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      /  Itunes or some like that
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wegster 
Re: Itunes or some like that
Posted on 15-Feb-2005 13:18:12
#21 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 29-Nov-2004
Posts: 8554
From: RTP, NC USA

@Chunder

Quote:
It doesn't (in my simplistic world) sound all that complicated. What else can iTunes do that makes it so special?

@ikir

Yes, but that's not all, is it? Just that one feature hasn't made iTunes the "killer application" of the year...


You've got to realize- software is more than 'the sum of it's technical parts.' A lot dictating if a piece of software is successful or not is the level of clean integration and accessibility of all of it's parts, if the 'workflow' is intuitive to people etc. For the most part, iTunes is pretty decent, not stellar, at everything it does.....although getting it to re-index a SMB share without re-adding everything seems to be impossible to do, as it really wants stuff in it's own local folder...

It's also free with the most popular music store in existence...which tends to help with 'popularity'

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FuZion 
Re: Itunes or some like that
Posted on 15-Feb-2005 13:33:12
#22 ]
Super Member
Joined: 22-Nov-2003
Posts: 1962
From: Birmingham, England

Is there a verdict yet?

Does anyone out there have the drive (Or most probably, time) to do something like this? I think an easier way to start this would be to have a GUI that launched our favorite viewers & players: for WMV, AVI, MOV etc... The GUI could be configured to run MPLayer, for MP3's, PLS & online streams it could run Amplifier or AmigaAmp as defined by the user.

FuZion.

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poweramiga2002 
Re: Itunes or some like that
Posted on 15-Feb-2005 13:48:56
#23 ]
Super Member
Joined: 29-Jul-2003
Posts: 1389
From: Flinders NSW Australia

@Troll

Amitunes !!! that sounds good so someone start coding

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Anonymous 
Re: Itunes or some like that
Posted on 15-Feb-2005 14:32:15
# ]

0
0

@Chunder

What really makes itunes unique (other than everything just working flawlessly) is its database structure. Since it keeps an XML file with the entire music library searching produces instant results. Say you want to hear something by Pennywise.. just start typing the name - and by the time you've typed a large enough potion of the name that no other band/song/album has in common with it, you'll see the entire list of pennywise songs there.

Besides that you can browse by genre/album/artist, stream to Airtunes (right now I'm sitting in the kitchen streaming music over 802.11g to my stereo), use plugins to support other music types, have covers for albums along with liner notes (in pdf format), rendezvous sharing of music (i.e. if you have two machines with itunes started you can play music from the other computer without any further configuration than switching sharing on - it'll pop up automatically). The real killer is the smart playlists. I use it for the least played songs, the most recently added songs (so I can check that it was tagged correctly and find it quickly if I want to hear the new stuff), a playlist for music from each decade, a playlist with my top rated songs, the most played songs and so on. Possibilities are pretty much endless and they are updated on the fly. Besides that it's scriptable with Applescript, so you get all sorts of nice features there. It also performs a sound check so that all albums are played at a similar volume level. It does crossfades, it burns audio or data cds and lots of other nice stuff.

When browsing by genre/album/artist you can quickly do multiple selections and have an instant playlist that way. It makes the oldfashioned Winamp-style playlists seem so terribly ... well, old.

I may have repeated what some others wrote here, but I couldn't be bothered to go back and check ;)

iTunes is quite simply the best and most comprehensive player out there. The beauty of it is that you wouldn't know it just by looking at it, because it's also one of the simplest interfaces around.

 
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amipal 
Re: Itunes or some like that
Posted on 15-Feb-2005 16:42:08
#25 ]
Super Member
Joined: 8-Apr-2003
Posts: 1907
From: Saltdean, East Sussex, UK

@Trezzer
Quote:
What really makes itunes unique (other than everything just working flawlessly) is its database structure. Since it keeps an XML file with the entire music library searching produces instant results. Say you want to hear something by Pennywise.. just start typing the name - and by the time you've typed a large enough potion of the name that no other band/song/album has in common with it, you'll see the entire list of pennywise songs there.

And IIRC XML is now being integrated into OS4 too. So straight away we have another layer ready for such a program to be built.

People - the pieces are there.

