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Winamp Down for the Count
Artifex writes "BetaNews is reporting that the doors at Nullsoft have been closed: '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.'" The Register also has a story.
http://www.foobar2000.org/ ;)
"An infinite number of monkeys typing into GNU emacs would never make a good program."
I won't migrate anywhere. The project is dead, and indeed that is sad. However, myself and most people I know will continue to use our now "antiquated" Winamp (I run 2.8) until rapture. ...until someone else designs a slim, bloat-free music player that does exactly what it should, no more, no less.
Will more people be using foobar2000 now?
Well, there is XMMS... Zinf... to name a couple... Zinf has a windows version...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
I know several people who are happy converts from WinAmp to iTunes.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Apple makes some really good software -- even for Windows.
-Mark
I strongly suggest trying FooBar2000 http://foobar2000.com/
I have loaded up the playlist with 15,000 songs, and it only used 2MB of RAM!!!
There are extensive plugin's available, it is compatable with shoutcast.
FooBar takes a very minimalistic approach to it's UI. You can add bell's & whistle's & visualizations if you want.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
The alternative I like best is iTunes. I wouldn't run it on an older machine but it was decent on my 1.2ghz Athlon and perfectly okay on my AthlonXP 2500 and AthlonXP 3200...
:P
+free
+excellent for LARGE (40GB+) music collections. their playlist and library features blow everybody else away. this is the "killer feature" for me. absolutely.
+iTunes music store if you're into that (I'm not)
+iPod support (I liked it even before I got an iPod)
+easy to add artwork to albums
+nice support for tagging multiple files
+if anybody else on your LAN is running iTunes, you can play their music (although not copy it)... this even works if they're on a Mac and you're on Windows
-not Free in the GNU sense, obviously
-uses like 50MB of RAM for my really huge collection (80GB); but I don't care because I have 1GB. sorry.
-Mac+PC only, no linux
-doesn't work with other portable players
-no built-in "windowshade" mode like Winamp, but there are plugins that accomplish this
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
Foobar 2K
QCD is what I use.
.
The BetaNews article is a bit off, as is the story it spawned over at The Register (whose headline for the piece was just ridiculous.).
As usual, Winamp Unlimited sets it straight with not only details on an upcoming 5.06 version of Winamp, but details on what the former Nullsoft-ees are doing now and a naked picture of their ex-Product Manager.
"Winamp Unlimited is your #1 source for Winamp news, rumors,forum highlights, and general propoganda. Awesome!"
.
By way of Google News, I was able to find Michael's dupe!
It's not been updated since 2001, but can perfectly play just about every MOD, XM, S3M, IT, UMX, etc. I throw at it. It even plays zip encapsulated files without having to decompress them.
Well, they have already released most of the Winamp 3 sourcecode (without any of the DRM stuff) under the Wasabi project.
Furthermore, the Nullsoft-guys already brought us the open Gnutella protocol.
All of this would indicate that the good people at Nullsoft are pretty cool with open source. So if the Winamp 5 source code is not going to be released, then I think we should blame AOL for that, not Nullsoft.
"Oooh, does that mean we get to kick some puffy white mad zionist butt?"
foobar2000 maybe?
Quote from their site:
Features:
* Audio formats supported "out-of-the-box": WAV, AIFF, VOC, AU, SND, Ogg Vorbis, MPC, MP2, MP3, MPEG-4 AAC
* Audio formats supported through official addons: FLAC, OggFLAC, Monkey's Audio, WavPack, Speex, CDDA, TFMX, SPC, various MOD types; extraction on-the-fly from RAR, 7-ZIP & ZIP archives
* Full Unicode support on Windows NT
* ReplayGain support
* Low memory footprint, efficient handling of really large playlists
* Advanced file info processing capabilities (generic file info box and masstagger)
* Highly customizable playlist display
* Customizable keyboard shortcuts
* Most of standard components are opensourced under BSD license (source included with the SDK)
Entertainment for Nerds. Stuff that matters,
I've tried lots, but none have been as satisfying as winamp. I wouldn't pretend to be an audiophile, but from a purely user perspective the best (windows) alternatives I found were
iTunes - great, I love the library/sorting features. It just works and works well. Uses a lot of memory though and not the most responsive app in the world. Ogg support through an experimental quiktime codec extension (I think).
