BBoxV2: get a powerful yet lightweight audio player and manager
Description: BBox Audio Player (BBoxV2) is a free lightweight audio player/manager that offers a good range of features including CD ripping, audio file tagging management, internet radio, automatic volume normalization, audio library management functions, and others.
This program pulls a very interesting trick: it takes up less than 2 megs in memory for the program itself (apart from libraries/music data loaded into it; more info in the comments section) — yet nonetheless provides enough functionality for most people to use as their primary audio player/manager. Compare this to, say, a program such as iTunes, which consumes 51 megs in memory, Mediamonkey or JRiver Media Jukebox (both of which consume approx. 30 megs).
You might wonder whether it is appropriate to compare BBoxV2 with these programs, and in many ways it is oranges and apples since the scope of these latter programs is so much broader; however, BBoxV2 does provide an impressive array of functions in a nice little package, and in truth if you preferred a slim and compact audio player/manager that is simple yet powerful BBoxV2 delivers (and delivers very well). Here are more notes on this program:
- CD Player and Ripper: rips tracks and pulls tag info from an online database. MP3 format only with a wide range of quality options (CBR/VBR).
- Tagger: the tagging function is surprisingly powerful, and includes the ability to do auto tagging based on an online search, including album artwork. (Allows you to change the search string used, which is very useful).
- Music library functions: includes quick filters (artist/album) as well as (a very useful) keyword search.
- Internet Radio: with 68 pre-defined stations. Although I was not able to determine how to add my own stations to the list, I was able to add shoutcast (.pls) shortcuts to the music library and add/play shoutcast stations that way. (Update: see comments section for how to add stations).
- Smart volume: i.e. normalizes volume for different audio tracks playing in succession, eliminating any sudden variations in volume.
- Supported audio formats (playback): MP3, WMA, Wave, MP1, MP2, MP4, AIFF, OGG, M4A, M4V, M4P, AAC, AC3, APE, TTA, OFR, SPX, FLAC & CDA.
- Audio conversion: any of the supported formats above can be re-encoded into MP3.
- Music organizer: BBox can re-organize your music collection into a hierarchical directory structure automatically if you want it to.
- Other features: comes pre-loaded with some fantastic visualizations, an equalizer, crossfader for song transitions, spectrum analyzer, export to M3U, etc.
What BBox does not offer
- Audio conversion restricted to MP3 format (honestly, what is the percentage of users that would want other formats?). For more conversion formats, check out Pepsky Free Audio Converter.
- No audio CD burning (use CDBurnerXP or Pepsky Free Audio Converter if you want this).
- No Podcasting support. (Use Juice or Doppler if you want this functionality).
- No smartlists or rule-based creation of playlists.
- No auto monitoring of folders and syncing with the music library.
- No uploading audio files to portable audio devices (for Ipods, use Floola)
The verdict: BBoxV2 manages to hold its own alongside some fantastic audio players/managers that are out there (aside from the ones mentioned above, I might also mention Quintessential Media Player, AIMP2, Foobar2000, etc). It manages to combine a very low resource utilization with a very full (and powerful) set of functions that in many cases preclude the need for a larger, more resource intensive audio player. Its also very well designed, with a very intuitive layout. (You can also easily find other freeware programs that provide some of the functions it does not provide if you need to). BBoxV2 is definitely a winner.
Version Tested: 2.0.0.440
Compatibility: Windows 95, 98, Me, 2000, XP; [UPDATE] now works on Vista!
Download link here (approx 4.94 megs); also visit the program page for more information.
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At the time of writing this BBox Player does not work on Vista.
I wish Firefox like this too, my firefox use 150-200mb every time i use it
Carbonize - that’s another good reason to download it then
@Dian
How to reduce the memory usage on Firefox?
http://www.zolved.com/synapse/view_content/24939/How_to_reduce_the_memory_usage_on_Firefox
Adding new radio stations is actually quite simple.
Just press the INS-key on the radio tabsheet and you’ll get a empty entry.
Have Fun!
The BBox Support Team,
Cris
on my rather old computer it runs with 45mb of memory, so much for the most interesting feature.
plus it doesn’t support ratings. media monkey still wins, although bbox is very promising.
Ok installed it on my laptop which is running XP SP2. It is nice but is currently using 20MB of memory which, after several reboots, seems the be the standard level so god knows where you got 2.8 MB from. Even minimised to systray it uses around 5-6 same as most players. When you first minimise it it may hot 2.8 but that’s XP’s dumping stuff from memory and will rise quickly.
gooooooooooooood maaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnn
u freeware genius make good link to best freeware
keep it up
I get a dialog box saying
“The playback device is set to emulation (no DirectSound support). Playback will not work”
Any idea ? WinAmp, MediaMonkey, iTunes etc. work oin the same box …
I like the player, I’ve been looking for an alternative to the windows player because of memory usage.
I have been using Evil Player for awhile, which only uses 1-2k mem, but at times it can be almost too minimal in usage ( but for a truly low mem player that ones the best i think ).
