Winamp, Napster, and WMA

[ThatAdamGuy]

I may be new to the forums here, and I'm somewhat reluctant to start off with a rather combative post, but after reading a few dozen posts on Winamp, Napster, and WMA files, I do think some facts need to be straightened out and I'd also like to respectfully make a plea.

First, even some moderators here have insisted that Winamp will not support secure WMA files because "only WMP does." That's incorrect. At present, I'm aware that MusicMatch and J. River's Media Center both handle secure WMA's flawlessly, and I have no doubt there are other programs that handle these files just fine, too.

Why is this relevant? Well, for starters, many of us subscribe to Napster's Premium service and enjoy downloading an unlimited number of fully-tagged tunes into our personal libraries, and it'd be nice to have an option to play those on Winamp, too. For instance, I recently ripped about 350 of my CDs, and amongst those files on my hard drive are already over 100 Napster songs, with more being downloaded and added to my library every day.

Also, I see lots of folks are sneering about WMAs. So let me ask this: What other widely supported format provides the same sound quality level at 128kbps? Certainly not MP3, which -- to anyone being honest -- sounds markedly inferior to WMA at the same bitrates, at least up to 160kbps and likely higher.

And I've seen on the forums here a lot of rolling-eyes about Napster. It's far from a perfect service at present, but I'm personally thilled with having 24/7 access to tons of tunes from every genre integrated into my personal library each month for less than the price of one non-McDonald's dinner out.

I'm not a big supporter of the RIAA, and in fact have created a parody site (http://www.riaaamnesty.com) lampooning their greed and stupidity as an organization. I also think it's ridiculous that services like Napster and iTunes are strong-armed into making their PAID tracks encumbered by DRM.

But returning to Winamp and secure WMA... I think it's stubborn, counter-productive, and just plain stifling for Winamp to turn its back on secure WMA despite the obvious benefits for its users. Heck, make it a Pro feature if you must (and I certainly don't begrudge Nullsoft the opportunity to make some money off of its hard work!). But -- especially to the moderators here -- please don't categorically insist that only WMP supports secure WMA, and please don't outright dismiss the potential value of secure WMA support for Winamp. There are tens of thousands, if not more of us, who have rented or bought secure WMA tracks from Napster, MusicMatch, BuyMusic, Walmart, MusicNow, and other online services. With the expected entrance of Microsoft, HP, and Amazon.com into this market (all of whom will also undoubtedly use the secure WMA format), it'd be seriously whacked for Winamp to turn a blind eye towards this tidal wave.

Thanks for your time and consideration with these matters, and best of the holiday season to you and yours.

P.S. -- Just checked... heck, even RealOne handles secure WMA files. So it's both major players (RealOne and MusicMatch and WMP) and also specialized/smaller-company products (Media Center) that are supporting secure WMA. It's definitely time for Winamp to put politics aside and join the bandwagon.

[JLP]

WMA is one of the worst sound formats and this has been proven by many independent tests on high quality hardware (soundcards and HiFis). Just do a search about it on Google or ask about it on Hydrogen Audio forums. And on top of that it also is a closed format and Microsoft requires that if you develop a decoder you have to pay for that. So it is still much better to us MP3 ripped using EAC or CDex and encoded by LAME ecoder. Or even better yet start supporting Ogg Vorbis which has even better quality and is also more advanced format then MP3. Offcourse if you have some portabl player that doesn't support Ogg Vorbis the best choice is LAME MP3.

[norky]

your reply doesn't adress his post at all. whether or not wma sounds like crap, the fact is the format is used by most of the pay services. to have winamp not able to play secured wma files looks like a bad move to me. maybe there's some reason that only the developers know. oh well, i'll keep using winamp anyhoo. it would just be great if it could play my napster files though

[JLP]

Yup I was a bit of the topic with my post. But this is exactly why I don't subscribe to services like this. I first e-mail them and ask them in what format the music they offer is. And when I am told it is WMA I imidiately know it would not be worth my money. Currently I only subscribed to iTunes where they have music in AAC which is a very good quality format. I would like to see more services which offer music in formats like MP3 and Ogg Vorbis or even better some lossless format like FLAC or Monkeys Audio for a bit higher price.

