Software:Banshee (media player)

Short description: Open source media player

Banshee

Developer(s)	Novell Inc.
Initial release	February 17, 2005 (2005-02-17)
Stable release	2.6.2 (February 18, 2014 (2014-02-18)) [±]
Written in	C# (Gtk#)
Operating system	Linux, Mac OS X (beta), Windows (alpha)
Type	Media player
License	MIT

Banshee was a cross-platform open-source media player, called Sonance until 2005. Built upon Mono and Gtk#, it used the GStreamer multimedia platform for encoding, and decoding various media formats, including Ogg Vorbis, MP3 and FLAC. Banshee can play and import audio CDs and supports many portable media players, including Apple's iPod, Android devices and Creative's ZEN players. Other features include Last.fm integration, album artwork fetching, smart playlists and podcast support. Banshee is released under the terms of the MIT License. Stable versions are available for many Linux distributions, as well as a beta preview for OS X and an alpha preview for Windows.

Banshee was the default music player for a year in Ubuntu and for some time in Linux Mint, but was later replaced by Rhythmbox in both distributions.

Banshee uses the SQLite database library.

Plugins

Banshee's plugin-capable architecture makes the software extensible and customizable. (As of 2012) stable plugins include:

• Audioscrobbler: Adds the capability of reporting played songs to a user's Last.fm playlist, and play last.fm radio stations (user's library, tags, similar to, etc.).
• 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.
• iPod manager: Allows the transferring of songs, videos, and album art to and from the device.
• 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.
• Notification Area Icon: Adds an icon to the notification area in GNOME.
• Podcasting: Enables Banshee to subscribe to podcast feeds, which are updated on a regular basis.
• Radio: Provides support for streaming Internet radio stations.

Cross-platform support

Compared to the Linux builds, which have stable releases, the Mac OS X builds are considered beta quality, and Windows builds are alpha quality (and, as of April 2013, two versions behind the other platforms). During Google Summer of Code 2012 Banshee has seen substantial improvements to its OS X support

The first alpha release of Banshee on Windows was Banshee 1.9.4, released on February 23, 2011.

Release history

Version	Release date	Significant changes
1.0	June 5, 2008	Album Browser Play Queue Now Playing section Video support Audio CD support CD Ripping / Burning Podcast support Integrated Next/Shuffle button Device support (MTP, iPod, Mass storage) Mini mode Automatic cover art
1.2	July 29, 2008	10-band Equalizer Internet radio Music recommendations DAAP client Playlist importing Compilation album support Manual reordering of playlists and play queue Amarok migration
1.2.1	August 12, 2008	Bugfix release
1.4.1	November 10, 2008	Improved device support Support for the HTC Android G1 Support for Mac OS X New track editor New rescan library tool
1.4.2	January 20, 2009	Bugfix release
1.4.3	March 4, 2009	Improved MTP support Device playlist sync
1.6.0	March 31, 2010	Rhythmbox migrator Beats Per Minute detection Automatic scoring Creative Commons licensing information column Separate library locations for music, videos and podcasts Gapless playback Album grid view YouTube extension Equalizer presets Nokia N900 support Sync device from playlist Type-ahead Find Optional cover art in lower left corner Editable cover art Separate library for audiobooks Library-folder watcher eMusic Importer/Downloader iTunes importer Supports searching and streaming from the Internet Archive Support for Pulse and Droid phones Uses Last.fm 2.0 API New Shuffle mode Auto DJ Support for webOS devices Support for Samsung Galaxy phones
1.6.1	May 7, 2010	?
1.8.0	September 29, 2010	Ability to connect to remote DAAP servers iPod and iPhone / iPod Touch support No more HAL dependency User manual Amazon MP3 Store and downloader Miro podcast directory Bulk metadata fixup extension Improvements for Audiobook support, layout
1.8.1	January 28, 2011	?
2.0.0	April 6, 2011	2.x major-number release Artist/Album Browser Track Actions 'Play After' Queue Options User Interface Improvements Ubuntu One Music Store and SoundMenu Extensions Subtitles
2.0.1	May 2, 2011	?
2.2.0	September 21, 2011	?
2.2.1	November 1, 2011	Support for the following Android devices: New Devices Supported: Motorola Atrix, Notion Ink Adam, Samsung Galaxy Ace, Samsung Galaxy S2, Xperia X12 Support for the Barnes & Noble Nook Support default internet radio stations Various bug fixes (108 fixed since 2.0.0)
2.4.0	March 2012	Support for UPnP DVD video support Additional search filters Improvements to the interface
2.4.1	May 31, 2012	Various bug fixes (12 fixed since 2.4.0)
2.6.0	October 3, 2012	Significant improvements to the OS X release Updated to use Last.FM scrobbling API 2.0 AAC transcoding profile reenabled Device-scrobbling support to LastFM (only Apple devices for now) Support for the following Android devices: Samsung Galaxy Nexus Various bug fixes (59 fixed since 2.4.0)
2.6.1	April 16, 2013	Various bug fixes (15 fixed since 2.6.0) Minor enhancements to filetype handling and device support
2.6.2	February 18, 2014	Various bug fixes (23 fixed since 2.6.1) AppData file for inclusion in opensource appstores
2.9.0	October 8, 2013	Port to GTK3 Symbian device sync support (i.e.: Nokia N95) Various bug fixes (37 fixed since 2.6.0)
2.9.1	March 18, 2014	GStreamer 1.x support New GStreamerSharp (managed) playback backend now default New MediaPanel UI (inherited from the old Meego frontend) Various bug fixes (35 fixed since 2.9.0)
3.0.0	TBA	Last stable version of the 2.9-series

Color	Meaning
Red	Old release
Green	Last stable release

Helix Banshee

Helix Banshee was a version of Banshee, included in older versions of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop and openSUSE. It was based upon the Banshee core, but with a plug-in to add support for the Helix framework for playback and transcoding, in addition to GStreamer.

See also

• Software audio players (free and open-source)