Why Winamp3?

I just wonder if anyone use WA3?

I do.

There is a huge disscussion on "Why is WA3 better to skin than QCD ?" Well i just want to say that Wa3 is one of a very small number of progs today wich is FULLY skinable!

It can be skinned from top to toe! Form the main window to "Option" window! All WA3 elements can be changed without hacking... It uses its oun GUI elements. And also it has wide scripting possibilities!

For a long time there was only one problem in making iTunes skin - iTunes smth like light effect in the center of window so it was impossible bo make window resizable using onlyone background sample. But there is alpha-channel support in WA3, so i think there is another way of make this effect. And with the latest dev_build 495 - gradients ore supported... and so on... i guess it is possible to make this effect using scripts. Well in the end WA3 is the best choice to make it look and feel "iTunish".

#11185

Good question.

Here is an interesting 90 reply thread from probably the most respected audio forum on the net. Make your own conclusion here but W3 is hated and loathed by many people.

You would think that because the W3 skinning engine looks like being capable of producing the most accurate iTunes skin to date, that someone would have done it in the 5 months that W3 has been available.

I think the main reason is this: That the people with the talent needed to create an iTunes skin, are chasing leading edge skin designs and iTunes within the W3 community is not considered leading edge. So why waste your skinning talent developing for a limited "bunch of Mac wanabe's"? (Not my words). You are not going to win a skinning competition recreating an application that the majority of people couldn't care about.

Big shame for us.

#11195

I think WA3 is much nicer than QCD and judging by the complexity of some skins I've seen it should easily be possible to closely replicate the look of iTunes3.

But in my honest opinion I still prefer Musicmatch over QCD or Winamp3. Sure they are easier to skin than Musicmatch but musicmatch is so much nicer than both programs put together.

When you try to import 1600 songs into QCD or WA it gets really slow, and plus the sorting options suck ass in both programs. Neither one gives you the option to have columns to show time, track number, artist, album, song title, genre and so forth. They both just show Track Title and Artist together which makes finding my songs a pain, plus they are both slow when you have a ton of songs.

I know most of you are trying to go for a true OSX look but it will never fully happen. Plus other than the sake of screenshots how many of you really have your audio players showing on the desktop. Mine never is because I'm always doing something else that would cover it up. I prefer funtionality over looks when it comes to these programs.

The QCD iTunes skin looks very nice indeed but nothing is funtional in it except for basically vertical scrollbars. Plus Musicmatch shows Library and Playlist windows at the same time so if I want only 5 songs to play over and over I just double click each one, they automatically go in the playlist window and will repeat once it gets to the end. WA3 is a pain when I have to open a stupid media library window and then add the songs I want to a playlist. Plus the shuffle feature on QCD and WA sucks because it just moves the spot in the playlist around, whereas musicmatch will actually move the songs in the playlist around when it first shuffles so you know you won't run into the same song again.

Plus the Burner feature in Musicmatch kicks ass. It easily burns a cd and the cd cover feature is top notch. It is the only program I have ever seen that can print me a back cd insert with 100+ songs listed for an MP3 cd. It automatically resizes the songs so it will fit on the paper. Even cover design software from TDK and Fellowes won't import the songs from the cd and make a decent cover.

Musicmatch also supports tagging like there is no tomorrow, and if your tags on 100 songs aren't correct, you can select all 100 of them and have musicmatch automatically look up the proper tags WITH album art and apply them all automatically.

I prefer features like that over an iTunes skin that doesn't even do anything anyday.

Now if someone could just make a nice iTunes skin for Musicmatch or one that just looks like it would go with OSX then it would easily be perfect for everything. Even without it I will always use Musicmatch.

#11197

I don't care as long as the player can use DFX plugin, I think the best sound plugin ever. I prefer the quality of sound coming out from my 300W RMS speaker rather than the looks. But, WA3 is too slow, with the WA3's Desktop Alpha setting turn on, CPU usage goes up to 50%. This cannot be accepted for an mp3 player. Winamp 2.x is old and very dull.

So, I prefer to use QCD. It looks great with spider's iTunes skin, and the speed is comparable. very easy to use, so simple, more familiar to me since it functioning just like old winamp. and the sound output is so great!

#11204

Flyakite - Just wanted to enlighten you on some of your statements:

"import 1600 songs into QCD or WA it gets really slow" - not true of QCD. QCD will rip into 1600 songs significantly faster that MMJ or W3, because it only reads the Artist & Title as default. MusicMatch is far far slower.

"They both just show Track Title and Artist together " - Not true of QCD or W3. QCD shows Artist, Album, Title, Time and Playlist number (all user selectable) New QCD J Search allows you to do complex searchs on Artist, Album and Title with secondary Album sort.

