Beware Winamp 5!!!!

  • Thread starter Thread starter donutbandit
  • Start date Start date
D

donutbandit

I KNEW there had to be something wrong with this software, and I found it
when I tried to play a .wma file.

It opened up my browser and went to microsoft.com for "digital license
verification."

DRM is alive and well in Winamp 5. Big brother is alive and well, and
Microsoft and AOL are bed partners.
 
I KNEW there had to be something wrong with this software, and I found it
when I tried to play a .wma file.

It opened up my browser and went to microsoft.com for "digital license
verification."

DRM is alive and well in Winamp 5. Big brother is alive and well, and
Microsoft and AOL are bed partners.
Click to expand...

Like I said earlier: It's crrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrap. ;)

Bob
 
FireFighter said:
I agree, I downloaded it to try out, it sucks just more bloat and
unwanted not needed crap. Went back to 2.91

Tried Jet Audio Player too and still deciding
Click to expand...

Have you tried Media Player Classic. Media Player Classic with the
RealPlayer Alternative and QuickTime Alternative codecs will play almost
anything!

Rob
 
I agree, I downloaded it to try out, it sucks just more bloat and
unwanted not needed crap. Went back to 2.91

Tried Jet Audio Player too and still deciding


--
FiRe

"Shut up brain,or I'll stab ya with a Q-tip"
Homer J.Simpson

"Beer is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy".
Ben Franklin

www.Station60.com
Click to expand...

I also agree. I will not put up with this DRM crap. There is also the
audio player by dbpowerAMp and the QCD player by ww.quinnware.com. I
would like to see some discussion on these players so I can make an
intelligent decision, install the 'best' one and forget about it.

So WinAmp 5 is out let's have some more opinions!

Don
 
Bob said:
Like I said earlier: It's crrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrap. ;)

Bob
Click to expand...

I agree, I downloaded it to try out, it sucks just more bloat and unwanted
not needed crap. Went back to 2.91

Tried Jet Audio Player too and still deciding


--
FiRe

"Shut up brain,or I'll stab ya with a Q-tip"
Homer J.Simpson

"Beer is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy".
Ben Franklin

www.Station60.com
 
Don Birdsall said:
I also agree. I will not put up with this DRM crap. There is also the
audio player by dbpowerAMp and the QCD player by ww.quinnware.com. I
would like to see some discussion on these players so I can make an
intelligent decision, install the 'best' one and forget about it.

So WinAmp 5 is out let's have some more opinions!

Don
Click to expand...


.. I have tried qcd, media classic, and dbpoweramp. Winamp is the only
program that does everything I use a media player for- playing shns, flacs
plus accessing webcasts. Most don't access the webcasts I need to watch,
including media classic and quinnware doesn't do shn.
 
I also agree. I will not put up with this DRM crap. There is also the
audio player by dbpowerAMp and the QCD player by ww.quinnware.com. I
would like to see some discussion on these players so I can make an
intelligent decision, install the 'best' one and forget about it.
Click to expand...
dbamp is excellent for my (admittedly) limited needs. But there is far
more to it than I use.
 
["dansheen"; Mon, 22 Dec 2003 01:45:26 GMT]
Winamp is the only program that does everything I use a media player
for- playing shns, flacs plus accessing webcasts.
Click to expand...

It may not be perfect, but I think it's a fine program. But I \have\ been
thinking about Quintessential Player. Haven't tried it out yet, though.
Any opinions? Is it as put-together as W5 is?
 
["J44xm"; Mon, 22 Dec 2003 04:17:48 GMT]
I \have\ been thinking about Quintessential Player. Haven't tried it
out yet, though. Any opinions? Is it as put-together as W5 is?
Click to expand...

Well, I DL'd it myself and have in this ten minutes found it very nice and
less resource-intensive. The MMD3 skin makes me feel right at home. (It's
almost as nice as Winamp's, but the Winamp version has more beautiful text
on its display. Still, nitpicking.) Seems like a good one ... so far ...
 
I also agree. I will not put up with this DRM crap. There is also the
audio player by dbpowerAMp and the QCD player by ww.quinnware.com. I
would like to see some discussion on these players so I can make an
intelligent decision, install the 'best' one and forget about it.

So WinAmp 5 is out let's have some more opinions!
Click to expand...

Well, my opinion got nominated, but not voted for, this year. It is
Foobar2000. Extremely nice and clean installer (used to be available
as a .zip, too) , lightweight, extremely powerful, up-to-date on the
codecs front, in short everything one could wish for except a flashy
interface. If you play with it a bit, you'll soon realize that this
little marvel has the potential to replace every audio program on your
PC. It plays, encodes, transcodes, rips, normalizes, tags, equalizes
and organizes in a myriad of formats. OK, end of sales pitch.
Give it a try, people: http://www.foobar2000.org
It's good.
 
Well, my opinion got nominated, but not voted for, this year. It is
Foobar2000. Extremely nice and clean installer (used to be available
as a .zip, too) , lightweight, extremely powerful, up-to-date on the
codecs front, in short everything one could wish for except a flashy
interface. If you play with it a bit, you'll soon realize that this
little marvel has the potential to replace every audio program on your
PC. It plays, encodes, transcodes, rips, normalizes, tags, equalizes
and organizes in a myriad of formats. OK, end of sales pitch.
Give it a try, people: http://www.foobar2000.org
It's good.
Click to expand...

