I'm still using Winamp 2.91. I'm just too used to it to change. Now, if someone added Flac support to the same interface, I'd be happy. And if someone ported it to Linux and Android, I'd pay big bucks for it.
Just like everyone else, at one point I used WinAMP, then when they started the upgrade to new and significantly more hardware demanding version I switched to Aimp, which to this day I use as mobile application. Am no longer on Windows, but I still miss those applications. VLC simply doesn't fit that role of a music player.
Open sourcing WinAMP means we'll probably get a ported version for Linux, which I am very much looking forward to.
I used both and things felt off. WinAMP of old was no nonsense player. Once version 3.x came it wasn't as popular and it was much more of a polished product but came with bunch of features that weren't needed in my opinion.
Someone said it was explicitly written with Windows in mind, so the Linux port will probably take some time. Converting all the Win API calls will take some time.
I have mine configured as a background service with a Rainmeter desktop widget to play music at a moment's notice. Works better than any official Windows option.
I'm kinda glad that my ears are not good enough to tell the difference between high end audio quality that I've never had to mess with enthusiast software like that. Ignorance is bliss.
It's mostly all a meme. Most modern motherboards have good DAC+AMP built in, and 44.1kHz 16-bit is indistinguishable from 192kHz 32-bit or higher for most people. 75% of audio quality is your listening equipment, 20% is the quality of the source file (YouTube rips are shit), the last 5% is the rest of the pipeline unless you did something really stupid.
Sidenote: You can get a bit of a quality bump by knowing how to use Parametric EQ to compensate for imperfections of your listening equipment.
I have seen 2 different articles that claim WinAmp is NOt going to be open sourced. At least in the common sense. But rather kind - of - sort - of - but - not - really.
They are open sourcing, just keeping a proprietary license on it. Yes, it's weird, but it is not unheard of. The Unreal game engine's entire source code is open, anyone can read or submit changes to it. Even make changes and distribute said changes. But it's still a proprietary product owned by Epic Games, and commercial use is strictly controlled under the licensing terms. Open doesn't mean Free (as in beer), or Freedom (licensing). Those are three different things. It is just that people have associated the term open source with the entire Free and Open Source Software philosophy. But they aren't the same thing.
ZDNET is wrong, Winamp is open sourcing their code. The article is obtuse and refuses to elaborate or provide reasons about their claim that Winamp isn't open sourcing.
it cannot be open source with that level of corporate control
Why?
It not only can, we have several examples of corporate products that are open source precisely like this with this level of control.
Open source requiring a specific license is a decades old debate that continues to this day. We have like a million different licenses and people argue and bicker all the time about which ones are Truly Open source ™ and which ones aren't. It's all legalese that make most people have headaches. But there's one crux on this whole thing: Open source does not preclude commercialization of software. This is why people are proposing the term source-available software. Winamp might go for that model and the debate would still go on.
It is NOT open source. There is a meaning behind that specific term and they are said it in their announcement that they are only "opening up its source". Don't use that term for this.
A lot of companies are starting to do this most people are referring to it as source available rather than open source. I'm kind of surprised I don't just turn it into an electron app and get it over with.
The only thing I don't like about the new WInamp is the NFT library, Hotmix and Fanzone things they added to it. But I guess the new owners had to try and make their money back somehow. Plus they're easily ignorable.
As a product manager, I simply choose to overlook things like "implementation details" or "the laws of physics!!" /s 🤣
On a more serious note, I'm just reaching a point where I just want a small, reliable, and minimalist mp3 playing app for the Mac, as I'm starting to get sick of every single service wanting $20/m for stuff.
I pine for the whipping the Lamas ass winamp used to give...
There's a recreation in re:Amp for osx, but I'd much prefer OSS apps...
Generally, I'd rather go back to just buying the music I want, ripping it and putting it on the devices I want to listen to it from...
I'm not sure what can be brought to Winamp that'll make it better through open source. Maybe it'll be a default alternative for Linux distros? That'd be cool.
But, Winamp to me is just a program I use that plays video game soundtracks that are different formats aren't MP3 or WAV. Like Super Nintendo with .SPC for example.
AIMP has predominantly taken the mantle on my system as default media player, it's just feature rich and long won me over the day my PC suddenly rebooted and the song I was playing was just on pause with that program! Winamp couldn't do this, whenever I re-opened it, song stopped playing entirely, gotta play it again.
There are likely lots of improvements that can be made under the hood. I'm willing to bet that it depends on several aging libraries that could probably be swapped out for something better.
Would it be possible to add (smoother, in some cases) integration with music services? Imagine one library that could reach into Spotify, Tidal, etc. all in one player.
I refuse to pay for a subscription where I don't own the music. CD's, records, tapes - I still do it. I do need to start ripping mp3's off YouTube more though - just a matter of time before shit starts disappearing
What use do we have today for a music focused media player? Is it common for people to use mp3, flac or wav for playing music? I feel like music streaming services hold the market here.
I like winamp back when it was an alternative for the basic windows media player to listen to all my music but I dont keep mp3s anymore so I don't know if I can see the point.
Was it anything more than just a music player with eq and skins? Did I miss the point back then?
Maybe I just don't have the vision that others have and will be pleasantly suprised when someone comes up with a good use case and develops it.
Don't know about others, but I still have music in both mp3 and flac err I listen to sometimes.
Mostly they are rips off CDs that just aren't available for streaming anywhere, but also just music I bought as digital before streaming really was a thing.
Mine is mostly mp3, and the player is MPV. I would not notice higher quality amidst the street noise or listening through laptop's subpar speakers anyway.
I have a big library of music, mostly MP3 or OGG and don't really see myself pivoting solely towards streaming services where access to songs could be revoked at any time or could be changed/censored like movies or series sometimes are on streaming platforms. I do use YouTube for listening to new music and when I like it enough, I buy it to download (or acquire it in a different way if it's not available).
My music library is hosted on my server, automatically synced locally on fixed devices and played from local files most of the time. Streaming services combine the advantage of sometimes disappearing, altering, removing content with the other advantage of needing an active internet connection at all time. That's neither a good thing nor an efficient thing when the alternative is cheap and works all the time from everywhere.
Of course, I know this is not the most common use case; most people usually don't care about any of this (and usually complain when something break). But it exists.
I've been building my music collection since I was ripping CDs by hitting play, recording in Win95 Sound Recorder and running the .wav through LAME (nowadays EAC to flac, of course). I see no need to pay a subscription to listen to my music, when I can just use that same money to buy and own the albums* and not worry about them disappearing.
* also means more money goes to the artist
Also Navidrome + Symfonium means I can still stream to my phone so the only benefit Spotify etc has is new music, but YouTube (+ uBlock) gives me that.
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