Upgrades Windows Media Player 12
Oct 25, 2012 Responses to Free Windows 8 Pro to Windows Media Center Pack upgrades until January 31, 2013.
Windows Media Player is available for Windows and Windows Phone operating systems. Use this table to find the right Player version for your system.
Play music and video in more formats and stream it to more places with Windows Media Player 12.
Microsoft engineered Windows Media Player 12 to handle the playback of multimedia files. The program is a convenient tool since it is a part of the Windows software.
Feb 10, 2009 New WMP Interface Though we haven t dwelt on it, Windows Media Player s interface was subtly redesigned. Not only is there a neat pop-up mini music player.
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Windows 7 is Microsoft s way of saying We
WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER
Windows Media Player is never going to be the prettiest girl in school, but Windows 7 gives it a few upgrades that definitely makes it more useful.
File Compatibility
For starters, Windows 7 now supports more types of media files, now including AAC in the audio department, and H.264, DivX and Xvid in video, with no third-party download needed. It also supports all of the formats it did before, including the earlier MPEG stuff and of course anything Microsoft had a hand in, not just WMA and WMV, but VC-1, too. This ability to read so much comes in handy in Play To, obsessively covered down below.
New WMP Interface
Though we haven t dwelt on it, Windows Media Player s interface was subtly redesigned. Not only is there a neat pop-up mini music player for when you want to see what s playing but you re doing other stuff, there s also a new set of tabs on the right-hand side, including a Play, Burn and Sync. The differences are subtle at a glance, but for people who were heavy WMP11 users, this new version, WMP12, has much improved workflow. Ars Technica did a nice detailed walkthrough of the new WMP interface, if you re interested.
PLAY TO
Speaking of play, one of the most potentially groundbreaking features of Windows 7 is Play To, the ability to send music, video and photos to any compatible devices on the network, without running any kind of proprietary software, and without any initial setup. Sending a song to a Sonos or a video to an Xbox is theoretically just a right-click away.
What devices will work.
The reason things work so well in theory is that they all support DLNA standards for sharing content on a network. You right click a piece of content in Windows Media Player, select Play To and up pops any and all devices that can be commandeered. The good news here is that any media renderer be it a networked photo frame or a PS3 that ends up supporting the standard will be able to receive anything you hurl at it from your Windows 7 box, and you ll even be able to grab content from servers and other computers and play them on the renderer of your choice. The downside is that there will surely be good products that don t support the spec for one reason or another.
What devices work now.
In our testing, we sent music to the Sonos and sent certain video files to the Xbox, though only when the Xbox was running the Windows Media Center Extender software. There are currently a number of other compliant play to products such as the Roku SoundBridge but since the spec itself isn t finalized yet, it s hard to just run a list. The DLNA itself will soon be announcing compatible products as they either come to market or receive the appropriate firmware update.
What content works.
As I mentioned, the computer can send media files to renderers around the network. At this point, it s not clear whether or not the computer can tell if the product can render the file it sends whatever you tell it, and then returns an error if it can t be played. But soon, the computer itself will know the file compatibilities of devices on the network, and will transcode files on the fly if there s a better fit say, from DivX to WMA. This stays in the I ll believe it when I see it file for now, but it s confirmed to be part of the deal.
More Play To details and images; for a nice but long-winded video on the subject, click here.
