Windows Media Player 12 Beta 1 (Review)

I lately got my hands on the new Windows Media Player 12 Beta 1, which now have been circulating for a while in most of the downloading sites and torrents. Is it true that Microsoft released such a version without much announcement?? or is this a fake version??....Some say Microsoft released it for beta testing, but there is no sign of such release in the MS website. The truth is, its a fake version developed by some programmer for his on reasons. There is a rumor that programming groups which shows affinity to Microsoft argues them to produce an Ultimate Media Player that can stand up to iTunes from Apple, which is currently dominating the Digital Music World. This must be the reason that MS is keeping quite even though it is getting popular in torrent sites.

Anyway I downloaded WMP 12 Beta 1 and installed it to see how much it is worth to the hype that is given to it by all torrent clients. But unfortunately I got a version provided by the h33t file sharing group which is not in English language. Since I am familiar with WMP 11 interface, I decided to go on with the testing process. And so does my confidence paid me the price. I was surprised to see the same UI provided by WMP 11!!! There is no difference in WMP 12 UI except some smoothening or polishing look given to it by its developer. But there is a change for WMP 12 desktop icon, which gives a better impression than the icon of WMP 11. Take a look at the "Now Playing" page of WMP 12 beta1.

After the first "not so good" feel given by WMP 12, I decided to play some tracks to see how good it is when it comes to the real stuff. So I put some of my best Rock music tracks to the play list and selected the Equalizer settings for Rock generic, and to my surprise it completely beats WMP 11 in playback quality. The Bass has improved a lot, the noise level when playing either the high quality or low quality tracks also has improved. I tried some soft music too.They seem like a pleasure to hear. After all, I slowly began to think WMP 12 is worth its fame given by all torrent sites.

Next I noticed that the Media Library of WMP 12 seems a little more easy to use than the one in WMP 11. It looks like a more intelligent version than the former version. It detects automatically all the media files in your system and adds it to library according to various generic. You don't have to explicitly specify each and every generic tracks. And as a cool feature it automatically finds appropriate Artist/Album informations from audio file properties or from internet, including an Album pic to represent media files in Library.

The video playback has given some improvement. The clarity has increased, all hiccups in playing high resolution videos seems to have no problem to go on with WMP 12. Even the low quality videos can be seen vivid in WMP 12 compared to poor visibility provided by WMP 11.















At the end of the day, I can't tell you whether WMP 12 is a great work done by some third party developer, but it has got some elements that makes you use this version over the genuine WMP 11. I am not telling you that this is a media player that can stand up to the "easy-of-use" and "cool to hear" iTunes, although WMP 12 has made some changes in handling External Media players and devices. Now I have a nice feeling towards WMP when using along with Gtalk for music history status, which I was earlier used to feel ashamed of when compared to Winamp. But WMP 12 is not anywhere near Winamp, the all-time favorite for audiophiles. And when I am talking about Winamp, Nullsoft has released its Winamp 5.52 version at its 10th anniversary. I will be trying to come up soon with a review on Winamp 5.52 with its new revolutionary "Bento" interface.