There’s a plethora of music players to choose from, among which iTunes and Winamp usually have the upper hand. However, if you are curious enough, you might find that lesser known alternatives like MediaMonkey offer a reasonable amount of features and tools to organize and equally enjoy your music library.

MediaMonkey automatically scans your PC for all types of music formats. If you have playlists from other programs, it’s good to know that the application also adds m3u files, sparing you the pain of having to recreate them. The file explorer view on the left lets you easily navigate your music collection by categories like artist, genre or rating. You can convert tracks into any format you wish, depending on what size or quality of sound you’re looking for. MediaMonkey also lets you analyze and adjust the volume of tracks to increase your listening experience.

MediaMonkey has made its reputation on its advanced tagging management feature. Every time a track is added, the program will verify its tags. You can automatically fill in missing details with info from Amazon or Filename. The program can clean up your tags, move information into the correct categories and synchronize tags for selected tracks. You can also rename and move multiple files thanks to the auto-organize function. MediaMonkey also supports Winamp plugins and visualizations plus skins can be applied to spice up the interface.

If you want to make your own mix CDs, you’ll be happy to know that MediaMonkey rips and burns CDs and DVDs. Create a virtual CD of your favorite tracks and let MediaMonkey do its job. Budding DJs will enjoy the auto-DJ mode, which mixes tracks for you and the Party Mode, which blocks your configuration but lets anybody play their favorite tune. MediaMonkey’s versatility doesn’t stop there. The music manager also lets you synchronize with your portable music devices like your iPod or iRiver.

If you feel like completing your library with a couple of fresh albums you can browse sites like Amazon, Barnes and Noble or AllPosters and purchase tracks. However, unlike Songbird, where you can type in a URL, browse and save your favorite music blogs and sites, MediaMonkey only allows you to browse their selection of online stores.

We were disappointed with the web radio selection, which only features Shoutcast and Icecast, and were surprised to see no sign of podcasts anywhere in the application. However version 3.0 is planning on incorporating this to the application.

Despite these drawbacks, we recommend MediaMonkey to anybody looking for a solid alternative to iTunes or Winamp. This original music manager is more than capable of organizing a very large music library and offers advanced tagging management rarely seen in other music applications. While the browser and web radio are fairly limited, MediaMonkey allows you to rip your custom CDs and connects to most portable music devices. If you really take a liking to MediaMonkey, cough up a few bucks and upgrade to the Gold version, which will open up all of the program’s functionalities like finding missing tracks or creating auto (smart) playlists.

Download MediaMonkey 3.0.5.1187 in Softonic

Few can dispute the fact that Apple created a flawless product when it built the iPod. However, the company did omit to include one feature that still bothers me. The legally-aware developer made it so that you couldn't copy tunes from your iPod onto another computer. OK, so it means everything is above board, but it also means that if you get a new computer or your hard drive fails, you have to build up your MP3 collection all over again. Luckily, there are now several programs available that let you copy your iPod tunes to any machine, and CopyTrans is a good example of one of these.

The process of synchronising your music with CopyTrans is a simple one and you can choose to archive your collection or import it into a new iTunes library. All you need to do is connect your iPod, wait for the program to scan the device, choose your transfer settings then wait for CopyTrans to work its magic.

It does take quite a long time to copy across the music, but the operation works very well and I experienced no problems other than that it didn't reproduce all of the album art I had. The program boasts some nice features such as selective transfers, incremental back-ups, and repair to damaged iPod databases.

If you're scared of losing all your iPod data then install CopyTrans and erase your worries with ease.

Download CopyTrans 2.590 in Softonic

With such an ever growing range of multimedia devices, no wonder format converters are becoming so popular these days!

Any Audio/Video Converter is one of those converters: a simple, easy-to-use application that support pretty much any format you can find nowadays and lets you convert both audio and video files in just a few steps.

The program works with a list where you add the files you want to convert, no matter what format they are. Then you configure the conversion options for each one of them separately and finally click on the "Convert" button to let the program do the rest. I think this method is quite handy and saves you loads of work and time; pity the trial version only accepts one file on this list!

Any Audio/Video Converter includes a built-in player in its interface, but it's only good to watch the video while it's being converted and not preview it before actually starting the process.

With Any Audio/Video Converter you can convert basically any audio and video file you can think of, in a quite easy process that involves very little effort.

Download Any Audio/Video Converter 5.6 in Softonic

If you have different devices with video capabilities, you need a complete video tool like ALO AVI MPEG WMV 3GP MP4 iPod PSP Converter.

