Clash of the Music Titans - iTunes 7 vs Windows Media Player 11 Beta 2
After A Week of Announcements, it’s only reasonable that a comparison study be done, a mini-review for the latest and greatest of the Media Players/Media library of the world. iTunes and Windows Media Player are present in almost all the computers in the world. Windows Media Player - coz of the Windows OS being the most popular OS of the world, and iTunes coz of iPod holding 75.6% of the marketshare of Mp3 players being sold!
Now as far as a novice, average person with an Mp3 player [need NOT be an iPod! I personally use my Sony Ericsson K750i to listen to music on the go] and with an elaborate Mp3 collection at home, which one of these would you go for? Also what are the pros and cons of the two pieces of software on our hand? Downloadable artwork, downloadable music information, downloadable what not.
Podcasts-InternetRadio-Tv shows - the works. What does each software give you? Let’s take a look shall we?
OR
Premise
Downloaded Windows Media Player 11 Beta 2 and extremely satisfied with the music management of Windows Media Player 11-Beta 2 along with the memory consumption. I am running these on my laptop with 1GB of RAM. Extremely satisfied that WMP11 takes about 40MB of RAM only and about 40MB of Virtual Memory @ any point of time. Runs fast, and the minimize to the task-bar - the WMP Mini Player so to speak was also a neat trick, along with the small pop-up to check out which song was playing [automatically pops-up on song change this time] was nice :-)!
[Suggestion: Make it pop up with the album art-work next time for the RC1, Microsoft]
WMP11-Beta2 supported artwork and music information automatic download, which was free and pretty good in fact. Once you manually remove all the unnecessary ID3 tags, Media player automatically grabs the song information and the art work for your music, unless there is a conflict in the song name/artistname or album name etc. Heuristics can always be improved. I was impressed to say the least by this and it was nice to see which album I was playing @ first sight and to see all your songs neatly stacked into their respective album, independent of their location on disk was a definite boost :-)!
When you synch it with your MP3 player, then it also created the folders according to the music library - Artist Name -> Album Name -> Song Name, which was NEAT!! You can of course turn this option off as well, but for a folder management freak like me, it is almost God-sent. :-D!
iTunes 7 was announced and from the screenshots, looked so damn cool, it made me download it and install on my system.
Now, let’s analyse the process right from installing to playing songs and videos and library management process and outputs of both iTunes 7 and WMP11-Beta2.
WMP11-Beta2 vs iTunes 7
vs 
Installation
Like any other Windows installation process, WMP11-Beta2 installs without a glitch on your Windows machine. Once it comes up after the installation, it will give you the option to search ur computer for music. If you have your music split up across many disk partitions and an external disk, then you can select this option to let WMP11 search through your hard disks and other media and index it!
Like what Google has implemented in the Picasa of “watching folders”, WMP11 now comes with watching the folders you ask it to. So, any new song you add into these folders, gets added on to your library and WMP11 tries to download the song information for the same :-)! *Super*
iTunes7 doesn’t have any problems while installing on your PC as well. Although I hate the fact that it installs a WHOLE load of crap along with it. Check out the screenshot of my computer, with the main program of iTunes7 NOT running, lemme repeat, iTunes 7 is NOT running. I mean WTF? I don’t need a damned iPodService running in the background hogging my precious memory and I definitely DON’T need an iTunesHelper running when iTunes itself isn’t running. Agrees, these might be absolutely unavoidable for an iPod+iTunes user, but then, i am not one and hence i need an option to let iTunes7 know that I am not gonna connect my non-existent iPod onto it and hence don’t need an iPodservice taking ANY amount of memory!
[Click on the picture for a larger image]
And for sure I don’t need it hogging my memory if iTunes itself is NOT running! Phew… *breathing to myself and counting back from ten*
Anyhoo just as a test - I had WMP11 Beta 2 and iTunes7 running separately and found out the memory consumption of each, just like that
Here’s the comparison chart
| Service | Program | Physical Memory (KB) | Virtual Memory (KB) | Total memory consumption (KB) |
Test system specs: FSC Amilo Pi1556: T2400@1.83Ghz,1024MB PC4200 DDR2,120GB Fujitsu MVH2120,Geforce7600 G0 256MB GDDR3,WinXP Home SP2 patched with all the latest security updates
Note: iTunes memory is calculated by iPodService+iTunes+iTunesHelper memory consumption. I have not included Quicktime memory consumption, as I am not including the DLLs used by WMP within the Windows OS DLLs. Fair deal don’tcha think?
