Winamp is [NOT] Dead [Updated]

[TimP]

BetaNews is reporting that the doors at Nullsoft have been closed (http://www.betanews.com/article/Death_Knell_Sounds_for_Nullsoft_Winamp/1100111204): 'The last members of the original Winamp team have said goodbye to AOL and the door has all but shut on the Nullsoft era, BetaNews has learned. Only a few employees remain to prop up the once-ubiquitous digital audio player with minor updates, but no further improvements to Winamp are expected

[WeekendLazyness]

It's funny because some have told me to change to Winamp from Windows Media Player without ever offering any real reasons.

[Graeme]

Awww, I love WinAmp . . . this kind of makes me sad :/. I've always used WinAmpTV for Seinfeld and FamilyGuy and a bunch of different animes :). It seems a pity that there won't be any further additions to it.

[xodkrm]

:cry:

[JC_Denton]

*CRYING LIKE HELL* :cry: :cry: :cry:


WHHHHHHYYYYYYYYY ?!?!??!?!??!?!?

[ZombieKing]

Well, thats just not cool.....

[Neo]

Well its not as if winamp will dissapear...

like, 2.9* forever!

-Neo

[JC_Denton]

Ok ppl : make copies of setup file for winamp 5.
Distribute them over IRC MSN DC++ FTP on CDs and DVDs to all ppl u know and to all ppl u dont know :D :P ;)


WINAMP LIVES !!!!!!!!!!! :D

[TimP]

Winamp isn't going away, it's just not being updated anymore.

[JC_Denton]

And that is not horrible enough ??? :cry:

[Subjukator]

not like you actually knew the employee's or anything

[L2_1989]

This sucks.

HEY!! Wait a minute! They released an update yesterday!

[Shinigami]

Read it and weep, bitches. (http://www.winamp.com/about/article.php?aid=10627) Well, I guess you'd more, you know, rejoice, but... Well, read it anyway. If you can. You know, if you're not illiterate.
...
Bitches.

[Exedore]

I heard that this was a hoax and that winamp is actually hiring more people.

EDIT: The god of death beat me to it. Props to Winamp for the Altered Beast reference.

[Shinigami]

Waha, beat'cha. :P

[JC_Denton]

Oh my , oh my , oh my ...
Ok , i read that stuff i dont get a thing and i m not illiterate
but if i m dead by the end of this week i would like to know what is up with Winamp now :

IS IT DEAD or NOT ??!??!??!?

[WeekendLazyness]

I still don't see why I should choose it over Windows Media Player.

[JC_Denton]

Windows media player is nothing... its just a small "if no other choice" only.

Movies can be watched with DivX or BS Player
And music files are best played with WINAMP and if u add DFX addon to Winamp u gonna feel like u r on the concert stage live.

[TimP]

First of all, Shinigami, I don't need you editing my post titles.

Second of all, JC_Denton, I don't know how you can call Windows Media Player nothing. With Windows Media Player I: listen to music, make playlists, watch movies, watch DVDs, sync/add music to my MP3 player, rip CDs, listen to streaming audio, watch streaming video, etc. You may be able to do that with Winamp or something other combination of programs, but I prefer having one program with a common interface that can do all of it.

[WeekendLazyness]

I agree with Tim. Plus, you can watch DivX movies on WMP becuase the when you install DivX, it installs the plugin for WMP.

[JC_Denton]

Winamp is much more advanced then Windows media player.
U can do all that stuff with Winamp and if u use DFX ( which i mentioned before ) u get much better results then in windows media player.

the programs intergrated in windows ( paint , media player , firewall , etc... have all professional counterparts ( ACD See6 , Winamp ; Sygate , whatever. the useage of these little programs are only for users who have just bought a PC and dont have anything else then Windows on it so they can do at least soemthing. But if u wanna be a professional u ll soon start using more advanced programs )
Anyone correct me if i m wrong.

DivX movies ?

Use the DivX player its together in a pack with codec anyway.

[WeekendLazyness]

I like how you say Winamp is much more advanced than WMP because it has this DFX, which I assume is some sort of sound processor. Well, WMP also has something called SRS Wow effects, which digitally enhances the signal. Plus, my soundcard's software also has a similar feature.

