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Music Media News

WinAmp's Death Greatly Exaggerated 410

Posted by samzenpus from the lazarus dept.
robyannetta writes "In a previous story, we heard that WinAmp was down for the count. Apparently, this is not the case. Here is a note by Eric Caoili that says "No we weren't axed. We haven't even seen anyone with an axe. There was this one guy who came up to us to axe us a question, but that's about it.""
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WinAmp's Death Greatly Exaggerated More

WinAmp's Death Greatly Exaggerated

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  • Right place, wrong time for this joke (Score:3, Funny)

    by seanadams.com ( 463190 ) * on Wednesday November 17, 2004 @10:11PM (#10849840) Homepage
    There was this one guy who came up to us to axe us a question, but that's about it.

    Did you hear OJ's son confessed to the murder?

    He wanted to see a movie, and OJ said I dunno - go axe your mom.

  • Can I axe you a question? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mfh ( 56 ) on Wednesday November 17, 2004 @10:11PM (#10849845) Homepage Journal
    Why didn't you guys plan an exit event when AOL bought you? Why stick around in a new corporate culture anyway?

  • I would be curious to know... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JessLeah ( 625838 ) on Wednesday November 17, 2004 @10:16PM (#10849877)
    ...who of the original lineup of Nullsoft/Winamp coders are still there.... and how many people are working on it now vs. when it was in the Winamp 1.0/2.0 stages...

  • netcraft, anyone? (Score:4, Funny)

    by khrtt ( 701691 ) on Wednesday November 17, 2004 @10:16PM (#10849883)
    What, an "early demise" article, and no mention of netcraft?
    • What, an "early demise" article, and no mention of BSD?

      /me ducks

  • Great News. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ween14 ( 827520 ) on Wednesday November 17, 2004 @10:17PM (#10849890)
    It is great to hear that Winamp isn't dead. I have been using it for 5 years now and haven't found a better media player yet. It is both small and quick, Windows Media Player is neither. Not to mention that I have yet to find a sound file that I couldn't get it to play, where many of my files just refuse to play in iTunes or WMP.

    • Re:Great News. (Score:5, Funny)

      by calculadoru ( 760076 ) <calculadoru@@@gmail...com> on Wednesday November 17, 2004 @10:32PM (#10849998)
      Winamp is a nice piece of software indeed, but I take it you have never tried this [quinnware.com].
      Much, much better. Uses less memory, plays anything you throw at it, great community, it's free - anything else I'm missing?
      Also, please stop mentioning WMP. This is Slashdot, after all.

    • Re:Great News. (Score:3, Informative)

      by Lehk228 ( 705449 )
      I recommend Foobar2000 as a replacement for winamp.
    • I personally use iTunes because my main computer is now a Mac, but on my desktop (Windows XP) I use Foobar2000. Definitely the best player I've found, including winamp.
    • Allright, I can throw ANY format at mplayer, including Real media, and from a cold launch on a slow laptop, it hardly ever takes more than five seconds from when I enter the command to when whatever-it-is is playing. Notable exceptions are when the media itself is slower than mplayer, such as URLs and Samba filesystems (wonder why).

      In fact, there's this cd called movix [sourceforge.net] which can boot quickly (some better solution, especially with all those "Developers, developers, developers, developers!"

  • Funky Street Jive (Score:5, Funny)

    by BRock97 ( 17460 ) on Wednesday November 17, 2004 @10:19PM (#10849904) Homepage
    There was this one guy who came up to us to axe us a question...

    Ah, nothing like computer nerds using slang..... It's so cute yet so disturbing.
    • It's sort of a Futurama reference, among other things, so it's okay.
    • it is not computer nerd slang. African's or African americans usually say "axe" instead of "ask". So to some, it might not be that funny..

