Winamp News

[musicf8]

I install MPC via K++ mega codec pack, so yeah it uses those. The main reason I don't use winamp for video is because if I want to watch a video I would lose my current playlist on my winamp... drove me insane. Anyway, MPC is small, simple, light, and reminds me of the WMP 6.4 days

[DrO]

zepper: the thing is, Winamp is just a lot better at audio than video (which was a hack in the first place) and based on feedback, that's generally what people seem to use.

i'm not saying that it'll be dropped, though maybe a clearer way to disable video support completely for people would help for those who don't want it to do video at all. hence the start of a means to do that with the last 5.66x release, but something during install / runtime to enable / disable it as a whole would be of use i think (though i suspect people will still call it bloat, but you can never win).

as we're unlikely to drop existing features (though the implementation is likely to change for a number of things) unless we just cannot justify licensing to use something or it's going to take to much for the time being to re-implement.

musicf8: lose the current playlist? do you mean that it's hidden or the altering of the contents (if the altering of the contents then that will happen irrespective of any format, audio or video).

[musicf8]

musicf8: lose the current playlist? do you mean that it's hidden or the altering of the contents (if the altering of the contents then that will happen irrespective of any format, audio or video).

Losing the active playlist (like having a playlist full of songs to listen to, then clicking on a video file and all of them vanish with just the video file). That's why I prefer having a program for video files separate than music files. I tend to pause music a lot to watch a video and then resume listening to the playlist after.

Of course the last time I used winamp for video was when it first debuted with video capabilities, didn't like using one program for all media, and just made winamp my dedicated music player.

[DrO]

Losing the active playlist (like having a playlist full of songs to listen to, then clicking on a video file and all of them vanish with just the video file).

what you're describing is what happens irrespective of the file format if you've got things set to play instead of enqueue by default. as i can do that with a flac file or a sid file or anything else

That's why I prefer having a program for video files separate than music files. I tend to pause music a lot to watch a video and then resume listening to the playlist after.

alternatively you could have a second Winamp instance configured as needed, though it sounds like even with the improvements that were made over the v2.9x implementation, that Winamp + video is not right for you anyway.

[musicf8]

what you're describing is what happens irrespective of the file format if you've got things set to play instead of enqueue by default. as i can do that with a flac file or a sid file or anything else

Oh yeah, you're right, but nowadays I rarely double click on files for music (winamp's library system is just pure awesomeness). Videos I always double click on...

.. to be honest, I could make it work if I tried, it's just training and breaking how I programmed myself to play files for the past decade+.

I really should play with winamp and video files again, i might be surprised at how well the library indexes video files haha...

[Victhor]

Sometimes "current use" doesn't let you see what the potential of "another use" is. For example, here in my country, YouTube is a popular streaming service, Soundcloud and such are not. And Winamp was a popular mp3 player, but at parties / gatherings many people left Winamp and began to use Youtube playlists, sometimes leaving others to pick the next song or artist and building the listing as it plays..

Most of the times the selected song didn't have a video (just that still-images videos), but that didn't care since the fun part was to pick ANY song "I can think of", without being restricted to what "Winamp can play" or "which mp3 you have in this PC".

What I mean is that, leaving video playback out of Winamp is not understanding how new techonology and habits change / transform, in any case, EXTENDING the current way of using it can be a better path IMHO. Expanding options so you have more ways to interact with music (and so, more means to find a way that suits your current habits).

Anyway, all I say / think can be totally in vain since Radionomy is not precisely a "media content" focused company, it is a "radios" company. So videos and even local music libraries won't be the focus anymore.. (I hope I'm wrong of course, I hope they surprise us in a way I can`t even imagine..)

[DrO]

What I mean is that, leaving video playback out of Winamp is not understanding how new techonology and habits change / transform, in any case, EXTENDING the current way of using it can be a better path IMHO.

good point, but Winamp's strength is audio and as you note, Radionomy is more about audio/streaming than video. so based on that, wouldn't it make more sense to focus on what Winamp and related services are good at and do the best for them than trying to be a tool that fits everything and doesn't do well (as has been the case especially with Winamp + video).

sure it'd be nice to have something done about the video support, but video is more of a nightmare than audio is for licensing, etc (e.g. h264 was pro only due to licensing) that maybe it's better (to allow Winamp to continue to be free) to drop things that otherwise hold things back and / or have to be crippled on purpose due to draconian restrictions.

and like i said, most likely the most that'll be seen is a better way to switch off video support for those who just don't want / need it and give them something more akin to v2.x (once you get around the fact that a lot of users now just don't even know you can change the skin, etc).

anyway, no one really knows what's going to happen (not even me) and i'm just putting out a few ideas to see at least what the forum (and it's reality bubble) thinks.

