Songbird is a very good media player that looks like the Apple QuickTime player. Its interface is quite sleek for a freeware.
After the player is installed, you need to select the folders to be scanned for media files. The media library is the main window of the program. Searching for files and browsing the library is very fast, unlike in Windows Media Player, where it is hard to know whether a particular file is included in the library or not. The program scans and adds all the files in one single process. The items found will be grouped according to the genre, artist, and album. It can find damaged/broken tracks and duplicated ones. It includes a metadata editor, and the album art can be downloaded from the Internet.
It includes a lot of online features, the music store is one of them, and many radio stations are available too. YouTube cannot be viewed from its inbuilt browser, because of some errors happening.
The “Add-ons” tab lists the websites where we can get free add-ons (I liked the one called “The Exorcist”). But don’t install many of them as it will make the program very slow.
Anyway, the program is slow at start and, on the other hand, it doesn’t seem to support the Windows Aero interface.
Different feathers for Songbird, or “skins” are also available for free. Skins identical to the aero theme can be installed.
As a whole, this is very good piece of software.
v1.2 [Mar 1, 2008]
NEW FEATURES AND IMPROVEMENTS
Automatically Organize Library Files
Songbird can now automatically organize the files that are contained in your library. Once enabled, it will consolidate your media in one location. You can customize the structure of the folder and file names based on metadata contained in every track.
2-Way iTunes Import/Export
If you’re using iTunes Music Store to purchase content, you can now automatically expose iTunes library tracks and playlists into Songbird. You can also export tracks and playlists added to Songbird back into iTunes, so that they can easily be synced to your iPhone or iPod touch.
Last.fm Radio
Last.fm Radio supports artist, tag, and user stations, mapping station links on the Last.fm website to play internally in Songbird. It includes the Radio Directory allowing you to conveniently browse and explore the tag and artist relationships on Last.fm. Additionally, the Radio directory includes quick links for playing stations based on your Last.fm library, your Songbird library, and friends/neighbors’ libraries.
10-band Equalizer
Now you can tweak the frequency response of the audio playback to match your room’s acoustics or your personal preferences.
KNOWN BUGS/ISSUES
Below are the high profile bugs/issues which are known to still be open for this release. You can also check the Common Duplicates page for lesser profile known issues.