  • Winamp = dead in my book (Score:5, Interesting)

    by FiReaNGeL ( 312636 ) <fireang3l&hotmail,com> on Wednesday November 17, 2004 @10:22PM (#10849924) Homepage
    Winamp stopped adding useful features / improvements (for me) after version 3.0... iTunes and WMP10 are much better, with song rating / automatic playlists (song I didn't heard in the past week I like, yes thank you).

    Why anyone would pay for Winamp is beyond me. The free version does the job... like a bunch of programs out there. Of course, brand recognition, nostalgy and all...
    • Rating System? Winamp5... Check.

      Automatic playlists? Make lists with search queries... Check.

      iPod management plugin? ummm... Check. [sf.net]

      What were you saying again?
      • Granted that I love WinAmp, feel it's the best player on a Windows-based system, AND I use it every day for all my music and video related needs, the media libary functionality is terrible. The query builder is completely weak; I'd like to sort by a hierarchy other than just Artist/Album, or even build my own. If you can direct me to a plug-in that let's me do this, I'd be set.

        Regardless, Winamp has all the features I need and have grown to love. Namely, a it's speedy to open when I need it plus GLOBAL H

    • Re:Winamp = dead in my book (Score:5, Informative)

      by TRACK-YOUR-POSITION ( 553878 ) on Wednesday November 17, 2004 @10:36PM (#10850025)
      Winamp still has one advantage--the huge collection of plugins. I'm a video game music junkie, and the only reason I still run winamp is to play SPCs, NSFs, PSFs--the dumps from the audio processing of emulated games. If iTunes could use winamp input plugins, I'd use it all the time.
    • Winamp stopped adding useful features / improvements (for me) after version 3.0... iTunes and WMP10 are much better, with song rating / automatic playlists (song I didn't heard in the past week I like, yes thank you).

      Why anyone would pay for Winamp is beyond me. The free version does the job... like a bunch of programs out there. Of course, brand recognition, nostalgy and all...

      Yes, they never added any wonderful features like WM & iTunes, such as DRM. I love winamp, I've used it since early 2.xx.
      • Yes, they never added any wonderful features like WM & iTunes, such as DRM.

        Actually, they did. WinAMP will play FairPlay'd AAC using the Quicktime libs, the exact same way iTunes does (you might need a plugin, can't remember).

        If you tried that with iTunes it would replace everything on the iPod with what was on that particular computer.

        You can select manual control and copy whatever songs you want from however many iTunes libraries you want.

      • Re:Winamp = dead in my book (Score:5, Insightful)

        by bigberk ( 547360 ) <bigberk@users.pc9.org> on Thursday November 18, 2004 @01:24AM (#10851099)
        Most succinctly put: WM, iTunes, Real Whateverthefuckthey'recallingitnow, and especially Musicmatch PieceOfShitBox are all bloated pieces of crap.
        Yup, that's it right there. Winamp 3.x scared some of us because it started to feel like a bloated piece of crap, but the developers were wise enough to restore the Winamp 2 look and feel into Winamp 5. Here is one piece of software where the latest version leaves me wanting nothing, and regretting nothing as far as upgrading! This is absolutely incredible because almost every other application I have stuck with over several years has become bloated, slowed down, and more confusing.

        Winamp, OTOH, has stayed nimble, acquired more features (like streaming video and media library) but without any detrimental effect on performance or stability. This is why Winamp is amazing and the developers are amazing. WinAmp is more stable than a llama suffering rigor mortis. I'm not impressed with iTunes because of its sluggishness and overcomplicated interface for doing something damn simple - playing an audio file or stream. Plus, iTunes and WM friends of mine aren't able to play my ogg vorbis streaming icecast station [icecast.org] so I'm not too impressed by that either.

        • Re:Winamp = dead in my book (Score:4, Informative)

          by mankey wanker ( 673345 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @01:44AM (#10851200)
          I am a longtime WinAmp user also AND I still use it. I have tried other players and nothing comes close for all the reasons stated by others previously.

          I just wanted to "ditto" the comment above on the issue of bloatware. All too true.

