Winamp noob have questions?

[Curious Mew]

Hi!

As an immigrant from the lands of Foobar --who is really anxious to whip the llama's ass, I have many questions about Winamp. Can someone help me answer them?

1. I am looking to view my music & video from my beloved folder structure, not by tags. Is that possible in Winamp? What about Pro? I need folder structure more than any other feature!

2. I need to play .mp3, .mp4, .wav, .flac, .mov, .mpg, .mpeg, .avi, .wmv and .flv. Are all these possible in Winamp? Pro?

3. Do you have the Android app on your phone, and if so, what is your opinion(s) on it?

4. Is there any way to listen to iTunes radio station(s) through Winamp?

5. Can i sync my playlists to the 'cloud' through Winamp?

6. Under the 'Now Playing' tab I noticed an advertisement of some sorts, can I disable the ads in Winamp Pro? I hate ads. Also, is it possible to disable the built-in browser? I prefer my internet access only moving through my Firefox web browser.

Any advice on all or any one of these questions would be very much appreciated! Thanks

[DrO]

#1 - not really, there have been 3rd party plug-ins which sort of did it but they're generally no longer developed or work properly with recent Winamp releases.

#2 - you generally don't need pro to playback any of those formats. there is something about mp4 that can require a pro license to decode h.264 content (might be something else but i really cannot remember and would need to look that up or have someone else chip in).

#3 - will leave that for someone else, i still think a phone should just be a phone.

#4 - it would depend on how you access them and is most likely you could just add the url into Winamp and it'll work but without knowing examples (i don't use iTunes so i have no idea how it does things) i cannot completely answer.

#5 - there is no cloud sync in Winamp unless you can find a 3rd party to do it for you (and i'm not aware of anything).

#6 - pro doesn't remove ads from the online services, it just basically covers off mp3 encoding, unrestricted cd ripping and burning, the h.264 support mentioned above and a general warm fuzzy feeling inside.

if you don't want the online services or don't like it using the web browser control which the OS provides (which is based on the IE engine but with how it's used has it restricted) then you need to either not install the plug-ins relating to them or remove them after you've installed Winamp if it's too much of an issue as there is no way to make it use a different browser engine.

-daz

[Curious Mew]

Hmm.. no folder structure options? That's too bad! I thought the llama was worth kicking ass for?!

The beauty behind a well-managed folder structure is lacking in today's music players, to say the least. I find 'tagging' such a handicap, I can't stand other players organizing my music as they see fit *glares at iTunes*. I would think the option to view music within folder structure view would be such a simple feature to implement. Mourn with me friend, this is a very unfortunate day indeed

Winamp sports some nice features, but I have been spoiled by Foobar and its ability to view folder structure. It was love at first sight I tell you! However the romance fell apart when I realized how seemingly difficult it was to skin, not so user-friendly in that area.

[DrO]

there's never been any native folder viewing options (hence why some 3rd party plug-ins appeared to try to do it but have since faded away). also i didn't think foobar does it natively either without having to add an additional component to it.

maybe there should be a native implementation but based on the issues some of the 3rd party plug-ins had, its never 'simple' when it comes to implementing things and really, the library took long enough to appear in Winamp and that's generally been the way most people have seemed to want to use it. i don't disagree with the usefulness of being able to browse by folder but i wouldn't hold much hope on it happening natively any time soon.

the best thing i can say is use what gives you the most functionality that you want / need.

-daz

[Batter Pudding]

I am also a person who likes organised folders. So in Media Library I have added the FILEPATH to the columns of data. (Right click the column headers and customize). With the FILEPATH column added, it is now possible to sort your music by filename.

With the AOL advertising, that is fixable. I think it was in the installer, deselect Now Playing. (I think it is in the installer, if not it is in the preferences somewhere. I know I have them disabled on my PC here)

I also use an old classic skin so don't see the Browser.

[lostinsound]

Originally Posted by Curious Mew

The beauty behind a well-managed folder structure is lacking in today's music players, to say the least. I find 'tagging' such a handicap, I can't stand other players organizing my music as they see fit *glares at iTunes*.