I like this bbox player because it is a good comprimise of mem and usage, with the task bar player ( another perk i like on my media players ) it my new favorite player.
Thanks.
@ Carbonize:
Ooops. I went back and checked and re-checked and now I consistently get 13-14 megs in memory. Will modify the original 2.8 megs to 14 in the review text; hope it still counts as “lightweight”, as I do not want to change the Title and URL of the posting.
I must have made a mistake when I first checked it.
My Foobar2000 runs at 5.040KB right now :/
When the dialog says “The playback device is set to emulation (no DirectSound support). Playback will not work” you need to go to your Control Panel, choose ‘Sounds and Audio Device properties’, goto tabsheet ‘Audio’, and press the ‘Advanced’ button under the playback device.
An new window will open where you can adjust hardware acceleration.
It’s very well possible that other players don’t need this. It simply means that they don’t use DirectSound (FX) Filters.
About the memory footprint: BBox uses Just In Time loading for it’s modules so memory usage can grow after opening more tabs and windows, loading data etc.
The memory usage reported by Windows task manager isn’t very accurate (You should first minimize BBox to release the unused memory). I can build in an option to report rea memory allocation.
Ratings are supported in BBox. Implemented according ID3 standard, a file can have multiple ratings. I don’t overwrite the ratings made by other programs.
Have Fun!
Cris
@ BBox Support Team:
That explains it. For me the program right now shows 14 megs when maximized and less than 2 megs when minimized.
So is there a “real” memory utilization? Is the minimized memory utilization more accurate. Please let me know as I would like to have the review text be as accurate as possible.
Ok, my default audio device was set to TotalRecorder :-O
2 more questions: What’s the naming convention for album art to be displayed ? Folder.jpg doesn’t seem to get displayed.
And is there a keyboard short-cut reference somewhere ? In particular for navigating through the music library (by remote control - which maps to keyboard keys …)
Other than that, outstanding tool !
@Samer:
The BBox memory manager quickly allocates and deallocates physical memory when needed. Windows however doesn’t detach the deallocated memory from the process until it’s needed for another process or until you minimize the application.
I’ve build a testversion with an option that writes the amount of allocated memory in the forms’ caption. (http://www.bboxplayer.com/TestBBoxV2.zip)
I’ve spent 6 years building and optimizing BBox for low memory usage and high performance. BBox itself doesn’t use more than 1/1,5MB. The rest of the memory is occupied by data and libraries.
The total memory for the whole proces is just about what windows shows when the application is minmized.
@Arminus:
I’m glad it worked out for your!
The album art is extracted from the tags, not from file. You should add album art to the tags which is quite easy: select all tracks of an album, right click on the selection and choose ‘get online info for selection…’
Or… drag and drop an image file on the tag-editor.
Nope there is now keyboard reference (yet). I tried to follow all windows standards in this.
The enter key is configurable (see settings -> general).
@All:
You can drag and drop files and directies to the BBox library page. BBox will figure out what files it can use and adds these to the library.
I’ve been using musikCube. It’s open source, uses about the same amount of memory and has many of the same features. I will give BBox a try.
Explains why my memory usage is about 40MB then as I have about 1380 tracks in my library. Would be nice if you could minimise it so just the player was showing and not the whole library.
@Carbonize:
YOu could use the deskband. I can’t think of anything smaller than that.
I do and it drops to about 8 - 9MB like I said earlier. I was referring to when it is open. If you mean the size on screen I was just thinking it would be nice to be able to reduce it to just the player as some people would prefer that.
BTW I have a problem with The Rabbit Hole visualisation. It crashes when made full screen but since you didn’t make it I doubt there is a lot you can do about it. I will send the bug report later.
[…] BBoxV2: get a powerful yet lightweight audio player and manager | freewaregenius.com. This looks like a pretty killer little media player…for Windows. […]
this prog crashes my system ( blue screen of death)
weel, the prog loads all right but the moment I try to add any mp3 file, it just crashes my system.
@Shank:
Please contact us with more details about this on ’support at bboxplayer.com’ What OS are you running for instance? Did BBox create an error report?
I’m using Quintessential Media Player for quite a long time, and I’m very pleased with its development releases (QMP builds). BBox looks like a good alternative to look at. I will definitely try it also.
How can I get the album cover (image) preview, like they’re showing in their website? I don’t have anything like that on my music library tab
Well..O.K. I love it: the Deskband, the “organize music” option, the tag editor combined with Amazon database, the “smart volume” — to make a long story short it is a very good player.
What I miss:
- hot keys
- mini player (nice to have, not a must)
- integrate with FoxyTunes
@lvz:
Goto menu ‘Music Library’, check ‘Album info’.
The tags need to contain album-art ofcourse. In one of the comments above (4/19/08) is already explained how to do add pictures to the tags.
can this program store the audio file names from cds /database that can be searched later.
mediamonkey has such a function, so has cdtree
Any time line on a Vista ready BBox? This has many features I’m wanting to use.
I have been in touch with the maker of this program and they hope to release a Vista compatible version this week.
The Vista compatible update is released.