Songbird will not play cd's

Essential feature.

I agree. This is essential.

And I couldn't find this feature in Roadmap, except rip and encode feature in April '09

I don't understand how any media player can say they are a media player without being able to play CD's first, then maybe Mp3's, FLAC's and whatever else. Even ripping could come later - but simple playback is a must - unless you are just somebody that has ripped everything to the VERY Inferior MP3 format and or purchase all your music via the Web as Mp3's. (Or use a totally different ripping program). Personally I play CD's and only CD's. Mp3's I use for portable use not home or office use. Really sad - unfortunately I am seeing this same thing across all media players. What kills me is that in less than 5 years we probably won't even have Mp3's, or Cd's. They will probably be all a higher end Audio DVD's. People better hope that hard drive sizes keep getting bigger (although my understanding is that they are close to the theoretical max already for density). Can you imagine ripping all your Music Collection from DVD's. Yup that will fill up a hard disk real fast and search times - you'll be able to go to the Waffle House, eat breakfast, and come back before you find your song a terabyte and a half later. Wake Up Songbird - just add simple Audio CD Playback and let us Catalog them with Album Covers.

EdR

he who eats pie,
Well I'm not here to argue with you, but in fairness I felt I should respond for other individuals that also want the same things as me. At least about 50 users in my Linux User Group for one. First of all the product according to the press release that I read is RELEASED 1.0, it is no longer Beta, it is no longer a Release Candidate, it is released.

DVD's as a high end playing format, your right, probably not... something along the lines of a smart media type chip or something. I was using the information from a site I was reading at the time where the majority felt that CD's died in 1997 and that Mp3's were already dead and they were waiting for the next big thing, it was a discussion. I took the comment from there as that is what the overall majority in the discussion thought would happen. And as far as why go back to a physical device - licensing. I'm still waiting to see whats going to happen with the patents concerning Mp3 and how all these people that deal with Mp3 technology may have to pony up. Seems like a good way for Alcatel-Lucent to make some serious money if you ask me.

And as far as going back to a physical media, I guess Blue Ray is going to die then as well for the DVD player market. Thanks for that insight, now I won't go out and pony up any money to buy a Blue Ray player, or new BR DVD's. So I guess in your opinion everything is going to be licensed, distributed, and played via the web.

Maybe someday, but it isn't here yet by a long shot. Apples probably the biggest with it, and the overwhelming majority hate Itunes, hate the proprietary format, and so on and so on. But they bought that proprietary new gadget, that they just had to have and now they are stuck with it. I did say Apple was the biggest didn't ?. Although there are an awful lot of Mp3 players on the market, once you have one, then what. Why haven't they literally outsold Apple and bankrupted them by now? Personally I haven't seen any new inovation or new technology for them to keep selling the products that keep them in business have you? At least Apple keeps coming out with new gadgets to entice thier users to spend more money.

Anyway I digress, the next thing you commented on was the term "media" player. Go and look and see what the root start for "media" was, it was Newspapers and Magazines - the word actually means "communication".
Even so we now apply it to electronic communication... chronologically I still think that would be playing OLD Audio Cd's and being able to rip them is too far down the development path. You really think that selling concert tickets in this day and age with the economy is more important than playing an existing technology like CD's?? I guess more people attend concerts than purchase CD's or DVD's huh?

Well I could go on and on all day about what other things they found more important to put into Songbird, but what's the use. I will just plan to wait 6 months to a year and come back and check it out then and see what progress has been made. There are too many options out there in this "media player" market to get hung up on one. Thanks for your comments though, it definitely sent me in some different directions to solve my issues.

Kindest Regards,

Ed

@he who eats pie/@ed, DVDs already exist as a high-end playing format, and they sound beautiful. And to provide a counterpoint to the "Mp3s are the way of the future" sentiments, I have never and will never buy an Mp3 from anyone. If they offer FLAC or WAV downloads, I will get them if they are as good or better than CD quality, but I think it is absurd that people actually pay for audio that has been degraded in quality to the point where you can actually hear the flaws in the encoding. Actually, I think even CDs don't provide clear enough audio, try popping in a DVD-Audio version of "LOVE" by the Beatles on a high-grade stereo and you will see what I mean. Until VERY high-quality music downloads become mainstream instead of a weird niche like they are now, CDs are in, in my book. For people who don't care about audio fidelity, Mp3s are sweet, but for audiophiles, forget it.

This surprised me a lot: I have used Songbird for several months with all my music in OGG format. I have discovered only today that I could not play a CD directly in Songbird: the only solutions are either to rip it before listening, or to use another player.

I agree with senshu - a CD player option is key. How can I rip my CDs to go onto my device?

An no - I don't want to use another program. I would expect Songbird to encode and add meta data properly for me. :) Not a third party program I'd have to relearn.

I guess I'll have to stick with VLC for cd playback for now, it would be really nice to see songbird add CD playback, I realize that their market isn't exactly the CD buying crowd, but some of us still like to buy physical formats and/or loan cd's from our local library's and Songbirds interface is so much more pleasant than VLC's. Alas...

Doesn't matter alot for me, I just rip them with winamp and than play them with songbird.. just a little more work..