Talk:Winamp/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about Winamp. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Major update

OK, so I just did a rather major update to this page for Winamp 5 (the update with only an IP address, since I forgot to log in). Hopefully to the better. :-) The article also (embarrassingly enough) didn't even mention its developer Justin Frankel before. But someone needs to replace the picture with one for the recently released Winamp 5. I'm afraid I can't at the moment. :-/ -- Jugalator 13:33, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Features List

Hmmm, maybe it would be interesting to have a Winamp 5 vs. Winamp 2 comparison chart rather than only having the features list for Winamp 5. Or maybe just a separate Winamp 2 features list . . . or maybe not :) -Frazzydee 15:06, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Just a list of what is new or starring the new features in the listwould be fine. Unlike Winamp3, Winamp 5 is a direct continuation of the Winamp 2 line, albeit using 5.xx instead of 2.xx --Mikm 12:15, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Winamp is not "windows amplifier"

I think Winamp's name comes not from "windows amplifier", but from a Windows version of AMP, an open-source MP3 decoding engine. AMP in turn stands for Advanced Multimedia Products, the company name of the original author of AMP. See [1] Drew3D 01:56, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Indeed it does, and that was why I added the part about AMP and its author to the introduction when I revised this article... I agree that I think Winamp started out as something like a Windows port of AMP, hence Winamp. Jugalator 18:48, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)

Rumors of demise

This recent news posting at winamp.com seems to say that rumors of Winamp's demise have been greatly exaggerated. "We're going to chalk this one off to one to a poorly-worded and vague news piece that got out of hand (No offense to Nate.). While yes, our team might be a bit lean at the moment, we aren't the starved, skeleton-thin relics we've been rumored to be."

Okay if I remove the line that says that "In November 2004, the last members of the original Nullsoft development team resigned and no further improvements to Winamp are expected."? --Arteitle 00:02, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

Whoops. Sorry to jump the gun, but I didn't see this message and I've already removed it. 64.230.144.132 18:57, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, while it is obviously clear that Winamp itself has not been axed, I think the first half of the sentence is actually accurate; perhaps we could mention something like "In Novermber 2004, during a restructuring of parent comapny AOL, the last members of the original development team resigned; the remaining Nullsoft team, though small, strongly denied rumours that Winamp was dead." Or perhaps we should only mention that in the Nullsoft article? I'm not sure. - IMSoP 22:50, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've been going a bit mad with the corrections on both the Nullsoft and Winamp articles, basically all the original members have left over the past year/year and a half. AOL haven't actually layed any of them off, they just resigned. It's currently maintained by the previous Engineering Manager until replacement staff can be hired. CraigF 16:44, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes, fair enough. Is it not true, however, that AOL is doing some pretty major restructuring (including layoffs) in general at the moment; and doesn't this, in fact, contribute to the doubt over future development? Perhaps we could say something like "Because of this and restructuring within AOL as a whole future major releases of Winamp are in doubt, although..."? But I don't really know much about the situation, so I'll leave it as your call. - IMSoP 17:02, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree, thats why I left in that particular line. I'm not about to pretend that its likely that one/two/three person(s) can continue the entire product line. It's all in doubt at the moment. So I'm trying to keep wikipedia as factually correct as I can at the current moment. CraigF 20:12, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Popularity

I would like to see at least a few sentences on how winamp used to be the most popular windows mp3 player, and then how its popularity was slowly taken down by apple/real/microsoft/whatever. I think that would provide a good context to the history of winamp. I don't know enough about the history to add this, but I know it happened.

Winamp 3 missing features?

"However, many users found this version consumed too many system resources and was unstable (or even lacked some valued functionality, such as the ability to numerically and chronologically find the sum of all of the tracks in a playlist)."

