Winamp

Winamp is a media player for Windows-based PCs and Android devices, written by Nullsoft, now a subsidiary of AOL. It is proprietary freeware/shareware, multi-format, extensible with plug-ins and skins, and is noted for its graphical sound visualization, playlist, and media library features. Winamp was developed by American programmer Justin Frankel and Russian programmer Dmitry Boldyrev while both were students at the University of Utah in 1997, and its popularity grew quickly, along with the developing trend of MP3 file-sharing.

  

Winamp Features

 

Playback Format : Winamp supports music playback using MP3, MIDI, MOD, MPEG-1 audio layers 1 and 2, AAC, M4A, FLAC, WAV and WMA. Winamp was one of the first common music players on Windows to support playback of Ogg Vorbis by default^. It supports gapless playback for MP3 and AAC, and Replay Gain for volume leveling across tracks. CD support includes playing and import music from audio CDs, optionally with CD-Text, and burning music to CDs. The standard version limits maximum burn speed and datarate; the "Pro" version removes these limitations.
Winamp supports playback of Windows Media Video and Nullsoft Streaming Video. For MPEG Video, AVI and other unsupported video types, Winamp uses Microsoft's DirectShow API for playback, allowing playback of most of the video formats supported by Windows Media Player. 5.1 Surround sound is supported where formats and decoders allow.

Media Library : At installation, Winamp scans the user's system for media files to add to the Media Library It supports full Unicode filenames and Unicode metadata for media files. In the database.Media Library user interface pane, under Local Media, several selectors (Audio, Video, date and frequency) permit display of subsets of media files with greater detail.

Adding Album Art and Track Tags : Get Album Art permits retrieval of cover art, and confirmation before adding the image to the database. Autotagging analyzes a track's audio using the Gracenote service and retrieves the song's ID2 and ID3 metadata.

Podcatcher : Winamp can also be used as an RSS media feeds aggregator capable of displaying articles, downloading or playing that same content as streaming media. SHOUTcast Wire provides a directory and RSS subscription system for podcasts.

Media Player Device Support : Winamp has extendable support for portable media players and Mass Storage Compliant devices, Microsoft PlaysForSure and ActiveSync, and syncs unprotected music to the iPod.

Media Monitor : Winamp Media Monitor allows web-based browsing and bookmarking music blog websites and automatically offering for streaming or downloading all MP3 files there. The Media Monitor is preloaded with music blog URLs.

Winamp Remote :
Winamp Remote allows remote playback (streaming) of unprotected media files on the user's PC via the Internet. Remote adjusts bitrate based on available bandwidth, and can be controlled by web interface, Wii, PS3, Xbox and mobile phones.

Plug -ins : In February 1998, Winamp was rewritten as a "general purpose audio player" with a plug-in architecture. This feature was received well by reviewers. Development was early, diverse, and rapid: 66 plugins were published by November 1998. The Winamp software development kit (SDK) allows software developers to create seven different types of plug-ins.

• Input: decodes specific file formats.
• Output: sends data to specific devices or files.
• Visualization: provides sound activated graphics.
• DSP/Effect: manipulates audio for special effects.
• General Purpose plug-ins add convenience or UI features(Media Library, alarm clock, or pause when logged out).
• Media Library plug-ins add functions to the Media Library plug-in.
• Portables plug-ins support portable media players.

Plug-in development support increased Winamp's flexibility for, for example, a plethora of specialized plug-ins for game console music files such as NSF, USF, GBS, GSF, SID, VGM, SPC, PSF and PSF2.

Skins : Skins are bitmap files which alter the aesthetic design of the Winamp graphical user interface (GUI) and can add functionality, with scripting. Winamp published documentation on skin creation in 1998 with the release of Winamp 2, and invited Winamp users to publish skins on Winamp.com. As of 2000 there were nearly 3000 Winamp skins available. The ability to use skins contributed to Winamp's popularity early in MP3 development. With the increasing number of available skins, genres or categories of skins developed, such as 'Stereo,' 'Anime,' and 'Ugly'. Online communities of skin designers such as 1001Skins.com and Skinz.org have contributed thousands of designs. Designers see skins as an opportunity to be creative: nontraditional examples have included Klingon, iPod, and Etch-a-sketch designs.
The Winamp skin format is the most popular, the most commonly adopted by other media player software, and is usable across platforms. One example is the XMMS player for Linux and Unix systems, which can use unmodified Winamp 2 skin files.
Winamp 5 supports two types of skins — "classic" skins designed to Winamp 2 specifications (static collections of bitmap images), and more flexible, freeform "modern" skins per the Winamp 3 specification. Modern skins support true alpha channel transparency, scripting control, a docked toolbar, and other innovations to the user interface.

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