Scan & Fix 50 registry issues FREECNET Editors' review
Despite a glut of free player/encoders, it's tough to find one that meets our expectations. Formerly known as Sound DB, MediaMonkey has excellent library-management tools that keep the largest digital music collections well organized. Stir that up with integrated CD and DVD burning, a stellar interface, a full-featured encoder, and the ability to sync with portable audio devices such as the iPod, and you have a pretty compelling product.
Upon first launch, the program scans your drive for supported digital media files to add to the library. Files are sorted based on their ID3 tags, and the helpful Auto-Rename and Auto-Tag From Filename features keep untagged tracks from falling through the cracks. Party mode locks down your library while still allowing people to request songs. Auto DJ plays selections from your library even when there are no requests in the queue. Third-party plug-ins are available from the site if you want to tinker with the playback and encoding engine or add additional sound-processing effects. The interface is well designed, with clean, colorful icons throughout.
Considering the overall polish of this application, you'll be hard-pressed to find anything you don't like. Although it's definitely geared toward managing extensive collections, just about anyone will appreciate the comprehensive feature set. For $20, MediaMonkey Gold adds advanced features such as sleep, scripting, previewing, and on-the-fly file conversion when syncing with a portable device.
MediaMonkey Standard - Manage large media collections - Download Video Previews:Publisher's Description
From Ventis Media:
MediaMonkey is a music manager and jukebox for serious music collectors and iPod users. It catalogs your CDs, OGG, WMA, MPC, FLAC, APE, WAV and MP3 audio files. It offers an intelligent tag editor which looks up missing Album Art and track information via Freedb and the web, and an automated file and directory renamer to organize your music library. It includes a CD ripper, CD/DVD Burner, and audio converter for saving music, and manual or automated playlist editors for creating music mixes. Its player automatically adjusts volume levels so that you don't have continually fiddle with the volume control and supports hundreds of Winamp plug-ins and visualizations; or if you prefer, it can use Winamp as the default player. It also includes portable audio device synchronization that allows you to quickly synch tracks and playlists with iPods and other portable audio devices.
Version 2.5.4.978 adds improvements and fixes related to synchronization, support for wav tags, and CD/DVD Burning.
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All versions:
4.0 starsout of 1,312 votes
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Current version:
4.1 starsout of 76 votes
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My rating:
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"It crashes a lot and it's NOT FREE"
Version: MediaMonkey 2.5.4
Pros
It plays various types.
Cons
They say it's free here but IT'S NOT FREE, you have to pay to get all the options working. Besides, it crashes a lot. I paid for it, but their technical support doesn't answer my emails. Stay Away!
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"What's all the hype?"
Version: MediaMonkey 2.5.4
Pros
ummmm...Lot's of people say good things about it...
Cons
This software sucks like many of the other playes out there...I've been using musicmatch for years but have tried many...Just recently I went to winamp for about 2 mins...Sucks...I actually paid for this one with all the raving reviews...Sucks...FINALLY Windows Media Player 11 had me uninstalling every other piece of playback software I ad installed...Including WMP classic which has been a trooper over the years playing back every video file known to man...Don't buy this, is what I'm trying to say...It sucks...
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"The Best out there"
Version: MediaMonkey 2.5.4
Pros
I used Music Match Jukebox for years and liked the easy ability to rename files and convert bitrates. Nothing came close despite many annoyances (large and small) until I found Media Monkey. Media Monkey allows you to easily and quickly (much quicker than Music Match) rename and tag files. You even have the ability to automatically tag an album by using Amazon.com. For those of that like more than just American music you'll be happy to know that you can use Amazon's American site as well as Amazon's sites for Canada, UK, Germany, France and Japan as well. Renaming files also take mere seconds vs. minutes Music Match. Other nice features are a case checker script that will rename files with the correct capitalization (nice when a file gets labelled in all caps) and an auto increment track # which will allow you to easily and quickly number your tracks starting with the track number that you choose.
Put simply, the features of Media Monkey are far superior to that of ANY other application that I tried (and I tried MANY). If you have a very large music library (tens of thousands of files) Media Monkey is the only way to go.
Cons
The only complaints that I have are:
1.) Cover art doesn't update as tracks are played. It would be nice to see the cover art when tracks change so you can visually see which album is playing.
2.) I liked the ability in Music Match to see all the filenames of the tracks I selected to edit in one area. With Media Monkey you can only view one track at a time which at times, depending on what you're doing, can slow you down.
Overall these cons are very small "nit-picky" type of items and shouldn't dissuade anyone from trying out Media Monkey. I liked it so much I bought a lifetime license which is something that I've never done before.
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"Problems on first use"
Version: MediaMonkey 2.5.4
Pros
no comments
Cons
It took more that 45 mins to scan through my collection of mp3s. "372 of 522" was reflected on the status bar which was far from the actual total 1000+ and both digits kept increasing which I feel that it doesn't make sense.
After waiting for 45mins and it's still scanning (as if for virus) I was so irritated that I shut the whole application down.
3 stars were deducted as i was so irritated by the way they scan for media files and the inaccurate display of the progress.
2 stars because I don't want to judge it before I even tried it or else it gets only 1.
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"Lots of features but still lacks some flexibility"
Version: MediaMonkey 2.5.4
Pros
Lots of nice features in the free version, including sync with iPod and others, tag management, volume normalization, some flexibility in play modes.
Cons
Lacks some flexibility - saves ripped files C:\My Music, not in My Documents\My Music. Some trouble with auto-rip and cddb info download windows interfering with each other made it hard to auto-rip.
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"The best music player/manager"
Version: MediaMonkey 2.5.4
Pros
I've tried many music players until I choose Media Monkey, in my opinion simply the best. It does it all.
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"Good program, but requires some tweaking."
Version: MediaMonkey 2.5.4
Pros
I like how it offers a wide array of features for a free version
Cons
It takes a while and a lot of trying to get it set up to work properly and the way you want it to. It also comes with some really fugly MAC skins.
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"It's OK but maybe to much."
Version: MediaMonkey 2.5.4
Pros
Quick tagging en finding the right titles.
And also albumcovers but not all.
Cons
The music choke's if you adjust the equalizer.
Did not get an auto-update to latest version even though i am a paying customer.
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"Very handy tool for general audio file management/handling."
Version: MediaMonkey 2.5.4
Pros
Ideal tool for general audio file management/handling. It efficiently does what the developer says it does. It is generally flexible for adding plug-ins, though the plug-ins are not seamless (I used WinAmp as the player for better play functionality), and it uses the LAME encoder for best fidelity.
Cons
Plug-ins are not seamless (since I used WinAmp as the player for better play functionality), e.g. you cannot fully control your plug-in player from MediaMonkey. The bundled LAME encoder expires after 30 days unless you upgrade to MediaMonkey Gold (they have a fine print on their website, but they did not disclose this on the CNET download page). This is probably OK if you don't perform CD-rippings or format conversions. To get around this, you will have to look around for a free version of the encoder and install it as a plug-in. Overall, these are only minor drawbacks.
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"Great player"
Version: MediaMonkey 2.5.4
Pros
MM is light on the computer and very powerful in terms of features. The auto tag/organize functions are great.
Cons
It lacks more flexibility in terms of fields, especially for classical music.
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