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Chunder 
Re: Itunes or some like that
Posted on 15-Feb-2005 17:06:00
#26 ]
Super Member
Joined: 10-Mar-2003
Posts: 1956
From: The City of Xebec's Demise

@Trezzer

Sounds cool!

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Frags 
Re: Itunes or some like that
Posted on 15-Feb-2005 17:19:57
#27 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 23-Nov-2004
Posts: 971
From: East-Midlands (Nottingham) UK

@Thread

WinMX has library features, handles video and other file types AND everything is free :o)
It also has the advantage that, as it`s a peer to peer client, the more operating systems it runs on the better for all involved; maybe this would make it easier for Amiga coders to get the source?
I have looked but there are no contact details for the authors on www.winmx.com beyond an email address for beta volunteers.
Does anyone else agree (that an Amiga port would be a good thing)?

Frags

Last edited by Frags on 15-Feb-2005 at 05:20 PM.

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jkirk 
Re: Itunes or some like that
Posted on 15-Feb-2005 17:34:48
#28 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 28-Jan-2005
Posts: 3349
From: Georgia (usa)

What about musicmatch? It is similar to itunes.

It has
1 a library function
2 plays mp3, wma, etc
3 burns cd's
4 playlist window
5 interfaces with multiple players
6 Converts between supported codecs
7 Records in the preferred format at the preferred bitrate
8 can record from multiple inputs cd/ line in/ mic
9 when recording using line in or mic the software saves a new mp3 during a dead air spot on tape or record(saving you from splitting the mp3 manually)
10 this program is free for basic functionality you pay for the full blown version

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Deniil715 
Re: Itunes or some like that
Posted on 15-Feb-2005 17:39:52
#29 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 14-May-2003
Posts: 4236
From: Sweden

@all

I really don't think we need another MP3-player, especially not one without an integrated GUI. AmigaAmp, AmiNetRadio and AMPlifier rocks the world on that field. Making some kind of GUI especially for making MPlayer play MP3s is kind of pointless.

I am however planning on a playlist in MPlayer-GUI. And when the net and/or arexx-support arrive in MPlayer I intend to make the GUI a bit more custom with slimmed interactive play functions with nice gfx (if someone would be kind enough to make the gfx for the buttons as I'm as ungraphical as one can be ).

ITunes would not be ported to the Amiga within reasonably time IMO, and I will not take on such a large project as to make an AmiTunes from scratch.

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FuZion 
Re: Itunes or some like that
Posted on 15-Feb-2005 18:57:20
#30 ]
Super Member
Joined: 22-Nov-2003
Posts: 1962
From: Birmingham, England

@Trezzer

Quote:
What really makes itunes unique (other than everything just working flawlessly) is its database structure. Since it keeps an XML file with the entire music library searching produces instant results. Say you want to hear something by Pennywise.. just start typing the name - and by the time you've typed a large enough potion of the name that no other band/song/album has in common with it, you'll see the entire list of pennywise songs there.


Really? I didn't know it done that. hehe, it's kinda funny because I was thinking about having something like this amongst some of my other ideas.

@Deniil

Is all I can say.

Just to clarify. Personally I wasn't thinking about another MP3 player. Another way to look at my thoughts could be to compare them to how Nostalgia works (The GUI for various emulators). This is simply a front end that launches the desired emulator when you select a game to play.

My ideas behind this in a media like form would simply do the same but with audio & video. That way the user would never have to worry about which player to run to view a particular type of file. There would be one GUI, that listed all of the audio/video files you have & when the user presses 'Play', it just would.

There would, of course, be filtering options so you could list JUST your videos, just your audio, media from a single artist (eg. Just list MP3's & videos from the Prodigy). The rating system so you could play, at randon if the user wanted, all the files you have that you rate as '4 star' & above, both audio files & video.

Another idea would be for the GUI to always be running & watching all of your chosen directories. Then, when you download or save files into these directories it would automatically add them to your 'New Files' list & after being played a selected number of times (1, 2, 3 or whatever the user wants that number to be) or amount of time (7 days anyone), the file is removed from the 'New Files' list.

There's more... MORE I SAY!!!

