Is Winamp better than MS Media Player?

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erikiksaz

Diamond Member
Nov 3, 1999
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hahaah, Kronos is smoking crack. He should post that statement over at head-fi or headwize, they'd eat him alive.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
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<< Hmm. For video, I use WMP 6.4 with DivX codec installed, and it works great. I have yet to feel the need to download any version of WMP 7 (and I hope I never have to, since the extra bloat is quite noticeable). For audio, I use Winamp for almost everything, but if I need to record streamed audio, I'll use Freeamp www.freeamp.org.

On Linux, XMMS has always worked great..

-j
>>

OK, but nobody has said whether or not Winamp supports CD Text. CDDB has NONE of my CD's I've tried. Woops! MP 7 is bringing it in, I guess through CDDB. Somehow CD Player couldn't find the info for a single one of my CDs, even common stuff. Anyway, I'm not that concerned about resources with 512 MB RAM. I've never been able to get the graphic equalizer in Winamp to work. I slide those suckers up and down and it sounds the SAME. Not so in my WMP 7. Maybe I'll give Winamp another shot, but for now, I'm fine. I don't mess with MP3s anyway... yet. And, BTW, your MP3s are not as high fidelity as your CDs - they are a compromise AFA fidelity is concerned. That's what the compression algorithms are about.
 

PliotronX

Diamond Member
Oct 17, 1999
8,883
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<< I slide those suckers up and down and it sounds the SAME. >>


Did you try clicking the 'On' button?
 

syzygy

Diamond Member
Feb 5, 2001
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i still have win98 se and winamp acquits itself superbly. no complaints. latest build, beta 3.00,
looks promising. i love those skins, those plug-ins, and that damn llama.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
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<<

<< I slide those suckers up and down and it sounds the SAME. >>


Did you try clicking the 'On' button?
>>

On button? Hell, I don't know. What "On button"? I was listening to music, I saw the sliders, I slid them, the sound didn't change but the position of the sliders did. To me that's crappy software.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
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<< i still have win98 se and winamp acquits itself superbly. no complaints. latest build, beta 3.00,
looks promising. i love those skins, those plug-ins, and that damn llama.
>>

Umm... What are "skins"?
 

PliotronX

Diamond Member
Oct 17, 1999
8,883
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<< To me that's crappy software. >>


Where is your logic, here? Because of user error, it's crappy software? Open your eyes :)
 

Burnsy

Member
Dec 30, 2001
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<< On button? Hell, I don't know. What "On button"? I was listening to music, I saw the sliders, I slid them, the sound didn't change but the position of the sliders did. To me that's crappy software. >>



When you slide the sliders in winamp you have to wait a few seconds for the music to change



<< Doesn't have the advertising that Winamp had >>



Winamp doesn't have advertising, it's freeware. The very nature of freeware means there should be no advertising!!

In regards to the topic winamp is much better than mp, it has more skins, plugins, etc.
All the people who insist mp is better should go take a look at the winamp website where you will see the wealth of addons available
 

gopunk

Lifer
Jul 7, 2001
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Huh? I play MP3s almost everyday with no problems whatsoever.

yup i did too. but all it takes is one :)
 

Sunner

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
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<< NONE of my CD's >>


Sounds to me like you have a connection problem more than anything.
Go to www.cddb.com and try searching for your CD's, if you can find them, there's some other problem.

It's found CD's by groups like Royal Hunt, Tiamat, Kamelot, Majestic etc for me, most of those arent exactly very common.



<< To me that's crappy software. >>


Darn my computer must be crappy too, it has an "ON" button, who ever thought of "ON" buttons? ;)
 

NEVERwinter

Senior member
Dec 24, 2001
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well... i prefer winamp!

1. Winamp does not has ads like u said
2. WMP eats too much resource
3. WMP is huuugee and not as user-friendly as winamp
4. Winamp could be more powerful if u download plugins (try to download movie player for winamp) :p
5. I prefer simplicity overall...

try the Winamp3 (beta)
 

Sunner

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
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While on the subject of the WA3 beta, is it just me, or does the quick select function(pressing j in the playlist) not apear to be implemented yet?

IMO Winamp loses 50% of its functionality without this one little thing.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
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<<

<< To me that's crappy software. >>


Where is your logic, here? Because of user error, it's crappy software? Open your eyes :)
>>

Good software shouldn't be a game of Myst where you are searching for clues where to find what you are looking for. It should be intuitive and sensible. In the best case scenario your first guess turns out to be right in how to get something to work. Now that's a paradigm that's tough to live up to (I design software) but that's what I try to create. My eyes are open and so are my ears. I saw the sliders. I slid them. My ears detected no difference. I went back in a number of times and tried to figure out what was wrong. I never could find out what WAS wrong. I recall Lincoln Spectre's phrase, something like this: "For all I know this is great software." i.e. If I could only figure out how to use this application, it's probably absolutely fantastic. A lot of software strikes me like that. It's generally the most powerful, complex stuff, but a steep learning curve is problematical. I condensed some declension of the above into an oversimplification - ergo "crappy software." OK, that was harsh. Sorry. Maybe it IS great. But I couldn't figure out how to make the graphic equalizer work. It worked first time in WPM.
 