With ALO AVI MPEG WMV 3GP MP4 iPod PSP Converter you can convert from the most popular video formats to those formats used in devices such as the iPod, the Zune, the PSP, the PS3 or the Apple TV. All you have to do is load the source video, select the target format and let the program take care of the rest. Plus, you can convert several videos simultaneously.

Formats are conveniently organized in profiles according to the target device.
ALO AVI MPEG WMV 3GP MP4 iPod PSP Converter lets you tweak those target profiles by customizing bitrate, frame rate, video codec, audio bitrate and other elements, but unfortunately you can't save this customization as a new personal profile.

ALO AVI MPEG WMV 3GP MP4 iPod PSP Converter features a straightforward interface and is really easy to use. It includes a video window preview, but it's meant to only show video as it's being converted, not work as a built-in player.

With ALO AVI MPEG WMV 3GP MP4 iPod PSP Converter you'll always find the right combination to convert videos from one format to another and watch them on any device.

Download ALO AVI MPEG WMV 3GP MP4 iPod PSP Converter 6.6 in Softonic

There are many necessary evils in this life including queues, rain, and, perhaps most annoyingly for computer users, RealPlayer.

The latter of the three has traditionally been cursed for its slow buffering times and the fact that it comes rammed with all manner of obnoxious advertising and intrusive web links. Unfortunately the application has always been the only tool available to play streaming media files in the rather arcane RAM format, in which many sites still insist on encoding their video and audio in. Luckily, there’s a saviour around these days, in the shape of Real Alternative, which is designed to play these files with less hassle.

The program is a streamlined advertising-free application designed to easily play most media content, including RealAudio (.ra .rpm), RealMedia (.rm .ram .rmvb .rpx .smi .smil), RealText (.rt), and ReadPix (.rp) formats, along with as non-Real media content such as MP3s, MPEGs, AVIs, QuickTime movies, and CD/DVD content. You can also use the program to stream media embedded in web pages.

In terms of performance, Real Alternative beats the pants off RealPlayer, and for that matter, Windows Media Player, playing all the files we tested smoothly and virtually instantaneously. The app contains enough features to keep more serious users happy, including the useful ability to bookmark favorite files, adjust volume in the window, track progress of the file, and more. Although not as quite as fully loaded with tools as its more established rivals, we can live without all manner of channel guides and visualizations in exchange for a much slicker playback experience.

There are some areas where Real Alternative falls down, such as its inability to handle .smi files or its lack of support for CDDB look-ups. But if you’re looking for something that will play audio and video quickly and without interruption, you can’t fault Real Alternative. There are programs, such as KMPlayer, which also offer superior playback quality, but Real Alternative excels in the way it handles streaming media, making it a worthwhile addition to your PC’s arsenal of programs.

Download Real Alternative 1.9.0 in Softonic

FreeRip is a freeware Windows application that lets you save audio CD tracks to Wav, MP3, WMA, Ogg Vorbis or FLAC audio files. FreeRIP is also an audio file converter and it can convert audio files from one of the named formats to another.

Converting your audio CD collection to digital audio files to move to your portable digital audio player (including iPod), mobile phone, car audio system, or whatever, is a matter of minutes with FreeRIP. Just start FreeRIP, put audio CD in and click on Rip button.

FreeRIP is a CD ripper, this means that it can record digital audio tracks directly from audio CD to files onto your hard drive (this process is known as "ripping"). You can save tracks as CD quality WAV files or encode them to a lossy (MP3, Ogg Vorbis, WMA) or lossless (FLAC) audio format.

FreeRIP supports extended tagging and ID3 v2 standard, so that you can add information to audio tracks like artist name, song title, lyrics and so on, and FreeRIP will store them in the audio file itself. It also provide access to FreeRIP CD Database, an Open Source, collaborative CD information repository. It also provides backward compatibility with well known freedb CD database.

FreeRIP lets you convert audio files from a format to another: its integrated audio converter helps you to convert as many files you want between the most famous audio formats.

It also includes a contextual search button to help you finding information, images, videos and lyrics about the selected track or artist. Find a song lyrics in few seconds: select the track, select "Search Lyrics ..." menu option and browse search results to find what you need.

Download FreeRIP MP3 3.091 in Softonic

Recuva (pronounced "recover") is a freeware utility to restore files that have been accidentally deleted from your computer.

This includes files emptied from the Windows Recycle Bin as well as images and other files that have been deleted by user error from digital camera memory cards or even MP3 players.

It will even bring back files that have been deleted by bugs, crashes and viruses.