          I run winamp 5 on a POS server that would have you gamer types just weeping with what a POS it is. I'm keeping it because it has ISA slots on the board and hell - it does the job. Winamp has no problems on that old POS system.

          Seriously, does it have to do more than just do it's intended job and be stable?

          I don't really get this talk about playlists and so on. Make your freaking playlist and save it for future use. Create a directory named M3U in your MP3 directory and then save your playlists there. What's the problem? Don't tell me you want automated playlists - get into your music, make your own freaking playlists just like a real music lover does.

    • Re:Winamp = dead in my book (Score:5, Informative)

      by jettoblack ( 683831 ) on Wednesday November 17, 2004 @10:56PM (#10850135)
      I've tried several versions of iTunes now, and I just don't like it. Where are the customization options? I'm not just talking about skins and interface and such... everything just seems very inflexible. If you use iTunes and only iTunes for all of your ripping/downloads, then I'm sure its great. But if you're using other programs to aquire and manage music, it sucks.

      For example, if I download/rip some songs outside of iTunes, how do you make iTunes rescan your music folder? You can't... you have to manually add all the new tracks or folders. You can add the whole music folder again, but it takes forever, and then all of your tracks will be listed twice and there's no easy way to delete them. (You can list them with the duplicate tracks tool, but I find it to be FAR too loose with its rules, for example, it thinks "Intro Theme (3:20)" and "Intro Theme (TV version) (0:30)" are the same track.) Meanwhile, Winamp 5 can very quickly and automatically rescan my music folder for new songs or changed tags.

      Also, after using iTunes to edit some ID3 tags, my database ended up corrupted and I had to delete it. Fortunately I had only been using iTunes for a few hours, or I would have lost all of my song play counts, playlists, etc. Go to Apple's support forums and you'll see database corruption is a frequently occurring and very annoying issue.

      I can understand the iPod not being able to play WMA/OGG/FLAC/etc. for now due to limited CPU power (even though lots of other MP3 players can do it just fine), but I don't see any reason why iTunes shouldn't be able to play them.

      For me, Winamp 5 is the only tool that gets the job done, and I'm relieved to see it will be sticking around!
      • everytime I added some newly ripped mp3s from other programs I just use the add folder option. iTune will only scan for the new songs and add them to the library without any duplicates. 30 songs only took about a minute here on a 2.2 ghz system.

        I mainly use iTunes because winamp does not want to behave like a conventional windowed application where I can just maximized the whole thing.

      • Doesn't sound like you've really tried iTunes at all, actually. Let's look at this paragraph:

        For example, if I download/rip some songs outside of iTunes, how do you make iTunes rescan your music folder? You can't... you have to manually add all the new tracks or folders.

        Simple solution: drag-and-drop the files from the folder into iTunes. It's a song database, not a filesystem with automatic indexing, and it's never been touted as such.

        You can add the whole music folder again, but it takes forever,

        • Doesn't sound like you've really tried iTunes at all, actually. Let's look at this paragraph:
          Actually, it sounds like he has. Lets have a look.

          For example, if I download/rip some songs outside of iTunes, how do you make iTunes rescan your music folder? You can't... you have to manually add all the new tracks or folders.

          Simple solution: drag-and-drop the files from the folder into iTunes. It's a song database, not a filesystem with automatic indexing, and it's never been touted as such.
          So you have M
    • There are plenty of reasons to still use Winamp which have already been mentioned in other posts, but one of the main reasons I still use Winamp: Scroll Wheel Support. I can adjust the volume and fast forward/rewind using the scroll wheel on my mouse. It may not sound like such a big deal, but once you use it, it's hard to go without.

      Why hasn't anyone else implemented this feature? As far as I know Winamp is the only one.

    • I still use winamp and it is a compelling reason for me to stay on windows as a platform (really!).

      Winamp will text-match through internet radio including song, genre, etc.

      Also, acidspunk 2 is my all time favorite visualization software.