[gaekwad2]

Of course the reply did adress one part of the post. Wma sounds rubbish compared to mpc and vorbis and with electronic music it's even inferior to lame mp3. Plus you can't use "secure" wma's to burn audio cd's. If you want to pay for stuff like that, go ahead though :igor:

[DJ Egg]

Support for WMA9 is planned for a future 5.x release.
Currently, it's not implemented.

And yes, I totally agree with gaekwad2
I think you'll also find that, if you're gonna pay for music, then many people prefer to pay for a non-crippled format at places like emusic.com and allofmp3.com

[Cheezychops]

The reasons the mods just say no is because it is asked so much. You also have to research before you buy anything. Buy these DMR wma come with sacrafices, ie, not much software plays them yet, you will just have to wait and bitching about it wont make it come any faster. That gives you no right to demand that other software programs should include it because YOU want it. (not speaking about anyone in praticular there)

To me, buy DMR wma's would be like buy a car you can only drive in July, March, and November. It doesn't make sence to me. If you want to buy them fine, but you have to use software that supports it, it is the consequences of buy it.

[ThatAdamGuy]

I appreciate the replies. I especially appreciate the comment from DJ Egg noting that WMA (and I hope, SECURE WMA) support is planned for a future release.

However, I do think many of you are clearly missing one aspect of this situation. While I personally am not that into buying individual secure WMA tracks, I am having a great time essentially RENTING tons and tons of tracks for $10 a month. While some may disagree, I think it's an absolute bargain to be have access to a quasi "Celestial Jukebox" for such a cheap price. I'm able to sample entire albums, discover and listen to full songs of artists I'm not yet familiar with, expand my tastes and my music awareness, and so on.

You CANNOT do this currently with any other services that allow downloads (e.g., listening to music offline on a laptop, for instance). Rhapsody comes close, but it's only streaming.

Allofmp3.com:
- Doesn't allow for all-you-can-listen-to for one monthly price
- Is of highly-questionable legality in the U.S.

So what we have here are actually several different conversations, which, I admit, is largely my fault.

Basically...

1) People say WMA / secure WMA sucks
Fine, that's your opinion and that's your choice to have such an opinion. Frankly, I think a lot of Winamp features suck, but I just don't use them. But many people obviously like them. Software is a compromise, made of a set of features and functionality that include things not everyone's gonna like. The fact, as I and others have pointed out, is that many people use and will continue to use WMA; if Winamp has any hope of becoming a significantly popular (and profitable) piece of software, it darn well better support WMA and the millions who use it.

2) Napster suxors, ha ha ha ha... lusers!
I've already written my defense of this service.

3) Only WMP supports WMA
I've already clearly debunked this one. I mean, seriously, with smaller companies like J. Rivers supporting secure WMA, how hard / expensive could it be?

4) You can't burn CDs with secure WMAs.
Yes, you can. You may have to (legally) pay 99 cents for each track or $9.95 for each album or what not, but then you have full rights to burn the tracks.

---

And lastly:
The reasons the mods just say no is because it is asked so much.
Geez, that's real bright. First, doesn't this suggest that there's obviously a significant demand for the WMA support? And secondly, why not just answer honestly and directly, like:

"Sorry, Winamp doesn't yet support WMA / secure WMA, but support is planned for [5.x, 6.x, etc.]." and optionally "In the meantime, you can use WMP, MusicMatch, RealOne, Media Center, etc."

[Cheezychops]

[i]Geez, that's real bright. First, doesn't this suggest that there's obviously a significant demand for the WMA support? And secondly, why not just answer honestly and directly, like:

"Sorry, Winamp doesn't yet support WMA / secure WMA, but support is planned for [5.x, 6.x, etc.]." and optionally "In the meantime, you can use WMP, MusicMatch, RealOne, Media Center, etc." [/B]

That came off wrong. When the mods didnt know whether or not wma support was going to be add they (and me in some cases) just had to say "No" since we didnt know.

[ThatAdamGuy]

Ah, okay, thanks for the clarification, Cheezychops! Do you now have any info about whether WMA (and secure WMA) support is slated to be added to Winamp in 5.x or will it not be 'til 6.x...?

