Default Media Player Choice

Work items:
get the current version in karmic: POSTPONED
review the buglist: DONE
track issues that need to be fixed before switching: POSTPONED

seb128, 2009-06-08: reading for review, do we need detailed test plan for the upgrade?

pitti, 2009-06-08:
 * The G1 and other music players work fine with Rhythmbox as well, so the "user stories" are a bit thin. Especially since I could never synchronize my 20 GB music collection on the 2 GB SD card in the first place :-) Perhaps there should be some more unique features pointed out?
 * There was a lot of discussion about banshee's memory requirements, which are allegedly significantly bigger than Rhythmbox'. Can you please do some comparisons with an empty and with a reasonably sized music library to evaluate the impact?

seb128, 2009-06-08:
* Syncing between a device and the library is something lot of users and vendors want to be working out of the box and that rhythmbox doesn't do right now (ie looking at what changed since the previous sync and applying the changes), I've updated the description
* I've added a requirement on ressource usage, my current benchmark show twice the use for banshee using the jaunty version, coming version is supposed to improve things

nalimilan, 2009-06-08:
Syncing is one of the accepted Google SoC for RB, I guess that should be taken into account when weighting the pros and cons. See the end of http://osdir.com/ml/rhythmbox-devel/2009-06/msg00006.html for example.

pgoodall, 2009-06-08:
Figured I should pipe up as one of the advocates of Banshee. Banshee (from a product perspective) has a number of advantages. This feedback is based on Banshee 1.4.2. I haven't had a chance to evaluate the latest version.
* A combined interface for both audio and video content - Rhythmbox and Totem have overlapping capabilities and different UIs, so provide both differing and confusing user experiences. Providing both forms of content in one UI is a good thing.
* Sync content to a digital media player - This could be an iPod, a Nokia phone, an Android-based G1 or a simple digital media player that acts like a USB stick. There is admittedly some work to be done to make the process of defining a device as a music player, but it shouldn't be overly burdensome.
* Decide what content to sync and how to sync it - With Banshee I can choose whether to sync Video, Music and/or Podcasts (any combination of the three) and can choose whether to manage the content on the device manually or automatically when I connect it.

pitti, 2009-06-09: approved

mathijs, 2009-06-12:
Perhaps a little late to add a comment, but do realise that there are quite a lot people who do not like Banshee for the simple fact that it uses Mono as a base. I also think that it would be better to become as Mono-independent as possible, for the simple fact that Mono-based software is never going to be faster or slimmer, as the .NET-platform enlarges footprints (consider the Tomboy to gNote switch). On newer hardware the performance issues are a non-issue really, but on older machines it can be.
In contradiction to the above I do use Banshee as I like it better than Rhytmbox. But think about the bigger picture here, don't just use Banshee (or any other prog for that matter) because someone likes to see it as a default.

amano, 2009-06-14:
Why aren't Listen and Exaile not even considered within this spec? Since Banshee doesn't even offer gapless playback it doesn't seem to be "ready enough" yet. Listen should allow syncing portable devices as well.

SteveA, 2009-06-18:
Both Listen and Exaile are written in Python, which is good for encouraging Ubuntu users and developers to extend and integrate with the players.

lamalex,2009-06-18:
@SteveA Banshee has an incredible plugin system, and is fully extensible, as well as /enjoyable/ to develop on because of the care and time Aaron and Gabriel have spent designing banshee. It's got a dbus api for apps to integrate with, it's scriptable via boo (a scripting language) for quick and dirty extensions that don't require a full plugin, an already existing (and may I add kick-ass) GNOME Do plugin, and a CLI interface to boot. Extend away :)

mathijs,2009-07-01:
@myself: the technical board does not have a problem with Mono and C# being included, so my question has been answered. See https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-discuss/2009-June/008962.html for more info. So go ahead and make Banshee even better ;)