Foobar2000 seemed very powerful and very customiseable, but I didn't really have the time to invest to get it set up like I wanted. The interface style sheets were very powerful, but it lacked volume control at the time - which was just a pain. Seemed to support every codec I've ever heard of (and lots I haven't).
everything else seemed to be a wmp/realplayer/jukebox ripoff.
"Because it's there." - George Mallory, when asked why he wanted to climb Mt Everest, March 18, 1923 (New York Times)
I'm still going to continue using winamp even if there will be no more innovation... to be honest, what else do I need in a media player other than what winamp already offers me?
Winamp has the features, but iTunes has the interface. Winamp always felt like a "hack" app: throw everything in a can and maybe what you get out of it is your music. It worked because it does everything and there weren't any good alternatives. What iTunes did was focus on the essential features and provided a killer UI with which to work with them.
With most people, UI and "ease of use" usually beats features. The Slashdot crowd is the exception, not the rule.
wxMusik. (musik.berlios.de)
Like itunes, but open source and really really slim on resource usage. Really, I've never been so excited with a player since I've found wxMusik. It has a media library, dinamic queries,it's interface is slim, just give it a try!
I'll do the stupid thing first and then you shy people follow...
Here's an odd thought... why bother? Quite a few Winamp clones exist because the WinAMP design is not hard to replicate. It's really not much more than a way of loading, inspecting, and playing audio files from disk, http, or streaming servers. Here's a few example clones:
jlGUI
JAMP
JahSing
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
...off of the winamp forums:
To all of my friends and loyal users of Winamp,
I regret to inform you all that I have quit Nullsoft. To many of you, this news may come as quite a surprise, while those who know me best, it's no surprise at all.
It's hard to describe the experiences of the last year. Nearly a year ago, we released Winamp 5.0 and finally reclaimed our user's hearts. It was a very proud moment for our entire team.
Since then, for varying circumstances, much of the team has left the company. It's been tremendously difficult to recover from the losses of such core team members and close friends.
Those of us left behind have tried our best to pick up the pieces and keep moving forward. Unfortunately, given our current environment, continuing to move forward has become tremendously difficult and frustrating, to say the least.
That said; I was recently presented a wonderful opportunity to work at Apple with the iTunes team. I hope to bring much of my experience from Nullsoft to Apple with the hopes of making a tremendous difference there.
The fact is; there's never a good time to leave something that you love so much. Given the state of things today it was appropriate for me start planning a life after Nullsoft.
I want to thank you for how much you've all contributed to making Winamp such a huge success. I'd like to appreciate the efforts of all the volunteers who've poured their heart and soul into this place, all the skinners and developers who helped the rest of us customize Winamp to our hearts content, and all my friends at Nullsoft who made working here more than a job, but a family.
I ask that all of you who work so hard, please, keep working hard. There are still a few of us left at Nullsoft and they're doing their best to keep this ship afloat. You're the only thing that can help them do it.
For those of you who would like to keep in touch with me, feel free to reach me at 'steve at gedikian dot com'. You can also keep tabs on what I'm up to by going to my homepage at http://www.gedikian.com.
I love you all and I can't thank you enough for making this chapter of my life so wonderful.
Peace.
-s
I would say the emotional overtone of his post is well understandable, Winamp certainly did build itself up an immense fanbase with it's great (and free) software, it's climb to the top of the proverbial heap of MP3 players showing dedication of the programmers that built and maintained it.
Farewell, last of the true Nullsoft team, and good luck in future ventures!
I recently did an Ask Slashdot on this same question.
Had really good luck with jOrbis from www.jcraft.com. I just added the applet to my Shame of the 80's site. It seems to work everywhere, unlike most java applets... could be that it does exactly one thing: plays ogg streams. :-)
Hmm... how about Winamp? You can continue to download Winamp 5.05 from their website, and the announcement said they will continue to release minor updates, such as security patches and plugin support. Unless you change to a brand-new streaming format that only a new player supports, why should people switch away from Winamp? Just because AOL is letting the rest of the Nullsoft team go, it doesn't mean that you have to stop using a program that really whips the llama's ass.
