last100 - Latest Comments in Winamp goes where iTunes doesn’t dare

Re: Winamp goes where iTunes doesn’t dare

Andrew — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 16:52:34 -0000

i definitely see a lot of potential with the new winamp 5.5
songbird and mediamonkey3 just aren't rdy yet
foobar is too much config

Re: Winamp goes where iTunes doesn’t dare

aalaap — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 04:37:24 -0000

I've been wondering if I'd ever see anything really new in Winamp - not that it changed my opinion about the software that's been my #1 choice of an MP3 player since 1998 or 1999 - and I'm simply thrilled to see this upgrade. The beta is fairly stable on my system. Anyway, it's just ten days away! :)

Re: Winamp goes where iTunes doesn’t dare

wuforevercom — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 13:50:17 -0000

check out wuforever.com media jukebox.
Plays anywhere. no special plugins needed. ZERO resources (uses browser process).

Re: Winamp goes where iTunes doesn’t dare

Robert H. Goretsky — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 12:31:00 -0000

Winamp is one of the few applications I can say I have used for over 10 years -- perhaps sharing that title with only MS Word.. Good to see development is still going strong on this application, although I'm afraid that feature bloat may increase its already relatively high loading time..

Comment by Robert H. Goretsky of Hoboken, NJ

Re: Winamp goes where iTunes doesn’t dare

Josh — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 11:06:19 -0000

I only hope the loading time gets better.

Re: Winamp goes where iTunes doesn’t dare

Pig Roaster — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 09:26:21 -0000

I've been using iTunes + Hamachi for some time to stream my music from home to work, and it works incredibly smoothly - browsing my library is simple, and songs start playing practically instantaneously. With that said, I'm not a huge iTunes fan and would love to switch to something else if they can just get that piece in place with the same ease of use. So I downloaded the Winamp beta and was less than impressed for a few reasons.

1. Why do I need to separately add my music to the "remote music" section? I suppose the rationale is that I may not want to share my entire library, but I'm thinking that at the very least there should be some interoperability between your library and what is shared... there is not.

2. When browsing my shared library at work, hitting the play button in the "remote music" section launched Windows Media Player! I'm supposing this is because I neglected to set file associations during the install, but should that really be necessary to get mp3's that I'm selecting from WITHIN Winamp, to play IN Winamp?

3. Very cludgy and slow to access the remote library - my guess is that its partly because its going through the Orb servers to hit my home PC and not going direct.

All in all, the sharing piece comes nowhere close to what I've achieved using iTunes + Hamachi, and for that reason, I'll stay away unless there are significant changes and improvements by the time this comes out of beta.

Re: Winamp goes where iTunes doesn’t dare

bongo — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 08:21:00 -0000

I've used winamp for years..

..lately I was thinking, hmm, maybe it's time to change - things were stale, I hated how the windows were to small to fully utilise play lists and song information etc, so with 5.5 - I am concerned that I ever lost my faith in the product :)

Re: Winamp goes where iTunes doesn’t dare

Moonlite — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 06:14:03 -0000

Winamp grows along with the internet growth itself. No other media players have such histories.

Re: Winamp goes where iTunes doesn’t dare

Slavik — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 06:05:49 -0000

I love Winamp, but this thing looks monsterous.

Re: Winamp goes where iTunes doesn’t dare

Simon — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 04:58:50 -0000

Love Winamp for it's modularity and don't use it for anything but music, but I hate the media library. Mexp (plugin) is so much better when it comes to organizing your MP3s.

Re: Winamp goes where iTunes doesn’t dare

Guest — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 23:22:53 -0000

the shoutcast tv thing is pretty cool also. i watched some full length movies streamed over the inter web the other night.

Re: Winamp goes where iTunes doesn’t dare

Utew — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 22:38:42 -0000

Unfortunately, Songbird developement is on a slow boat around Tierra del Fuego..

What the developers at Winamp have offered with this release (err beta for now) is a pretty logical and definitely needed interface change (via the Bento skin) . I think it's very well done and has just become my player of choice.. once again.

