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Media Player - Should I finally ditch Winamp

Hey folks

 

Looking for some alternatives, I have been using Winamp consistently since the early 00s, I have always loved it for its simple interface & open compatiblity with my media library, however I have noticed in recent months, particularly since upgrading to Windows 10, that the effects of it not being updated in 4 years are beginning to show, with random slowdowns and crashes becoming somewhat frequent. Also the obvious glaring security hole of having a 4 year old piece of internet connected (shoutcast) software running all the time is always looming over me. I am wondering what lightweight, simple but versitile options there are out there which people are using.

 

This is my winamp interface, I love the way it minimises into a single bar as well as I make great use of this function whilst browsing and gaming. I only use this player for Music, I use VLC for video, although most of my collection is held on plex.

 

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PC:

Monolith(Laptop): CPU: i7 5700HQ GPU: GTX 980M 8GB RAM: 2x8GB 1600MHz Storage: 2x128GB Samsung 850 EVO(Raid 0) + 1TB HGST 7200RPM Model: Gigabyte P35XV4 Mouse: Razer Orochi Headset: Turtle Beach Stealth 450

 

IoT:

Router: Netgear D7000 Nighthawk

NAS: Synology DS218j, 2x 4TB Seagate Ironwolf

Media Accelerator: Nvidia Shield via Plex

Phone: Sony Xperia X Compact

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Iv been using winamp since the days it came out. It does everything I need it to and thats all that matters.

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I gave up on Winamp before Vista came out (remember not liking something they changed) and just use Windows Media Player for audio files, but I don't do much more then use it to copy music to my mobile devices or rip CD's to MP3 and maybe the occasional playback checking out my newest Album acquisition, I know it tends to lock up a lot when you load a LARGE Library of music like I have.

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I would suggest giving Foobar2000 a try.

It's customizable enough to build something similar to Winamp, it's pretty lightweight (unless you load it up with plug-ins) and the in-program file management is great.

Nova doctrina terribilis sit perdere

Audio format guides: Vinyl records | Cassette tapes

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Didn't Winamp shutdown like years ago? I recall Winamp being just as heavy mess as iTunes, but anyway,

Depends on one needs... I am perfectly happy with Groove Music. (then again I also have Groove Music streaming service pass). There is no mini player, but there is a a full screen mode, which passes album arts in a nice animation. Now if you have the music pass, then you have "Radio" which looks at the artist biography and pull songs and artists that was influenced by or has influenced, or in the same genre. Great way to discover music. You also have (Insider only so far) music video support. You also have OneDrive integration, so your music can be in the cloud and accessible on iOS, Android (and Windows 10 Mobile, of course) via the Groove app.

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13 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Didn't Winamp shutdown like years ago? I recall Winamp being just as heavy mess as iTunes, but anyway,

Winamp's probably only heavy if you use a complicated skin. And even then, at least it doesn't try to rearrange your music or upload everything to the cloud and delete what's on your drive because Apple knows best and you were going to use their cloud service anyway, right?

 

But yeah, it did. Considering it still plays a majority of the popular formats including having plugins for some that I dabble from time to time (*ahem*video game music rips*ahem*), I don't see a need to switch over.

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6 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Winamp's probably only heavy if you use a complicated skin. And even then, at least it doesn't try to rearrange your music or upload everything to the cloud and delete what's on your drive because Apple knows best and you were going to use their cloud service anyway, right?

Very true! Also, when was the last time I used Winamp 3... back in XP days... computer were definitively slower. Come to think about it, it is portably blazing fast now. LOL.

Reminds me of a software that i bought ages ago, back in 2000 (or something), PaintShop Pro 7.. was taking time to load.. basically it was like starting a big program like PhotoShop... now it starts up just as fast a MS Paint :P

 

6 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

But yeah, it did. Considering it still plays a majority of the popular formats including having plugins for some that I dabble from time to time (*ahem*video game music rips*ahem*), I don't see a need to switch over.

I don't know.. personally I enjoyed Windows Media Player 12 (with codec to play all formats) more than Winamp. Not to mention that it support high-DPI screen...

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2 hours ago, Daniel644 said:

I gave up on Winamp before Vista came out (remember not liking something they changed) and just use Windows Media Player for audio files, but I don't do much more then use it to copy music to my mobile devices or rip CD's to MP3 and maybe the occasional playback checking out my newest Album acquisition, I know it tends to lock up a lot when you load a LARGE Library of music like I have.