[DJ Egg]

@musicf8

It sounds like you just need to change the default action to "Enqueue" or "Play+Enqueue" instead of "Play"
via: Winamp > Prefs > File Types > Enqueue files on double click
or Winamp > Prefs > File Types > Shell Options > Set Enqueue+Play as the default...

That's for internet links or double-click/Enter in Windows Explorer.

There's a similar action for the Media Library (Prefs > Media Library > Options tab > Dbl click or Enter = Enqueue selected items).

[wernerml]

so boring...

.................................

[mikeloeven]

I doubt you'll see existing skin support dropped, though I know for one I'd like to see a native OS option as skinning is one of the main causes of memory bloat that gets leveraged at us. but who knows what the future will bring for Winamp as a whole.

I'm not seeing anything obvious in your posts about the other thing you mention, though no one really uses Winamp for video anyway so thats probably why ☺ if anything, I bet video support could be dropped without too many complaints... which would solve a number of licensing issues....

.. you do realize you can get a 16 gig kit for under 100 if your really cheap or around 130-150 if you want a bit better performance XD.

i think we have evolved beyond the point where the minor amount of memory bloat by a skinning utility can cause a noticeable performance drop

[DrO]

true but people want things to be slim and the less resources a skin (and winamp in general) uses then generally the faster everything will be. it also means more memory available for library data if less is used for graphics data.

so yes it could be ignored but keeping things slim can have other benefits plus memory usage is just one of those metrics that people can see and they base things on (even though growing libraries over a decade is often the reason for newer Winamp releases to seem worse because it knows and stores a lot more library data than 2.9x did).

but if everything else on the machine just doesn't bother about such things, its very easy to run out of 16Gb of ram before you know it

wernerml: what's so boring?

[Aminifu]

Losing the active playlist (like having a playlist full of songs to listen to, then clicking on a video file and all of them vanish with just the video file).

Install one of DrO's plug-ins (link below). It will save the Llama's ass when it comes to protecting your playlist. Highly recommended!!!

http://winampplugins.co.uk/plu.html

[Aminifu]

true but people want things to be slim and the less resources a skin (and winamp in general) uses then generally the faster everything will be. it also means more memory available for library data if less is used for graphics data.

Turning Winamp into a 64-bit multi-threaded app will allow for more memory usage and may improve performance too.

People will always complain about something. The amount of resources Winamp uses may have been an issue 10 years ago, it is a drop in the bucket for even the cheapest hardware available now.

[DrO]

there's already multi-threading in things (just not for the features people want it on) and yes going 64-bit would alleviate the main bulk of memory issues once code is fixed up to cope fully with 64-bit pointers.

but the only real issue with being 32-bit as-is for memory is that for very large libraries / lots of artwork, we just run out of continuous memory blocks for things - which going all 64-bit would resolve, but only because there's a lot more 'empty' space which can be allocated, it still wouldn't help with the obvious memory fragmentation issue within the process.


and i'm only talking about memory at the moment since it's an obvious metric people can understand and being a bit more sensible about it's usage with how Winamp already is can have benefits (performance and stability). just like was already started with the 5.64-5.66x releases for the non-Cloud parts as better memory handling of xml files gave us a decent reduction in loading time for modern skins on what i was able to test.

plus if it's seen to be lighter again on such things, then maybe (i know it's unlikely) we'll see people who keep using the old versions will consider and try upgrading to a newer version (as without people using newer versions when they do come out, there's no point in having a dev team as what's the point in paying people to work on something that isn't being used).

and despite what is now possible with hardware, small and tight implementations are what should be strived for (within reason) as we've seen with continued XP usage and so on anyway, i'm rambling now and not coding, so i'll shut up now.

[Juanus]

there's already multi-threading in things (just not for the features people want it on)

Just out of curiosity, would you mind saying which parts are multi-threaded? I understand if you would prefer not say.