Do more with Windows Media Player, iTunes and VLC

[EricTheRed]

The PC has become a must audiovisual recreation of the home. For this it relies on an essential tool: the multimedia player software.

To listen to music and watch DVDs or movies to DivX, what player do you use daily on your PC? iTunes? VLC Media Player? Windows Media Player? These three software unites more than 80% of users, the other remaining faithful to readers less popular, but not lacking in quality.

That is why we have chosen in this summer conducive to recreation (including audiovisual), to focus on these three programs and help you make the most of. Because there are several ways to manipulate a player. Some of the minimum content: open files, adjust the volume and click Play, Pause, Stop, Next and Previous. In doing so, they pass in front of a multitude of functions, the result of hard work by teams of developers for years have enriched and improved the software.

Some of these functions are mainly the interface, including keyboard shortcuts, to avoid manipulating the mouse and can lead the reader from his bed or sofa, if you have a wireless keyboard.

For the eyes and ears

Others will offer you the possibility to organize your library, create playlists suitable for dancing, a music or listen continuously to the home or office. It is even possible to share libraries networked at least with iTunes, because if you can, in theory, do the same thing with Windows Media Player, our attempts in this area remained sterile.

Other functions will increase the pleasure of the eyes and ears by changing the appearance of the player or improving the quality of the image (displayed in full screen, move the image ratio 4/3 to 16/9 or conversely, increase in brightness, color correction, the transition to HD) and sound (volume leveling, frequency equalization, bass enhancement, adding a virtual surround home cinema).

Finally, the functions specific to video will help you enjoy your films, displaying the subtitles, enabling playback of multichannel sound tracks or indexing your favorite scenes. Discover these hidden settings in the following pages, and spend your summer fill you with images and sounds.

[EricTheRed]

Windows Media Player 11

WMP is an integral part of Windows. It contains some very interesting features, particularly for the diffusion of music.

Display menus

By default, the player does not display the menus File, View, Play, Tools and Help. To make them appear in a context menu, click the right mouse button on the upper frame. If you prefer to have the Menu Bar is displayed continuously, hold down the Ctrl key and type F, or press F10.

Use keyboard shortcuts

The keyboard shortcuts are a convenient way to steer the reader, including distance if you have a wireless keyboard. Press the function keys F7 to mute the sound, F8 and F9 respectively lower and raise the volume. Use Ctrl + F and Ctrl + B to move to the next or previous song (or section of film). Type Ctrl + T to activate the repeat (repeat playback of a song or a chapter), Ctrl + P to start playing or pause, Ctrl + S to stop playback. To eject a CD or DVD, press Ctrl + J. But beware, this shortcut works only with computers with a single CD player!

Watch a video in full screen

When watching a video, you can switch from window mode to full screen with F11, then the mouse pointer disappear to let the picture fill the screen. They reappear when you touch the mouse or keyboard. You can also show or hide subtitles (when available) with the key combination Ctrl + Shift + C.

Improve the sound

To view the context of improvements in the bottom left of the window in the View menu, choose View then Improvements improvements. Click on the arrows at the top left of this framework to achieve the graphic equalizer. In this setting, use a piece of music reference, if possible a recent recording and broadcast quality from the original CD-Audio. Adjust the Balance to 0, and if the equalizer is enabled, click Disable.

Start reading, listening to the sound and then click Activate. Click Reset, then click one of the three buttons on the left to define the behavior of potentiometers (independent little groups or panels). Drag vertically to increase or reduce certain frequencies. After each change, wait two seconds to make it audible.

This setting to compensate for the weaknesses of the PC audio chip or speakers shall be made once and for all. The second setting, it is specific to music or the film being broadcast. Click on the small arrows to reach the SRS WOW Effects. To reinforce the bass, turn up the TruBass slider, select a value between 8 and 20 at most. Finally, adjust the WOW effect of spatial sound: this effect surround virtual high quality gives an extra dimension to the music and soundtracks of movies as not to abuse it (do not exceed the value 30 ).

Add album

Click the Library tab and then click Album in the left column. Some albums are illustrated by an image of CD box anonymously. To replace the original cover of the album, click the right mouse button and choose Find information on the album. If you get the display of a single image, make sure it fits well with the album and click Finish.

If the cover does not appear, click the button again right on the album and choose Update information on the album. Attention, following the update, it is possible that the position of the album in the library has changed so the title has been changed: you will find listed alphabetically with the first letter of its title.