[Cheezychops]

er..... Just that
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Originally posted by DJ Egg
Support for WMA9 is planned for a future 5.x release.
Currently, it's not implemented.

[GURT]

i like FLAC :)

[ThatAdamGuy]

Originally posted by Cheezychops
er..... Just that
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Oh, holy *&@&!# that was dumb. And I'm not referring to your post :|. Sorry about ny clueless question above. Despite the holidays, it's been a long few days for me.

[Wish]

Funny, if you think Winamp features suck, then why you want to use it?

Secure WMA support isn't what the userbase of Winamp wants, get it? The devs work on features that the users of Winamp want.

Another thing WMA is a proprietary format, MS can easily force an upgrade to the decoding part of WMA that invalidates all your licenses in 1 swift move, making your secure WMA files unplayable. Ever read the EULA of WiMP9? Even if you don't want to update, you'll be forced to eventually when newer WMA files that you buy require the newer updates just to be played.

Once again, quality of WMA encoded files is questionable. See www.hydrogenaudio.org.

Most players support secure WMA through MS' dlls which adds a lot of bloat. You'll still have to install WiMP9(12+ MB download for Win9x/2k, 10+MB for WinXP) since it will be STUPID for Winamp to ship with WMA's decoding dlls which weight in around 1MB.

Lastly, here's a page everyone should read.

http://www.downhillbattle.org/napster/

[Wish]

More stuff to read if anyone is interested, see attachment.

[Alltaken]

Originally posted by GURT
i like FLAC :)

Ditto.

:D

[ThatAdamGuy]

Wish, did I ever say that Winamp features suck?

And -- for better or worse -- I'm not aware of any other way I can Shoutcast (or otherwise affordably and efficiently broadcast, with song titles listed) without Winamp. But that's neither here nor there.

Secure WMA support isn't what the userbase of Winamp wants, get it? The devs work on features that the users of Winamp want.
Oh really, now? Are you a dev, Wish? And whether you or are not, have you taken a current poll to see how many people want secure WMA compatibility?

And, for the sake of argument, let's say you're even sort of right... that the majority of current winamp users don't want the player to read secure WMA files. Is WMA being written for a closed group of zealots, or is it (optimally) being designed to gain market share. I'm not talking a dumbing down like AOL (eeek!) but making the product actually more usable for, oh, say a few hundred thousand people who are likely to have secure WMA's on their drive in 2004. But no -- WMA is evil, so by extension, Winamp should give the finger to all those folks? I'm guessing you'd probably say "Damn straight!" eh?

And speaking of evil... I believe the DMCA is evil, and I think the RIAA is largely evil. I don't, however, share the (IMHO misguided) opinions from sites like downhillbattle.org, that the online music services are evil. Frankly, I would like to see them all (well, most of them, at least) succeed, and I think consumers and musicians will be better off. Or would you prefer people continue basically raping musicians by flocking to KazAa, where musicians get a whopping 0 cents per download?

Returning to downhillbattle.org's arguments for a moment; they're complaining (in their hypothetical screenshot) that artists get 11 cents out of a 99 cent download. On a 15 track album, that's $1.50. Not very much, I admit. But I believe it's a lot more than the artists get from the sale of a CD. And far more, as I noted above, than they get from KaZaA.

In fact, I'm guessing that as online music services proliferate (including some really awesome ones, like Magnatune (http://www.magnatune.com)), demand for music will increase, payments to artists (both percentagewise and in general) will increase, and consumers will have far more choice.

I also predict than in 2-3 years, paid downloads will be free from digital rights management. Unable to compete very much on price, the burgeoning field of music services online will be forced to compete in other respects... and removing DRM will be a major selling point ;). I've chatted with one prominent fellow from the RIAA, and even he admits that it's "just a matter of time; right now, the labels are paranoid!"

However, I also believe that there is -- and still will be -- a place for DRM in various contexts, such as Napster's all-you-can-listen-to/download Premium service for $10, and Rhapsody's similar (albeit not yet download-capable) service.

Winamp is either going to be a johnny-come-lately, or it's going to acknowledge consumer demand and implement DRM support sooner rather than later.

[Wish]

Originally posted by ThatAdamGuy
Frankly, I think a lot of Winamp features suck, but I just don't use them.

