Methods and systems are described that assist media players in rendering
different media types. In some embodiments, a unified rendering area is provided
and managed such that multiple different media types are rendered by the media
player in the same user interface area. This unified rendering area thus permits
different media types to be presented to a user in an integrated and organized
manner. An underlying object model promotes the unified rendering area by providing
a base rendering object that has properties that are shared among the different
media types. Object sub-classes are provided and are each associated with a different
media type, and have properties that extend the shared properties of the base rendering
object. In addition, an inventive approach to visualizations is presented that
provides better synchronization between a visualization and its associated audio stream.
