23 August 2007: In praise of SASAMI2k
SASAMI2k.
I started out using Windows Media Player 6.4, foregoing all of Microsoft's later versions, and shunning obnoxious corporate piles of shit like RealPlayer.
Nowadays, I watch most of my anime on my television using MPC—Media Player Classic—on my HTPC. It hasn't been updated in forever, but that doesn't seem to matter. Everything still works. If I'm away from my television (which seems to be a lot lately, alas), then I use MPlayer on my IBM Thinkpad.
MPlayer.
In between, I've used various versions of BSplayer, VLC, ZoomPlayer, and other free media players. The one I used the longest prior to settling on MPC was probably SASAMI2K.
Developed around the turn of the century, and named after an anime character, Sasami2K may be the prettiest media player. Like MPC, it also hasn't been updated in forever—something on the order of five years and counting.
Media Player Classic.
On a whim, I downloaded a copy to use on a fresh installation of Windows XP along with the CCCP codec pack. Funny, everything works. Old AVIs play, of course, but so do MKVs and recent .h264 AVC MP4s (thanks to CCCP assisting with the newer containers). The only thing it doesn't seem to play are DVDs (although it will play the VOBs). And Sasami2K is still the prettiest media player.
ZoomPlayer.
So I think I'm going to keep using it, at least during the rare occasions when I boot to Windows on the Thinkpad. Nostalgia is definitely a factor. This is what I used "back in the day," as it were—after VHS tapes and before HDTV. I used SASAMI2k to watch Love Hina and FLCL and Cardcaptor Sakura and, uh, Witch Hunter Robin. It's familiar, okay, and somewhat comforting that it is unchanged after all these years, yet still works.
In a way, SASAMI2k is responsible for my Cardcaptor Sakura brace.
And I encourage you to try it—again, if you've been down that road before—or for the first time, if you're relatively new to all this nonsense.
