Banshee Media Player is an open source free media player for all platforms comprising Linux, Windows and Mac OS. It is one of the most-used media player by Linux users at time. Banshee is the default Media Player of Ubuntu - most popular and most-used Linux in the world; Linux Mint and some other derivatives of Ubuntu. I thought to give a try to its latest released version - Banshee 2.2
Banshee is a media player which plays audio and video files same as we have Windows Media Player in Windows and iTunes in Mac OS X. Banshee is an awesome and nicely groomed media player for all of your media needs. Lets find out what it has got?
First look
Opening Banshee Media Player, we have multiple panes for us. Left sidebar contains various browse options like Now Playing, Play Queue, Library, Videos and Online Media. Rest of the area is divided into three panes. One of that (left one in rest three) shows your music collection by Artists, right to that shows all albums from chosen artist and down panel shows all songs in chosen album. By dividing your music library through different elements, Banshee make it very easy to browse through your music collection in no time.
Adding your songs to Banshee library
Importing or adding your songs is easier than making a cup of coffee. Just goto Media menu -> Import media -> Choose folders, then choose the folder which contain all your songs and click Import. And you will notice your whole music collection in very less time. My 1000 songs folder was imported in less than a minute in Banshee. Its that fast! You can even import your music library from other media players like iTunes, Rythmbox, etc.
Library is even easy to update. You don't need to always do whole process to add songs if you added some new songs in your folder. Just select 'Rescan Music Library' from Tools menu and Banshee will search in your folder and any changes will be updated. This process of updating your library actually need not to be done personally because Banshee is set to rescan library for changes So you don't have to.
Don't find your song?
Are you unable to find your favourite song or some song that you listened in your college days and now, searching that song to recollect that moments. But you are not getting your song? Not to worry. Banshee will do the job for you. Just put your song name or artist name or album name or even part of that into the search box and Banshee will find out all possible searches and you will find yours one. But I noticed one flaw here, Banshee search only in library content and don't search for song's file names - this is not a problem in Clementine media player.
Wonderful experience
Banshee is wonderful to use. Banshee automatically create some playlists for us like Favourites (by adding files which are marked favourite), Recently added, Recently played and Unheard. Unheard playlist keeps that songs which are never played till now.
Videos
There is a Videos tab in left sidebar. All your scanned videos are placed under this category. It also contains two automatically made playlists named Favourites and Unwatched. Unwatched keeps that videos which you have not seen till time.
Playback
Playing a music or video is simple. Just double-click your song and it will start playing. Want to pause to get yourself some snacks - just press spacebar and there you go, your music or video will be paused. It has a solid feature named Play Queue in which you can add your songs to play them in sequential order (song by song). After adding songs in Play Queue, you can sort or re-arrange them as you want them to be played. Banshee also create Smart Playlists which contains tracks similar to current song or album.
Banshee has Bookmarks which you can use to bookmark your music or video or podcasts and return to them when you get time. Banshee has Equalizer (press Ctrl+E to open it) which has some good presets you can choose to equalize your audio output and experience music in various presets. You can set the equalizer manually too.
Customizable
Banshee can be easily customized according to your needs. Like if you don't have internet, then you turn off internet needed features (Preferences -> General tab -> Disable features requiring Internet access). You can changes sorting and other options related to library (Preferences -> Source Specific tab). You can set to copy all files to media folders while importing them (Preferences -> General tab). You can enale/disable gapless play (Preferences -> General tab).
Information from Internet
Banshee can get information about your music and videos like cover art and even Wikipedia page of that artist/album or Youtube videos related to your video. Wikipedia and Youtube pages are shown in left sidebar.
Online radio and Music store
Banshee has support for Online radio stations like Lastfm. It supports Miro too. You can browse media files from Internet Archive directly from Banshee. It supports online music stores like eMusic, Ubuntu One Store and Amazon MP3 Store from which you can buy songs directly from Banshee. It even supports DAAP which enables you to listen music shared on your local network.
Other devices
Banshee can play and rip your audio CDs. Banshee supports large number of mp3 and portable players like Apple iPod, Cowon players, Android devices etc. Banshee 2.2 brings support to many new Android devices such as Samsung Galaxy Ace, Motorola Atrix, etc. You can easily sync your collection with your portable players and android devices.
Extensible feature-set
Banshee's many of the features works by extensions. This means it can easily be configured or even simply to say that Banshee's features can be easily turned on/off at a click. You can manage Extensions in Banshee by opening Preferences from Edit menu and selecting Extensions tab in Preferences window. It also enables for developers to easily implement a new feature in Banshee.
Potential
You can judge its potential by its inclusion in Ubuntu as default media player (Ubuntu developers should have thought Banshee as the best among similar software to include it). Banshee integrates perfectly in Ubuntu's Sound menu. Banshee has got more than 500 reviews in Ubuntu Software Center and lots more will be there in other software managers.