"It is the only program I have ever seen that can print me a back cd insert with 100+ songs listed for an MP3 cd." - check out the significantly better Steinbergs myMp3 Pro 4. Doesn't NeroExpress do this also?

"The QCD iTunes - nothing is funtional in it except for basically vertical scrollbars" - You clearly have not explored the skin.

MusicMatch does have some big issues such as writing it's own headers into mp3 tags that screw up some portable players, the CD burning is at best basic (no CD Text, overburning, latest CD support), the playlist is tiny, does not support freeform skinning so there will never be an iTunes skin. But worst of all is that MusicMatch dropped support for the iPod beyond version 7.1 and that is criminal. There are many Windows based iPod owners out there who will string you up for even mentioning MMJ.

If MMJ works for you then great. But it isn't an Aqua application and has nothing to do with the topic of this thread.

#11207

I've seen that stuff in the forums... Posting stuff on the official Wa3 forums (www.winamp.com) and reporting any bug or just saying that this or that work bad - almost all of those people use internal dev_versions, wich are full of "strange" stuff... as for me i use WA3 for a long time since build 47x i used it just for fun sometimes, and about 486 built it was olmost fully working program. And now i use Winamp 3.0 (first official build - 488) with a bugfix found in the community - it works fine! In some cases not so fast as WA2 but wa2 was developed for a few years and WA3 is too young! :-) But it is good!

The process of loading 1200 files into playlist takes "time" and after on opening Media Library it registers files for less than a 1/2 sec. But its not the point!

I'm not trying to say that WA3 is the best player ever! But for today it is the most flexible for skinning player/programm i've seen! And if the point of this comunity is to make your wintel to look and feel like OSX and its iLife, so i guess WA3 is the best candidate to "look and feel" like iTunes.

And as far as developers are working it'll have less bugs and other bad stuff, i think.

#11209

Hmm... Musicmatch beyond 7.1 DOES support the iPod. I am using 7.50.1026 and just went to the plugin page and the very first device listed is the iPod. Also, DFX is a plugin for Musicmatch. And maybe Steinbergs myMp3 Pro 4 or NeroExpress can do the cd labeling but why would I both installing ANOTHER stupid program just for that?

You're right though SpidercrabX, I didn't fully explore the skin and I'm sorry for that. It is beautiful by the way (actually all of your skins are) and I was looking at QCD and there are features I like. I was curious though, I know as of right now the Forgotten Tunes, My Top Rated and other buttons on the left don't do anything, but is it possible for someone to write plugins that will actually monitor your songs so that if you were to click the buttons stuff like that could be displayed?

#11211

Originally posted by digitheatre@Jan 24 2003, 09:03 PM

I don't care as long as the player can use DFX plugin, I think the best sound plugin ever. I prefer the quality of sound coming out from my 300W RMS speaker rather than the looks. But,  WA3 is too slow, with the WA3's Desktop Alpha setting turn on, CPU usage goes up to 50%. This cannot be accepted for an mp3 player. Winamp 2.x is old and very dull.

So, I prefer to use QCD. It looks great with spider's iTunes skin, and the speed is comparable. very easy to use, so simple, more familiar to me since it functioning just like old winamp. and the sound output is so great!

My PC is PIII-800 on Asus CUSL2-C motherboard with 512 RAM (133bus)/ hdd 40 gb IBM with only OS - WinXP PRO and now i have 350 mb's free on my disk C: and i run CorelDraw 11 + Mozilla 1.2.1 + Winamp3.0(with fixpack) - it has much more than 3,000 songs + downloading process and some small stuff = CPU load is 20-42% if i stop downloading it is 4-8 sometimes 19%

Alpha setting is always on! on my WA.

so is that much?

#11218

The Most recently Played, Forgotton Tunes, etc. is in the iTunes skin just to visually mimic the real thing. QCD does have Radio Station Favourites and Most Recently Played Tracks and Playlists via plug-in support but unfortunately, there is no way to display that information in the same way that iTunes does.

That sort of level of detail could only be achieved with some some pretty slick programming in W3. The building blocks and hooks are there in W3 - it's just that nobody has produced such a skin yet.

What I think is likely to happen is that a W3 skin will be created that looks the business but has limited features. Then as momentum and interest grows, people will add in extra functionality and a team approach will eventually produce a good fully functional W3 iTunes skin. I hope it happens soon.

