DefaultMediaPlayer

Desired Features

Here we do a simple comparison of some known and popular media players for linux, most of them are in the repos, the set of minimal desired functions are:

  • Having a functional media library
  • Having the ability to handle large libraries
  • Having a separated playlist (or queue) from the media library
  • Having the ability to search the media library without affecting the playing list
  • Having the ability to browse/play all albums by artist
  • Having the ability to browse/play all artists on album
  • Having a sensible default sort order (artist, album, disc, track)
  • Having the ability to search the playing list to rapidly jump to a song
  • Having the possibility to save playlist to share them or backup them
  • Having the possibility of playing podcasts or other streams formats
  • Having MPRIS support (for sound indicator integration)

Other considered characteristics are the installed size, toolkit and presence in the repos.

Note: I have only regularly used Rythmbox and Banshee. Rows for other players reflect what I was able to figure out in the first 15 minutes - 1 hour attempting to use them, and may be incorrect. They should however reflect the new user "out of box" experience rather well - ali1234.

The "Import Time" test was the time taken to import a 53GB library with 7184 tracks, 676 artists, and 793 albums; totalling 23 days, 4 hours, 28 minutes of music. The test was performed using an Acer Aspire One netbook with Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU N270 @ 1.60GHz, 1.5GB RAM, and 120GB HDD. As such it reflects a medium-sized library on low-end hardware. The system was rebooted between tests to prevent disk cache affecting results.

Audacious

Banshee

Decibel

Exaile

gmusicbrowser

QuodLibet

Rhythmbox

Music Library

(./)

(./)

(./)

(./)

(./)

(./)

(./)

Import Time

2m 41s

10m 2s

2m 55s

5m 45s

23m 27s

9m 40s

13m 18s

Separate Playlist

(./)

(./)

(./)

(./)

(./)

(./)

(./)

Search without Playing

(X)

(./)

(X)

(./)

(./)

(./)

(./)

Browse Albums by Artist

(X)

(./)

(./)

(./)

(./)

(./)

(./)

Browse Artists by Album

(X)

(./)

(X)

(X)

(X)

(./)

(./)

Sensible Sort

(X)

(./)

(X)

(X)

(./)

(./)

(./)

Jump to Song

(X)

#1437023

(X)

(./)

(X)

(./)

#1437020

Save Playlists

(./)

(./)

(./)

(./)

(X)

(./)

(./)

Internet Radio Streams

(X)

(./)

(X)

(./)

(X)

(./)

(./)

Podcasts

(X)

(./)

(X)

(./)

(X)

(./)

(./)

MPRIS 2.0 Support

(./)

(./)

(X)

(X)

(./)

(./)

(./)

In Repository

(./)

(./)

(./)

(./)

(./)

(./)

(./)

Toolkit

Gtk+

Gtk+

Gtk+

Gtk+

Gtk+

Gtk+

Gtk+

Language

?

Mono

?

?

?

Python

C

Xubuntu/Roadmap/Specifications/W/DefaultMediaPlayer (last edited 2015-03-30 20:09:23 by a-j-buxton)