Download Recuva 1.19.350 in Softonic

Audio/Video To EXE converts audio files and video executables and allows you to send them to another person without having a player and codec. In addition to this primary function, Audio/ Video To EXE also performs conversions between various media formats.

There are two types of conversion offered - EXE and multimedia formats, with a list of tasks and completed quickly. The only drawback of this free version is that you cannot select the sampling frequency and hence the quality of the resulting files. This is a great tool for sending small videos and songs by e-mail, ensuring that the recipient can play the file. Almost all audio/video formats [3GP, AAC, AC3, AIFF, ASF, AVI, EXE, FLAC, FLV, GIF, M1V, M2V, M4V, MOV, MP2, MP3, MP4, MPC, MPG, NUT, OGG, RA, RM, SWF, VOB, VOC, WAV, WMA, WMV, WV, YUV] are supported. You can even play and convert your executables without a player or a codec. It works as a standalone and the latest version adds M1V, M2V, M4V, and YUV support.

If you love to share clips with someone who's forever having problems with their media player, then Audio/Video to EXE is the answer to your prayers.

Download Audio/Video To Exe 1.5.3.0 in Softonic

The iPod is a great music player but it's also a bit picky when it comes to supported audio formats.

iPod Audiobook can lend you a hand in these situations by enabling you to convert a handful of audio formats to MB4, the audiobook format supported by the iPod. This means that you can convert complete music collections to this format and have them synced to your iPod via iTunes in the blink of an eye.

iPod Audiobook is very easy to use, with a wizard-style interface to convert audio files. Plus it supports multiple simultaneous conversions and is also seamlessly embedded into Windows File Explorer. This means you can convert files right from the context menu, without having to open the program itself. With such a nice interface and handy tools, it would be great to have more audiobook target formats to choose from.

iPod Audiobook is a format converter specially developed to convert from a wide variety of sound formats to the iPod native audiobook format.

Download iPod AudioBook 1.1 in Softonic

As far as open source multimedia entertainment centers go, Elisa is a very impressive effort although it requires a lot of processing power and RAM.

Elisa has an intuitive interface that gives a professional feel and can be used to view both TV streams and most major video formats. You can even access it remotely from another computer if need be. Elisa also makes a pretty good audio player and displays album covers and other band related images as it plays your music in the same way as iTunes does.

Indeed, some of the inspiration for it appears to have come from iTunes although unlike iTunes, it extends itself to photo viewing and even browsing the Internet. The latter two functions are not the strongest areas of the package, although the browser is mainly designed for watching videos.

If you've got plenty of RAM to spare and fancy doing all your multimedia functions under one umbrella, Elisa is a beautifully presented and free open source solution.

Download Elisa 0.5.10 in Softonic

Singing your favourite songs aloud, especially when nobody sees you, is one of those little pleasures in life. But you obviously need to know the lyrics to the song you're trying to follow, something you can easily find with MiniLyrics.

This plug-in includes one of the most impressive lyrics database I've ever seen in my whole life as compulsive MP3 collector. It launches simultaneously with your music player, which is probably found among the 15 players supported by MiniLyrics. Then, just click on the Play button and the program will automatically look for lyrics, based on the information provided by the file's tags.

During our tests, the program found the lyrics to every single track we played, including English, Spanish, German, Italian and even Japanese songs. Also, in the few occasions the program didn't find the proper lyrics, we were able to download and display them is less than 30 seconds.

On the downside, MiniLyrics displays a nag window every time you launch it and another registration reminder on top of each lyrics file, but that's a price I'm willing to play to be able to sing almost any of the 4,300 files in my Winamp playlist.

Download MiniLyrics 6.0.3715 in Softonic

If you have a large collection of videos and a video-capable portable device, this might be the perfect app for you.

ImTOO MPEG Encoder Ultimate provides you with a straightforward tool to convert video files between a wide array of formats, with special attention to mobile devices, handheld consoles and multimedia players such as iPod, iPhone, iRiver and Zune. All supported formats are saved as profiles that you simply choose from a drop-down list, though you can also create your own format profiles by tweaking a few settings.

Besides converting, ImTOO MPEG Encoder Ultimate includes some extra tools with which you preview the video, take a snapshot, add special effects, trim the image or even add a watermark to it. Too bad the program was so unstable during our tests: it crashed every now and then without any apparent reason.

Despite these crashes, ImTOO MPEG Encoder Ultimate is a very complete video converting tool that well deserves a try.

Download ImTOO MPEG Encoder 5.0.9.9 Ultimate in Softonic

One of the most challenging aspects of having a large music collection is being able to manage tag labelling.

