Winamp Media Player To Return as a Platform-Agnostic Audio Mobile App Next Year; Desktop Application Receives an Update (techcrunch.com) 175
The charmingly outdated media player Winamp is being reinvented as a platform-agnostic audio mobile app that brings together all your music, podcasts, and streaming services to a single location. From a report: It's an ambitious relaunch, but the company behind it says it's still all about the millions-strong global Winamp community -- and as proof, the original desktop app is getting an official update as well. For those who don't remember: Winamp was the MP3 player of choice around the turn of the century, but went through a rocky period during Aol ownership and failed to counter the likes of iTunes and the onslaught of streaming services, and more or less crumbled over the years. The original app, last updated in 2013, still works, but to say it's long in the tooth would be something of an understatement (the community has worked hard to keep it updated, however). So it's with pleasure that I can confirm rumors that substantial updates are on the way.
"There will be a completely new version next year, with the legacy of Winamp but a more complete listening experience," said Alexandre Saboundjan, CEO of Radionomy, the company that bought Winamp (or what remained of it) in 2014. "You can listen to the MP3s you may have at home, but also to the cloud, to podcasts, to streaming radio stations, to a playlist you perhaps have built. People want one single experience," he concluded. "I think Winamp is the perfect player to bring that to everybody. And we want people to have it on every device."
"There will be a completely new version next year, with the legacy of Winamp but a more complete listening experience," said Alexandre Saboundjan, CEO of Radionomy, the company that bought Winamp (or what remained of it) in 2014. "You can listen to the MP3s you may have at home, but also to the cloud, to podcasts, to streaming radio stations, to a playlist you perhaps have built. People want one single experience," he concluded. "I think Winamp is the perfect player to bring that to everybody. And we want people to have it on every device."
This doesn't sound good. (Score:3, Insightful)
"What I see today is you have to jump from one player to another player or aggregator if you want to listen to a radio station, to a podcast player if you want to listen to a podcast — this, to me, is not the final experience,” he explained. It’s all audio, and it’s all searchable in one fashion or another. So why isn’t it all in one place?"
Kinda the reason I use WinAmp is because it is not this.
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If want a one size fits all just use VLC. That's what I've been using since Winamp stopped being developed. That and I stopped using Windows years ago. Winamp was cool in the 2000s, but this is just an attempt to cash in on the name.
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You're pretty much spot on with this. VLC is the next best thing. and it is really across all platforms. I loved winamp so much I downloaded every bootlegged version available. But with VLC I dont have to break the "law"
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The VLC media library is an abombination, with playlist support not far behind.
In contrast the WinAmp media library and playlist support was awesome.
The obvious solution would be to improve the media library and playlist support in VLC to feature-match WinAmp.
Re:This doesn't sound good. (Score:5, Interesting)
Except, Winamp is ALREADY this. Winamp has an extensive plugin system. It can already play podcasts. It CREATED internet radio through Shoutcast. Other plugins are available for other data sources too... I know this, because I remember writing them and publishing them myself.
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Re:This doesn't sound good. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is why myself and a ton of the other people from the plugin community jumped ship over to foobar2000. fb2k is developed by the guy who wrote the MP3 decoder for Winamp, but had issues with the audio processing pipeline of Winamp degrading audio quality. Disputes happened. He left. Built fb2k. And the rest is history! It is by far the cleanest, lightest music player available for desktop now. Multiple tabbed playlists are awesome. My largest playlist has ~16k tracks in it, and supports pretty much real-time text searching. And yup, it supports audio codec "components" as they call them to extend it with more file support or other functionality.
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I tried foobar2000 after moving to W10 at work, but found it would split many of my albums into 2, I think because some songs used a different encoding in the tagging. Maybe this has been fixed now.
I returned to Winamp but had to exclude some folders from scanning as it would hang. This new update could be my salvation.
In terms of interface Winamp is the most streamlined and foobar2000 is great. Rhythmbox at home pisses me off with its 'play the next thing you randomly browsed to' - the primacy of the Winam
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but found it would split many of my albums into 2, I think because some songs used a different encoding in the tagging. Maybe this has been fixed now.
It sounds like you're using the Album view. There's no "fix" for this situation. There is only switching to a different view (e.g. sort by folder and change the display not to group by albums), or fixing the album names. To identify as a common album the MP3 only needs to have a common Artist (if Various isn't ticked), Album name, and year (if it is used). I really question how people were able to even rip content where this differed in the first place.
My own opinion in interface differs from yours. Winamp
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" It CREATED internet radio through Shoutcast."
This is why I wondered how it died in the first place...
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"AOL", that's how it died.
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It does seem like anything they buy only makes it a year or two past purchase. Im looking forward to trying Winamp on linux. I have always wanted it to work.. never tried it on wine cause I hate wine, however I hear they have done a lot of good things as of lately. Especially with valve helping. May have to give it a try when it claims it can play GTA V.
