- home
- reviews
- news
- downloads
- cnet tv
On CBS MoneyWatch: 5 Best College Towns to Live In
- log in
- join CNET
- welcome,
- my profile
- log out

Comments on: Return of the llama: Winamp 5.5 impresses

Winamp and its llama mascot upgrade to 5.5, and continue to impress with a new UI and improved features like in-player browsing. But it's not an iTunes killer...yet.

Add a Comment (Log in or register) Showing 1 of 2 pages (30 Comments)

Alternative players
by mikekee57 October 11, 2007 6:03 AM PDT: You should check out Media Monkey; Like this Reply to this comment

Need an iTunes Alternative ? Try MediaMonkey 3
by btessier1701 October 11, 2007 6:23 AM PDT: I have never been a big fan of Winamp myself mainly because of the modular interface. I have never been a fan of iTunes either mainly because it never seems to agree with me and lacks a lot of features I need to maintain my library of more than 1100 albums.

If you are looking for a viable alternatives, try the Beta version of Mediamonley 3 available at www.mediamonkey.com/forum. It is a major redesign from the previous version and has tons of feature to maintain and organize your library. It syncs weel with a lot of MP3 player and supports iPod. Worth the try just for the autotag features !; Like this Reply to this comment

I love WINAMP!!!
by DarkHawke October 11, 2007 6:30 AM PDT: Truly the best AUDIO player/manager out there. I was very down on Winamp before version 5 came out, when it was ugly, clunky and thoroughly non-intuitive. And thanks to the incredible skin support, you can get that version back if you're a masochist! What has made Winamp my choice is the Media Library display, which has the ONLY logical media browsing layout I've ever seen in a player. In one window, you can browse by artist, album or track, and if you select an artist, your album and track views narrow to just that artist. Looks like 5.5 has added flexibility to that function, so I look forward to checking it out.

Now, Winamp as a multi-media player? Ennh. I had high hopes that this new version could play those damnable Quicktime movies so I'd FINALLY have a decent interface from which to view them, but no such luck. It hasn't been so hot with other types of video files in the past, so I'll probably stick to my normal choices there as well. I like the new support for album art, but I'd LOVE a wizard to just run through my library and let me select the art in bulk, rather than having to click on each album one after the other.

That said, I find I'm much more into audio than video, largely 'cause you can do other things while you're just listening, so I have no problem whatsoever with wholeheartedly recommending Winamp as the premier PC audio player. It plays every audio format under the sun (and probably a few that aren't!), it's RIDICULOUSLY skinable and plug-in-able, and...well...it's totally llama-rific! ;) Do try it, will you?; Like this Reply to this comment

Have ALWAYS used WinAmp
by ScaryMonkey69 October 11, 2007 6:52 AM PDT: When it comes to playing streaming videos, MP3s, and radio streams, WinAmp has always always always been my #1 choice.

After installing Windows on someone's PC, the 2nd thing I install for them is WinAmp.; Like this Reply to this comment

Winamp RIP

by heartattackman October 11, 2007 7:58 AM PDT

The reviewer forgot to mention that Winamp is owned by AOL/TW who has pretty much let this program die. Put simply, they don't care about it, put no resources into it and you use this program at your own risk. If the program crashes, don't expect much support. I used to be a die hard Winamp user, but at this point, it's dead. I may not love iTunes, but at least it works right.

Like this Reply to this comment

Holy non-sequitur, Bat--er, heartattackman!
by DarkHawke October 12, 2007 12:41 AM PDT: Wasn't the ENTIRE point of the article to note and comment upon the recent enhancements of Winamp? Perhaps they didn't do enough to add features and expand its abilities in your opinion, but it seems more than clear that AOL/Time Warner [b]IS[/B] continuing development of Winamp, and in my opinion to the great benefit of its users. You may think it's trash these days, and that's your call, but this recent update obviously puts Winamp in the "alive" category, at least as far as being further developed. Unless you have some knowledge that this is the last version/update? Do you?; Like this

If only it took two things from Mediamonkey...

by heavydawson October 11, 2007 9:20 AM PDT

Winamp beats mediamonkey in all areas for me except two areas:
album art support, (auto-tag from amazon is genius)
and auto-tagging support (as above)
Winamp is too reliant on single sources for tagging. You should be able to get album info and art from a lot of different places.