But again, no new player as such would be needed. I guess a plugin system could be implemented so that 'internal' players could be added at a later date as new filetypes are introduced to the world.

I'll stop now before I get too worked up

FuZion.

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Maczilla 
Re: Itunes or some like that
Posted on 15-Feb-2005 19:20:28
#31 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 19-Oct-2003
Posts: 206
From: USA

@billt

Two words: Mac-mini

As to AmiTunes - sounds like an intersting idea. Make it
cool and you have a killer app. Never underestimate the
drawing power of 1st class eye candy (nubes love it and
god knows we need some of those)

Of course, Apple has been palaying hardball with Real
Networks (who has been trying to backward engineer
parts of iTunes)

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billt 
Re: Itunes or some like that
Posted on 15-Feb-2005 22:25:31
#32 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 24-Oct-2003
Posts: 3205
From: Maryland, USA

@Maczilla

>Two words: Mac-mini

Huh? I don't see the connection of this to the original poster's question about iTunes or alike on Amiga, or my own proposal to run MacOS software on Amiga ("direct" in AmigaOS, not via Shapeshifter type emulators which load up a copy of MacOS)... If you're suggesting I buy a Mac Mini and leave AmigaOS out of the whole thing, why? Should I also sell my AmigaOne and be done with it? That defeats the purpose of AmigaOS entirely. Besides, I've got a variety of PCs that do more for me than a Mac Mini ever would, and that caters to whatever things I do that AmigaOS cannot provide me with, such as buying/playing songs from the iTunes store and doing my income tax return. I don't get why Mac Mini came into the discussion...

For the remaiing thread that seem to be asking for a player-only tool that looks like the playback portion of the iTunes client, it could be a start of something really cool. I'll stick to using AmigaAmp though on Amiga, WinAMP and iTunes on 'Doze.

Compatibility, which won't be periodically intentionally broken by Apple because "our" programmer used unofficial documentation/code sources to access iTunes or iTunes format files, so I can buy and downloads songs, audio-books, etc. from the iTunes store is what I'd consider a real answer to the original question here, but it seems some people in this discussion are ignoring or not interested in that aspect.

Are we talking about something able to buy/download and play iTunes format files? Or are we talking simply about an mp3/ogg/etc. format file PLAYER that does nothing more than look cool and play audio files?

What about considering the possible future of video support being added to iTunes by Apple, perhaps someday they'll also sell movies and TV shows in addition to their current music offerings... (I can't remember if those vague rumors were about Apple or some other company...) Should any iTunes "lookalike" we'd get be built with that possibility in mind, so if it would happen from Apple then it's not a total rewrite to add that feature?

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amipal 
Re: Itunes or some like that
Posted on 15-Feb-2005 22:33:50
#33 ]
Super Member
Joined: 8-Apr-2003
Posts: 1907
From: Saltdean, East Sussex, UK

@billt

The features I'd like to see in AmiTunes are as follows:

= CD playback (cdplay.library)

= MP3/Ogg playback (mpega.library for the former)

= MP3/Ogg encoding (scould provide a GUI for LAME which remains hidden; cddb.library for tags)

= Song/playlist database as previously discussed (XML?)

= CD burning of encoded files (currently no library available for this)

The GUI could either be MUI or Reaction, but with skinability thrown in.

:edit - added CD burning

Last edited by amipal on 15-Feb-2005 at 11:05 PM.

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Deniil715 
Re: Itunes or some like that
Posted on 15-Feb-2005 22:50:38
#34 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 14-May-2003
Posts: 4236
From: Sweden

@FuZion

Quote:
Is all I can say.


Sorry, but making something like iTunes is just too much work for me I think. But then again, I've never seen iTunes, perhaps it's a small and easy to copy tool Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see such a tool on AmigaOS!

Quote:
Just to clarify. Personally I wasn't thinking about another MP3 player. Another way to look at my thoughts could be to compare them to how Nostalgia works (The GUI for various emulators). This is simply a front end that launches the desired emulator when you select a game to play.

My ideas behind this in a media like form would simply do the same but with audio & video. That way the user would never have to worry about which player to run to view a particular type of file. There would be one GUI, that listed all of the audio/video files you have & when the user presses 'Play', it just would.


