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13 June 2006

winamp sux →[More:]

I finally bothered trying this. Way better than Winamp. Way better. I should assign video to something else and just delete the POS.

post by: weretable and the undead chairs at: 13:54 | 18 comments

Why does everyone hate WinAmp all of a sudden? Is it the latest version that sucks? I haven't upgraded in a while. I always thought it was a nice, streamlined, unbloated mp3 player (especially compared to iTunes). I have WinAmp Pro, and really like it.

posted by iconomy 13 June | 13:58

I like it far better than iTunes.

posted by Miko 13 June | 14:01

Winamp has lots of little issues for me and occasionally eats up a bunch of memory for no apparent reason. I liked it when it was new but each release gets worse and worse. This player is so small and causes so little impact on my system that it only barely exists. =)

posted by weretable and the undead chairs 13 June | 14:05

weretable - I'm a big fan of BSPlayer. Then again, VLC gets anything done (but I like the feel of BSPlayer better, though).

posted by porpoise 13 June | 14:16

One XMPlay has an audioscrobbler plugin, I'm going to switch, if only to stop dealing with those WinAmp upgrade popups.

posted by cmonkey 13 June | 14:20

One? Once

posted by cmonkey 13 June | 14:21

Does it have a shoutcast broadcasting plugin? I too need an audioscrobbler plugin as well.

posted by matildaben 13 June | 14:33

One of the things I really like about XMplay is that if I double-click on an MP3 it starts up in a second. If I close it, it closes just as quickly.

I know this sounds like a small thing but I just didn't realise this mattered so much until I started using it.

So far I haven't missed anything from Winamp (except for the nice skin I had), but then I didn't use a lot of Winamp's features.

Does it have a shoutcast broadcasting plugin?

Haven't tried it yet but apparently you can use the same Shoutcast DSP you get for Winamp.

posted by dodgygeezer 13 June | 14:53

Shoutcast: see here

posted by dodgygeezer 13 June | 14:55

Winamp 2.5e does everything I need.

And sure, new versions are bloated and horrible, but Winamp is kind of the iPod of Windows mp3-playing programs--Winamp's third-party and plugin support (random examples: remote control, network play, crossfading) is so much better than any of its competitors that it seems like you ought to have a good reason for choosing something else. Plus I've got this thing where I try not to let present-day crappiness change my feelings about the old stuff. And it's easier for me to do that with software than with books or albums or something.

All that said, I also like VLC and Fubar.

posted by box 13 June | 16:25

Winamp 3.x and up suck a lot. 2.9 and down are awesome. Also, don't use winamp for video playback. It's not worth it.

Which is kinda ironic and odd, 'cause one of the things Winamp (2.x) is so good at is doing some pretty hardcore visualization scripts or plugins.

But, yeah, 3.x and up is pretty much all pain. Those are the releases that came out after AOL bought Nullsoft.

I don't know about in other versions, but in 2.x you can turn off the update nagger.

I've enjoyed VLC and BSplayer, but they can't handle the playlists I throw at them - namely every MP3 file on all my drives, for a start. They just lock up. Winamp 2.x has no problems with playlists that big.

posted by loquacious 13 June | 16:34

I really don't have any issues with winamp and yes, it's a hell of a lot better than itunes. If xmplay gets an audioscrobbler plugin, I'll give it a run. Until then, sticking with winamp.

posted by puke & cry 13 June | 16:38

What update nagging thing is this? I use one of the newer versions [5.x, which fails to suck like 3.x and, indeed, acts just like 2.x for my purposes, which don't involve using the library or fancy skins], and I've never seen anything asking me to update. I don't even seem to have unchecked the "check for updates" box in preferences.

posted by ubersturm 13 June | 16:46

Also, unlike iTunes, winamp doesn't get retarded when files fail to have complete and correct id3 tag information [or, worse, when a playlist or even the library has a mix of tagged and untagged files.] Are any of these other programs equally cooperative [that is, if I dragged a bunch of mp3s with filenames in asciibetical order into the player, would they appear in that order, or would the player flail stupidly?]

posted by ubersturm 13 June | 16:50

One XMPlay has an audioscrobbler plugin, I'm going to switch, if only to stop dealing with those WinAmp upgrade popups.

XMPlay Audioscrobbler Plugin

posted by kmellis 13 June | 17:23

I really like WinAmp 5.x... I use it for basically everything media-wise. (I think I missed the sucky versions of WinAmp because I was stuck with my old Win98 machine for so long.)

I saw a note just recently about a new update that seemed to offer nothing I cared about, so I didn't update. (I also always do custom install with anything I install- never accept the defaults, which are going to add stuff you don't care about.)

posted by BoringPostcards 13 June | 19:05

i used to think winamp sucked. then i switched to linux and discovered the true suckage of beep media player. you see, winamp may suck, but it does actually play media. when was the last time you had to open a terminal and type "killall winamp"? i thought not.

posted by quonsar 13 June | 20:51

Is there a way to record streams with XMPlay? I have basically abandoned WinAmp for XMPlay but I use Screamer Radio to listen to streaming radio because it's ridiculously easy to write single tracks and whole streams as mp3s while the stream is playing. But I like the functionality of XMPlay much better. So if I can find a way to record from XMP I can ditch Screamer and use one media player only from now on.

posted by LeeJay 13 June | 21:49

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