Review: Qtrax Songbird Media Player v0.2 beta
Well, the Qtrax site is back to allowing downloads of the client software, which has turned out to be powered by the Songbird Media Player, already in v0.2 beta release. While the point-to-point unlimited “free and legal” downloads haven’t been enabled just yet, I am pleased to say the media player performs well.
Using a bunch of stuff I’ve ripped off my CDs for play on my shoddy 1GB MP3 player, the sound quality is as decent as any time I’ve played the same tracks in RealOne or WMP. The nice bit, though, is how slim and fast the app performs. The download is only just over 9MB in size, installs quickly and when I pointed it to my “My Music” folder that contains a modest library of just over 300 ripped tracks, the program read and incorporated them into the My Library area so quickly, I wasn’t sure it had really worked; but there they were, ready to play.
Those are the positives.
On the downside, the media player has not yet successfully connected to the Qtrax site to enable any of the “artist-related information” searching promised in the initial beta release. Perhaps the servers are overwhelmed, though, and this’ll settle down once more folks have the player downloaded and installed.
Another downside is the player’s hit-and-miss performance on picking up artist and album information. For example, I get sermon CDs at the house of worship I attend and like to rip them into MP3 format for convenient listening; even though I manually entered all the information for those CDs and it works in RealOne and WMP, Qtrax’s Bluebird player is extremely hit-and-miss on capturing manually-entered information like that, which leads to my files being far less organized than I prefer in Qtrax.
Even so, the app feels light, fast and responsive and considering the increasingly bulky performance of RealOne and WMP, not to mention iTunes, Qtrax Songbird is at least in the running from a performance standpoint. The black user interface feels clean, usable and smooth, though rather light on features so far, and I haven’t tested it out to see if I can use Qtrax to rip songs off my existing audio CD library, though it doesn’t appear to be a feature that’s enabled just yet.
In the final analysis, Qtrax Songbird Media Player v0.2 beta has a long way to grow before it lived up to its promise, but it’s a nice start. Only time will tell if Qtrax is actually the 25 million-plus downloadable songs, “unlimited free and legal” app that it boasts it intends to be, but so far, so good. At least the music player performs well, and the ads? Well, they don’t bug me yet, or affect playback performance, so who cares?
Hello. I work for POTI, the folks that make the Songbird Player platform. A quick correction: the Songbird player is actually a platform that allows developers to seamlessly integrate their services, their devices, their user experiences and their brands to create their own branded media players.
In this case, Qtrax licensed the Songbird Player and then integrated an advertising supported music download service into it (hence the ads). They changed the look and feel and added Qtrax branding as well. And that’s the whole idea behind the Songbird Player. Any company or developer can create custom experiences using our API’s.
You can find more information about the Songbird Player at http://www.songbirdnest.com. Or, for the hackers among us, try: developer.songbirdnest.com.
Thanks,
Ethan
Interesting review but a bit easy on Qtrax! Why bother with Qtrax when I can just get Songbird free without the ads! So far they’ve rebadged a free music player and have given you the benefits(!) of having to download ads!
Talk about bait and switch by any other name!
Jan,
That’s all Qtrax is at the moment, sure… It’s what’s coming (possibly) that’s exciting. Hope they can work out the licensing…
Sounds like a penny stock scam. BLLN went from .02 to .05 (150% rise) on the news of Qtrax downloads. As of yet, no downloads, and I doubt there ever will be.
I have a partial retraction.
I guess TVT signed, and you can download a limited number of songs from that label.
Sony and Emi apparently signed, but no downloads from their labels yet.
Check out qtrax now is all I can say a year later but all of universal and emi catalog available now for free legal downloads Sony also signed but much music still missing as of now warner music group only holdout Look for portability with in weeks?
My big problem with Qtrax at this point is that the tracks are all protected in such a way that you have no way to put it on an MP3 player and listen to it on the go. And I’d like to see a solution to that which doesn’t involve proprietary players; I own one MP3 player already (Insignia Sport) and I don’t want to have to buy one that is Qtrax-specific.
Look for qtrax V1.0 to launch next week site is down now in preperations
Sorry admin, but you’re out of luck if you expect Qtrax to work with any other MP3 player besides those compatible with Microsoft’s proprietary Plays For Sure DRM scheme. I wouldn’t bother investing time into Qtrax as a source for music, as with the cases of Ruckus, SpiralFrog, and MSN Music, which ultimately all failed, you’ll no longer be able to play any of your music due to the DRM scheme when they cease operations. If you don’t mind essentially renting your music and not knowing when the lease could suddenly end, then by all means.