Was anyone able to understand the example given in the parentheses here? Was lack of features a major concern with Winamp 3? By the way "Winamp 3" has more than 3 times the google hits than the spaceless "winamp3" alternative. —Tokek 17:48, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Conversion of Winamp skins

I can't figure out how to correctly get the wa2wmp.exe program in Windows to convert WSZ skin files to Windows Media Player skin files. For some reason, it doesn't work correctly for me. --Dynamite Eleven 01:06, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

This is the wrong place to ask this. Fatalis 16:28, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Why is this the wrong place? It concerns converting Winamp skins. --Dynamite Eleven 02:01, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

because its an encyclopedia not a support forum?? -- User:217.37.111.121 08:43, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

OK. I'm going to the reference desk. But if anyone feels compelled to answer the question here, I'd be just as happy. :) --Dynamite Eleven 03:29, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Unicode

It should be mentioned that Winamp (WA5 included) supports 0 Unicode. Which sucks immensely. Who releases an app in 2003/04 without Unicode support? Fatalis 16:23, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Someone who has to maintain a lot of compatibility with a large repertoire of legacy third party plugins? On a more serious note, prehaps you should look at more recent versions that offer much more compatibility. CraigF 09:34, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

What compatibility might this be? I see zero. For instance, I have a lot of music from Мусоргский (that's translated to Mussorgsky for you Unicodephobes), and all of his music I have shows up as ?????? ???????? ?????????? instead of Модест Петрович Мусоргский. I would've figured the Cyrillic alphabet would've been supported long before kanji or kana. Cparker 22:12, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, it says ID3 tags are now being saved in unicode. I believe the main display is able to show unicode as long as its not using skinned fonts. The playlist still appears to be unaware of unicode. YMMV.

I just tried it after reading the comment here. It might recognize Unicode, but doesn't render it in control, playlist, and ID3 editor for both of the default skins. I used to be a fan of Winamp because it's so light-weight. I can say lack of unicode support is the main reason I stopped using it. --Voidvector 01:30, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Tried the latest public beta? CraigF 10:20, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I didn't see that. I just downloaded from the main site. I guess they are implementing unicode rendering support as we speak. The main window and playlist both support Unicode fairly nicely. The task bar still show question marks, but this is pretty good. --Voidvector 19:47, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Winamp3 code??

Article says "Most of Winamp3's features and code were carried over, with long overdue crash fixes applied and resource-hogging behaviors corrected."

But I thought the vast majority of Winamp 5 code came from Winamp 2, with just Winamp3's skinning architecture added. Is that totally incorrect? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75th Trombone (talk • contribs) 06:09, 4 September 2005

Winamp Version

Haakon, you're saying we don't need main article text which repeats version information in the template, and that's fine. But you reverted the main article text "The current version of Winamp is..." to 5.11, which is not the current version. I removed the line entirely. If someone feels the main article text is neccessary, then do keep both updated. Xnolanx 18:37, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

mobile winamp ?

I am purchasing an hp ipac but I am not particularly fond of Windows Media Player which it comes packaged with. Is there any sort of winamp mobile which I can upload to the device ? Dowew 02:05, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

nope, but maybe theres a clone out there? CraigF

Yes, there is a clone, called Lightplayer; http://motosource.bot.nu/files/Winamp%20Mobile%201.0.zip (server down temporarily)

It is a JAR file that should run on any Java enabled mobile phone. jshayden

Conversion FROM Windows Media?

Is it possible to convert Windows Media skins to Winamp Skins?

Its possible for someone to reuse the graphics from a WiMP skin to recreate it in Winamp, however, worthy of note is that most are commercial and thus copyrighted. A large majority are created by The Skins Factory, who are known for enforcing their IP. To my knowledge, there is no tool out there to automatically convert skins from one format to the other. CraigF 22:09, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually there is one that converts winamp skins into WMP skins but I can’t get it to work so I’m not sure about it but if it comes from the official windows media player site then I must be doing something wrong??? Its in “windows media bonus pack for XP” Dawn 99 09:17, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Audio player?

Winamp is no longer an audio player since version 3.1 or whatever. It can also play video, video/audio streaming, and so on. I'd refer to it as a (multi)media player. Thus I removed the opening ("Winamp is an audio player") and updated it.

easter eggs

there is an external link about easter eggs, maybe they deserve more than that. a mention somewhere or even a paragraph ?

Creator =/= Justin Frankel?

Maybe the introduction needs a little rewrite, according to a comment of the article Death Knell Sounds for Nullsoft, Winamp, which is provided at the Nullsoft Wiki-entry. Someone claiming to be Dmitry Boldyrev writes about him being the creator of it and (I quote) "he paid me (Dmitry Boldyrev) off to not say anything." (Use the search function in your browser (windows: ctrl+f) and search for "mewse" to jump to his story.)

If you google that name, you'll find it a lot with music-related software and winamp/macamp.

