Quote: "What? I'm running WinAmp right now and it works fine with 5.1 surround speakers."
Yeah, I use 5.1 Surround Speakers... it still outputs the actual sound in Stereo, not Surround. If you can't tell the difference then I feel VERY sorry for you.
Really you have perfect image scaling? So no matter what resolution you have Winamp at, it displays the image smoothly and quickly?
Because on my system it doesn't, when you have it larger than 1x it starts getting aweful artifacts and jaggies.
As for DivX playback.. you must again be a lucky bugger, because all of the systems i've tried Winamp to run DivX movies on, it will stutter, and sometime stop altogether.
Media Player does this when your drivers are good enough for the DivX you are viewing, but WinAmp ALWAYS does this.
Quote: "They're fully customizable."
Really? Because from what i've seen... you can change the theme, but you must still have the same dumbass layout. The Media Player ones are quite inventive; in particular HL2 and ALX versions.
Quote: "Because it's not bloatware. It's offered as a free extra instead of being forced on people who'll never use it."
3rd Party Offerings that don't quite live up to what I'd call user-friendly or stable.
Those features in Media Player provide you with OPTIMISED, (you know what that word means right?) features; so that When you are watching or broadcasting webcasts you have the best service your connection and computer can provide. Syncronisation makes sure you don't miss a thing on live webcasts if your lagging! Which i've found invaluable over the years.
I just remembered another point of what iTunes and Media Player can do that Winamp can't... Browser Intergration.
Internet Explorer and FireFox both have full support for Media Player controls within them in some fashion as well as in webpages.
What's more YOU DONT HAVE TO PAY TO USE ALL OF THESE FEATURES!
That is something that peeves me off about Winamp, everything worth while using COSTS, either through subscription or some money grabbing 3rd party developer.
Why the hell should I pay out $35-40 for something which comes free, integrated and with more features with Windows?