Yahoo! Player

Yahoo has come out with its own multimedia player–theYahoo! Player–which can play audio and video, and can also stream content fromthe Internet. Here, we’ll take a closer look at the player to check out whatall it can do.

To install the Yahoo! Player, you need Windows Media Player 6or higher. During installation, you can choose the file formats you want thePlayer to be associated with. If you want certain file formats to be handled bya different program, you can unselect them here.

Once installed, the Yahoo! Player searches your hard drivesfor all the file formats you’ve associated it with, and displays a list of thefiles. You can then add any of these to a playlist, or play any specific file.

For music files, Yahoo! Player has two different windows–theplayer and, below it, the playlist window. To play a movie file you need to goto a separate window called the Yahoo! Viewer.

Another interesting feature of this player is Yahoo! Radio,which lets you stream music from the Internet. You can choose to play differentstyles of music, such as Rock, Classic, Sports, Urban. For each of thesecategories, you’ll get six preset radio stations. You can toggle betweenstations by clicking on the six numbered buttons on the Player’s interface.You can also search for more stations by clicking on Find stations. This willopen up the Yahoo! digital browser, through which you can search for stations.

After you’ve selected a station, all you need to do isclick on it, and wait. The wait would depend upon the amount of bandwidthavailable to you. Soon, you’ll start hearing your favorite music.

To change the look and feel of the Yahoo! Player, go to theEdit menu and under Skins select Change Skin. This will again open up thedigital browser and you can select the skin you like.

Sachin Makhija