If your tags are not labelled properly, it's almost impossible to organise them well. TagScanner is a powerful TAG editor with batch functions and special features that allows you to export playlists to HTML or Excel worksheets. What's most useful about this program though is the fact that it can edit huge numbers of tags at the same time and not just that, but it can import tag information from Amazon or Freedb. The information that's retrieved can sometimes be hit or miss in accuracy but it saves a hell of a lot of time. You can generate tag information from file and folder names and it can edit a wide range of music formats including MP3, OGG, Musepack, Monkey's Audio, FLAC, AAC, OptimFROG, SPEEX, WavePack, TrueAudio, WMA, MP4 files. In terms of tagging, it's also pretty impressive supporting ID3 1.0/1.1/2.2/2.3/2.4 tags, APE v1 and v2 tags, Vorbis Comments, WMA tags and MP4(iTunes) metadata. The player is basic but it does allow you to create playlists and export them for reference which is useful for showing others your collection.

A very powerful tag editor that will surely save you time although you may find that automatically retrieved tags are not 100% accurate.

Download TagScanner 5.0.525 in Softonic

There are a multitude of audio converters and rippers around but few free programs offer the simplicity and functionality of BonkEnc. As well as being able to rip music from a CD and turn it into an audio file, the program boasts a converter for changing the format of a file between a wide range of file types, including MP, Ogg, AVI and WAV.

BonkEnc queries and stores track information using the online free CDDB database, automatically adding this meta data into the file to make it much easier to search and sort your music collection. The application performs its duties quickly and reliably and although the user interface looks rather old-hat, it hides a huge number of options for ripping and converting music, which makes this one of the most powerful free rippers you'll find.

Download BonkEnc 1.0.9 in Softonic

If you've never had a media streaming server before, Subsonic is probably an excellent choice to take your first steps.

This application includes just about anything you need to turn your home computer into a fully-featured media streaming server. You may still need to install some missing codecs but in general terms, starting Subsonic is just a question of launching the Windows service and opening your web browser.

As an admin user, you'll be able to configure every single detail about your server, such as folders to be included in the media menu, user accounts and security settings, to name a few. As a common user, you have also plenty of features available, from downloading music files to rating songs - all depending on the permissions given by the admin. The whole procedure is done via web, while the streamed media can be played with an array of media players including Winamp, Windows Media Player and iTunes. You can even make Last.fm register what you're listening to in Subsonic.

On the downside, and despite the simplicity of the program, I still had some problems to perform certain tasks especially in playlist management. Even worse, I couldn't find any help about it.

With a tool like Subsonic - and some spare time to configure it properly - you'll be able to turn your standard home PC into a professional media streaming server.

Download Subsonic 3.4 in Softonic

MakeItOne MP3 Album Maker, as its name clearly states, enables you to create complete albums out of several MP3 files.

This simple tool takes as many songs as you want to include and joins them into one single MP3 file (the album) which you can also tag from the program itself, adding the artist's name, track title and even album cover art. The program features support for drag-and-drop and is extraordinarily fast.

But that's not all. Besides generating single MP3 files from several tracks, you can perform exactly the opposite task: split a single MP3 file into different songs, which comes in especially handy if you have complete albums saved as just one MP3 track. Simply open the file with MakeItOne MP3 Album Maker and the program will automatically split the file and name each track accordingly – provided the file is properly tagged. The process is as quick as the joining one and the results are just perfect.

The only drawback I can find to this tool is the total absence of configuration options. Being able to select a new bitrate or more naming templated would have been great.

If you need to join or split MP3 files this tool is probably the easiest and fastest one, although files may need further editing to rename them.

Download MakeitOne MP3 Album Maker 3.40 in Softonic

Free MP3 CD Ripper is a powerful and easy-to-use CD ripper that helps you transfer all of your CD albums to MP3 format, which can then be used on portable devices.

Free MP3 CD Ripper can also rip to various other formats including WAV, WMA, OGG, FLAC and APE, although the speed of the conversions differs slightly according to which format you've selected. Alternatively, you can rip to MP3 and then use the inbuilt audio converter to rip to these formats, although this is a much more time consuming process.

The useful thing about Free MP3 CD Ripper is that it allows you to retrieve info about your albums from CDDB databases, saving you a hell of a lot of time when labeling your music. The program thus automatically labels your MP3 collection with ID3 tags.

As a way to verify whether your tracks have converted properly, there's a built in CD player that allows you to preview CD tracks after the CD ripping process. It's very easy to use and you'll be prompted whether you want to use it by Windows as soon as you enter a CD. The info retrieved form the CDDB database can be very hit and miss but generally it finds the right info.