Fresh off the Apple "link to MusicMatch:

"**Please note that the current version of MUSICMATCH Jukebox 7.2 does not offer support for the iPod for Windows. Only the custom version of MUSICMATCH Jukebox 7.1 will work with the iPod for Windows. "

#11222

Originally posted by i_dash+Jan 24 2003, 10:04 PM-->

QUOTE(i_dash @ Jan 24 2003, 10:04 PM)

#11515

Originally posted by flyakite@Jan 24 2003, 09:41 PM

When you try to import 1600 songs into QCD or WA it gets really slow, and plus the sorting options suck ass in both programs.  Neither one gives you the option to have columns to show time, track number, artist, album, song title, genre and so forth.  They both just show Track Title and Artist together which makes finding my songs a pain, plus they are both slow when you have a ton of songs.

1) The speed of loading 1600 songs depends on the speed of your hard disk. I have a Western Digital 80 GB ATA100 with 8 MB cache and 7200 rpm (a special edition drive) and it has a data rate of 100 MB/s.

2) The speed also depends on the way the files are accessed. The fastest method is by using the Windows API. So the speed depends on the source-code structure and implemention.

3) The speed does not depend on wich items of the ID3-Tag are read. Because you must open the complete file before you can read any ID3-Tag items!

So long,

Cassiel

#11547

Truth is that I was a loyal winamp user and skinner myself. But when winamp 2.79 came out, the songs that played seemed...crappy. for some reason, the playback sucked and nothing I did (and others did) made it better, except downgrading my winamp to 2.78 again.

Thats when I decided to use the built in Media Player (XP). Now I use WMP9 and it works just fine. I'm having no problems so far...but, that held true even since the first beta of WMP9 anyway.

Oh, I know the Media Library of WMP has pushed ppl away more than it has brought to it, but its easy to use after a shift in thinking. As far as I know, its more flexible (Skinablity-wise) than MM, WA3, and QCD put together.

You guys can make a GREAT iTunes skin for WMP9. I've seen all the skins for WMP9 and I'm convinced that you can skin it to extremes.

You'll be surprised with what windows media player 9 can be like.

My advice? If you're using Windows Xp, create a restore point, and download the latest release of WMP9 and try it for yourself.

Be sure you go to Tools>Options and set EVERYTHING to how you want it to run.

I went to options and added my folders to "Monitor Folders" so if there are any new files IN the folder (or sub-folders), It'll add it to the library, ready to be placed in any of your playlists. I also use a different Vis than what is set as the default(right-click the vis window and choose your vis). The Alchemy Vis is a REAL cpu hog. I set it to "Bars and Waves>Bars" and its a beut! The SRS WOW effects are nice too...makes the songs sound REAL purdy. .

If you need any help, contact me @ Ofunniku@hotmail.com

David3k

:edit:

PS: Oh, and loading of the tags are amazing! lol. I didn't read that last one. sorry and the downside? It can't detect the songs you deleted and remove them from your library. you'll have to delete the song from the library and select if you still want to keep the file on your drive. (I had to find SOMETHING wrong with it )

#11548

WMP9 does have a very neat tray control feature built in.

Apparently it's skins can never be as smooth as Winamp3 skins because it doesn't support per pixel anti-aliasing like W3.

What WMP9 really needs is a killer skin to get users to adopt it for the skin and not for its short commings. Maybe an iTunes skin could be that skin?

#11580

I like WMP to have an good iTune skin simply because it is the default player and the most used by everyone. I accept that other players are easier to skin or may have capabilities in plug-ins that are superior but in the final analysis in terms of usage WMP is still the Big Guy.

I don't say Winamp is bad but the first 2 versions are very primitive looking compared to today's players. All the controls are so small and crammed together that it detracts from easy usage. The latest version of Winamp v3 has not gotten great reviews as in the past from what I read. The interface may have improved somewhat but nothing great in sound quality over previous versions, that is what is reported.

I like to see an iTunes that can handle video and audio with good stability and can be resized and made compact all with one skin. For me the audio quality is very close on all players. If I wanted superb audio quality I use my CD player with my stereo system.

PS. :I am very thankful for the iTune skin of QCD because when I'm not using WMP that is what I use. I use to be a big fan of Real-audio but ever since they placed spyware and sold info. and then pushed RealOne with subscriptions, I dropped them like a stone and will never go back.

#11583

yea, it would be great if someone can make really nice iTunes skins for WMP9. SpidercrabX?

#11584

Not me. WMP9 just doesn't meet my own music playing requirements so I can't get motivated about doing it (unless we are talking money or course).

But if an iTunes skin was developed for WMP9, released onto the market, that performed like the real thing and also had video capabillities to out perform QuickTime, do you think Apple would stand back and do nothing?

#11655