Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: jr2 on February 08, 2019, 12:16:35 am
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2018/10/16/the-glorious-winamp-media-player-gets-reborn-in-2019/
After the leaked 5.8 beta, the devs made a few tweaks and released it, go to http://winamp.com/ if you wish to get it (instead of grabbing the leaked version, if you were thinking of doing that)
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Okay, three things:
1. They've been talking about releasing something for years now, and haven't yet.
2. That's an article from October
3. the new Winamp will be platform-agnostic, and will exist primarily as a mobile app that aggregates any digestible form of audio.
Yay, another electron app
Secret preorder bonus 4th thing:
AIMP exists. I don't see what Winamp brings me that it can't.
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Was it ever gone?
Because i use Winamp since... well 2000? And because it is still working without problems with current OS and plays even the several new audio formats that were introduced during the last couple of years... there was never a reason to change to another version of it?
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From the article:
Speaking of users, this fact may come as a shock: there are still roughly one hundred million monthly Winamp users according to TechCrunch, the majority of which are outside the U.S. Consider that as recently as July 2018, Spotify had a reported total userbase of 180 million globally. There may already be an abundance of media players to choose from on your Android or iPhone, but that sizable an audience could ensure instant success when the reinvented Winamp launches on mobile.
Why would I care? Well, I had a bunch of plugins and visualizers, not to mention skins, that were really, really good. Enhancer 0.17 was the best (well, that didn't cost $$), and some of those visualization plugins were simply jaw-dropping.
Now, if it's not compatible... hmmm. Although, I guess you can get some Winamp plugins working in AIMP: https://www.ghacks.net/2008/10/13/installing-winamp-plugins-in-aimp/
EDIT: Leaked version was noticed by the devs and they made a few tweaks and released it officially: http://winamp.com/
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From the article:
Speaking of users, this fact may come as a shock: there are still roughly one hundred million monthly Winamp users according to TechCrunch, the majority of which are outside the U.S. Consider that as recently as July 2018, Spotify had a reported total userbase of 180 million globally. There may already be an abundance of media players to choose from on your Android or iPhone, but that sizable an audience could ensure instant success when the reinvented Winamp launches on mobile.
There's nothing wrong with WinAmp as an offline media player.
But, if you think about it, that's kind of the problem here: What compelling feature would a new Winamp need to provide to make users want to upgrade and use its (presumed to be existing) for-pay features?
People pay for Spotify or Amazon Music now to get their music. Winamps' heyday, I think, has come and gone; The days of people accumulating a huge mp3 library are, I think, pretty firmly over*. So, what can Winamp on the desktop offer that would make me want to use it?
The answer is, nothing that AIMP (or, for that matter, Winamp 5.6) doesn't already provide.
As for visualizations.... what? Why? I know, I was a young person during the golden days of Winamp, I know how cool it is to push a button and have some cool visuals to go with your music, but ... when I'm at my PC listening to music, the last thing I want is some irritating animations in the corner of my eye.
Why would I care? Well, I had a bunch of plugins and visualizers, not to mention skins, that were really, really good. Enhancer 0.17 was the best (well, that didn't cost $$), and some of those visualization plugins were simply jaw-dropping.
And again: What can a new Winamp offer you over what you have right now? Are you looking forward to another program that wants you to share social info that much?
* Welcome to the footnote area, where I predict what you're going to say: Yes, you do have a large mp3 library. So do I. Been building it for over 10 years now. Wanna guess how much I used it after deciding to get a Spotify subscription?
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I was assuming that it would integrate with all other for-pay or ad-supported streaming services and integrate with your Library that way. If not... yeah that's gonna be a problem. But they've got the userbase to make a compelling case. Why not have the best of both worlds under one roof? Oh wait. I know. Because then the Spotify app can't collect that sweet sweet user information and report it back for (even more) profit. :nono:
EDIT: And yeah, I use Spotify as well, and also have a massive MP3 collection that I haven't really used much (well, I did right after downloading Winamp 5.8 from their site, and yes, Enhancer 0.17 still does its thing perfectly, albeit from a complaint about not being able to access the registy on startup that doesn't affect its performance).
I'd love for this to be a place for me to peruse an integrated database of both my internal music file collection, my saved songs, artists, and playlists on Spotify, heck even re-create my previous .m3u playlists on the Spotify service (maybe with a plugin or something), listen to podcasts from iHeartRadio or SoundCloud, and hopefully do cross-platform searches for anything I'm looking for.
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I was assuming that it would integrate with all other for-pay or ad-supported streaming services and integrate with your Library that way. If not... yeah that's gonna be a problem. But they've got the userbase to make a compelling case. Why not have the best of both worlds under one roof? Oh wait. I know. Because then the Spotify app can't collect that sweet sweet user information and report it back for (even more) profit. :nono:
They really do not have a userbase. Not in the sense that, for example, MS Office has: If MS releases a new Office, they can be relatively certain that a lot of their previous customers will buy it. Winamps' userbase has been using the same program for years now, likely without ever really considering that an upgrade might be needed (and it's still an open question whether the people who have the thing installed are actually using it).