Sometimes, the search leads to several proposals. Click on the cover properly in the list, then click Next. If no match appears kit is that the reader fails to identify the artist, which is confirmed by "Unknown Artist" on the left. In this case, get off at the bottom of the list and click Edit information manually. Enter a name in the Artist field and click Done. The cover should now appear.

Level the volume levels

The difference in volume between two consecutive pieces of music is sometimes very sensitive, especially with the compressed files in MP3 or WMA. To equalize the volumes, click the arrows in the upper left part of improvements to fading and automatic volume control. Click Enable automatic adjustment of volume. Attention must be a piece has been played at least one When fully so that the volume setting to be applied.

Change the appearance of the player

The "mini-player" reduces interface reader to a small horizontal band in the taskbar showing the basic commands. To activate, click the right button in an empty area of the taskbar, in the context menu, choose Toolbars and then Windows Media Player (to cancel this, repeat the same operation). Reduce then the player window by clicking on the small horizontal bar at the top right of the frame. When the mini-player is displayed, click the Restore icon in the bottom right to return temporarily to normal display.

You can change the appearance of the player, selecting a skin alternative. On the View menu, choose Chooser appearance. Three skins are fairly proposed. To download more (you must be logged in), click Other appearances: the skins page from Microsoft opens in your browser. Click on Download to the right of the skin you want to download. Open My Computer, then C: drive then Program Files, and Windows Media Player Skins. Drag the folder in the skins downloaded: their names appear in the list of player appearances. Click on the skin chosen, and then click Apply appearance.

[EricTheRed]

iTunes 8

Boosted by the success of the iPod and the iPhone, the Apple player is increasingly popular among PC users. Its advanced features will please big consumers of music, videos and podcasts.

Use context menus

By clicking the right button on an item in the iTunes Library, you display a context menu that allows you to obtain information about the file, the 'Add to reading' your choice, giving it a ranking (0 to 5 stars), copy or delete or even open the folder of the PC containing the original file. Clicking on a playlist in the left column, you can the Export to text (very useful to prepare a music or make a deposit at the Sacem), delete or burn the playlist on a disc .

Reduce the player window

To reduce the iTunes interface to a very small window with the basic commands, little bulky once placed in a corner of the screen, choose Skip to mini-player in the menu.

Level the volume levels

The difference in volume between two consecutive pieces of music is sometimes very sensitive. In order to level the volumes of all titles in the library, choose Preferences from the Edit menu, click the Read tab, check the Equalizer of volume and confirm by OK. iTunes scans all the titles in the library in the background to apply volume leveling and will do so with titles added to the library. However, differences in levels persist, especially between songs old and recent. To address specifically the volume of one or more tracks, select them (to select multiple, click while holding Ctrl key), click the right button, choose Get Info, click the Options tab, check the volume setting and choose a value between -100% and 100% using the potentiometer.

Subscribe to podcasts

Podcasts are audio or video stream to which you subscribe and are automatically downloaded on your PC without you having to intervene, at a frequency usually daily or weekly. Some are free, others not. There really is everything from breaking news to major TV channels or radio, newspapers, blogs, language, music, television series, and comedy. Click Podcast in the left column and then down the list of podcasts. Scroll through the icons by clicking on the arrows left and right of the different (News, Space, Radio, etc.).

To subscribe, click on an icon and then click Subscribe. Wait for a few seconds, then click Subscribe in the next dialog. Click Podcast in the left column: the icons of the available podcasts appear in the central framework. Click to diffuse them.

Playlists automatic

On the File menu, choose New Smart Playlist. Select a criteria, type here and type a value in the third field. You can limit the length of the list, and choose a method of stock selection in the menu selected by. Check update in real time, iTunes will add to the list of imported new songs that match the criteria. Click OK.

The Genius feature, new to Version 8 automatically creates playlists by combining pieces "that go together." To qualify, you must have created an account on the iTunes Store, the online shop of Apple, including by entering your full name, email address and credit card number. To register and activate Genius, click Genius in the left column and follow the instructions.