Kind of like having a dedicated directory, or dir tree, with audio and video files on your hard disk and having DefIcons take care of what player to launch for each filetype, right? Not to mention having filetypes in DirOpus automatically launch a suitable player.

But sure, it would be nice to have a program specially designed for this with the New files list as you mentioned. A media center so to speak! Making such a GUI wouldn't take long. Making it with fancy gfx would take longer though, and with plugin support it would make it a large project.

The problem of not having real plugins is the communication with the executed players. If they don't have an arexx port it starts to feel a bit meaningless as the user would have to access the player itself (which might be an invisible CLI tool requiring requiring quite a lot of knowledge to stop) for control instead of being able to use the GUI. This is the problem with MPlayer-GUI at the moment, why it doesn't have play/pause/stop functions in it f.ex.

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Anonymous 
Re: Itunes or some like that
Posted on 15-Feb-2005 23:38:13
# ]

0
0

@Deniil715

Well, the key here is definitely making it modular unlike iTunes which is more monolithic even if it has plugin support.

As for basic functionality I think one could easily leave out a lot and still have a very nice, capable player. The most important thing is that the interface remains simple. Have a look here at how much Apple manages to fit into a still very simple UI: http://www.apple.com/itunes/jukebox.html (there are links to other parts of iTunes on the page).

For one thing automatic organizing of one's mp3s is not a *must*. But instead having a good MP3 tagger integrated is a must.

But hey, iTunes was not built in a day either. It's a program that has evolved from an entirely different program (IIRC it was called Sound Jam) into iTunes 1.0 and now we're on version 4.7.

What I would love to see is some sort of library system and preferably support for Amiga/Commodore-related files as well (mods, sids etc).

 
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FuZion 
Re: Itunes or some like that
Posted on 15-Feb-2005 23:43:44
#36 ]
Super Member
Joined: 22-Nov-2003
Posts: 1962
From: Birmingham, England

@Deniil715

Quote:
I've never seen iTunes

Hehe, me neither

Quote:
Kind of like having a dedicated directory, or dir tree, with audio and video files on your hard disk and having DefIcons take care of what player to launch for each filetype, right? Not to mention having filetypes in DirOpus automatically launch a suitable player.

Yeah, That's the kind of thing Only it would be a slightly more 'sandbox' like approach (I hope that's the right term), with the listings, realtime searching from any amount of directories, dynamic playlists etc...

Quote:
But sure, it would be nice to have a program specially designed for this with the New files list as you mentioned. A media center so to speak! Making such a GUI wouldn't take long.

That's the fella!!! I expect it on OS4 Depot tomorrow then

Quote:
Making it with fancy gfx would take longer though, and with plugin support it would make it a large project.

Personally I think Reaction looks nice & neat. A skinnable option (AmigaAmp has this doesn't it? Turning Skins on/off) would be nice, but not essential to begin with. A Reaction based Media Center (AMediaCenter anyone? AmiDiaCenter? Or plain & simple, MediaCenter? Hmmm...) could have some simple icon size gfx without the complexity of skins.

Quote:
The problem of not having real plugins is the communication with the executed players. If they don't have an arexx port it starts to feel a bit meaningless as the user would have to access the player itself (which might be an invisible CLI tool requiring requiring quite a lot of knowledge to stop) for control instead of being able to use the GUI. This is the problem with MPlayer-GUI at the moment, why it doesn't have play/pause/stop functions in it f.ex.

I fully agree on this one. Still, MediaCenter could (To begin with) launch the player & send the file to it like Nostalgia, MPlayerGUI, AMP-GUI, TheMPegEncGUI, xMAMEGui... Until over time, ARexx ports are built into the players/viewers or media player Plugins do/could become an option that talk directly to the Center. Those may be a long way off though.

Your GUI skills appear to be moving at an alarming rate so how bout it then? A basic(ish) kind of Media listing thing to start. I'll back you all the way & even get cracking on some layout ideas, gfx, icons & anything else I can think of ... Not even slightly subtle am I

@Troll

... You still out there?

FuZion.