As for Spotify: I don't think they really care. To use that service, you need to sign up for it; if they allow external API access, it will require valid logins. They will get all the data they want.
I'd love for this to be a place for me to peruse an integrated database of both my internal music file collection, my saved songs, artists, and playlists on Spotify, heck even re-create my previous .m3u playlists on the Spotify service (maybe with a plugin or something), listen to podcasts from iHeartRadio or SoundCloud, and hopefully do cross-platform searches for anything I'm looking for.
And maybe you'll even get that (although I wouldn't have high hopes for it).
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I'm a little baffled here... I ditched WinAmp for VLC long ago. Is anyone really pining for its return?
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I've always used Winamp for playing audio. However, I don't see the point of a new version. I don't even know what version I have, but it already does everything I want. All the music I listen to is from games and much of it only exists as offline files, so I don't use any of the streaming services.
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* ... I predict what you're going to say: Yes, you do have a large mp3 library. So do I. Been building it for over 10 years now. Wanna guess how much I used it after deciding to get a Spotify subscription?
Several years ago I ripped all my CDs (~200) to MP3. But since I started listening to Spotify and satellite radio, I've pretty much stopped listening to my MP3s and stopped buying CDs. The last one I remember buying was Foo Fighters' Wasting Light, and unbelievably that was almost 8 years ago!
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I'm a little baffled here... I ditched WinAmp for VLC long ago. Is anyone really pining for its return?
My thoughts exactly.
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I'm a little baffled here... I ditched WinAmp for VLC long ago. Is anyone really pining for its return?
My thoughts exactly.
I prefer Winamps design and handling over that of VLC, but I am not even sure if I'm having the latest version that is available now.
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I've just used Foobar2000 instead. It's a lot quicker, for starters.
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There are people who unironically use VLC in 2019? :confused:
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^ Given that there are people that unironically use winamp, media player classic or even freaking windows media player (or whatever it's called these days) : yes.
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What's wrong with unironically using VLC or Media Player Classic?
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Media Player Classic is actually decent with the MadVR renderer though.
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MPC is great. I used to use that for video before VLC (or when VLC was being quirky with a particular format back in the day). I've also used foobar2000, and it's nice.
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I swear by PotPlayer for video at least, which is by the creator of KMPlayer. It'll eat up just about any format you throw at it and has a hideous amount of configuration and rendering options.
And I'm happy to see Winamp getting some sort of new release if for no other reason than it's comforting to know it's still out there.
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KMPlayer was another good one.
None of the other players ever seemed to have quite the level of 3rd party plugins to back them up as Winamp, though, IDK why.
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There are people who unironically use VLC in 2019? :confused:
It plays everything under the sun and it has a portable installation, so why wouldn't you?
MPC is okay, but I find for breadth of playback support VLC is considerably better. Either works as a generic well-rounded audio/video player. I don't listen to offline music or watch much offline video that isn't tied into a streaming service's offline mode these days, however, so I suppose if someone still listens to a few thousand MP3 files or downloads discrete video files for offline viewing routinely there are probably better niche options out there for those obsessed with specific quality filters and options.
And I'll grant that VLC's playlist handling is clunky.
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It plays everything under the sun and it has a portable installation, so why wouldn't you?
Because the picture quality is total ass?
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Because the picture quality is total ass?
Okay, I'll bite - as compared to? I mean, VLC's "superiority" as a perfect player absolutely isn't a hill I'm prepared to die on, but as an open-source capable play-everything-on-multiple-platforms audio/video player with simplified installation options (i.e. portable), I've yet to be introduced to anything that fits that description and performs better. Plus the caveats in my last post - it's not like I'm trying to load 4k video into VLC (especially since I don't have a single 4k display). :p
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MPC with madVR renderer is that all those videophiles use. I wouldnt say VLC looks like ass but there is a subtle difference, especially with advanced neural network upscalers. You can see comparison pics on madVR site here:
http://madvr.com/
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Well the biggest problem with VLC is, that it uses own Codecs with wrong settings in some cases or even very outdated versions of them.
But well, i think at least for music playback VLC still works (and that is, what this topic here is about), but i would never use it for Videos again.
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KMPlayer and PotPlayer both work with madVR as well. Anyone who cares about quality will want to use one of the supported players and madVR. And all of these players have a portable version so it's not like VLC has them beat there.
VLC not only lacks that support but as said before only uses internal codecs for both audio and video. You're going to get much better quality, performance, and customizability with things like K-lite codec pack and a player that supports external codecs.
MPC also works best with SVP so if you want framerate interpolation you'll probably want to use MPC-HC.
There is pretty much no reason to use VLC for video playback ever.
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-snip-
Hrmmm. I've always kept VLC around just because I cannot be arsed to screw around with codecs and it was handy as a portable app. That said, this is some good information; I'll give MPC-HC a shot for the hell of it next time I'm watching anything offline.