MusicMatch Jukebox

Currently at version 6.00, MusicMatch Jukebox, made by MusicMatch, is one of the leading digital audio jukeboxes. By jukebox, I mean a package that's able to play, record, convert, and manage more than one form of digital audio. In the case of MusicMatch Jukebox, the following is supported (well, I might add):

• Rip CDs directly to MP3 or WMA audio (with or without digital rights management) (with no interim WAV file, and at a peak of about 6x on a PII 400 with 192 MB of RAM)
• Record CDs from the playlist or by selecting individual tracks
• Built in Internet radio ability (I don't use it, myself)
• Personalized recommendations for your musical tastes in association with Big Brother ©
• Plays CD audio, WAV files, MP3 files, WMA files (both secure and non-secured)
• Built in viz window
• Very advanced ID3v1 and ID3v2 tag integration and editing
• Themeable
• Supports plug-ins, that include the ability to copy directly to a portable MP3 player

The above listed features apply to the Windows version of the jukebox; as I have only a PC that runs Windows 2000, I can't comment on the Macintosh or Linux versions of the software, both of which were released recently.

MusicMatch Jukebox has been around for a little more than two years as a serious player in the jukebox market. Starting with version 3.0, MusicMatch Jukebox began as one of the first full jukeboxes for home users. Originally shareware and now as a double package of either the free player/recorder/ripper or the costly player/faster recorder/faster ripper, the package has evolved well. In the past, the software was subject to many bugs and a slow, kludgy interface. While Real and Microsoft have lagged behind in both features and usability with the laughable RealJukebox and Windows Media Player 7, MusicMatch has instead worked to iron out the wrinkles in its software and make it cross-platform--across three platforms, and available in six languages.

I choose MusicMatch for all my ripping needs. When the MP3 market was just starting to get noticed, MusicMatch was one of the very few software packages that could record a single MP3 in less than 20 minutes (try three minutes!), and for a short the only package that could record directly to MP3 without an interim WAV file. Though the MP3 community was marred by MusicMatch's use of the Xing MP3 encoder, the company has since redeemed itself by now utilising the Fraunhofer encoder. I can record an entire CD in about 15-20 minutes, at 192 kbps. That's not half bad.

I agree with The Oolong Man's implications of Musicmatch Jukebox's problem. It is too tyrannical. It does too much automatically, without asking. If you use TweakUI to disable cd-autoplay, then tough. Every time MMJB starts it turns it back on. In Win9X I disabled auto-insert at the hardware level, but in Win2k I can't find that, and it's just plain obnoxious no matter what.
In the latest version of MMJB I too can not get it to stop bugging me about claiming file formats.
It is buggy. It just now(last version I think) started having real playlist use - a couple versions ago I wanted to open a playlist I created in Winamp and burn it to a cd--Musicmatch would only let me open playlists created in musicmatch, or residing in my "My Music" folder(which I don't use).
I personally find Musicmatch to be extremely slow and kludgy, despite running it on 600mhz machines with 128mb RAM. It has flashy and useless stuff that you can't get rid of. I often hit "hidden" links in the interface, which go slowly launching a web browser when I was just trying to drag the player over a few pixels.
Musicmatch isn't free(its disabled shareware). Winamp and CDex(and other ripping utilities) are completely free, and IMO faster, more stable, and just plain better.

Regardless, I've used Musicmatch Jukebox a whole lot for ripping cds, and would probably have paid for the full version if not for the problems listed above.