14 DAY TRIAL // The Redmond Company has released what it calls a milestone for music fans and the digital entertainment experience on Windows XP. Windows Media Player 11 is the brother of the homonym media player for Windows Vista with optimized search, management and support for portable music players.
"Windows Media Player 11 is the first media player to be truly designed with the digital entertainment lover in mind," said Mike Sievert, corporate vice president of Windows at Microsoft. "The fresh, exciting new look, the ability to find songs and videos in an instant, and the enhanced capabilities for syncing with portable devices are not only exactly what customers have asked us for, they're also a preview of what's to come in Windows Vista."
Windows Media Player 11 is available as a free download to all users of genuine copies of Windows XP. This means that validation of the windows XP operating system is mandatory, prior to installing WMP 11.
The Redmond Company has revealed that - through the support of its partners - in excess of 200 portable and home networking devices and online music and video services on a global basis will be fully compatible with Windows Media Player 11.
"Consumers are demanding more flexibility and options when it comes to downloading content to their portable media players," said Andrew Yang, COO of iriver America. "When combined with Windows-based devices such as the iriver clix, Windows Media Player 11 provides the most complete solution for accessing, downloading and managing their digital libraries."
"Windows Media Player 11 is another significant step forward in bringing consumers a better digital music experience," said Eric Bone, director of product marketing of audio and video products at SanDisk. "By integrating SanDisk's line of Sansa MP3 players with the new Windows Media Player, we're giving consumers the ultimate choice of how they manage and where they get their music."
Windows Media Player 11 is designed to deliver a personalized level of interaction via the customization options introduced into the application's GUI. Moreover, the visually driven experience of WMP 11 extend to navigation, shortcuts and the predefined category views. As far as content is concerned, Windows Media Player 11 seamlessly integrates online and desktop services and capabilities, delivering new formats for ripping and playback such as Windows Media Audio Professional and WAV Lossless. Additionally, WMV 11 offers "improved device experience with new shuffle sync and reverse sync options, device exploration using the library view, and intuitive help icons that ensure seamless and intuitive syncing and burning of rights-managed content. And industry-first audio fingerprinting capabilities that recognize and import track information for unidentified or misnamed audio files," stated Microsoft.
Microsoft is presenting WMP 11 integration with URGE as one of the core features of the media player, that permits access to over 110,000 artists and more than 2 million songs.
"MTV Networks' collaboration with Microsoft on Media Player 11 gives URGE users a fully immersive and integrated music and entertainment experience," said Michael Bloom, vice president of Digital Music at MTV Networks and general manager of URGE. "Our expertise in music programming and design combined with Microsoft's technology gives music fans the best way to discover and stay connected with the music and artists they love."
Windows Media Player 11 was tested by Softpedia as being 100% Free and is available for download here.