I've been impressed with this too. Foobar2000's feature set is amazing. I
prefer the interface of 1by1, so I stuck with that, but it's definitely the
second best.
 
Rob said:
Have you tried Media Player Classic. Media Player Classic with the
RealPlayer Alternative and QuickTime Alternative codecs will play almost
anything!
Click to expand...

I have the "original" media player classic, version 6.4. I saved it (from my
old Win98 box) because I disliked WMP v7 (and continue to dislike v8 and
v9). The v6.4 plays everything.

Someone posted a link for a "new" Media Player Classic. I tried it. It won't
play my avi videos. Don't know why.

So I'm sticking with my original 6.4.
 
Well, my opinion got nominated, but not voted for, this year. It is
Foobar2000. Extremely nice and clean installer (used to be available
as a .zip, too) , lightweight, extremely powerful, up-to-date on the
codecs front, in short everything one could wish for except a flashy
interface. If you play with it a bit, you'll soon realize that this
little marvel has the potential to replace every audio program on your
PC. It plays, encodes, transcodes, rips, normalizes, tags, equalizes
and organizes in a myriad of formats. OK, end of sales pitch.
Give it a try, people: http://www.foobar2000.org
It's good.
Click to expand...

Agree completely. Foobar2000 is the best I've used. It should have made
the list. Sorry I missed the voting.
 
Agree completely. Foobar2000 is the best I've used. It should have made
the list. Sorry I missed the voting.
Click to expand...

Can anyone guide a complete novice as to which components are
necessary to make a high quality replacement CD?

I have several scratchy CD's that my players have difficulty in
reading/playing. My DVD player plays them fine, so I would like to
make replacement discs and have no knowledge whatsoever as to what is
best and what is required to do this. I prefer the best quality
possible.

Thanks in advance..
 
Well, my opinion got nominated, but not voted for, this year. It is
Foobar2000. Extremely nice and clean installer (used to be available
as a .zip, too) , lightweight, extremely powerful, up-to-date on the
codecs front, in short everything one could wish for except a flashy
interface. If you play with it a bit, you'll soon realize that this
little marvel has the potential to replace every audio program on your
PC. It plays, encodes, transcodes, rips, normalizes, tags, equalizes
and organizes in a myriad of formats. OK, end of sales pitch.
Give it a try, people: http://www.foobar2000.org
It's good.
Click to expand...

FWIW - I just tried it out. Foobar is now my default Mp3 player.
(direct sound + WinXP = low (2%) cpu - a big plus)
thanks

Dud
 
George Skandalidis said:
Well, my opinion got nominated, but not voted for, this year. It is
Foobar2000. Extremely nice and clean installer (used to be available
as a .zip, too) , lightweight, extremely powerful, up-to-date on the
codecs front, in short everything one could wish for except a flashy
interface. If you play with it a bit, you'll soon realize that this
little marvel has the potential to replace every audio program on your
PC. It plays, encodes, transcodes, rips, normalizes, tags, equalizes
and organizes in a myriad of formats. OK, end of sales pitch.
Give it a try, people: http://www.foobar2000.org
It's good.
Click to expand...

Looks interesting, I looked around but it doesn't address Real Player.
One of the things I like about Winamp is using Tara (and the RP
codecs) to listen to RP streams. Is this possible with Foobar2000?

Thanks,
 
I KNEW there had to be something wrong with this software, and I found
it when I tried to play a .wma file.

It opened up my browser and went to microsoft.com for "digital license
verification."

DRM is alive and well in Winamp 5. Big brother is alive and well, and
Microsoft and AOL are bed partners.
Click to expand...

This isn't winamp's fault. Once your data is locked into Microsoft's DRM
via Windows Media Player, nobody else can bypass the license check or
decode the file with their own software without violating the DMCA and
Microsoft's software patents. So when you ask it to play a wma file
WinAmp has no choice but to use Microsoft's codecs. It is Windows, not
WinAmp, that then checks to see if the codec is installed and goes to
Microsoft to download it if necessary. Then it's the Microsoft codecs,
not WinAmp, that check back with Big Brother to see if he'll let you
access your own media files on what used to be your own computer.

This is why I tell all my friends to use the non-proprietary Ogg Vorbis
formats when they record their CD's. If Ogg isn't to your tastes, even
the proprietary MP3 format is far preferable to WMA - but be advised
that there are plans afoot to bring DRM to the MP3 format. Ogg is
entirely open-source and user-driven so will never suffer from DRM.

WinAmp already plays ogg files but for making your own you may need to
pick up the vorbis-tools package at <http://www.vorbis.com>.
 
I've dumped winamp. Have been so picky about software to play MP3
files. I've been using RealAudio because it produced the best sound
quality of all the software I've tried. Just had to put up with the
dumb thing trying to "call home" all the time. Thank god my firewall
blocked it.

Then, I found a small MP3 player that equalled RA's audio quality.

It's call XM player. This thing is so small, it will fit on a floppy.
There is no installation. Put the 3 files in whatever folder you want
and go. No real "flashy" frills, but then I use it to play music, not
watch a flashy screen. You can download different screens and visual
plug-ins from their web site. Not worth it in my opinion. Also, plays
streaming audio very well. You just have to enter the URL.

This is now my default MP3 player. Dumped all the rest. It's free. No
ads pop up, and no "calling home". Can be found at:
http://www.un4seen.com/
 
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