At first glance, Microsoft's Windows Media Player 9 (WMP9) appears to be a sleeker version of Media Player 8.

The basic interface has stayed the same, and in our opinion still takes up too much screen space. A new 'Services' button allows you to sign up for pay-per-use media services on the web.

At present the list of services is minimal and will only become popular with potential providers if Microsoft can guarantee their products are safe from piracy.

One route is Digital Rights Management (DRM), which has been given an overhaul here. The concept is that a user can copy a CD onto their computer and listen to the music but not share or give copies to other people.

The Windows Media Audio (wma) file format has also been tweaked and produces sound quality that more than rivals MP3 at the same bit rate, with the treble parts of a track showing the most improvement.

Microsoft also claims a wmv video file is around half the size of an equivalent mpeg4, although we found the video quality was less defined.

On the plus side, the whole conversion process can be automated; a real benefit for those dealing with a lot of files.

Media Player continues to support skins and is inevitably tightly integrated into Windows. Click on a link to a media file in Internet Explorer and the file will play right there.

WMP9 will also minimise down to the task bar to show just the basic play, stop buttons. This saves on desktop space and is far more useful than any of the included skins.

But WMP9 is not just about music. All but one of the .Net server versions on the horizon will have Media Player Services 9 built in and the list of features is very exciting.

Streaming performance over networks has been radically improved. One intriguing feature is that Media Services can stream media as fast as the network allows, which should significantly improve possible buffering issues.

It can also be used with many programming languages such as C++, C(hash), Visual Basic Scripting Edition and Perl.

DETAILS
Price: Free download

Contact: Microsoft

System requirements:

Pros:
Masses of features
Excellent quality and compression

Cons:
Large interface
Digital Rights Management can be intrusive

WINAMP 3
If all of this seems a little too much, one alternative is Winamp, even though it is targeted at a different audience.

The main window contains the basic controls and the current track name. Extra information is provided in separate windows that can be positioned elsewhere on the desktop and each can be shrunk to a thin line.

Standard media formats supported include MP3, MP2, wav, aiff, CD audio, Midi and cross-fading. New to version 3 is the support for avi, asf and mpg video formats.

Winamp now uses XML for creating skins. In Winamp 2.x the skins were little more than different pictures for the background and buttons, but XML has brought a huge amount of versatility to Winamp.

The windows can now be any shape with buttons in any order. XML also allows for animations in the skins.

By choosing this format Nullsoft has ensured that it is not only easy to edit skins with anything as basic as Notepad, but that the code is easy to learn and understand.

Part of the code includes a version number so a warning is given if a skin from a previous version is loaded. The default skin is very similar to Winamp 2, and is easy to use.

There is a new addition though - the oddly named Thinger. This allows simpler access to the new playlist library, video window and preferences screen.

At the time of writing, most of the 80,000 plugins that were available for version 2 are awaiting compatibility testing with version 3.

Nullsoft has kept a version 2 download option on the site. The plugins are what makes Winamp really shine; without them it just seems dated.

So how do these two media players compare? While Winamp has been enhanced and is a good product, WMP comes out the winner in terms of features.

DETAILS
Price: Free download

Contact: Nullsoft

System requirements:

Pros:
Unobtrusive

Cons:
Current lack of compatibility with add-ons ruins an otherwise decent player