Conclusion: WMP11 beats iTunes in most of the memory tests, but still, the difference is felt when you actually scroll through the songs in your window. iTunes - even with such a configuration seems a drag, when compared to the almost smooth scrolling within WMP11. Personally WMP11 beat iTunes hands down according to me. Hmmm wondering how Microsoft is not coming up with a Mac port of WMP11 especially with support to the iPod. *wondering*
Music Management
WMP11 features all the major sorting category for the music it has indexed on its directory. There are many views you can select.to view your music apart from the viewing category - Artist|Album|Songs|Genre|Year|Rating, much like WMP10, not present in iTunes :-)!
[Click on the image for a screenshot]
What I was amazed was the really fast indexing by WMP11 and a detailed management of these, in tandem with its own update from the web. You can also force the tag updation [info updation in the WMP11 parlance] by right clicking on the song and clicking on “Find Album Info”. I just hope Microsoft continues to keep this paid. Coz, rite now it’s a USP for them over iTunes, as iTunes requires you to have an iTunes Store account, for which credit card information is required and Apple has never mentioned anywhere if that takes up any money from ur card, just for album artwork!!
Conclusion: Within Windows WMP11 is a better music manager, not hogging memory or causing any sluggish UI activity when the conversion and the remaining activities are going on. And the fact that you need an iTunes Store account for downloading album artwork is a HUGE disappointment! :-(! Coz, I downnloaded iTunes7 with a lot of anticipation to test this feature out, and see the 3d view. I was terribly disappointed Apple *hmmprff*
Urge vs iTunes Store
Much like the integration between iTunes and iTunes Store, I think Microsoft has tied up with Urge for music downloads, tv shows and the rest o the jing bang, which is good for the people with moolah to buy music of these services. [Btw no offense to you guys who do that 
Keep @ it. You pay for these software to be free anyway]!!
Personally i was kinda impressed with the integration of iTunes Store with iTunes, as compared to the Urge integration with WMP11. But still somehow iTunes7, and I tested it out - iTunes 6 itself is too slow in the UI as compared to WMP11.
Look n Feel
Guys over at Microsoft have spent quite some effort in changing the look of WMP11. The jet black interface with the blue buttons is a sight to enjoy. I loved the look rite from the beginning. Furthermore, great enhancement has been done in making it mesh well with the default color of the Vista taskbar [yeah it’s gonna be dark as well duh!]
iTunes still maintains its Mac look and feel, which mite be the reason for the sluggish behavior in Windows. ;-)! Nothing phenomenal, except for the 3D album artwork look which unfortunately couldn’t be tested by me!! [Still pissed off Apple!!]
Cons
Video playback in iTunes7: The vdo collection and interface looks amazing. However when you run a vdo and run your mouse over the window, it jerks up and suddenly your vdo jerks, because of the controls fading into the window. I mean, WHOA!! I was shocked when that happened. Pathetic would be an understatement when I say that! I mean jerkiness in the video? Terrible and horrible!
Disapperance of songs from WMP11 Library:This was a cause of major cocern at times, when the songs suddenly disappeared off the library [possibly still in Beta 2 coz of some problems like this], but it scares me, coz with an option, like Delete from Media, if deleted from library on by default, ur music might suddenly disappear one day, which is SCARY!! I think Microsoft should let it by default remain unchecked.
Conclusion
- For a novice user without an iPod and who wants to organize his music into albums, and see thse albums on screen and who does not have an iTunes Store account, the WMP11 is a sure bet.
- For those people with an iPod, and who are used to iTunes, but who don’t have an iTunes Store account, try giving WMP11 a whirl. You just might like it as your music manager :-)!
- For those of you who think iTunes is the greatest and best music management software, I really don’t see it :-D!!
Disclaimer
I have to give this as part of the policy of Scribez! The opinions presented here are my own and outta my analysis. You can comment whatever you want, but please don’t expect me to justify my findings and opinions with anything further gerd [geek+nerd]ier. This is as much as I go. Already have tested my limits. I am doing this for Scribez!! Have to get back to my normal sane self after this analysis.
September 18th, 2006 at 9:26 am
I like Itunes … I can’t give any particular reason lol :D. Maybe its because I have so many songs that i downloaded from ITunes. and which I can play only on itunes or a IPod. but all that is going to change.
the DRM has been cracked going to blog about it soon 
September 18th, 2006 at 9:06 pm
@Guru
If u ever get into another comparison frenzy, try putting in Amarok. I found that the easiest to use for music management.
October 4th, 2006 at 10:41 am
If only Amarok worked in windows, I would be in heaven.
October 4th, 2006 at 1:23 pm
@ daedalus and Irian: What’s so great about Amarok?? :-/
October 13th, 2006 at 2:02 am
Amarok is very easy to use, very friendly interface, support for radio stations, supports easily pretty much any audio format you throw at it, can synchronize with portable music devices, has a smart rating feature where the rating of music is determined on the number of times you’re playing it rather than manually setting it, groups music by artists in a visually interesting way… many features to list!