Considering this isn't the first time that creators/inventors get screwed over by managers, I have my (reserved) beliefs this claim is true. Frankel seem to have ported it in the beginning and not created it. 81.71.36.212 10:58, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

language

...non-sequential christening by quipping...

What a language... =P --Shandris 17:09, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

AOL

Winamp 2 was great. But then it sucked, Winamp3 and Winamp 5 sucks. All the Nullsoft orginal team members are gone, now its in the hands of AOL. When Justin Frankel left, it got down-hill... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Frap (talk • contribs) 18:36 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Depends what you mean, AOL has owned winamp for years. The article for Nullsoft will tell you it was aquired in 1999. So are you saying that it has sucked for the last 6 years? As far as original members, technically, Stephen "Tag" Loomis was there at the same time as all other members, except he was working on SHOUTcast and Ultravox. And then, the old kicker, Winamp 5 IS Winamp 2, again, this is in the article.

I am glad you took the time out to contribute to this talk page, but frankly, you haven't even read the article it refers to.

-CraigF 11:28, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Neutrality

The stuff in the thrid paragraph about "Winamp has focused on four primary design tenets that drive its success..." reads more like marketing speak than objective informational content. The rest of the intro isn't that much better. Mojo-chan 19:12, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree somewhat, a single contributer appears to have added that whole intro section referring to usage numbers, and it definately requires a citation from an associated press release or such. I dont believe its entirely NPOV, you can drive somethings success without stating that its any more or less successful than its rivals. But yes, it definately needs citations. CraigF 10:57, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Security/Neutrality

A good counterpoint to the overwhelmingly positive tone of this article might focus on Winamp's security record. There were some 12-15 holes patched in the runup from 5.00 to 5.24. If anyone's got a more complete record or any other useful information, it'd be interesting to read about their approach to security and reasons for the incredible rate at which security flaws seem to sneak into their program. MrZaius^talk 14:44, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

According to secunia.com and winampheaven.net, 7 seperate vulnerabilities between 5.0 and 5.24, or 14 December 2003 and 21 June 2006. CraigF 15:52, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

My source was Winamp's own changelog, not a list of published advisories. MrZaius^talk 16:39, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Well then, I would counter that it would be hard to be unbiased and use this to compare against other software since it is quite possible that other software out there does not disclose every and all security fixes that are yet to be encountered outside of the software house. How are we to know that those itunes updates that come thick and fast do not correct as of yet undiscovered security issues? It's a difficult, while still valid question.

I would argue that comparing known vulnerabilities that were later patched, or unpatched would be far more quantifiable. Lets also not forget that Time-To-Fix is an important factor, to which end Winamp IMHO has an exemplary record considering the habit that many so called security researchers have of full disclosure before notification these days. CraigF 14:27, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Winamp Catchphrase

Should the well-known demo sound for Winamp get at least a mention somewhere? Winamp is mentioned in the article on llamas, which linked to here. However, I cannot find the phrase on Wikipedia anywhere. I think it perhaps warrants mention. When installing Winamp, the default test file will play various sound effects, and the words "Winamp: it really whips the llama's ass". Smyslov 16:31, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

same here! it needs to be mentioned! i came here to see WHY winamp whips any llamas asses ;) is there a official explanation? --88.73.122.44 17:08, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Why does Winamp whip the Llama's ass? - Winamp FAQ --Lexein 22:34, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Nullsoft's mascot is a llama. Check that article for why the catchphrase. And yeah, maybe we should include it in the article. ☢ Ҡi∊ff⌇↯ 17:51, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

The phrase came from a Wesley Willis song. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.188.253.13 (talk • contribs) 10:39, 7 January 2007

See Talk:Nullsoft#Recording for "first person" account of the origin of the Llama, yes, referencing Wesley Willis. The story is not yet notable, due to lack of references, see WP:N#Notability_is_not_subjective. However, I'm putting the samplefile reference itself in the article. --Lexein 00:10, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

MMD3

Do we really need to single out MMD3 under skins, and is a link to they guy's private webpage really relivant? I guess that section just needs work. --Patrickneil 17:35, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

The link is relevant insofar as it gives an in-article source for the image linked to in the section, but it's not necessary to describe the MMD3 skin in the article itself. Moved all references to MMD3 and the link to the author's page into the image's caption. MrZaius^talk 20:19, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Llama Slogan

I don't know, but couldn't the Llama bit be edited to appear further into the article? It's just a bit jarring to read the first line and see "whips the llama's ass" right in the center of the sentence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.188.253.13 (talk • contribs) 10:39, 7 January 2007

Any Winamp Userboxes?

