs, but a PC version is rumored to be out shortly. The latest version, iTunes 4, can only be run on a Mac with OSX, but the earlier versions still work fine, although they do not give you access to the 99 music that iTunes Music Store sells. Also, you'll need iTunes 4 to be able to try out AAC (Advanced Audio Coding from the MPEG4 standard.) However, when it comes to converting file formats, the older iTunes is one of the simplest to use. In the recording studio environment, files get moved around constantly. My console and editing system uses WAV files, and my clients want me to send them MP3 files for approval of mixes. Not a problem. If someone in the outside world sends me an MP3 file that I need to convert for my editing system to recognize them, again, iTunes has no problems. One small gripe: you have to go through to the preferences screen to switch file formats. If you regularly change file types, this can be tedious. If you always convert to one type of file, you don't need to worry about this. There is a 10-band equalizer and crossfade and sound enhancement modes. Playlist management is also a simple drag and drop procedure, and it recognizes MP3, WAV, and AIF files, with variable bit rates. It does not recognize WMA files.


Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player is just what it says — a media player. It can play all music formats, not just WMAs, and it can play video formats. As my default system on a PC running Windows ME, any time I download a video format, this player comes up without a hitch. There are about twenty varieties of skins (a skin is the visual look of the player, which can vary from a typical computer interface to designs that look like fine art, or something a five-year-old designed himself), but most of them make the display too small — for music this is fine, but as a video player, you'll want to use the default player. WMP has some basic audio controls, including 10-band equalization (with no indication of what frequency bands are used) and TruBass boost and SRS WOW that enhances the stereo imaging. Transferring files to a portable device is very simple. This is one of the easier players to navigate through; it is very intuitive, and the menus are straightforward, easily accessible, and do not require a lot of poking around to figure out what you need to do. Instead of requiring me to go searching for my music files, it had every single music file on my hard drive available in my music library, including a few songs that I had forgotten I had loaded.

RealOne Player
The RealOne Player is the latest player from Real Networks. This is a full media player, with video and audio capabilities and a built-in web browser. It is a much better player than the older versions of Real Player, which had a small, busy display that just wasn't very attractive. Like the other players, this is a player, jukebox, radio tuner, and web browser all in one attractive package. It also can search the hard drive for all media files — it found a video clip that I had lost a few months ago. I found this program to be a little tricky to navigate right out of the gate, and in the middle of trying to play some music off my hard drive, commercials from the web started popping up.


The RealOne Player has an interesting dilemma: it has an impressive list of functions, and because of this, it was somewhat difficult to figure out how to do the basics. The basic service has a three-band equalizer. The for-sale upgraded version of RealOne Player is called RealOne Player Plus. It claims to be a universal player that can handle DVD. It also has a CD burning package that can record MP3 files with bit rates as high as 320 kpbs, and it includes a 10-band equalizer. The upgrade version is also required if you need file format conversions; when I needed to convert a WMA file to MP3, the basic player refused.

Final thoughts
Clearly, for Macintosh users, iTunes is the best bet. The access to legal downloads available with iTunes 4 and iTunes Music Store should be reason enough. On the PC side, the choice isn't as obvious. MusicMatch is ideal for strictly audio applications — its appeal is its simplicity. For music and video formats, RealOne Player and Windows Media Player might be your best bets, though for ease of use, the Windows Media Player is a winner. For flashy graphics and an active Internet interface, RealOne Player is your player.

All of the players have alternative skins available with the program or online. Some skins are provided by the software companies, while others are created by users. Whichever computer system you have, take the time to explore the preferences and options of the different players. You might find out that one is more powerful and flexible than you previously thought, or that another is a pain to use. The players are all available as free downloads, so feel free to play!