is there a way that i could ditch apple quicktime, real player, and windows media player, and just have one media player that plays all audio/visual formats and can play streamed media? for XP? I have looked, but have not found -- winamp is the closest, but doesn't support all of the formats.

Media player classic

w00t!

 

Cheers

There's also MPlayer and VideoLAN Client (VLC)

Yes, I use mplayer. The only hitch... win32codecs (the ones needed to player realplayer/quicktime/windows media player) are vaguely illegal.

 

PS, to use in firefox I use the media extension that find a media plalyer automatically (forgot the name). For the lazy guy like me

Uhh, Winamp has pretty much any plugin you could ever want. It even had FLAC which I was doubtful it would have. And when I didn't find the one plugin I wanted, I coded it myself. Just a simple away message updater to the song you were playing. Winamp is by far the best.

I'll vote for MPC (Media Player classic). It's just a personal opinion, but it works will all Win codecs (Including Real Alternative and Quicktime Alternative) and frankly with a decent codec pack I could find no format it will not play.

 

I have a very good opinion of Winamp myself and I coded plugins as well, it's just I find it counter-intuitive and unsuited for video. Winamp is the best for audio. For video, I'll stick to MPC.