If you're looking for a comprehensive CD ripper then there are better solutions out there, but as a simple and functional application, Free MP3 CD Ripper does the job.

Download Free MP3 CD Ripper 1.0 in Softonic

VideoMach is a powerful audio/video builder and converter. Use it to construct video clips from still images, enhance your recorded material or convert video, audio and image files between popular media formats.

VideoMach features:

• Suports popular video and image formats (mpeg, avi, divx, flc, jpeg, png, tif, gif, bmp and more)
• Reads and writes standard Linux and UN*X image formats (xpm, pnm, sgi, ras and more)
• Supports most popular audio formats (mp3, mp2, ogg, wav, ac3)
• Imports the output of high-speed imagers and time-lapse cameras (bayer, cine)
• World's fastest image sequence detection, more than 50,000 images per second
• Professional-quality MPEG, AVI and Bayer readers, video is decoded at highest quality unlike in most media players
• Fastest software MPEG encoder, more then 120 frames per second
• Can read or write very large MPEG files, up to million terabytes
• Creates industry standard VideoCD MPEGs by NTSC and PAL / SECAM video specs
• Connects to both Video For Windows (VFW) and DirectShow (DS) interfaces ensuring support for vaste number of AVI codecs / subformats
• Easy to navigate but powerful AVI output video / audio codecs selection dialog
• Integrated media player
• Fast, compact and reliable installer with built-in anti-virus check

Download VideoMach 5.0.5 in Softonic

Even if you’re extremely careful about downloading only music which is compatible with your player, there comes a moment when you need to convert audio files from one format to another. And if you have never used this kind of software before, you may feel a little bit lost at the beginning: which program should I use? Will it have support for this or that?

Free MP3 WMA Converter is probably one of the best answers one could give to these questions. In spite of being quite plain both in aspect and functionalities, this little app does its job and does it well. So don’t let yourself be fooled by its simplicity and spare us five minutes to take a deeper look.

The process of installing Free MP3 WMA Converter follows the standard steps and includes the possibility of also installing Pando, a free tool to share large files through e-mail. But you can simply skip that point if you’re not interested in it.

Once installed on your system, the program allows you to choose the interface language, a nice feature for non-English speakers. However, it wouldn’t be really necessary, as Free MP3 WMA Converter is incredibly simple to use: first, select the files you want to convert; then, choose the target format; finally, click on the “Convert” button. Easy as pie! Plus, the conversion itself is surprisingly fast. The program even displays a neat progress bar so that you can control the whole process in detail.

If there is a drawback to Free MP3 WMA Converter, it’s the range of supported formats. Only six of them (AAC, APE, MP3, Ogg, WAV and WMA) but at least they’re the most used and popular ones. Besides, the program features separate conversion options for each one of them, so you can always achieve the quality of sound you wanted. Another thing this program lacks is having a wider choice of options, such as volume normalization, a built-in tag editor or other similar extra functions that can be found in most conversion tools.

In short, if you’re looking for an audio file converter and don’t know where to begin, just give Free MP3 WMA Converter a chance. It may suit your needs, as long as they’re simple enough.

Download Free Mp3 Wma Converter 1.7.3 in Softonic

Sometimes I prefer watching movies and TV series on the computer rather than doing it on the couch. The image quality in my PC monitor is better and I can handle more formats than just DVD.

Of course, I need a good video player in order to enjoy my favorite movies at their most, and my choice is no other than BSPlayer. This great video player features anything you need to watch movies or any other kind of video on your PC. It supports all popular video formats (and audio as well, in case you were wondering) and though its basic interface is not really the nicest one I've seen, you can easily customize it with skins.

BSPlayer supports video subtitles, takes screenshots of movie currently playing, lets you create bookmarks and chapters to move along videos more easily and has also support for plug-ins. I especially liked the way you can control playback, either by using keyboard shortcuts or simply your mouse: one click to stop the video, two clicks to go full screen, mouse wheel to raise or low the volume…

The only thing I didn't like was the fact that, being a free version, you're obliged to install an adware element on your PC that displays ads from time to time while you're browsing the way. It's a safe app that doesn't compromise your privacy, but still it's not my cup of tea. I guess it's just the price you have to pay for having such a great video player for free.

BSPlayer lets you enjoy your favorite movies on the PC with a wide range of features (subtitles, screenshots, bookmarks and more) provided you're willing to accept some ads on your desktop.

Download BS.Player Free 2.31.974 in Softonic