I think you mean version 3 was the dog ugly, slow and bloat version?
Versions 2 and 5 are the best versions ever released.
Version 2 if you have an old computer or just want pure music playing.
Version 5 if you want the Winamp library and new skin support.
I've found that the best way to make iTunes organize your music the way you want is to trust iTunes. It took a giant leap of faith for me (having always been a launch-winamp-from-windows-explorer kind of guy). But if you let iTunes handle the music organization, you'll find that it gives you the flexibility to do more than any other method out there.
I've now stopped organizing my music by hand (creating a folder for each artists, and album, and blah blah blah) and just let iTunes keep everything organized. It works much better since it synchronizes folder and file names with changes you make in the ID3 tags (and whatever the tags for AAC files are called). I also (usually) no longer browse my music collection from Windows Explorer, but just browse with iTunes. Even without playlists you'll find it's just as efficient (if not more so) than browsing files directly.
Despite what EULAs say, most software is sold, not licensed.
Well, I don't know where the OP is, but that is legal in Canada, at least I think it is still for mp3s. If we borrow a cd from a friend, we're allowed to burn ourselves a copy of it for personal use (but they're not legally allowed to just give us a copy). It's a weird distinction, but there yah go.
(\(\
(^v^)
(")")
This is the cute vorpal bunny virus, copy to your sig or runaway, runaway in fear!
Some places are cheaper still
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
According to dictionary.com, biannual can either mean semiannual (twice a year) or biennial (once every two year). English is such a fun language.
I've got a mind like a steel trap - it's got an animal's foot stuck in it.
I registered Winamp when it was shareware circa 1999. Can I use my old serial number to unlock Winamp Pro?
No, Winamp 5 Pro requires you to re-register in order to unlock the latest features.
Winamp Pro is a different product from Winamp, which your key is still valid for.
For Windows, Foobar 2000 is lighter and uses less resources than WinAmp. It's also 100% free of nasty hitchhikers, aka spyware. Although WinAmp never had spyware either, some competitors do.
XMMS under Linux is what WinAmp should have been...light footprint, does what it needs to, and nothing it does not.
Under MacOS, SoundApp is my choice for the same reasons. Light, does what it should and nothing else.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
What a wonderful iTunes rip-off. Hah.
You're just showing your ignorance. Have you used both softwares for any appreciable amount of time? I have. When and if your media collections grows beyond the larval stage then you will probably realise the limitations of most jukebox software out there.
Considering that Media Center was first released several years before iTunes, that it is now at version 11, that it pioneered programmable smartlists and user-defined dynamic tags, client-server streaming, programmable visualisations, programmable and scriptable playback screens, and that it supports over 30 audio and video formats, multi-Zone playback, 32-bit internal processing, 3d digital playback upsampling, scheduled recording and broadcasting, on-the-fly downsampling and transcoding, as well as managing photo collections and Tivos, which would you call a "rip off"?
Furthermore, iTunes chokes on anything over 40000 files. I know, I tried it on my 100K multimedia collection. It just whimpered and died, much like the MS player and the Real Player. However, Media Center just kept on chugging, read in all tags correctly, and even successfully spent around 400 hours of CPU time analyzing the entire collection, writing BMP and auto dB levelling info into the ID3 tags. Given that this entailed processing around 800GB of data assorted into over a dozen different formats, and that Media Center completed this mammoth job without a single crash or complaint, I was impressed.
I'd just add that thing about MC that I like most is that its client-server streaming mode is not lamely limited to LANs like iTunes. I can stream from my home server to anywhere over the internet, and I do. It's quite a kick to be visit someone, or work abroad, and simply hit "Play" to instantly hear what I want to hear.
Da Blog
www.foobar2000.org
One of the guys who left a while ago started making foobar2000. The interface isn't anything close to winamp's, but the player itself is BSD licensed.