[Fenguin]

Winamp is much more advanced then Windows media player.
U can do all that stuff with Winamp
Good for it. What's your point? WMP is packaged with Windows, so you don't have to install anything extra.

and if u use DFX ( which i mentioned before ) u get much better results then in windows media player.
DFX runs on WMP too. It's not Winamp-exclusive.

the programs intergrated in windows ( paint , media player , firewall , etc... have all professional counterparts ( ACD See6 , Winamp ; Sygate , whatever. the useage of these little programs are only for users who have just bought a PC and dont have anything else then Windows on it so they can do at least soemthing. But if u wanna be a professional u ll soon start using more advanced programs )
A professional what? Music listener? No one said that they favor paint over Photoshop in graphics-intensive creations (that doesn't include webcomics); we're only talking about WMP vs. Winamp here. Also, I wouldn't call WMP a "little" program - reread Tim's post. In fact, I'll quote it here:

Second of all, JC_Denton, I don't know how you can call Windows Media Player nothing. With Windows Media Player I: listen to music, make playlists, watch movies, watch DVDs, sync/add music to my MP3 player, rip CDs, listen to streaming audio, watch streaming video, etc. You may be able to do that with Winamp or something other combination of programs, but I prefer having one program with a common interface that can do all of it.
Nope, it's not "little" at all.

DivX movies ?
Use the DivX player its together in a pack with codec anyway.
Why bother getting new software if you can watch the movies at the same quality with WMP?

In conclusion, you need to give more concrete and valid evidence that Winamp is superior to Windows Media Player.

[RoP]

"My Ignorance Amuses Me." :cool:
Awesome :) Proves my point for me. Your Ignorance Amuses Me. :cool:
Each feature you list for winamp can be accomplished with windows media player. Winamp is an excellent media player, I admit, but there's no reason to claim that windows media player is any worse.


the programs intergrated in windows ( paint , media player , firewall , etc... have all professional counterparts ( ACD See6 , Winamp ; Sygate , whatever. the useage of these little programs are only for users who have just bought a PC and dont have anything else then Windows on it so they can do at least soemthing. But if u wanna be a professional u ll soon start using more advanced programs )
Anyone correct me if i m wrong.
You are indeed wrong. I use many of the built-in windows programs. Notepad is still my ONLY text editor. It's simple, clean, non-memory hogging, etc etc.

Also, media player is different from paint, etc. Microsoft prides itself on Windows Media Player. Notice how WMP is constantly updated. Paint and Notepad are simply built-in programs - you never find updates for these programs on the MS website.

Finally, please, I beg you - for the love of all that is true and good, write in proper English. It took me about 15 minutes to decipher that garbage you posted. I'll find my cryptograms in the daily newspaper, thanks.

[Darkslayer633]

wmp is fine but my personal tastes just prefere winamp because of the way u create playlists, but i still use wmp to copy music from cd's to my comp.

[Neo]

Personally I prefer something that looks better, plays things better, and runs faster then windows bloated answer to it.

WinAmp will always be > WMP. But then, I dont like alot of things from MS.

I mean hell, look at SP2. Screweed over a ton of people who didnt understand what was going on >_>

WMP is just bloated. Ill grant that it is good for watching movies, but then, I use winamp 2.9.

-Neo

[JC_Denton]

:D ok boys ... whatever. use what u like but i m still 100 % that winamp is much better then WMP;)

[Kahuzal]

They're not going away, just closing up shop. the site will just be idle.

Hmm, I wonder if this means that they will still have the pay-version for sale? Who would the money go to?

[TimP]

Haven't they had a "Pro" version (along with the free version) that you had to pay for for a while?

WMP bloated? You have to be kidding me. Windows Media Player playing a song is taking about 5MB of RAM. Winamp doing NOTHING is using 12-27MB of RAM. I know it's fun to bash MS and call Windows and its associated products bloated, but please get your facts straight before you jump on the MS bashing bandwagon.

[Shinigami]

First of all, Shinigami, I don't need you editing my post titles.
All in good fun, m'boy.

IS IT DEAD or NOT ??!??!??!?
Not. :)

You are indeed wrong. I use many of the built-in windows programs. Notepad is still my ONLY text editor. It's simple, clean, non-memory hogging, etc etc.
... a simple and... well, at least a simple person. I dunno about clean. :P

[WeekendLazyness]

I coded my whole site in Notepad. I don't see how you can say it's not clean.