Just because you use tagging doesn't mean you don't have control over how your music is organized. I use tagging and I have my music collection organized exactly how I want it in the Media Library. Once you get comfortable with manipulating tags it's pretty easy. In fact, I think you actually have more control when you use tagging, such as making it easier to create customized Smart Views in Winamp. There's nothing wrong navigating your collection using a folder structure, but it shouldn't be because you feel you have no control with tagging. (And yes iTunes is annoying how it tries to organize your music how they see fit, but I believe that you can turn off that feature. That said iTunes is still terrible.) Just my 2 cents.

[Batter Pudding]

Originally Posted by lostinsound

Just because you use tagging doesn't mean you don't have control over how your music is organized. I use tagging and I have my music collection organized exactly how I want it in the Media Library. Once you get comfortable with manipulating tags it's pretty easy. In fact, I think you actually have more control when you use tagging, such as making it easier to create customized Smart Views in Winamp. There's nothing wrong navigating your collection using a folder structure, but it shouldn't be because you feel you have no control with tagging. (And yes iTunes is annoying how it tries to organize your music how they see fit, but I believe that you can turn off that feature. That said iTunes is still terrible.) Just my 2 cents.

Having a combined system makes the best of all worlds. I both tag my tracks and rename the files and folders. MP3TAG is very handy for doing this kind of rename.

Sometimes I have albums ripped from odd sources, by odd people. Especially that person who wasn't online when they ripped so it is "Unknown Album" and "track01.mp3". I let Winamp SmartTAG the album to correct the tags. Then I'll swap to MP3TAG to let that program then correct the file names for me based on my TAGs. (This will then mean I have to re-add the album back to Winamp's Library)

Doing things this way makes my audio far more portable. Some devices will list music folders in alphabetical order based on file names. Other devices can sort based on the TAGs. Working with both systems gives you the best of both worlds.

(And we shouldn't really include iTunes in this conversation as that is more shop than music program. More designed around this current trend for single tracks instead of albums. And we can avoid the handling of artwork and compilations which is awful in that program...)


When you have cleanly organised and tagged files this better allows you to handle new technology as it appears. Due to my almost OCD levels of tagging and filename editing over the years it now means the new DLNA devices appearing in my house can access the same organised music collection even though they can't interact with Winamp's Library.

[Batter Pudding]

Just spotted another advantage of the combined method of Filenames and tags.

As mentioned above, I have the FILE PATH column displayed at the far right hand side of my media library view.

I also have my music organised on the hard disk by collections. Some source from a mate will be in STEVE'S TUNES. All of my own personal music is in a !BATTER-PUDDING directory. And under this is FLAC, SPOKEN WORD, MP3 and similar folders.

This combination means I can now use Winamp's Search to select just FLAC copies of an album. I just pop into the Winamp Search the words !BATTER-PUDDING FLAC and all the low quality rips are filtered out and I only see my personal music at highest quality.

If I don't do this then a search for "Dark side of the moon" can pull up a dozen different copies. Either from a mate with a low quality rip, or a bootleg, or MP3 version and so forth.

[lostinsound]

I actually keep my lossless music in a separate directory from my compressed music so tagging is a necessity for me. If I have an artist where some of their albums are lossless and some are compressed, they aren't all in the same folder, but in Winamp's media library all of the albums for a single artist are together as long as I have them tagged correctly. So folder navigation wouldn't be very good for me. And I'm glad I'm not the only one who is OCD about tagging and file naming. My friends think I'm a little crazy with it.

[Batter Pudding]

@lostinsound: re-read my post @18:15 and you will see that it is easy to handle a collection like yours. I also put all my FLACs in a different file system tree. And if I have the FILE PATH column up in the Media Library the search filter lets me chop the library down quickly to just those FLACs.

So if I want a FLAC version of Dark Side Of The Moon I just type into the seach: flac dark side of the moon

I usually have the FILE PATH over on the far right off the edge of the window. Out of sight. But I also use this column to sort my library by - again because with a careful folder naming scheme (that includes ! + - and other characters which come before A in an alpha sort) I now get my best quality music at the top of the heap.

With FILE PATH column on screen your whole beautifully organised file system is then searchable.


If you want to get really clever, you can start messing with the SMART VIEWS which allow complex algorithms to be put together for customised Media Library Views. But that is for another lesson once you have got your head around the powerful search