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Didn't realize that this was a former discussion
Also, 2nd grade doesn't have classes. Just one class.
Spelling is also not a learning topic. English is.
Seems like you need the schooling a bit me than me AC.
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-- IMPROVED GENERATION 2000 FORK: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
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was prolly a troll O.o
Re: This doesn't sound good. (Score:2)
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Winamp includes some of its own decoders, but as a fallback anything it doesn't know what do with, it hands off to Windows to try to play it. That's one of the challenges I've found with trying to keep using it is that there's stuff it can't handle or can't handle well, but it tries anyway, so I end up needing to figure how to get Winamp to just hand it off unmolested to Windows because LAVFilters will do a better job anyway.
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Re: This doesn't sound good. (Score:1)
Facts.
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Well, there are different philosophies towards software. I don't need a gigantic, bloated piece of software like iTunes to manage my multimedia "experience". I prefer simple applications that only try to do one thing, and do it well. That's Winamp. I have no problems finding the music I want to play on my file system, and streaming audio through internet radio stations.
Though in reality, Winamp is actually kind of bloated, though it's positively lean by 2018 standards. But not as lean as something like
I still use Winamp (Score:1)
And most of my geek friends still use it too.
Re: I still use Winamp (Score:1)
Do you think the new one will still "really whip the lamas ass"?
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Llamas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Is listening to music only for the kiddies? (Score:2)
Winamp is a tool. It does the job. And things like iTunes aren't really a substitute, and weirdly even on my multi-GHz system iTunes likes to spin and wait at random times.
Re: Relevance in the market? (Score:5, Insightful)
Anybody who wants a simple lightweight music player that just works and not a bloated "music library manager" one.
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Anybody who wants a simple lightweight music player that just works and not a bloated "music library manager" one.
Foobar2000. Winamp is no longer relevant in a market with better options that meet all your requirements.
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The only thing I know that really compares is FooBar
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I do.
Better for what? (Score:2)
I need a program that plays mp3 files. Winamp works just fine. At some point there is no room for improvement. A hammer from 1000 years ago looks like a hammer from today.
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I'm still using XMMS on Fedora 28.
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--Try Deadbeef. Pretty close to the xmms/winamp experience on Linux.
http://deadbeef.sourceforge.ne... [sourceforge.net]
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What better options? (Score:2)
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We're all glad that this amazing truck with crane in the back works for you.
Most people however do not need a truck with crane in the back, even if it's really convenient for you heavy mover. Most people just want a basic sedan with good mileage.
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Yes. It has tools that go well beyond "just play my audio and provide basic control features for it in a lightweight player". Have you ever actually used it? It's really great when you need to do things that go beyond playback.
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And that's what makes winamp great. Very little in terms of unnecessary features on install, but almost everything you need is available as add-on. It's perfect for a power user who understands the scope of his needs.
Fubar, not so much. Too much that comes with it. For most users (and power users), it's just too powerful. I have it on this machine for example, but use it maybe once every two years when I need something that winamp can't do with my standard add-on suite. Winamp is used daily, because it fits
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Important power features work better when provided by the main package because it's much easier for users to support and help each other. You don't have to install them if you don't want to.
There's no such thing as "too powerful". As long as the interface is easy to use for new users, power options is always good to have as long as the package is small. Foobar has a smaller installation package, despite all its available power and its easier to use than winamp because it uses standard operating system contr
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>There's no such thing as "too powerful".
I'll just state that if you take even a cursory look at human machine interface and human physiological limitations literature, you'll understand that reality is diametric opposite of this statement. We as biological creatures are heavily optimized in how our attention is directed and how much brain capacity is allotted to the task with the rest going to cripplingly slow and inefficient abstraction, and exceeding these limitations even by a little bit will slow do
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Yes I know, but as I've said, foobar provides powerful *options*. If you don't care about them, you won't even see them, so you'll never move outside your optimized area.
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We'll have to agree to disagree on this one. One has to remember that these kinds of preferences are deeply personal, just like someone can do even triple number multiplications rapidly.
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And on your last point, which I failed to edit into my original point. Why does something that works well for specific task need updates? I've used same version of winamp for something close to a half a decade if not longer. It does everything I need it to do. What is the benefit of getting "updates"?
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This is literally the answer to my question that concedes that there's no point to updates if everything works as intended.
This is the case for most people with winamp.
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It died. Its ass was really kicked too hard too many times :-/
WinAmp is great... (Score:1)
So long as they keep it simple like it was and don't "modernize" the UI experience. I always liked the low requirements it had to do all the things it did. Audacious runs on my Linux machines in it's WinAmp mode quite nicely.
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On the phones, there's musicolet. It serves the same purpose and has very similar functionality to good old winamp.
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Because foobar2k is windows software. Musicolet is an android music player?