Do we have a memory lapse? :D

Another thing, AAC audio (MP4 is the container format) is open standards and will be the dominant format in the future once Sony, Philips and other Japanese/Taiwanese/Chinese electronic manufacturers gets their act together and add AAC support into their products. WMA support will look like a joke compared to AAC.

Another thing, WHY would I PAY good money for music encoded in a format which is known to be INFERIOR to LAME MP3 --alt-preset standard? Not to mention the fact it's a proprietary format which isn't supported anywhere else.

Originally posted by ThatAdamGuy
Or would you prefer people continue basically raping musicians by flocking to KazAa, where musicians get a whopping 0 cents per download?

Funny you should say that, since the 5 giant major recording companies were convicted of PRICE FIXING for years, so basically the consumers got shafted and raped by them for years. I guess you do enjoy bending over for them..... :rolleyes:

Gain market share? You do know that Winamp was the PLAYER that launched the digital music and MP3 revolution? Other players back then(1997) were cumbersome, slow and unintuitive. Most people still use Winamp because it does what it does best, play music. All-in-one apps like MMJB, WiMP, RealONE etc cannot match it in audio formats, dsp plugin, general plugins and skins availability. Jack of all trades, Master of none apps don't belong here.

[ThatAdamGuy]

Do we have a memory lapse?
Yes, sometimes I clearly do ;). Since you mentioned "we," I take it you sometimes forget stuff in long threads, too? :D

Another thing, AAC audio (MP4 is the container format) is open standards and will be the dominant format in the future once Sony, Philips and other Japanese/Taiwanese/Chinese electronic manufacturers gets their act together and add AAC support into their products. WMA support will look like a joke compared to AAC.
So sayeth your crystal ball, eh? Do the words VHS and Betamax mean anything to you? ;). The "best" technology doesn't always win. After all, if it did, wouldn't people on p2p services be trading ogg files, not mp3 files? :D

Another thing, WHY would I PAY good money for music encoded in a format which is known to be INFERIOR to LAME MP3 --alt-preset standard? Not to mention the fact it's a proprietary format which isn't supported anywhere else.
That's easy. Because, with the $10 Napster Premium example, I can't get this anywhere else. Not from CDs (unless I want to spend thousands of dollars a month), not from AllMP3 (unless I want to spend at least hundreds of dollars a month), not from KaZaA (unless I enjoy spyware, don't mind poorly tagged or mistagged files, etc.), and so on.

If I want all-I-can-download (rental) music right now, WMA is my (and your) ONLY option. Don't like it? Do what I've done... write and call Napster, write and call the RIAA folks, and so on.

Funny you should say that, since the 5 giant major recording companies were convicted of PRICE FIXING for years, so basically the consumers got shafted and raped by them for years. I guess you do enjoy bending over for them.....
Uh, this isn't exactly relevant, or at least not a logical argument in light of what I wrote.

I already acknowledged that the RIAA (and, by extension, most of the major labels) are not Good Guys. But we're not exactly rich in options right now.

Let's say I want to listen to explore a vast array of Loreena McKennitt tunes, for instance. I have a few choices:
- Buy the CDs (expensive, funds the evil labels, artist gets little)
- Steal the music via P2P (uncertain quality, usually poor tagging, uncertain availability, may take a while to find many songs since Ms. McKennitt isn't new and popular, artist gets nothing)
- Acquire the music legally online (MusicMatch, Napster, iTunes, etc. -- known quality, usually decent tagging, super-fast download speeds, easy to find available tunes, artist gets at least something)

What would you recommend? Perhaps iTunes? I've tried that store, and didn't like it. I prefer to pay a set price to sample and download an unlimited amount of tunes, and then pay for what I want to burn. So we're back to WMA.

Or perhaps you'd say, screw it, don't buy any music at all, just listen to the radio? I have two (evil) words for you: Clear Channel.

Internet Radio? Sorry, there are problems and evilness there, too (Webcasting fees).

No easy answers, eh? And yes, I know this has diverged a lot, but I'm enjoying the give and take.

[Wish]

Think whatever you like, I'm tired of your senseless arguing for WMA. Until you educate yourself at Hydrogenaudio above why WMA isn't a good quality format, I don't see any need for this thread to continue.