Like this Reply to this comment

Excellent points, but...
by DarkHawke October 16, 2007 10:44 PM PDT: ...I find that the new built-in browser access (which is unfortunately powered by IE, despite AOL's ownership of Netscape and involvement with Mozilla) is of great benefit with at least the album art. If you click on the title of the playing track in the track info/art pane (Bento Box skin), it runs a search on the title through AOL's Google-powered search. Which means all you need to do is click the Images search and you get an easy way to find album art if the built-in search doesn't turn anything up.

Still, your point is well taken. I have no idea where the built-in search is looking for art, but really, it should be multi-sourced and MUST include Amazon, 'specially since that's where I've found most of the art that Winamp can't find on its own.

My one experiment with auto-tagging didn't work out so well. Doesn't much matter to me, as I'd only need it in a tiny minority of instances, but if you're un-DRMing a lot of stuff from, say, iTunes, I can see the utility and need for more available info.; Like this

Winamp = WIN
by youdumbcat October 11, 2007 9:32 AM PDT: I can't stand iTunes, and have been won over by the offerings of Winamp. There are no music players better for the job at hand, in my opinion. I would never use a music player's built in burning option, nor would I use the player to encode mp3s (Windows media player encodes mp3s, and it is pre-installed on all Windows PCs, for FREE).

Winamp, Winamp, WINAMP! It really whips the llama's -blam!-!

Or in this case, it whips iTunes' -blam!-.; Like this Reply to this comment

Napster Is Best
by haub123 October 11, 2007 11:45 AM PDT: Napster is better; Like this Reply to this comment

Old Version of Musicmatch Pro
by srainess October 11, 2007 11:58 AM PDT: Old version of Musicmatch Pro was really good, especially in searching through DB's for album information. Unfortunately, like Winamp, it was purchased by Yahoo, I believe, and they let it die...; Like this Reply to this comment

alternative
by phrksho October 11, 2007 12:24 PM PDT: Everyone should really try J River Media Center...I have 160 gigs of music and I've been using it for at least a year now...lot of potential and great for keeping music organized.; Like this Reply to this comment

Winamp has always kicked @ss!
by bri0831 October 11, 2007 12:49 PM PDT: I've been using this for years! While I really don't need my MP3 player/app to rip or encode CD's, etc. it is a nice touch. Also, while I am still running an older version of 'amp, it is pretty lightweight on the machine - which makes it nice to use on older pc's.

I frickin' hate iTunes/Music Match and all of that crap.

Long live Winamp! (and RipCast for recording ShoutCast streams!)

-BG; Like this Reply to this comment

Winamp has always kicked /-\ss!
by bri0831 October 11, 2007 12:50 PM PDT: I've been using this for years! While I really don't need my MP3 player/app to rip or encode CD's, etc. it is a nice touch. Also, while I am still running an older version of 'amp, it is pretty lightweight on the machine - which makes it nice to use on older pc's.

I frickin' hate iTunes/Music Match and all of that crap.

Long live Winamp! (and RipCast for recording ShoutCast streams!)