I absolutely love to use it when on Linux, the more I tried it, the more I liked it.
November 29th, 2006 at 12:12 am
I just got my 2000t and all of my songs are skipping in iTunes, and I cant figure out why. If someone could help me out and tell me how to fix this I would really appreciate it because its driving me crazy. Thanks for the replys.
December 3rd, 2006 at 8:02 pm
[…] read more | digg story […]
December 16th, 2006 at 10:29 am
I hate iTunes. WMP is the one thing i miss about not having a PC anymore. The way that everyhting is organized. It looks like for 11 they got rid of the + and - buttons fy artist and album and everyhting. i realy liked that. made it easy to find what u are looking for. And of course the fact that WMP groups albums by different artists together, so that u dont get one album spread all through your library. Or if there is a guest artist on one track, WMP know it is still the same origional artist, and sorts it with that person. instead of treating it like an entirly new artist.
again, iTunes sucks, and i really wish WMP 10 was for Mac too.
December 16th, 2006 at 12:01 pm
@ Elliott: What do you own now? iTunes does suck at times. However, it’s still one of the more popular Media management software!
April 17th, 2007 at 3:49 am
I must say I found this comparison very biased and not at all helpful in making a choice of my own on which program to use… back to google it is.
May 17th, 2007 at 12:09 am
Like more the WMP (Even more that isn’t a beta) but the CD ripping in WPM is kinda difficult in comparison with the iTunes system…
Who knows….Maybe is me!
June 5th, 2007 at 11:21 pm
Jon, that is such a mac fanboy comment, guys like you need to shut it. Here is my opinion. I had the Ipod, the first generation, when it came out on Windows XP and the 2nd the 3rd generation. And all three broke with sad icons are hd drives failed in addition of one Ipod I got from warranty. Never bought an Ipod since, but the point is I have used Itunes and WMP11. I have to say WMP11 has the edge over Itunes for music management, for all the reasons above. Although itunes has podcasts, and now drm free songs, only one type of playlist type, better, and a memory hog. But if you’re into podcasts and stuff then go for itunes and if most of your songs are mp4. If you don’t like either one go for foobar or winamp.
June 5th, 2007 at 11:22 pm
forgot to mention cd rippin is better on itunes
July 5th, 2007 at 1:12 am
hi. i can’t really comment b/c i don’t have any experience w/ itunes but i do have a question. you’d mentioned something about songs just disappearing from WMP11. well, that happened to me last night. all of a sudden all of my songs were gone, ALL of them. they’re still in “My Music” folder, but not in WMP. I’ve tried to add them back by monitoring the folders from which it’s supposed to detect song files, but that has had no effect. any suggestions on what i can do? thanks!
August 17th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
I’m new to music management in general so am comparing, for the first time, WMP11 and Itunes 7. I think WMP has a better way of organising the music - the tile view allows me to see many more albums at the same time and I like stacking according to artist. It’s good at finding art and track tag info but it has deleted some tracks without asking which really do have seem to have gone. It also tries to update some tracks in compilation albums that it thinks should be on other albums and has spawed new albums. It seems it is TOO automated. I’m scared to leave it running in case it changes stuff again.
As an owner of quite a few AVI films I like having them in the same media player - itunes could do with being able to organise and play non QT video media. Since it uses QT I doubt this is gonna happen soon.
I wish WMP11 handled radio differently. I want ALL my media handled in the same way by the same player. I don’t want to have to go into URGE to look at radio stations and I don’t want to have to see subscription radio if I don’t want it. I also want it to be better than 64kbs/s. iTunes is more integrated in this respect although that too could do with presenting them in the same way as it does tracks and albums - maybe some station artwork/logos like album art.
August 17th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
Also I think both of them should have the ability to add and fully integrate 3rd party radio stations so they appear the same as the default ones. I know you can add stations to itunes if you have a url but they appear in a different view
September 21st, 2007 at 6:40 am
WMP11 is not sluggish the way itunes is.
WMP updates things automatically - for instance, if you drag a folder of new music into a monitored folder, when you open wmp, it will find it. That’s a BIGGIE.
Itunes - drag select doesn’t work and neither do a host of other windows things which make life easier and better - renaming functions aren’t as good. Try single clicking on a artist or something and then using the delete button to delete some info.
Itunes can screw you very easily if you sync to an ipod - damn! If you delete something from your HD, it can easily be deleted from your ipod. That sucks! Give more of a warning. make it easier to NOT delete things.
Itunes tries to constantly drive you to the store.
Bottom line - I HATE ITUNES… and I haven’t even reitereated the memory hogging bs.
I hope it works better on a mac, cause if it doesn’t - there are a lot of suckers in that cult.