Many of us who are affixed to Apple iTunes and Winamp for playing and managing their audio and music may not be aware of Banshee Media Player. It is an open source audio management software application that enables you to store and even save a range of audio formats. Not only that the audio powerhouse also allows you to listen to podcast. The software is available for both Mac OS X and Linux OS.
Until 2005, Banshee was known as Sonance and later got its name. Proponents of open source technology believe that Banshee is a big success in the open source community as it is fast, reliable and rich in features, as a result of which it can compete and score over numerous proprietary audio management software applications dominating the market.
In fact, if you are looking for an open source audio player performing the functions of an Apple iTunes, Banshee can fulfill most of your needs and in some ways may be a little more than most proprietary audio software applications. So what does Banshee Media Player has to offer to its customers that makes it so unique.
Supporting a range of media players/music formats
The Banshee software not only plays and imports audio/music CDs, it also supports a range of media players including Google's Android, Creative's Zen Players as well as Apple iPod. Moreover, it can burn CD in the MP3 format. Besides supporting a wide range of media players, the software can play a range of music formats. Some of these include, MP3, AAC and Ogg Vorbis, etc., which are generally found in the high-end audio management software applications. For encoding and decoding the different media formats, it uses the Helix multimedia platforms. However, you should realize that for non-open source formats like AAC and MP3, the Helix multimedia platform has to use a license. As a result of this, you should first 'agree' in the terms and conditions before you can install any type of proprietary software.
Easy management of audio programs
Handling and managing your audio programs in Banshee is quite simple unlike many other open source software audio applications. You can add your music/song collection, save it in separate directories and create your own audio library. And you can do all these without any difficulty. Similarly, you can display your music in the order of song titles or by the artist names and create a playlist easily. You can go through the online manual on the Banshee website to get the complete details on its use and management.
Supporting iPod synchronization
One of the key features of Banshee is that the software extends its supports for iPod synchronization. You can import tunes from your iPod and vice versa. Moreover, with the help of this software, you can use Mac to listen to the music of your choice, even when you are on a Linux PC. The software can also work as a Digital Audio Access Protocol (DAAP) on your computer network.
With so many essential features and important functionalities, it can be said that Banshee can be the ideal audio software for you, if you are looking for a reliable, easy to use, iPod-compatible open source audio player.