Share your library

Each user of a PC connected to others in a local network may decide to share its iTunes library with others. On the Edit menu, choose Preferences, click the Sharing tab and check Share my library, if you want your own access to the libraries of other users, provided of course that they are allowed access, check Search box for shared libraries. To restrict the sharing of your library to certain categories or lists of files, click Share playlists and tick the boxes for the categories. Click on OK: the list of libraries available through the network is displayed in the left column. To access any of them, click on its name and wait until iTunes displays the content.

A library for each user

One PC at home, and several people with different tastes who use to play music? The simplest, if not all mixed in the same library, is to create one for each user. Quit iTunes. Hold down the Shift key and double-click the iTunes icon on the desktop. When the dialog box Select the iTunes library appears, release the Shift key.

Click Create a library, enter a name for the new library and click Save. iTunes opens with an empty library: from the File menu, choose Add file (or folder) to the library to import files. To select a library, open iTunes holding the Shift key and click Choose Library. To open the original library, click the iTunes Library.itl subfolder of iTunes which is located in My Documents in My Music. To choose another, open the folder with the name of the library that you created, then the file iTunes Library.itl.

[EricTheRed]

VLC Media Player 0.9.9

VLC is one of the most media players in use worldwide, a success that includes his ability to read all the existing video files.

Change the appearance of the player

You can change the appearance of the player by selecting a skin alternatives. On the Tools menu, choose Preferences and click left on the icon interface. In the Interface Type, click Themes, then click the link highlighted in blue. VLC Page skins opens in your browser. Click on the skin selected for the display size, then click Download to download. In the Interface Type, click Browse, browse to locate the downloaded file (it has the extension .vlt), click on its name, then click Open. Click Save and, if necessary, restart VLC to view its new appearance.

Use keyboard shortcuts

To view a list of keyboard shortcuts, choose Preferences from the Tools menu and left click on the shortcuts icon. Press f to view a video in full screen and Esc again or f to return to the initial window size. Press the spacebar to pause the playback and resume it, s to interrupt on n or p to move to the song or the next or previous chapter. Use the + and - keys on the numeric keypad to speed up or slow down the scrolling of images and sound, m to mute the sound and Ctrl + Up Arrow and Ctrl + Down Arrow to increase or decrease the volume. Type q to quit VLC.

While some of these shortcuts seem unwieldy, you can change them. Click the shortcut to change, and in the field below the list to the right of the Delete button. Enter the new key combination: if it is already assigned to another shortcut, a message will notify you. You can cancel the new assignment, or confirm by clicking OK.

Index your favorite scenes

For quick access to scenes of a film (or passages of a musical work), use bookmarks. On the Tools menu, choose Bookmarks (or press Ctrl + B). To add a bookmark at the beginning of a scene, click Create. To come back instantly, double-click the bookmark. To delete, click, and then click Delete, and Clear to delete all. Attention, bookmarks associated with a file are stored temporarily. As soon as you create new ones in another file, the precedents are lost.

Display subtitles DivX movies

The management of subtitles is one of the strengths of VLC. Subtitles accompanying a DivX movie are stored in a separate file on most of the time extension .srt, .sub or .idx. If both files are stored in the same folder and have exactly the same name, extension aside, the subtitles are displayed without problems. If this is not the case in the Video menu, select subtitle track and confirm the option Track 1.

If you did not think to put the file of subtitles in the same folder as the film or to give it the same name, you can still associate the two. On the File menu, choose Open File in advanced mode. Click the File tab, browse through folders and click on the name of the DivX file. Check the box Use a subtitle file, click Browse, navigate to find the subtitle file and click Play.

Also, if you have trouble reading them, you can change the appearance of the subtitles on the screen. On the Tools menu, choose Preferences and click on the icon left subtitles and OSD. In the Display Preferences, you can change the font, size and font color. Click Save to confirm.

Increase brightness

Some videos (mostly filmed indoors) and some films are characterized by a very dark picture overall. If you look at a screen that lacks contrast and brightness, the result may be disappointing. Click on the icon show the expanded options at the bottom of the window. Click on the tabs and Basic Video Effects and check the adjustment of image. If necessary, increase the brightness and contrast, the changes are applied immediately visible on the video. To adjust colors, adjust the Hue, Saturation and Gamma. Finish by clicking Close.

Set the default volume

By default, the volume of the player is set to 100%: no additional amplification is provided to the sound of the PC chip. If you find it a little weak and increase the volume by choosing Preferences from the Tools menu. Click left on the Audio icon, set the default audio volume and click Save.