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Winamp Purchased By Radionomy

Posted by Soulskill on from the llama's-execution-stayed dept.

Major Blud writes "TechCrunch is reporting that Radionomy has purchased both Winamp and Shoutcast from AOL for $5-10 million and a 12% stake in the company. Radionomy CEO Alexandre Saboundjian said, 'We want to rebuild the story for Winamp. We think the future can be great because the strategy is not just desktop but mobile and cars and so much more.'"

9 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. Here's hoping... by msobkow · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Here's hoping they start by PROPERLY supporting FLAC, including 24/192 media.

    The plugins currently available flat out do not work. And I hate using VLC for music.

    --
    I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
    1. Re:Here's hoping... by icebike · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I have no problem with VLC for music, but Winamp has been a favorite for years.

      Yeah, its old and funky, and that's exactly why I like it.

      --
      Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
    2. Re:Here's hoping... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You might notice he said "I have no problem". That does not mean it works for everyone else. all of your listed formats are rather obsure, and most people would have no need for a player supporting them. Why do people always have to put down what works for someone else just because it does not support what they want?

    3. Re:Here's hoping... by bob_super · · Score: 4, Insightful

      > the interface doesn't shrink down to as small as Winamp / Audacious can

      And this is most of the reason why I use winamp on all my machines, and have for over 15 years. Winamp in shrunk mode, with the shrunk playlist attached to it, always sits in the top left corner of my screen. All the important controls are visible, time left to end of song, and the playlist gives the title if I skip forward (or forget what that song is called). From there it's only a couple clicks for >99% of my needs.
      Need me? Wrist twitch sends mouse top left corner - click - press C to pause ($5 keyboards, no fancy buttons) - "how can I help?" (probably reliably under 2 seconds from disruption to mute, by now)
      All that convenience and it doesn't even cover a third of the top icon row. I don't need to shrink other windows to fit my full-featured player.

      Can you name another player that small? (I'm assuming single-key shortcuts are common.)

      the other main reason to keep winamp is that I have my own filing system and too many players want "libraries". Winamp just plays the files wherever they are, and doesn't make catalogs or whatever.

  2. What about the Llama by ChadSmith4920 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Does the 12% include the Llama Ass?

  3. There's nothing that makes winamp great or unique by t0qer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I hang out with the old nullsoft guys in IRC. General consensus for most of them is "We've moved on" The other concensus is, "There are so many good media players these days"

    There was a time when Winamp mattered. There was no decent media players (in some regards, it was a new concept) Winamp brought skinning, plugins, visualizations and a whole slew of things that most folks never even knew they wanted or needed.

    Funny that they mention Songbird today. One Nullsofter went there after the AOL buyout. He's now at google.

    As far as Frankel, he started working on a DAW called Reaper. It's a swiss army knife for audio.

  4. I'm still using version 5 by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 4, Interesting

    As far as I'm concerned, Winamp is still the best music player on Windows. With the Moon Glade skin, mine lives as an always-on-top bar at the top-center of my screen and expands into a playlist when I hover over it. The plugin system decodes every music file I know of and - this is huge for me - it can apply VST filters to the audio output. This is important to me because I play my music through Bose 901 (v6) speakers, which are designed to require a custom Bose equalizer to sound decent. Because I'm running audio into my receiver digitally, I can't use this analog equalizer, so I rely on a chain of VST plugins to mimic (and actually improve on) its functionality. I don't know of another media player that can use VST plugins for sound shaping. Then again, I haven't been looking, because I'm pretty satisfied with Winamp. If anyone knows other media players with VST functionality I would appreciate the info.

  5. Codec pack == input plug-ins by tepples · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Plugins are similarly dying a slow death. Think of video players.. how many have plugins to support some manner of format? Most of them either read them out of the box (think VLC) or rely on a 'codec pack' (with FFDShow or LAV) being installed

    What do you think the "codec pack" is? As I understand it, a codec pack is just a curated set of input plug-ins.

  6. Re:There's nothing that makes winamp great or uniq by toejam13 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There was a time when Winamp mattered. There was no decent media players

    And now there are dozens, with some that focus on audio, some that focus on video, some that handle both: Foobar2000, Songbird, VLC, Media Player Classic, XBMC, Windows Media Center, etc... You even have image viewers like XnView turning into video players. The lines have completely blurred as viewers and players have turned into multimedia centers.

    The question is, which niche would Winamp try to fill? How could they differentiate themselves? The interface? Cataloging? Container support? Codec support? Streaming support? Subtitle support? Time shifting? Post processing? Song recognition? Speed? Size? Cross-platform support?