[Exedore]

WMP bloated? You have to be kidding me. Windows Media Player playing a song is taking about 5MB of RAM. Winamp doing NOTHING is using 12-27MB of RAM. I know it's fun to bash MS and call Windows and its associated products bloated, but please get your facts straight before you jump on the MS bashing bandwagon.

Running Winamp 2.81 right now playing an mp3. Peak memory usage is 4.8MB, and current is 1.8MB. If I random a bunch of songs, I can get it up to 3.0MB, but it quickly drops to 2.5MB. I'm using a 2 second buffer. WMP 6.x uses almost 12MB to play the same mp3. WMP 8.x had 14MB at its peak and a constant 6.0MB while playing. Please get your facts straight before you stick up for bloated software.

[WeekendLazyness]

In other news, OS/2 Warp's kernel uses half the hard drive space than Windows 3.1's kernel.

[TimP]

I was comparing Windows Media Player 10 and Winamp 5, the current versions of the software. It doesn't surprise me that Winamp 2 has a small memory foot print because it's several years old.

http://www.timpinkawa.net/tim/wmp10about.png

http://www.timpinkawa.net/tim/wmp10.png
http://www.timpinkawa.net/tim/winamp.png

[Neo]

Like Exedore, we both use Winamp 2.9. This uses less memory then 5, and for a reason. Winamp 5 has a lot of features that we dont really need. Winamp 2.9 runs fine on almost any system, and Winamp 5 is better for higher end systems (I am testing it now).

Winamp Pro is for people who want to rip from cds, but for that I trust things like Nero more then Winamp, or WMP.

Not only that, but WMP has always been slow for me. Its always started slow, its always played slow, and it randomly freezes on large videos -- whereas Winamp 5 (so far, decided to test it) hasnt frozen once, on videos or otherwise.

ADD: Winamp for me, now, on random, playing a buncha remixes from OCR, is using 4.5megs (this is winamp 5)

When I am not running anything: I see nothing (no winamp in the task manager) but I do see WinampA, which is using 508k.

Besides that, I run Windows 2000. I dont use Windows XP (lets talk about bloated) Id rather not have an OS that requires more ram to run then most games.

-Neo

EDIT: Not only that, but WMP 10, is a whopping 13megs. Winamp 5 (http://www.winamp.com/player/free.php) can be 713 kb. That or 4.35 (what most people will use). Even the 3rd option, 7.87 megs is almost half that of WMP 10.

Winamp 2.9x: http://www.winampheaven.net/ or http://www.oldversion.com/program.php?n=winamp
Download Winamp 2.95 Lite (691 kb) - No sugar, but damn sweet!
Download Winamp 2.95 Standard (1.77 Mb) - Standard version
Download Winamp 2.95 Full (2.36 Mb) - Full version

EDIT2: Wow. Look at that, WMP(10) just jumped to 7.7megs, and all its doing is SITTING THERE. Winamp sits there at 668k (thats minimized) or 1.5k minimized playing. Winamp 5 (up with leet skin Kalak Amp) is @ about 2.3megs. WMP is now att 7.8megs, its still not doing anything. Jumped to 8megs. Wtf? Its NOT DOING ANYTHING!

[Shinigami]

I coded my whole site in Notepad. I don't see how you can say it's not clean.
I was actually refering to RoP. ^^;;;

I never used WMP. I got into music with WinAmp 2 and then switched to iTunes awhile back. I don't have much of a joice now since I have a Mac, but I still prefer iTunes. it's the little things, I guess. Seeing "1292 songs, 3.3 days, 4.35 GB", for instance. Not the most useful of things, but I just like it.

[Neo]

I am gonna get an iPod soon. I will still refuse to use iTunes for anything other then iPod use >_>

Tis EVIL I sAy! (But i want an iPod.)

Leave me alone. /cries

-Neo

[TimP]

That's why I bought a Creative MP3 player. Cheaper and I don't have to use iTunes. It holds 4GB, of which I'm only using about 2GB and cost me $169.99 with shipping. It's on sale now for $128.99 after rebate at Newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=55-102-129&depa=0

[Neo]

Yeah I dont know if I will get an iPod or not, but I would like an MP3 player.