      Plus, winamp has gorgeous skins like Nucleo and Expensive Hi Fi.

      So, windows, winamp, and acidspunk it is :-) Itunes still has to catch up imho :-)
      • Tried XMMS? It's a bug-for-bug reimplimentation of winamp for linux. Compatible with the exact same skins, and everything. Not sure about your plugins, though, I've never really done much with plugins.

  • Winamp Unlimited (Score:5, Informative)

    by lotsofno ( 733224 ) on Wednesday November 17, 2004 @10:24PM (#10849948)
    .

    Eric's site, Winamp Unlimited [winampunlimited.com], expands a little on the Winamp situation, and also has comments on most of the news articles that've been published regarding the topic.

    If you missed it in the last discussion, he also has written a past article [winamp.com] on what some of the ex-Nullsoft kids have been up to.

    It's weird talking about myself in the third person.

    .

  • WinampTV... (Score:4, Funny)

    by euxneks ( 516538 ) on Wednesday November 17, 2004 @10:26PM (#10849954)
    I just recently saw this on my dad's computer.. He was watching anime.. My dad was watching anime on WinampTV.. That was pretty cool..

    I just wish they had a version for Linux...
    • I know a mod marked you funny, but the same thing's been happening here since I got my dad to uninstall MusicMatch and go with WinAmp. He's been watching all sorts of stuff via the TV function. Family Guy, Penn and Teller: BS, Love Hina, and a bunch of other stuff. It doesn't matter that I have both Family Guy releases and he can just take them anytime he wants -- he watches it in that damn box anyway.

      Thank you, WinAmp, for turning my 54 year-old dad into a regressed college student!

  • Its not your fathers winamp (Score:4, Interesting)

    by maestro^ ( 13683 ) on Wednesday November 17, 2004 @10:26PM (#10849958) Homepage
    I've been using winamp since .92 and ever since Justin left, maybe even when he sold out to AOL, it started to go downhill. Winamp is still the best player out there, but the passion, attention to detail and overall quality seems to have declined.

  • From their press release... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 17, 2004 @10:31PM (#10849991)


    to everyone who came out to show their support for us and who defended us when everyone was calling us gay.

    That is a nice little bit of homophobia from their press release. Real professional guys. Sheesh.
    • to everyone who came out to show their support for us and who defended us when everyone was calling us gay.

      That is a nice little bit of homophobia from their press release. Real professional guys. Sheesh.

      Tell me about it. You think they could just come right out and say "The Gay Winamp User's Group" instead of calling them "everyone."

      I mean, how bad can you get?

  • Actually... (Score:4, Informative)

    by nwbvt ( 768631 ) on Wednesday November 17, 2004 @10:35PM (#10850023)
    Those of us who actually RTFA last time know nowhere did it say Winamp was "down for the count", merely that the staff had been reduced. Which in the end is what happened in reality. Good job editors.

    Even in its corrections /. acts like a tabloid...

  • Winamp hasn't stopped moving (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Magickcat ( 768797 ) on Wednesday November 17, 2004 @10:39PM (#10850048)
    It is dead, it's just hasn't stopped moving yet.

    Winamp is rapidly gaining the same level of "features" that Netscape did when it died - it's bloated and tries to sneakily add AOL icons to your desktop. Oh and let's not forget the spyware aspect to the commisions they get on sales - nice touch. The fact that the interface hasn't been made any easier to use, and only gets more fiddly and complicated confirms it. Winamp is the great golden flamingo God of bad user/interface design.

    All they need to do now is package AOL instant messenger with it, and it will be truly dead for ever more.

    Nobody knows how to fuck up a once perfectly good piece of software through bad decisions like AOL. You really know your software sucks with 100% full vacuum when your old version is actually better in every way over the latest release. Even Macromedia would be impressed with the sheer - "I wonder if the whole thing is running in some sort of emulator""-ness of it all.
    • Insightful?? What the hell is this? Have things changed since 5.05?