-BG; Like this Reply to this comment

Media Monkey Is King Kong of Media Players
by johnb6597 October 11, 2007 1:07 PM PDT: Back in July 2007, when Yahoo announced the death of Musicmatch Pro, I began a quest for the best media player on the market. I have used iTunes, WMP, RealPlayer, Napster, J River Media Center, WinAmp, Yahoo Music Jukebox, and Media Monkey...hands-down, Media Monkey is the best. Tagging album art is awesome, and the customization options are many. The lifetime license for its Pro version is $50, but I love this player and it was worth the money. All the other media players work to varying degrees, but Media Monkey beats them all.; Like this Reply to this comment

I dont know anymore
by retroblu October 11, 2007 1:41 PM PDT: Musicmatch Pro was a heck of a player until Yahoo got a hold of it, i use to be an avid user of Winamp until i found Musicmatch due to taggin feature, but i now use Winamp to listen to musci for its awesome (customizable)crossfading feature, and use Media Player for tagging and renaming files, one of the great feature of Musicmatch prior to Yahoo's crap...iTunes tags albums funny, and Realplayer well its Realplayer.; Like this Reply to this comment

itunes to winamp

by rileybanks October 11, 2007 3:30 PM PDT

i used to use winamp years ago. is there anyway to switch songs ive purchased on itunes to winamp? would love to get rid of that cumbersome program.

Like this Reply to this comment

No easy way to make the switch...
by DarkHawke October 12, 2007 4:48 AM PDT: Since you've likely purchased songs before the DRM-free selections went on-line, you're stuck using iTunes for your DRMed tunes purchased from the iTunes Music Store. There have been apps that could strip the DRM, like Jhymn and QTFairUse, but the former seems not to be in development anymore and the latter I wasn't able to find a link to in a quick search.

The remaining option is what I did with my many free (via a Pepsi promotion) iTunes songs: the old burn-'n-rip. iTunes'll let you burn audio CDs from your DRMed tracks, so once that's done, you can use Winamp or any other encoder (I use CDex) to rip that CD to whatever codec you prefer. Besides the inconvenience of this process, you'll have to manually put the metatag information back into each track if you want them to show up properly. I only had 30 or so tracks to transfer in this manner, so if you've got a lot more than that, it may not be worth the effort for you.; Like this

It's OK.....
by pm_41 October 11, 2007 4:10 PM PDT: Winamp is an OK media player. I use VLC most of the time.

Winamp would be better if they didn't have "explicit" language in the About section.; Like this Reply to this comment

Seriously Winamp wins hands down against iTunes
by 3choTh1s October 11, 2007 4:24 PM PDT: iTunes has nothing on Winamp. A configurable interface to exactly the way you want it, format support up the wazoo, total media organization, fantastic pmp and music player support(iPod included), transcoding to whatever format you want, plugins and massive support from everybody(the forums are great).

On Windows iTunes is a bloated, loading 2-3 services that are completely unneeded running in the background not doing anything but using up resources. And so all I see in iTunes is an inferior player that won't do what I want when I want it. Winamp for me.; Like this Reply to this comment

Um, neither
by freeway8989 October 11, 2007 5:40 PM PDT: Look, neither iTunes nor Winamp can get my album art right without me having to manually copy and past artwork. It's ridiculous. At least WMP11, and the Zune software, can do it without the slightest error.; Like this Reply to this comment

A serious contender...
by Magishine October 11, 2007 7:19 PM PDT: Winamp has always been good. It's the oldest out of all of the players out there. I wish that they showed this kind of development years ago. If they had, it would easily be king of the hill.

Then again, maybe they wanted to wait until people were tired of iTunes. I think we can ALL agree that iTunes has lost it's "Best music jukebox" title. The only reason people still use it is either because they have an ipod and feel they don't have a choice or they have a bunch of music they bought and can't play it anywhere else.

Using the winamp browser to go to the Amazon MP3 store sounds like a great combo; Like this Reply to this comment

bloated mem hog
by samhain214 October 11, 2007 8:16 PM PDT: i have used win amp since version 2.11 i loved it but now that they have added crap to it i will not use it takes all my memory bogs down my machine and i will not use most of the extra crap if you want a good mp3 player for your computer just try cool player wont bog down the machine and is just a player like winamp used to be back 3.0 some versions ago; Like this Reply to this comment