-Neo

[ISmyFLYzipped]

Wait WHY!!?!?!

I love winamp :(

[OboeGuru]

My MAJOR pet peeve with Winamp is that it, by default, plays audio as it is recorded, usually 2.0 stereo.

Now, don't get me wrong, it's a fantastic piece of software, but I have a set of 5.1 stereo speakers for a reason: to hear sound all around me.
And unless I'm totally inept, you'd have to go plugin-hunting or something to mix 2.0 stereo to 5.1 stereo from Winamp, if not write the plugin yourself. The point is, I've found nothing built in with that capability.
WMP does mixes to maximum audio channels by default, and I couldn't be happier.

Bloated software? I care FAR more about the sound I'm getting than how much memory the program is using.

I used to use Winamp all the time until I discovered that WMP was far more useful.
I may keep updating my copy just to see if there's actually some use for it, but I'm going to stick with WMP, thank you very much.

[Seal]

winamp is fine as it is. light and does its job.
i mean, you have just 2 ears ( -> 2 input channels), so why have more (output-)channels?

earphones or whatever they are, do their job.

[JC_Denton]

BOYS !!!

The topic has been modified 2 times now... and guess what... :

U R GOING OFF THE TOPIC ! :D

Discussion is about the existance of Winamp not actuall usefulness or popularity of it.

[Seal]

discussion tends to go off topic, you know. it's not a real discussion if topic doesnt change.. its a flamewar then :D

[JC_Denton]

Nice picture by the way :)

[WeekendLazyness]

winamp is fine as it is. light and does its job.
i mean, you have just 2 ears ( -> 2 input channels), so why have more (output-)channels?

earphones or whatever they are, do their job.Your brain can tell where a sound is coming from by measuring the slight difference in time it takes a sound to reach each ear. Thus, a 5.1 system gives a more enriched experience.

[Neo]

Well we arent all audiophiles.

Besides that I would rather use a Dolby Surround/other 5.1 effect outside the program to control it, rather then have it rely on the program itself.

Or something, did that make sense? My older computer used to do mock-3d surrond sound becuase of the sound card I used. Cant remember.

Winamp doesnt support 5.1 (plugin hunting omgosh >_>) but if I truly wanted 5.1 support, I doubt I would use WMP. I mean theres gotta be something better out there! XP

-Neo

[OboeGuru]

I found a really crappy plugin for Winamp that outputs in 5.1 waveform. I say crappy because it was really incredibly easy to distort the sound with the configuration interface. However, DFX-ulra-sexy-leetness outputs to 5.1 (or higher) when you have the surround feature enabled.
Meh. I might start haopping between programs now that I've figured this out. :Þ

Means I'll have to spend like an hour setting up the Winamp Media Library to be like my WMP library... grr. *shrug*

iTunes also plays in multi-channel by default, but I don't get what people have against WMP. It's a great piece of software that's been well-established for years. Upon examination, while playing with DFX and Audioscrobbler active, WMP10 used only about 1-2 MB more memory than Winamp 2.95 with no active plugins.
I don't know where the hell you guys are getting your data, but it's obviously from biased sources as I am seeing such a very little difference between the two players.

If Winamp had died and gone away, I'm sure many people would've cried for a day, then begun to use another piece of [updating] software just as fervently, forgetting all about the llama.

[hammocksleeper]

I used to be a winamp fan but then I switched to WMP and I have never gone back. iTunes takes too long to load and I like the WMP interface better.

"Winamp...it makes the goat alive" or whatever that slogan was.

[Neo]

Oboe I didnt meant to tell you that your wrong, Ive never been a big audiophile (mostly becuase my speakers have always sucked) but I just meant that theres gotta be something bette then WMP... Though who knows.

I do like WinAMP5's media library though. Its one of the only type of things ive ever actually used (like ive let allow catalog my mp3s and stuff). Simple and basic, or at least it seems so, but is just as functional as WMP.

Lol, i feel like grabbing my 1000s of MIDIs and dragging them outta backup just to catalog them ^_~

-Neo

EDIT: Plus, personally, I kinda liked the old WMP more, you know? Oh well. I might switch back to WMP here in awhile just to test it -- my board does support 5.1 I believe, not that ive ever used it... Hahaha...

