Windows Media Player 11 is loaded with smart, fun features that breathe new life into your music collection and create a much more personal entertainment experience. The new design lets you get the most out of your digital library and enjoy simple solutions for managing it all.
Discover new music
Many of the great stores that you visited in Windows Media Player 10 are available in this version of the Player as well. To find a store, just click the Browse all Online Stores option on the tab to the right of the Sync tab. The name of the tab changes depending on the menu option you select (Online Stores, Media Guide, or the name of your favorite store). See a list of stores available in Windows Media Player 11.
All of the features that you loved about the WindowsMedia.com Guide in previous versions of the Player are still available in Windows Media Player 11. The Guide offers free music videos, movie trailers, and quick access to online radio stations. To access the Guide, just click the tab to the right of the Sync tab, and then click Media Guide. Use the Internet Radio link (located in the right column of each page) to easily search for stations around the world.
Do you have CDs that you want to copy into your Windows Media Player library? No problem. Windows Media Player 11 makes ripping your entire music collection fast and simple. Learn more about ripping CDs.
In addition to the current format options for ripping your music—Windows Media Audio (WMA), MP3, Windows Media Audio (Variable Bit Rate), and Windows Media Audio (Lossless)—Windows Media Player 11 introduces two new options: Windows Media Audio Pro and WAV (Lossless). For more information, see Change settings for ripping music.
Designed for music lovers
As your digital music collection grows larger from ripping CDs, downloading songs from the web, and buying music from online stores, it's more important than ever to be able to quickly organize and explore all of that music. Windows Media Player 11 is optimized to handle massive libraries of digital music—literally millions of tracks—so you can scroll, flip, and browse your way through your entire collection at high speed without skipping a beat.
The navigation for the library remains in the left pane, but a number of improvements have been made to help with organization, layout, and flow. Music now has its own focused view, with a simple list showing artists, albums, songs, genres, years, and ratings. You can add additional items to this list by right-clicking Library in the navigation pane and selecting Show more views.
Enjoying digital music shouldn't mean giving up your album art. Delivering a more visual experience, Windows Media Player 11 uses album art throughout the library, renewing a physical connection with music and providing you with a much easier reference when browsing through Artist, Album, and Song views.
Albums that share the same characteristics (Artist, Genre, Year, and so forth) are shown in "stacks," providing you with a visual reference that mimics a "stack" of CDs or records.
With the increased emphasis on album art, Windows Media Player 11 also ensures that missing album art isn't a problem. Most album art can automatically be populated in the background using the advanced audio fingerprinting capabilities in Windows Media Player 11.
You can also have the Player search the Web for missing album art and information (metadata) and add it to your music files (tag them) with the result. If, for some reason, album art isn't available and you have the artwork as a digital image or want to add customized album art, you can simply copy the image, and then right-click on the blank album icon and select Paste Album Art.
Library views are customizable with Icon, Tile, and Details options. Pane views, columns, and album art can also be resized to achieve your desired library layout and overall Player experience.
Large libraries with fast performance are great, but what happens when you only remember part of a song title or you want to immediately jump right to the music you are looking for? Instant Search allows fast access to your digital music collection. Just type in the track, album, artist, or a keyword—or even part of a name—and let Instant Search do the work for you. Results are returned with each keystroke, narrowing down the choices as you type, and providing lightning-fast response time, regardless of the size of your library.
With large digital music libraries, tracks usually come from a number of different places, with varying levels of accurate media information (metadata). It's often hard to ensure all of your tracks are tagged appropriately. In addition to automated metadata tools that run in the background, Windows Media Player 11 now includes audio waveform matching that builds on existing media information features and precisely pinpoints the exact album information for your tracks.
How does this work? As you start ripping CDs into Windows Media Player 11, information is compiled through a database and waveforms are matched to identify the song. Information is verified and then attached to the song or album.
You can still create playlists by dragging songs or albums into the List pane, but Windows Media Player 11 includes two new options for creating and saving playlists. The Create Playlist link in the Navigation pane provides one-click access to creating playlists and you can save and name your playlists right in the List pane.
Don't know what you want to play? Create a playlist instantly by using the Play Favorites feature. This feature makes it a one-click process to create a playlist out of your favorite tracks. Simply click the Play favorites link to generate a list of tracks weighted by highest ratings in a category such as album, artist, or genre.
