AlbumPlayer is a software audio player written by Albumon developed for Microsoft operating systems. The AlbumPlayer is focused on collecting and playing albums and built around the graphical presentation of the album covers, which can be organized in different ways.

Additional to the standard layout there is a touchscreen layout with bigger buttons to use it as a jukebox, without the need for keyboard and mouse. The AlbumPlayer maintains its own database to store album and track data. It collects and reads the information from tags, and internet sources such as the freedb.org and Amazon.com.

The user group consists for a major part of collectors with large music libraries, audiophiles and people that want to build a pc-based jukebox.

The playback system is developed using the BASS audio library. An external interface makes it possible to develop add-ons.

History

The first AlbumPlayer was developed as try out in 2001, and not officially released. The motive to invest the time in developing a new audio player was that at the time players were text oriented. The developer wanted to experience the feeling of going through CD cases on a shelf selecting a Audio CD based on the cover. The playback system used the very limited build in media player, only supporting MP3 and WMA. Adding albums had to be done by editing a text configuration file.

Version 2.0 was the first official release and available in January 2003. This version stored album and track data in an xml file. The reason to store data in a XML file, was the limited capabilities of tagging in audio files for album related data. A simple editor made it possible to add albums, getting track data from tags and freedb.

Version 4.0 was released in February 2005. It replaced the windows built-in media player by the BASS audio library and several audio formats were added. In the years after that, audio and playlist features were added while still keeping the album cover concept. Version 4.1 added the Last.fm support. Since V4.2 the XML file is replaced by a MS-access database. V4.4 added the touchscreen interface and V4.8 introduced ASIO (Audio Stream Input/Output) support.

Features

The following are features of V4.9d:

WMA, MP3, OGG, FLAC, WAV, WavPack, Musepack, OptimFROG and the APE format are supported.

Native ASIO (Audio Stream Input/Output) support.

Gapless playback

Multiple crossfade modes.

Winamp DSP plugins supported.

Replay Gain embedded, values are stored in the database.

Audio stream pre-fetching to have smooth playback when files are located on other computers.

Playlist shuffle and database shuffle picking albums or tracks randomly from the database based on user criteria.

Album collection management.

Microsoft Access database for storage of album and track data.

Last.fm support

Touchscreen mode.

Shows now playing data in MSN messenger.

Plug-ins

There is an external interface available to develop [add-ons]. Some listed below:

MiniLyrics, running embedded

CD Art Display, showing now playing data

MCE-remote plugin

External Links

Official AlbumPlayer website

AlbumPlayer touchscreen website

Interface documentation