Banshee

You can use Banshee, a free and cross platform application, to keep track of and to access all your media. Want to watch a video? You can do it with Banshee! Want to listen to some music? You can do it with Banshee! This is the sort of functionality you can expect to get from the Banshee media player.

Banshee is available for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. If you have the choice, I advise you to use the media player on Linux. If you have to use it on Mac or Windows, then I must warn you that the Mac release is a Beta-quality technology preview and the Windows release is an Alpha-quality technology preview. You won’t have any problems getting Banshee up and running on your Windows-powered machine, but since this is an Alpha, you may run into some problems using the media player.

In the upper left hand corner of Banshee interface you will see the playback controls. Underneath the controls there’s a pane that lists your music, videos, podcasts, and so on. Click on the Simplify button in the upper right hand corner and this pane will be hidden out of sight. Click on Full Screen and, as you would expect, the media player will take up your entire desktop.

From a functionality point of view, Banshee has a lot to offer: manage and play media (videos, music, podcasts, audiobooks, online radios), create playlists, queue tracks, get cover art, sync media to your portable devices, discover new podcasts, integrates with Last.fm, easy access to Internet Archive, purchase music, get free music. All this functionality is offered to you for the awesome price of free. Banshee is a free and open source project.

Banshee is a properly good media player – but not on Windows, not at this time.