      I use Winamp exclusively for my media playing needs and I have seen nary an AOL icon anywhere. If you choose the Classic skin during install, the interface you are presented with is not radically different than Winamp 2.0. I find it rather simple and intuitive, and there are always keyboard commands as well.

      Yes, it has lots of features - that's one of the reasons I like it. It's hardly bloated, at least compared to other big-name media p

    • The fact that the interface hasn't been made any easier to use, and only gets more fiddly and complicated confirms it. Winamp is the great golden flamingo God of bad user/interface design.

      I use Winamp (2) and I like the interface just the way it is. It's easy to see at a glance whether shuffle and repeat are on. It's easy to see what track is playing. It's easy to see where the EQ levels are set. There's a keyboard shortcut for everything. In short, it stays out of my way.

      Mind, I wish they'd stuck to

  • alternatives (Score:2, Informative)

    by Diabolus777 ( 663144 )
    The reason why i chose to use winamp 5 is for global hotkeys. This alone makes this player irreplacable. There's probably other players that have them (probably before WA too) but it's the first time I encountered them. I could never go back to non-global hotkey music player.

    Now, I haven't had the need to look for an alternative, but maybe someone here might give me the just of them?
  • I prefer winamp still, and will be saddened when I see it go. I like it's efficient use of screen real estate, and the ease I can add songs to my playlist. Winamp, the old version 2, is still the best.

  • I used to be a winamp junkie (Score:4, Informative)

    by myc ( 105406 ) on Wednesday November 17, 2004 @10:52PM (#10850112)
    winamp used to rock. Then for some unfathomable reason someone decided that winamp needed a built-in webbrowser. A WEB BROWSER FOR CHRIST'S SAKE! As soon as I learned about foobar2000 I ditched winamp for good. foobar2000 is also Unicode compliant; winamp won't do unicode without really ugly kludges. That makes foobar2000 perfect for mp3 files with east asian language file names/ID3 tags.

  • Really? (Score:3, Informative)

    by dshaw858 ( 828072 ) on Wednesday November 17, 2004 @11:00PM (#10850154) Homepage Journal
    I'm listening to WinAmp right now (v5). Had I known that it was dead, I would have been pretty sad. Going to WinAmp.com every now and then, I never noticed their "death"- kind of odd that the first thing I hear about it is Slashdot telling me not to worry.

    - dshaw
  • Exactly why does winamp try to connect to the internet every time I start it up? Is it just searching for the latest version or is it something else?

    • Re:Could someone please tell me... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Artifakt ( 700173 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @12:17AM (#10850701)
      Winamp 5 can just be set to search for the latest version, or it can be checking for info on the music you are playing.

      If it's checking for updates, try this:
      1. Rightclick some blank area of the skin.
      2. Click "options" on the resulting menu, then click "preferences".
      3, On the "winamp preferences" window that results, go to "general preferences". Find the checkbox labeled, "Check for new versions of winamp at startup" and uncheck it.
      Also, the "jump to file" subsection under "general preferences" may have another box that says "check for new version when winamp starts" Just in case, you may want to see if you need to uncheck this one too.

      If winamp seems to be getting information on the current file, even when you don't have the media library open, go to that same window, and where it reads "Select your internet connection type", try telling it the computer is "not connected to the internet".

  • ...When we've already done it for you!

    http://www.oldos.org/files/win95dl.php [oldos.org]

    A friendly message from the admin of the best old computing site around ;)

    (obligitory )
  • I've been using version 2.81 for my music needs. Until it becomes unusuable, I intend to stay with it; 2.91 added a bunch of video crap (I use the windows mplayer port and bsplayer for video and I don't apperciate winamp taking it over). 5 is far less intrusive, but 2.81 is powerful enough for me to get the job done.

  • Winamp will never replace... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Ingolfke ( 515826 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @05:22AM (#10852007) Journal
    emacs as my OS of choice.

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