Yeah (Score:5, Interesting)
...it's going to be 2.1 gig d/l, require a credit card to sign in (we will never charge you, ever!), and gather every single personal data point resident on your system.
And still won't perform the basic function of playing mp3s as well as 2013 version.
Foobar (Score:5, Funny)
But I have foobar2000.
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Aw lol some poor AC doesn't know about themes! And thinks that a tool used to manage and play music needs to be 'pretty'! Ahahahahaha!
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Woops you're wrong LMAO I bought Win8 and accepted the free upgrade to Win10, even. I pay a monthly subscription to Office365 and would enjoy an option to subscribe to Windows as well. I gave up on desktop Linux 15 years ago.
I miss Winamp (Score:3)
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Why don't you get it back? It's still readily available.
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WINAMP.... (Score:2, Redundant)
It really whips the lamma's ass.. *baaah* *bahhh*
XMMS fork Audacious does this (on Windows too) (Score:5, Informative)
Audacious [audacious-...player.org], a descendant of XMMS [xmms2.org] (which was a clone of Winamp), works wonderfully. Its "Winamp Classic Interface" looks exactly like Winamp and even (iirc) supports Winamp skins.
That said, I do miss the old (original) Whitecap [winampheritage.com] visualization (one of the very few in which you could really see the music in what was still a visually stunning display), which only works on Winamp on Windows. (...not that Winamp's return would allow me to run this again.)
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I downloaded and installed Whitecap, just because I had never heard of it, (I usually use the old Geiss 4.29 [geisswerks.com].)
Nice plugin, and the installer prompted me for which media players I wanted to add it to; but, unfortunately, you're right, no Audacious support. Long list of other players, tho.
"People want one single experience." (Score:5, Insightful)
"People want one single experience."
A lot of software has gone down to tubes because of this idea. People don't want one single experience. They want different experiences for different circumstances. They want software with features optimized for how they listen to music, how they listen to streaming radio and how they listen to podcasts. Combining them into one app is both unnecessary and creates undesirable side effects.
The same thing happened with social media apps tried to be the be-all and end-all of all media, when users want to keep things nice and compartmentalized.
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People don't want one single experience.
Please don't speak for "people". Speak for yourself. You'll find there's lots of people out there who want lots of different things. For example I want one single experience, but I want that experience to start with a base system that is customisable and extensible with a rich plugin scheme.
2.95 for the win (Score:4, Interesting)
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I'm using 5.666. Still pretty damned good. I've been a Winamp user since the 90's.
Foobar2000 (Score:1)
Why use anything else?
'Bout time... (Score:2, Interesting)
As one of those people who helped build the WinAmp ecosystem and watched its subsequent AOL implosion I have to say, "Good!", and "It's about time, Radionomy." So, ya know, if you need the original sources for the 2.65-ish build... I still have them hanging around somewhere on an old CD. Justin and Tom were always messy and I was always cleaning up after them. But, by all means, I hope you improve on it somehow. I still rock out with WinAmp sometimes.
Winamp had the best eye candy. (Score:2)
I hope they continue development of that. With modern GPU it should be possible to do some really amazing real-time beat synced effects.
Still use it.... (Score:1)
I still use it and it is running right now.
Usually listening to the MP3-stream of local FM-radiostations.
(Although finding the URL for the streams can be hard to find...)
Why on earth people want to listen to radio through a webbrowser is beyond me.
Putting WinAmp in the system tray makes it go away and not take up space in the TaskBar.
So, hopefully this "new" development will not make things worse.......
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I used to use it.. but no Linux version (Score:2)
I know there are 'clones' but I haven't found them to be very useful.
I've tried nearly every player on Linux, and they are either wayyyy too simple or wayyyy to complicated. I don't need a music manager, everything I have is organized by file structure. I don't need a database. I don't need links to album art, or streaming sites, or scrotobobbler, or last.fm, or any of that. I need a decent music player for mp3s. A decent EQ would be nice, and maybe some visualizations if the mood strikes me. That's i
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You don't use XMMS? Because you basically just described it.
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I've tried them all. If my memory serves, I think the issue with XMMS was that I couldn't resize it. It was very tiny on my screen.
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It's like Nokia (Score:2)
It never left! (v 5.666) (Score:5, Insightful)
Sometimes, software works as intended, with no problems, and simply doesn't need to be "upgraded" any more. I think this is one of those cases.
Next year? (Score:2)
It is already there. Including skin support.
https://webamp.org/ [webamp.org]
Hopefully they'll support modern F/OSS codecs OOTB (Score:2)
I'm a daily user of Audacious so it doesn't matter much to me, but it would be great for them to ensure modern open source codecs like opus (either encapsulated in ogg or not, streamed or file-based) is as well supported as possible.
I rarely used it (Score:1)
I never jumped on the winamp bandwagon, was more of a Sonique user. (Which still works on Win10)