Image by Acid Zebra via Flickr

The recently released Banshee media player sparked interest after i read a linux.com review about it, so i thought i would check it out and compare it to my favorite player Amarok.

Since Amarok is well ahead of its competitor, lets focus on what they did right from the start:

• Video Player: since you dont have only MP3’s and you like to use your iPod for something other then those.
• Bookmarks: when you just dont want to make a playlist
• CD Media extraction: When you want to store that CD and find it later

Another important issue for me is Last.fm integration:
Amarok lets you play a preset list of genres and neigboors like radio station. You can add additional channels but thats about it.

It also reports the files you play and you can “love” or “ban” a song. Switching channels or skipping songs is best to be avoided. Also, stats sinhronisation on your iPOD and play reporting dont mix well. Banshee polished up Last.fm support. You can play induvidual songs from your picked channels or neigboors. So skipping/loving/hating isnt a problem.  What i missed was being able to put those songs on a playlist or que.

Media device integration:
Really not much to say. Amarok’s failure to play videos relays to it not being able to fill your ipod with them so Banshee is the winner here.
On the other hand, Amarok can use iPods statistics and synchronise them with its own and can also fill the device with cover art.

At the end, i cannot really part with Amarok since it deliveres where Banshee fails, for now.
Specifically, plugins+browser, Megatune, Shoutcast, visualisations and contextual data are what keeps me in place.

For My €0.02

Tags: Amarok, Banshee