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• January 8, 2003 •

Microsoft Releases Windows Media Player 9 Series

Windows Media Player 9 Yesterday Microsoft announced the immediate availability of Windows Media® 9 Series, the next-generation digital media platform. Microsoft also announced a new licensing program for Windows Media Audio and Video 9 Series that enables device manufacturers and software developers to build high-quality digital audio and video features into a broader range of their products -- with longer terms and lower prices than those of other technologies such as MPEG-4 and MPEG-2.

Windows Media 9 Series features innovations such as high-definition video at up to six times the resolution of DVD, the first 5.1-channel surround sound streaming audio, and a faster, more-televisionlike experience with media on the Web. Windows Media 9 Series provides dramatically improved media playback for all users and offers the most comprehensive platform features for hardware and software manufacturers, enabling them to build their own unique products and services.

"The unmatched audio and video quality of Windows Media 9 Series is now available under the most flexible and attractive license terms in the industry," said Will Poole, corporate vice president of the Windows New Media Platforms Division at Microsoft. "This combination of best-in-class technology and compelling licensing means the entire digital media ecosystem -- from lens to screen -- can grow and thrive more easily and cost effectively."

Windows Media Player 9 Series sports a faster and more flexible user interface, offering quicker and easier access to all the user's media. The new player is tuned for performance throughout, including startup times for music playback and the ability to search even the largest personal media libraries. Other key playback improvements include the following:

Mini-Player Mode
  • The new Mini-Player Mode offers the first way to shrink the player onto the taskbar, providing all the needed controls and access to all the content in the user's media library yet placed neatly and cleanly out of the way of other tasks.
  • The new Queue It Up feature allows users to instantly add any content to the current playlist.
  • Variable Speed Playback offers easy skimming of content to get the information users deem most important to them. It has the ability to slow down or speed up audio and video playback without changing pitch and tone of the audio.
  • The new InfoCenter view offers new discoveries about the user's favorite media with instant access to compete song metadata and the ability to rate music.

You can download the Windows Media Player 9 Series from the Windows Media Web site, or direct from Microsoft: WMP 9 for WinXP [9.65 MB] - WMP 9 for Win98 SE, Me, 2000 [13.3 MB].

You can get some demo's for WMP 9 on the Demo Center Web site.

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Last Updated: January 8, 2003