I couldn't find any Winamp userboxes are there any good ones? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by MMuzammils (talk • contribs) 23:22, 22 January 2007 (UTC).

Should wiki mention more skins?

The article only gives readers one link for skin downloading ... there are many hundreds more than that. The way I've found them is by simply searching specifically on Google; should someone post this fact?

Darlyn Perez

01:48, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Screenshots

This should either be a gallery or should be trimmed down. I'd prefer the latter. Chris Cunningham 10:27, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Issues

Winamp shows all file types associated with it as "Winamp Media File", due to which it becomes difficult to arrange and organise one's music. Isn't this one of its faults? why cant we add this and some more problems to new section titled Problems or Issues or something? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 59.92.175.218 (talk) 11:55, 28 March 2007 (UTC).

I don't think this can be regarded as a problem or an issue with Winamp, as this is what software on Windows and Linux usually does (probably the same with OSX but I haven't used it enough to know). This would only be a problem if you store all of your various media in one folder on your computer. Now, even with default Windows configurations one will find folders for "My Music", "My Videos" etc. If you like to fettle your computer, you will probably have created folders for "Music", "Videos", "Audio Samples" etc. I am yet to see a program that lets you say "Now, in this folder I want this #.mp3 to be music and I want this #.mp3 to be speech". I think they assume one is a little more logical and organised with their filing. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.86.138.193 (talk) 23:23, 11 April 2007 (UTC).

Name in infobox

Just a small note: I removed the name from the infobox. You can add it back if you want to, but in that case the winamp logo has to be changed to the simple no-text version or it will state "Winamp Nullsoft Winamp" which is quite redundant. CheesePlease NL 21:20, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Cool, but I put it back, because it's required to instantiate the Latest Stable Release/Winamp template. There are apparently several unnamed LSR pages, now all sharing the same version number - HAR! It would be great if the template had a hidden name option. --Lexein 21:42, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmm I think it's not so hard to add this option to the infobox_software2 template without disturbing its other "users". I don't know anything about this "wikipedia-script" but if noone else will do it I'll see if I can do it because I think the infobox looks kind of stupid this way. CheesePlease NL 22:23, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Awesome. Best to prototype it with a temp name, of course, so it doesn't blow away other articles during development.--Lexein 22:39, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I build a test version of Infobox_software2 that supported name-hiding but then I read some stuff about the template and compared it to Infobox_Software and considered the latter superior for the Winamp case. I see you (Lexein) also participated in that discussion and favored Infobox_software2 yourself but I think we should keep it this way, not on grounds of the version-updating structure but because this one allows us to hide its name. An additional name-hiding option in Infobox_software2 would needlessly complicate things even more. CheesePlease NL 08:56, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Looks fine. --Lexein 21:11, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Except now Comparison of media players's version number is not synced. Wanna fix that? Otherwise I'd probably just revert. CraigF 15:22, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

This is a beautiful example of unintended database linked-data breakage due to inadequate documentation of a database-intensive template. Therefore, I suggest reversion, contingent upon mod of the other template to allow title hiding(the whole point of this thread, which I like). --Lexein 17:16, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I see your point but in my opinion this is a beautiful example of why we shouldn't be using a "database system" like infobox_software2 uses, it heavily complicates things for people not familiar with the system and I don't think wikipedia was meant to be using improvised databases like this one. But you can revert it if you like, we'd probably better discuss this at the template's talk page. CheesePlease NL 21:49, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

My plaint is "it's a computer - it should do work I find repetitive and error-fraught" like updating version numbers on multiple pages which logically share information. Hence, my support of well-documented database-driven features. "Be bold" also means don't fail to embrace new technology, and advocate its use. Now if only the other-language WPs would support {{cite web}}.(grin) --Lexein 22:34, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I reverted. The syncing is important, other media player software also use infobox_software2 for syncing, so this is good for consistency, and the redundancy is just a minor cosmetic issue at worst; most people will not notice it, and it is also better to have it in text instead of just relying on an image, for the sake of accessibility. Code65536 22:31, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Check. Forgot about accessibility. --Lexein 01:48, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

domain reg info

Since this is about Winamp the program, I decided NOT to put this info into the article. It's somewhat relevant to the development of the company. Moving off the original web and fileservers at winamp.lh.net and nullsoft.home.ml.org, Frankel registered the domain nullsoft.com May 17, 1997. On December 30 the domain winamp.com was registered. (Some time later, the ownership was transferred to AOL). More info on Spinner Networks would be nice. --Lexein 01:19, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Winamp vs iPod@100 million