Song blog access is a major plus for this new version and should create something of a stir IMO.

Nice article and Thanks for the heads-up, Ryan.. I might have missed all the changes, if you hadn't written this up.

Side note.. database handling is light years ahead of WMP 10 or 11... with a collection of 40,000+ songs, this beta is not choking on dealing with the load.. more than I can say for WMP, which is sluggish to say the least.

Re: Winamp goes where iTunes doesn’t dare

brody — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 19:35:34 -0000

hell yeah tgpo songbird is the stuff

Re: Winamp goes where iTunes doesn’t dare

RandleMcMurphy — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 19:25:03 -0000

"Bleh, who uses winamp anymore?"

I'd try it again if there was a OSX or Linux version.

The question should be (and will be soon if Vista is any indication) "Bleh, who uses Windows anymore?"

Re: Winamp goes where iTunes doesn’t dare

fir3ball — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 19:16:57 -0000

the remote thing is old, and it's not even a winamp thing, it's done by orb (orb.com)
winamp has always been better than itunes.

Re: Winamp goes where iTunes doesn’t dare

Andri Sigurðsson — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 19:09:07 -0000

Peel does the mp3 blogs much better, getpeel.com, not as bloated as Songbird and you can subscribe to blogs.

Re: Winamp goes where iTunes doesn’t dare

Wes — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 18:25:30 -0000

the interface is the only reason i use it... wryyyyyy!

Re: Winamp goes where iTunes doesn’t dare

Ian — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 18:20:36 -0000

if you use itunes you could use this plugin on both mac and windows.

http://www.simplifymedia.com/

Re: Winamp goes where iTunes doesn’t dare

DiggUser — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 18:19:46 -0000

Bleh, who uses winamp anymore?

Re: Winamp goes where iTunes doesn’t dare

gandhii — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 17:49:57 -0000

itunes doesnt do the blog thing at all.. there is a big difference between a blog and a podcast.

Songbird does... and works quite well on the mac and linux... but I've yet to get it running on my Windows box. But it is still very alpha at version 0.2 so that is not a surprise.

Of course winamp would presumably have the advantage of the many many many years of development, plugins, skins, etc. Which had already provided the sharing thing.. but probably not as smoothly. (I've yet to check this new version out). But unfortunately is still a windows only appp, which is more often a problem these days.

I don't agree that having the skin all one solid window is a good thing though. I like being able to cut away the parts I'm not using. That and the visualizations is what keeps me using winamp instead of one of the many other apps. I hope there will be support for the old skins.

Re: Winamp goes where iTunes doesn’t dare

Steve O'Hear (editor) — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 17:29:29 -0000

@Dylan

In iTunes you can subscribe to an RSS feed with mp3 enclosures, yes. Designed for subscribing to podcasts.

But it doesn't have a built in web browser with pre-populated links to mp3 blogs does it?

This means you can surf an mp3 blog through Winamp, read about the music and see a playlist appear with any mp3s linked. You then get the option to download them. iTunes doesn't go nearly that far.

Hardly FUD.

Re: Winamp goes where iTunes doesn’t dare

Dylan — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 17:21:04 -0000

Also, you CAN share your itunes library over the internet via Musicast...

Re: Winamp goes where iTunes doesn’t dare

Dylan — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 17:20:11 -0000

IIRC, iTunes was the first media player to sport both these functions. Unfortunately the RIAA forced iTunes to rid itself of library sharing, but MP3 Blog (Podcast) support is still alive and well.

Do your research before spreading FUD like this.

Re: Winamp goes where iTunes doesn’t dare

bevel — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 17:18:14 -0000

And Songbird integrates w/ your iTunes library and your iPod. It already went where iTunes didn't dare, and with a decent bit of flair, too.

Re: Winamp goes where iTunes doesn’t dare

Steve O'Hear (editor) — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 17:17:08 -0000

"winamp has supported the remote feature for a couple of builds now…." I wasn't aware of that, but I'm sure they've added new device support, including the next gen. game consoles.