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HMK 
Re: Itunes or some like that
Posted on 16-Feb-2005 0:06:13
#37 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 17-Mar-2003
Posts: 246
From: Denmark

The real issue about iTunes isn't that it's a music player, it a program which is one part of a suite:

1. iTunes
2. iPod
3. iTunes Music Store
4. Airport Express

iTunes was engineered to be used with the music store and no-one else can use the music store. iPods can be hacked to be used by other apps, but are primarily made to be used with iTunes. The price you pay is that the music store and iPods are close to impossible to use outside of their realm which is iTunes.

Airport Express lets you play music over your stereo wirelessly from your ibook or powerbook with a zero config setup.

What you get for that price is four things that function together almost perfectly. The store is a breeze to use, the player lets you seek through thousands of songs in seconds both locally and from the store and the iPods are artworks of engineering. Together they provide one complete solution to listening to music for millions of users, and they know how to use it.

The program quality is amazing, considering that I've mostly used the Windows version. The first couple of versions crashed here and there, but they were feature complete. From about version 4.6 (started at 4.0), the player became rock stable and hasn't crashed on me for close to a year now.

I once showed iTunes to a guy who had been searching for some older rare songs in record stores for ten years. He never found them. I asked him the composers' name and typed it in the search field. 5 seconds later, several albums popped up in the result list. He smiled. I doubleclicked a song to hear a preview and he almost started CRYING. There were the songs that he had been searching for, for so long.

I've had other funny reactions to it as well. One guy had major trouble burning music to a CD. He had some shareware app up but couldn't get it working properly with his CD burner. I installed iTunes on his machine, dragged the songs into iTunes, put a blank CD in the drive, selected the songs and pressed the 'burn' button. No configuration needed. A couple of minutes later he had a perfectly working music CD. He wasn't a very knowledgable PC user, but he learned iTunes in minutes.

About porting:

Porting iTunes would be hopeless. There are tons of things you need to get over to get a functional iTunes. You need to port the carbon/cocoa APIs which are huge and complex. Not a very Amiga-like solution.

Much better is to build a lightweight clone like Rhythmbox or JuK. There are many clones, though they don't come close to iTunes. The key for now would be to do what iTunes does well, namely let you manage a huge library of songs easily with ratings, sorting and grouping in playlists, and allow the player to minimize to the dock to get it out of the way and play good music for you.

Sharing songs over a network would also be a nice feature, but focus on getting proper music management working first!

Last edited by HMK on 16-Feb-2005 at 12:31 AM.

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Maczilla 
Re: Itunes or some like that
Posted on 16-Feb-2005 3:25:46
#38 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 19-Oct-2003
Posts: 206
From: USA

@billt
"I don't get why Mac Mini came into the discussion..."

I was just addressing the statement "I don't have a Mac yet".
I just figured that since Mac hardware has finally crossed the $500
threshold, this might be a good time to take the plunge (no reason to
throw away your A1, however)

I don't know what it takes to develop the visualizations, but that's what
is missing in some Amiga apps (really 1st class eye candy). I know
the visualizations suck up many CPU cycles, but that's one of the
coolest features in iTunes (and its predecessors Soundjam/Winamp,
etc)to novice users. They love stuff like that and it helps sell the platform
to new meat.

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FuZion 
Re: Itunes or some like that
Posted on 16-Feb-2005 8:22:52
#39 ]
Super Member
Joined: 22-Nov-2003
Posts: 1962
From: Birmingham, England

@HMK

Quote:
(Snip) ... but focus on getting proper music management working first!




FuZion.

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Toaks 
Re: Itunes or some like that
Posted on 16-Feb-2005 8:32:30
#40 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 10-Mar-2003
Posts: 8042
From: amigaguru.com

@Maczilla

i suggest that you check out the Amiga Demoscene back catalouge for eyecandy , until a few years ago Amiga was way ahead of pc and c64 is still ahead of pc one might say aswell (still now yes).

Anyway eyecandy plugs has been in Amplifier and AmigaAmp for a long time but no one really impressed me compared to the real kick ass eyecandy ones on pc for instance.

btw theese eyecandy's which is in Itunes and Winamp drains the cpu to the max and thats both down to the thing it does and how its presented and not cpu / ram oriented( not much anyway ) .

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