Banshee (music player)

Infobox Software
name = Banshee



caption = Banshee's main interface
developer = Aaron Bockover
released = 2005-02-17 [ [http://www.banshee-project.org/History History - Banshee ] ]
Preview Release = 1.3.1
frequently_updated = yes
programming language = C# (Mono)
operating system = Linux
language = Multilingual
genre = Media player
license = MIT License
website = http://www.banshee-project.org/

Banshee is a media player that is built upon Mono and Gtk#. It uses the GStreamer multimedia platform for encoding, and decoding various media formats, including Ogg Vorbis, MP3 and FLAC. Banshee can play, import, and burn audio CDs, and supports many portable media players, including Apple's iPod and Creative's ZEN players, in the current (May 23, 2008) version [http://banshee-project.org/Discover/Synchronize] . Music stored on the iPod can be played without synchronization, and album art stored in the Banshee library is transferred to the iPod. Support for MTP and PlaysForSure devices, as well as the Rio Karma player is planned for the near future.

Released under the terms of the MIT License, Banshee is free and open source software.

Plugins

Using a plugin-capable architecture, Banshee is highly extensible and customizable. Current stable plugins include:
* Audioscrobbler: Adds the capability of reporting played songs to a user's Last.fm playlist.
* Podcasting: Enables Banshee to subscribe to podcast feeds, which are updated on a regular basis. There is also a "Find new podcasts" feature which utilises [http://www.podcastalley.com Podcast Alley] .
*DAAP music sharing: Allows sharing of music libraries with iTunes and other DAAP-compatible music software. The current version of Banshee is only partially compatible with iTunes 7, allowing iTunes to open a Banshee library, but not vice-versa.
* Metadata searcher using Musicbrainz: Automatically retrieves missing and supplementary metadata for library items, including album art.
* Music Recommendations using Last.fm: Recommends music based on the currently playing song.
* Mini-Mode plugin: Provides a small window with minimal playback controls and song information.
* Multimedia keys support in GNOME: Banshee can be controlled via multimedia keys as configured through GNOME.
* Radio: Provides support for streaming internet radio stations.
* Notification Area Icon: Adds an icon to the notification area in GNOME.

Helix Banshee

[https://helix-banshee.helixcommunity.org/ Helix Banshee] is a version of Banshee, included in SLED and available in openSUSE (non-OSS media). It is based upon the Banshee core, but adds support for the Helix framework for playback and transcoding, in addition to GStreamer. [https://helix-banshee.helixcommunity.org/ Helix Banshee] does not modify the core of Banshee in any way, it simply builds upon it via Banshee's extensible plugin framework.

See also

*Amarok
*Rhythmbox
*Songbird
*Comparison of media players
*Free audio software
*Linux audio software
*Gtkpod

References

External links

* [http://www.banshee-project.org/ Official website]