Well, as the 100 millionth iPod is sold, which is programmed via 100 million(probably fewer) installs of iTunes, how many iTunes installs are there on PCs vs Winamp? --Lexein 07:26, 12 April 2007 (UTC) (slightly revised Lexein 17:16, 18 April 2007 (UTC))

I'd have to agree here- Apple is almost up to 120 million iPods, and even if you figure in 10% of those people previously had an iPod and that 20% (a very generous figure) are Mac users, that still leaves right around 98 million iTunes installations on Windows machines. I think this statement should be struck. - [[User:Mustangwill|Mustangwill]] 14:13, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not so sure, I don't know what the source of the 55 million figure is (apart from the AOL press release), but looking at Nielson figures from Feb 2007, Windows Media Player has 72 million monthly users, iTunes has 41 million, Realplayer has 31million, so at 55 million, Winamp would be second. The key is the source of the numbers. Nielson's report did not include Winamp, but you can certainly see the numbers here. The comment at the bottom really makes it clearer "The figures estimate the number of unique people that used iTunes during the given time period (month) and are not an estimate of the number of people who may have the application installed on their computer." CraigF 04:05, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Article change for ownership of Nullsoft. NO LONGER OWNED BY TIME WARNER.

Shouldn't the main page be updated to reflect that Nullsoft is no longer owned by Time Warner, but by AOL, LLC? Since AOL split away from Time Warner, calling themselves AOL, LLC., Time Warner has nothing further to do with Nullsoft or Winamp.

Djmasa 19:50, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Frankel's role with Winamp 5 and his resignation

This page should mention Frankel's resignation from AOL in 2004 and that he was involved in Winamp 5's release. More info can be found on this CNET article. Geofflee 05:23, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

The article doesn't go into much depth explaining which developers were/are accountable for functionality. Information such as that is unlikely to be confirmed outside of Nullsoft. While it may be relevent that Justin Frankel was involved in Winamp 5's release, it also makes no mention of other developers working at Nullsoft at that time. Frankel's departure is mentioned in his article. CraigF

Windows versions

The current version of Winamp may be dropping support for Win98. It seems that at least up through WA 5.34 Win98SE is at least somewhat compatible. It would be helpful if the article listed which versions of WA worked with which versions of Windows. -69.87.204.122 23:00, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Converting 'Features' section to prose?

I disagree with converting the 'Features' section into prose. It's pretty much standard practice to publish information such as this in a list format, and I think it's perfectly appropriate here. I think the tag should be removed and we should continue to leave the 'Features' section in list format. - HardwareLust (talk) 19:32, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

HardwareLust is right. I wish the individual who posted this cleanup notice had taken the time to explain why the listing format is inappropriate here. We have just gone through a discussion regarding trivia; was this perhaps a similar case? I strongly suggest removing the tag; I advocate no further tags be placed on any article without thorough, complete, detailed, specific and clear documentation, cause, projected editing time and projected benefit, apart from the satisfaction to that particular individual of having spit in someone's soup to improve it.Panthera germanicus (talk) 10:44, 27 November 2007 (UTC)panthera_pardus

I see no way to replicate that level of detail as prose, and it would certainly seem counter-intuitive. The only way I could assume it be done is to include descriptions around each feature explaining that feature, defeating the point of the wikilinks included in the list. I too support removal of the tag. CraigF (talk) 16:34, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Given that no efforts or responses were made to correct that section, or offer guidance, I have removed the tag as part of the final cleanup of citation/fact requests. CraigF (talk) 23:45, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi guys: {{prose}} tags are useful because they put articles into appropriate cleanup categories. They're not designed to uglify articles, and there's no harm in leaving them around.

In this case, I really should have made some effort to address the problem by now, so I've converted the section to prose. This wasn't actually that hard at all, and I find that it very rarely is: It's almost always better to present features sections in prose. Next time you see sections like this, take a look at the diff here to see how it can be done. Chris Cunningham (talk) 13:15, 14 December 2007 (UTC)