Winamp is a proprietary media player written by Nullsoft, now a subsidiary of AOL. It is skinnable, multi-format freeware/shareware.
Winamp was first released by Justin Frankel in 1997. Current Winamp development is credited to Ben Allison (Benski) and Maksim Tyrtyshny. Winamp grew from 33 million users in February 2005 to over 57 million users in September 2006.
Playback formats
Besides MP3, Winamp supports a wide variety of contemporary and specialized music file formats, including 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. In addition, Winamp can play and import music from audio CDs, optionally with CD-Text, and can also burn music to CDs. It should be noted that it is necessary to buy the "Pro" version to be able to rip or burn discs at maximum speeds.
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
Winamp's media library supports full Unicode filenames and Unicode metadata for media files. The Winamp media Library files are located in the %AppData% folder for each user. This allows for each user to have one media library and no more. The specific folder for this is
%AppData%\Winamp\Plugins\ml.
In Microsoft Windows 2000 and Microsoft Windows XP, the %AppData% folder is typically found in
C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Settings\.
In Microsoft Windows Vista, the %AppData% folder is typically found in
c:\users\\AppData\Roaming\.
Podcatcher
See also: Podcast and Aggregator
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.
Online services
A Winamp online service is a web page, or web-based feature, embedded inside the Winamp software which interacts with the application to create an enhanced user experience. In order to use an online service users are required to have an internet connection and Winamp version 5.55 (or higher). Users and Developers can create their own services by leveraging the Winamp Online Services API to create expanded features and functionality.
Some existing services include, OurStage Radio, Songbook Lyrics and Spinner's MP3 of the Day. Free access to Internet radio services like SHOUTcast Radio, CBS Radio and AOL Radio (Genre stations), and Internet television like SHOUTcast TV. It can also access the Singingfish audio/video search engine.
The Winamp Developer Network is an official Winamp site designed to help facilitate community development by providing information and technical documentation on how to create and publish Skins, Plugins, & Online Services.
Media player device support
Winamp has extendable support for portable media players. Device plugins are currently included for iPods and Creative NOMADs, Mass Storage Compliant devices, and devices that support the Microsoft PlaysForSure and ActiveSync technologies, such as those running Windows Mobile.
Size : 8.78 Mb
Source : http://www.wikipedia.org
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