Bottom Line
Banshee is a simple, easy-to-use media player with support for large number of audio and video files, support for podcasts, online radio and online music stores. Banshee makes it very easy to search and manage a music library. Banshee knows which are your favorite tracks and lists them for you to click to play. Banshee is superb !!!
Banshee is a media player which plays audio and video files same as we have Windows Media Player in Windows and iTunes in Mac OS X. Banshee is an awesome and nicely groomed media player for all of your media needs. Lets find out what it has got?
First look
Opening Banshee Media Player, we have multiple panes for us. Left sidebar contains various browse options like Now Playing, Play Queue, Library, Videos and Online Media. Rest of the area is divided into three panes. One of that (left one in rest three) shows your music collection by Artists, right to that shows all albums from chosen artist and down panel shows all songs in chosen album. By dividing your music library through different elements, Banshee make it very easy to browse through your music collection in no time.
Adding your songs to Banshee library
Importing or adding your songs is easier than making a cup of coffee. Just goto Media menu -> Import media -> Choose folders, then choose the folder which contain all your songs and click Import. And you will notice your whole music collection in very less time. My 1000 songs folder was imported in less than a minute in Banshee. Its that fast! You can even import your music library from other media players like iTunes, Rythmbox, etc.
Library is even easy to update. You don't need to always do whole process to add songs if you added some new songs in your folder. Just select 'Rescan Music Library' from Tools menu and Banshee will search in your folder and any changes will be updated. This process of updating your library actually need not to be done personally because Banshee is set to rescan library for changes So you don't have to.
Don't find your song?
Are you unable to find your favourite song or some song that you listened in your college days and now, searching that song to recollect that moments. But you are not getting your song? Not to worry. Banshee will do the job for you. Just put your song name or artist name or album name or even part of that into the search box and Banshee will find out all possible searches and you will find yours one. But I noticed one flaw here, Banshee search only in library content and don't search for song's file names - this is not a problem in Clementine media player.
Wonderful experience
Banshee is wonderful to use. Banshee automatically create some playlists for us like Favourites (by adding files which are marked favourite), Recently added, Recently played and Unheard. Unheard playlist keeps that songs which are never played till now.
Videos
There is a Videos tab in left sidebar. All your scanned videos are placed under this category. It also contains two automatically made playlists named Favourites and Unwatched. Unwatched keeps that videos which you have not seen till time.
Playback
Playing a music or video is simple. Just double-click your song and it will start playing. Want to pause to get yourself some snacks - just press spacebar and there you go, your music or video will be paused. It has a solid feature named Play Queue in which you can add your songs to play them in sequential order (song by song). After adding songs in Play Queue, you can sort or re-arrange them as you want them to be played. Banshee also create Smart Playlists which contains tracks similar to current song or album.
Banshee has Bookmarks which you can use to bookmark your music or video or podcasts and return to them when you get time. Banshee has Equalizer (press Ctrl+E to open it) which has some good presets you can choose to equalize your audio output and experience music in various presets. You can set the equalizer manually too.
Customizable
Banshee can be easily customized according to your needs. Like if you don't have internet, then you turn off internet needed features (Preferences -> General tab -> Disable features requiring Internet access). You can changes sorting and other options related to library (Preferences -> Source Specific tab). You can set to copy all files to media folders while importing them (Preferences -> General tab). You can enale/disable gapless play (Preferences -> General tab).
Information from Internet
Banshee can get information about your music and videos like cover art and even Wikipedia page of that artist/album or Youtube videos related to your video. Wikipedia and Youtube pages are shown in left sidebar.
Online radio and Music store
Banshee has support for Online radio stations like Lastfm. It supports Miro too. You can browse media files from Internet Archive directly from Banshee. It supports online music stores like eMusic, Ubuntu One Store and Amazon MP3 Store from which you can buy songs directly from Banshee. It even supports DAAP which enables you to listen music shared on your local network.
Other devices
Banshee can play and rip your audio CDs. Banshee supports large number of mp3 and portable players like Apple iPod, Cowon players, Android devices etc. Banshee 2.2 brings support to many new Android devices such as Samsung Galaxy Ace, Motorola Atrix, etc. You can easily sync your collection with your portable players and android devices.
Extensible feature-set
Banshee's many of the features works by extensions. This means it can easily be configured or even simply to say that Banshee's features can be easily turned on/off at a click. You can manage Extensions in Banshee by opening Preferences from Edit menu and selecting Extensions tab in Preferences window. It also enables for developers to easily implement a new feature in Banshee.
Potential
You can judge its potential by its inclusion in Ubuntu as default media player (Ubuntu developers should have thought Banshee as the best among similar software to include it). Banshee integrates perfectly in Ubuntu's Sound menu. Banshee has got more than 500 reviews in Ubuntu Software Center and lots more will be there in other software managers.
Bottom Line
Banshee is a simple, easy-to-use media player with support for large number of audio and video files, support for podcasts, online radio and online music stores. Banshee makes it very easy to search and manage a music library. Banshee knows which are your favorite tracks and lists them for you to click to play. Banshee is superb !!!
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