[Kahuzal]

Oh well, I can't use it anyway, I run a nix box.

[OboeGuru]

I do believe there is an alpha version of Winamp for *nix (I think Linux) floating around somewhere. ^_^
EDIT: There is! It took me five googled sites to find a working download, but it's there!
And it is in fact an ALPHA version of... Winamp3! 3 times the suck! ;)

Didn't mean to seem hostile or anything Neo, sorry. :) I've just recently become quite a bit of an audiophile, so I suppose I'm going a bit too far in my analyses, but whatever. It's probably more of an acquired taste. I always found the interface for winamp a bit too clunky for my tastes, and no doubt it's perfect for others. I love some aspects of iTunes, but the fact that it's barely extensible (if at all) really puts me off, and it just doesn't mesh as well with the Windows OSes (for good reason).

I think we need someone to argue for some other programs, so I'm going to go get FooBar2000 or Zinf now and magically fall in love with it and defend it to my grave. ;)

[TimP]

The die-hard WMP fan could use VMware on Linux or Wine. :D

[Neo]

Uhm Oboe what do you mean clunky?

O_o Becuase the way Winamp looks doesnt matter what with all the skins (freeform or not now)

Winamp 3, uhh, doesnt exist.

Winamp will never be ported to Max/Linux/others, but dont yall have Window Emulators for that? (ANd for macs youve got iTunes or whatever)

-Neo

[Seal]

Your brain can tell where a sound is coming from by measuring the slight difference in time it takes a sound to reach each ear.

when stereo music is precise enough, it'll be the same as 5.1 (apart from subwoofer).
not all music is that precise, then 5.1 will be slightly more effective.

[OboeGuru]

Winamp 3, uhh, doesnt exist.

Winamp will never be ported to Max/Linux/others, but dont yall have Window Emulators for that? (ANd for macs youve got iTunes or whatever)
...Winamp was most certainly ported to both Macintosh and Linux.
Winamp3 for Linux Alpha 1 (http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/1002748075/1)
Winamp 0.71 Alpha for Mac (http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/programs/Winamp_MAC/)

And what do you mean Winamp3 doesn't exist? True, it will never ever be updated again because it failed to live up to expectations, but it still exists on WinampHeaven, that place you mentioned a few posts ago.

[Neo]

I mean that there was no official Winamp3 (they are all alphas/betas) Winamp3 later became Winamp5 (Winamp 2 + Winamp 3 = 5). Or something o.O;;

The ports to Linux/Mac are In the FAQ on thier forum... or someplace, it mentions that Winamp will never be ported to any other system. Thats not to say that no one else has tried.

-Neo

[Shinigami]

I mean that there was no official Winamp3 (they are all alphas/betas) Winamp3 later became Winamp5 (Winamp 2 + Winamp 3 = 5). Or something o.O;;
I'm pretty sure that there was a Winamp 3. It was a bit more feature-packed than 2, but didn't hit it big, I guess. I thought one of the big things with Winamp 5 was that it'd use skins from both Winamp 2 and Winamp 3.

[Neo]

Winamp 5 is the "best" from Winamp 3 and 2. Winamp 3 never went full I believe, thats all I meant. There are alpha/betas of it floating around yeah...

-Neo

[OboeGuru]

There was a single actual release version of Winamp3, and a few "beta" builds afterwards.
It was abandoned shortly afterwards because of the ridiculously high load time assosciated with the XML-driven core they developed.

Winamp5 essentially blended the tried-and-true core of Winamp2 and the visual capabilities of the Winamp3 core. I suppose you could say that Winamp3 was a preview version of Winamp5, as I don't think there are any features of Winamp3 that were left out of Winamp5. Except the long load time, they left that out, thankfully. ;)

Winamp3 never got off the ground because they had too many issues with implementing their ideas while getting everything to display properly. I remember from [most of] the beta versions that you had to go through half a dozen windows or edit the INI files by hand to get the settings to be the way you wanted. The XML core was also a nightmare for plugin developers that were used to making DLLs that could be dropped in in a snap, Winamp3 required them to do everything different. Basically, Winamp3 would have had no third-party support except for skins.

I think that's all relatively correct, it's been a few years since Winamp3 died, so everything's getting a bit hazy. :)