 

Yeah, Last time I tried WMP I had the exact issue you described, it is, in my opinion, designed for occasional use media playing, NOT managing your music library. Personally I just don't think it has the usability which winamp does.

 

I will give Foobar2k a try.

PC:

Monolith(Laptop): CPU: i7 5700HQ GPU: GTX 980M 8GB RAM: 2x8GB 1600MHz Storage: 2x128GB Samsung 850 EVO(Raid 0) + 1TB HGST 7200RPM Model: Gigabyte P35XV4 Mouse: Razer Orochi Headset: Turtle Beach Stealth 450

 

IoT:

Router: Netgear D7000 Nighthawk

NAS: Synology DS218j, 2x 4TB Seagate Ironwolf

Media Accelerator: Nvidia Shield via Plex

Phone: Sony Xperia X Compact

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Foobar ftw. Can be simple or complex.

Desktop: 7800x3d @ stock, 64gb ddr4 @ 6000, 3080Ti, x670 Asus Strix

 

Laptop: Dell G3 15 - i7-8750h @ stock, 16gb ddr4 @ 2666, 1050Ti 

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I've been using Windows Media Player for ages without issue.  It works for what I need, and support for FLAC is nice.

 

Then again I'm going to have to take a look at Foobar again.  I never got around to getting comfy with it.

 

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I have used Media Player Classic (Home Cinema) my entire life...

Personal Desktop":

CPU: Intel Core i7 10700K @5ghz |~| Cooling: bq! Dark Rock Pro 4 |~| MOBO: Gigabyte Z490UD ATX|~| RAM: 16gb DDR4 3333mhzCL16 G.Skill Trident Z |~| GPU: RX 6900XT Sapphire Nitro+ |~| PSU: Corsair TX650M 80Plus Gold |~| Boot:  SSD WD Green M.2 2280 240GB |~| Storage: 1x3TB HDD 7200rpm Seagate Barracuda + SanDisk Ultra 3D 1TB |~| Case: Fractal Design Meshify C Mini |~| Display: Toshiba UL7A 4K/60hz |~| OS: Windows 10 Pro.

Luna, the temporary Desktop:

CPU: AMD R9 7950XT  |~| Cooling: bq! Dark Rock 4 Pro |~| MOBO: Gigabyte Aorus Master |~| RAM: 32G Kingston HyperX |~| GPU: AMD Radeon RX 7900XTX (Reference) |~| PSU: Corsair HX1000 80+ Platinum |~| Windows Boot Drive: 2x 512GB (1TB total) Plextor SATA SSD (RAID0 volume) |~| Linux Boot Drive: 500GB Kingston A2000 |~| Storage: 4TB WD Black HDD |~| Case: Cooler Master Silencio S600 |~| Display 1 (leftmost): Eizo (unknown model) 1920x1080 IPS @ 60Hz|~| Display 2 (center): BenQ ZOWIE XL2540 1920x1080 TN @ 240Hz |~| Display 3 (rightmost): Wacom Cintiq Pro 24 3840x2160 IPS @ 60Hz 10-bit |~| OS: Windows 10 Pro (games / art) + Linux (distro: NixOS; programming and daily driver)
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Foobar2000 is by far the best music player I've seen on any OS. There is nothing that can replace it.

 

2 hours ago, SCHISCHKA said:

foobar looks like a winner but im going to be a weirdo and say Cmus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cmus

I use this on Linux when I'm using an IDE like Android Studio because that thing is a memory hog. The keybindings for Cmus are super weird, but you can change them and you can get media keys to work with Cmus by binding them to cmus-remote commands.

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8 hours ago, CtrlAltELITE said:

I will give Foobar2k a try.

Just be aware that the learning curve for Foobar2000 can be rather steep. 

To get it to function properly, you do need to play around with themes and plug-ins.

Atleast, I needed to do that.

 

If you want inspiration there was a thread made last year, were we shared our Foobar2000 themes. 

Although, my theme has changes a bit since then and involve a few more plug-ins. 

Nova doctrina terribilis sit perdere

Audio format guides: Vinyl records | Cassette tapes

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