Tehcnorati Tags: windows media player 11, media player 11, windows media player, WMP 11

 

Update: Note this is not a Official Microsoft Release and only a preview release of the  actual software that is available with Softpedia which also has an Official mention on the Microsoft site related to Windows Media Player 11. 

 

 

Microsoft has officially released the Windows Media Player 11 on Wednesday, the Microsoft download link for Windows Media Player 11.

 

This release of the Windows Media player has a better usability experience and also has better hardware and software support.

 

The Media Player 11 has lots of nice features like Stacking, WordWheel, Back and Forward Buttons, New Cd Burning feature and a new feature called URGE;

The line between what's on your PC, a plugged-in portable device, a CD, or network computers, and what's obtained from the Internet is seamless and invisible to the user. This integration will forever change the way music lovers experience music. URGE will change it, too.

 

 Entire Feature list of the Windows Media player 11

One of the problems with older versions of Windows Media Player is that if you have a lot of music, browsing through the titles is cumbersome. Sure, smart playlists help, as does grouping by genre or rating, but titles aren't really denoted graphically. Some of the coolest new features of this version turn all of that on its head.

Stacking

With stacking, you can see graphically how many albums you have in a specific category of music. The more items you see in a stack (category), the larger the pile. Categories for stacks include genre, artist, and album. Changing the interface from a long list of titles to a graphic representation not only makes the interface more pleasing to the eye, but also makes understanding, navigating, and managing your music easier.

WordWheel

Digital music collections are getting larger and larger. With a large collection comes that first inevitable memory lapse. Believe it or not, there will come a time when you can't remember the name of an album, the artist, or the name of the song you want to hear. So Media Player 11 offers a way to instantly find exactly what you want.

Specifically, Windows Media Player 11 includes the Windows Vista WordWheel search functionality, incorporated right into the Media Player Library. Just type part of the artist's name, song title, or genre—whatever you can remember. The Library smartly “prunes” through your entire collection with a query across relevant fields and offers up what it thinks you're looking for.

Back and Forward Buttons

The new Back and Forward buttons do just what you'd expect them to do. They make using the player more Internet-like, and offer a simple way to browse the interface or return to something you were doing, viewing, or listening to earlier. This Internet feel seems quite natural and intuitive.

New CD-burning features

How much space is left on the CD you plan to burn to and whether you have enough room for one more track has always been a guessing game. Worse is creating the ultimate playlist only to find that it won't fit on the CD. With the new Burning Progress Bar in Media Player 11, that's over. The bar is a graphic representation of how much space is left on the CD. The progress bar gets longer as songs are added to the playlist. When the bar reaches the end of the graphic, the disk is full.

If you have the ultimate playlist but it won't fit on one CD, you can burn it to multiple CDs. With Multiple Disk CD Burning, you'll be prompted that the music won't all fit, and then prompted to put in another CD when the first one is full. Now that's progress!

Tip: Media Player 11 has multiple views. In addition to Album view, there are Year, Songs, Genre, Contributing Artist, and Composer views.

URGE

The line between what's on your PC, a plugged-in portable device, a CD, or network computers, and what's obtained from the Internet is seamless and invisible to the user. This integration will forever change the way music lovers experience music. URGE will change it, too.

URGE

URGE is a new MTV music service that lives right below your personal music library. It, along with everything else, is seamlessly integrated. With URGE, you can purchase and download individual tracks or purchase a music subscription. And you can use all of the cool new Media Player 11 features with URGE just as you can with your own music; you can stack, use WordWheel, navigate in various ways, and more.

With URGE, you can subscribe to particular feeds, too. You can subscribe to a feed for a specific artist, for instance, and specify that you want to download music, get updates, or get information about that artist based on your preferences. URGE has a local library of over 2 million tracks, and music syncs easily with portable devices. Of course, you'll get the usual rich album content, artist data, and radio art, too. It blows me away that through Media Player 11, I can browse, organize, and play over 2 million songs just like the songs are my own local content!
Stay informed and up to date

One of my major gripes about older versions of Media Player is that I never really knew what was going on during a task. Wasn't buffering finished yet? How's that sync going? Will all of this fit on a CD? And which songs can I put on there, based on the song's license? Why won't this song sync to my MP3 player? This version of Media Player has ended these aggravations with Global Status and Sync Status.

 

Global Status

No matter what the task, Windows Media Player 11 can tell you in an instant what's going on. With the Global Status feature, you can easily find out how buffering is coming, what song is currently being synched, how CD ripping is progressing, and more. Finally, no more guessing!

Sync Status

Synching music to portable devices is an important part of any media application. The new synching features in Media Player 11 can play hardball with the best of them. Just plug in your device and click Start Sync. You'll see the songs to be synched listed, with a progress bar for each one. You'll always know how much more there is to go, and what the current progress is. Plus, if any song can't be synched, the player gives you a reason for it.

Tip: Manual synching is simple; just drag items from your library to the sync list, and when you're done, click Start Sync.

 

You can check the entire feature list of Windows Media Player 11.