Windows Media Player/Real Player

Thanks heaps for your input. As you so rightly deduced, I definately do not want to go all sortsa technical. Keeping it as simple and stress free as possible is my aim. I'll see if I can master WMP. Your input has been appreciated big-time. Thanks again.

Without getting all sortsa technical, and assuming you'd prefer not to either, my recommendation would be to forget about RealPlayer and stick with Windows Media Player (and learn to use it to the limits of its capabilities) - their intrinsic capabilities aren't signficantly different - aren't very extensive, either, but they're essentially very similar. Both are primarily playback applications, with some ripping, editing, and burning ability.

That said, for variety of reasons, of the 2 I generally prefer RealPlayer Premium for straight playback, BUT unless you do a buncha "know whatchyer doin' - and why" fussing when you install any version of RealPlayer, its gonna be a pesty pain in the butt, with lotsa bundled, well-hidden, tricky-to-remove, generally undesirable companion software, and some irritatingly intrusive habits of its own. Most relatively ungeeky folks are gonna be better off with Windows Media Player. Some web-accessible files won't play in Windows Media Player - for those, you might wanna take a look at Real Alternative.

If you really want to get in to media manipulation, I suggest you look at dedicated ripping/burning/authoring software, such as that available from Roxio or Nero - these aren't players, they're for producing stuff to play and burning it to storage/playback media.

- I had deleted that post, to correct some things and fix one of the links - apparently as you were posting your response, so now my answer to your question is under your reply to that answer ... ain't 'puters great?