All I ask of a music player is to give it a directory with all the music files in it, and then say "play shuffle". That's it.
Sadly, the only player which will do that is Microsoft Media Player. All the others suffer from one fault or another which causes it to fail:
1. requires installing some third party "server" because sharing the directory isn't enough. The "server" then proceeds to consume all the resources of your computer, regardless of whether it is serving or not. I presumed it was trying to copy all my files to the NSA. What else would it be doing with disk drive light on all the time? for days?
2. does not look at subdirectories. Your music all has to be in one top-level folder.
3. randomly hangs and scrambles its music database (better keep a backup!)
4. hangs if you have more than some undisclosed number of music files
5. if you have more than some undisclosed number of music files, it only plays the first N files
6. displays the bit rate of the file being played. Does not display the name, artist, or album.
7. hangs if the USB stick is a large capacity one
I've tried PC software, Linux software, two different Roku media players (including the default one), 4 different internet radios that promised to play media files from a USB device
So what do I use? Microsoft Media Player.
Sadly, the only player which will do that is Microsoft Media Player. All the others suffer from one fault or another which causes it to fail:
1. requires installing some third party "server" because sharing the directory isn't enough. The "server" then proceeds to consume all the resources of your computer, regardless of whether it is serving or not. I presumed it was trying to copy all my files to the NSA. What else would it be doing with disk drive light on all the time? for days?
2. does not look at subdirectories. Your music all has to be in one top-level folder.
3. randomly hangs and scrambles its music database (better keep a backup!)
4. hangs if you have more than some undisclosed number of music files
5. if you have more than some undisclosed number of music files, it only plays the first N files
6. displays the bit rate of the file being played. Does not display the name, artist, or album.
7. hangs if the USB stick is a large capacity one
I've tried PC software, Linux software, two different Roku media players (including the default one), 4 different internet radios that promised to play media files from a USB device
So what do I use? Microsoft Media Player.