Workin'

Diamond Member
Jan 10, 2000
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<< While on the subject of the WA3 beta, is it just me, or does the quick select function(pressing j in the playlist) not apear to be implemented yet? >>

I don't know but could that be one reason why it still is "beta"? Last time I checked, beta meant that a program wasn't finished ;)

Poor Muse, he can't read so then the program is crap. I have to laugh. In the "real world" things like equalizers have buttons to tun them on and off. Why not in software? It's not a giant leap...
 

Sunner

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
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<< I went back in a number of times and tried to figure out what was wrong >>


Im sorry to say, but if you couldn't find the "On" button thats literally right in your face when you look at the equalizer, you seriously need to have your examined or something.

Heck thats like complaining about an electric door not opening even though there's a bit button that says "Push to open".
 

PUNKtotalled

Senior member
Jul 30, 2001
466
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Eyh guys Winamp is the best soft for reading anything that can be read, and more, with all the plugins you can download, WMP is KO at the first round. I tested the last beta for winamp3, it will kick some more ass!! Forget windows media player and learn to use winamp or forget your computer forever!
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
40,918
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<<

<< While on the subject of the WA3 beta, is it just me, or does the quick select function(pressing j in the playlist) not apear to be implemented yet? >>

I don't know but could that be one reason why it still is "beta"? Last time I checked, beta meant that a program wasn't finished ;)

Poor Muse, he can't read so then the program is crap. I have to laugh. In the "real world" things like equalizers have buttons to tun them on and off. Why not in software? It's not a giant leap...
>>

Alright, I will try Winamp again. I didn't find it intuitive, but maybe that was just me.

I saw people saying in this thread that Winamp is not so resource intensive as WMP. Can someone elaborate? A little detail, maybe? Thanks.

AFA the button to turn the equalizer on and off? Well, it looked like it should be on. Maybe they could give you a clue that it's off - something like freezing the slider locations while it's off or graying them out at least. Something. I didn't see it. I don't have it in front of me now. I'll DL it and have a look... beta 3. And as far as what is a "beta" version? To me that doesn't mean that some of the most important features don't work. To me that means it's not fully tested, they won't swear by it, it may have bugs, there may be issues, people may complain about stuff, it's got rough edges...
 

MuK107

Senior member
Dec 30, 2001
270
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YEs it doesnt take up as much of your memory. It also has more fetures exept for visual you have to download then but thats ok
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
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<< YEs it doesnt take up as much of your memory. It also has more fetures exept for visual you have to download then but thats ok >>

It's not very intuitive. I just installed it and I can't figure out how to get it to play my CDs. Oh, I'm sure, I'm just stupid, right? No help. I go to the menus, select Play, pick my CD drive, still won't play. Hit the play button, nothing. Great software. I install WMP, put in a disk... Music!
 

Workin'

Diamond Member
Jan 10, 2000
5,309
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Don't know what your malfunction is but when I put in a music CD Winamp just starts playing it. I don't use the beta version, BTW.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
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<< Don't know what your malfunction is but when I put in a music CD Winamp just starts playing it. I don't use the beta version, BTW. >>

Maybe I have to uninstall WMP first. I just went ahead and installed Winamp3 beta. If I go into my Explorer and double click one of the tracks on the CD in my drive, WMP starts up, not Winamp. Maybe that's a clue?
 

Sunner

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
11,641
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WMP starts up cause it's associated with CD-Audio tracks, hence when you just start one without specifying what program to use, it will default to WMP.

And a tip, go with WinAmp 2.78, WA3 is called beta for a reason, as discussed previously.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
40,918
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<< WMP starts up cause it's associated with CD-Audio tracks, hence when you just start one without specifying what program to use, it will default to WMP.

And a tip, go with WinAmp 2.78, WA3 is called beta for a reason, as discussed previously.
>>

OK. So should I uninstall WMP before installing Winamp 2.78? I assume if I do that, maybe I can put in a disk and get music straightaway. Thanks.
 

Sunner

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
11,641
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Well Im running XP(well when I wanna play games anyways;)), and I havent uninstalled WMP, and Winamp works fine for me.

When you run the Winamp setup it should ask you what files to associate with Winamp, just make sure all are checked and go for it.
I believe it also asks if you want Winamp to play CD's automatically when you insert them, personally I've never tried this function since I have autoplay disabeled, so it doesnt work anyway, but I dont see why it wouldnt work.

Just run the 2.78 installer and it should ask you about pretty much everything you need.
The insta-keys for setup are ctrl-k by the way, just in case ;)