Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Winamp source code leak

web.archive.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 338 posts

Re: Winamp source code leak

#201

Post by lazyjeff »

krater23 wrote: post #42
tiffanyh wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My memory is fuzzy on this but didn’t most consider Winamp 2.x the best. Winamp 3.x was considered bloated. So to help rectify the problems of 3.x, Winamp release version 5.x (the best of 2 + 3). Though I recall many still used version 2.x even after the 5.x release. Question: so when you say folks are trying to keep the "last version" alive, which version are you referring too since later versions weren’t loved.

I currently use 2.95 and see no reason to update. But I listen rarely mp3's in the last years.

Same here, using Winamp 2.95 on a HiDPI screen as my main audio player.

The best feature that it seems no other player has reproduced yet is being able to hit the J key to do an instant search for a song, with 0 latency: the search narrows down the songs as fast as you hit the keys.

But I've noticed that there are now a few files that sound scratch when played, perhaps they're 48 kHz or something...

Re: Winamp source code leak

#202

Post by carry_bit »

tombert wrote: post #55

Honest question, as someone who actually used Winamp back in ~2004: why would you want to use it now? I have some nostalgia for it, sure, but what exactly does it actually offer you that something like VLC doesn't? It seems like it plays my music and videos competently enough, and I don't know anyone who actually uses Shoutcast anymore. This isn't a passive aggressive dig or anything, I would actually like to know.

I still use it daily due to one killer feature it has: the Nullsoft Signal Processing Studio DSP plugin that it comes with. I have my own preset in there that I use on all of my music. The preset combines:

1. Playback rate control, affecting both speed and pitch (like in a record player) 2. A bs2b transform 3. My own custom overdrive effect

I could skip the 3rd one, but the first two already greatly narrows down what I can use.

Re: Winamp source code leak

#203

Post by rc_mob »

tombert wrote: post #55

Honest question, as someone who actually used Winamp back in ~2004: why would you want to use it now? I have some nostalgia for it, sure, but what exactly does it actually offer you that something like VLC doesn't? It seems like it plays my music and videos competently enough, and I don't know anyone who actually uses Shoutcast anymore. This isn't a passive aggressive dig or anything, I would actually like to know.

I was simple and focused on playing mp3's and managing playlists and nothing else.

Every music player now has some shitty cloud integration that I have to ignore.

The playlist manager was top notch. 10 times better than itunes.

Re: Winamp source code leak

#204

Post by jihadjihad »

nikcub wrote: post #160
geocrasher wrote: post #49

I listened to my first MP3 ever (Creed's "Higher") in 1999 on Winamp. It really whipped the South American camelid's posterior. Dang. I'm old.

The first scene releases of mp3's were in 1996[0]. It was 1997 when things got rolling, just as Winamp was released. I recall then that even new PC's couldn't decode at full CD quality and you had to downscale. We also picked which songs to download locally based on their size Spiderbait's song "Calypso" was probably the most popular mp3 download in '97 since it was only 2.5MB and a lot of people just wanted to try t…

Oh wow, WASTE, that brings back some memories. I hadn't heard of it until college, where everyone on campus used it to share music / videos / etc. I never knew that the history of it was linked to Nullsoft and Winamp.

Re: Winamp source code leak

#205

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

jvolkman wrote: post #81
geocrasher wrote: post #49

I listened to my first MP3 ever (Creed's "Higher") in 1999 on Winamp. It really whipped the South American camelid's posterior. Dang. I'm old.

I remember being jealous of my friend's Pentium (66? 90?) when mp3 playback slaughtered my 486.

I had an AMD DX4-120 that was overclocked to 160 Mhz. Yup, a 160 Mhz 486.

Was on par with a 90 Mhz Pentium for integer processing, IIRC, so MP3 playback didn't drag the system to a halt, though it was still a noticeable impact on performance.

What really dragged the performance down was when I'd try to run 3D Studio MAX at the same time. I had 24 MB of RAM, and the installer warned that they did not recommend running with less than 48 MB, which was an absurd number for a home user at the time.

Re: Winamp source code leak

#206

Post by denton-scratch »

cyber_kinetist wrote: post #19
caddywompus wrote: post #12

Interestingly enough, there has been a community project dedicated to keeping the last Winamp version alive (last version from the original creators), and it really great to use. https://getwacup.com/ It includes a skin that allows it to work on modern display resolutions. It's really interesting to see just how low-res screens were when it was in it's hey-day, given that they are nearly unusable on a 4k monitor. Edi…

For context, here's the new revamped(!) Winamp coming up soon: https://www.winamp.com/ It's just... the complete opposite of what Winamp was all about, and it's horrible and leaves a bad taste in your mouth (-100 points for the atrocious "modern" website which loads MBs of Javascript, screams BIG TEXT at you, hijacks your scroll wheel, and still tells you nothing about the actual software other than it will probably…

That site's unusable; I see [Decline][Accept] buttons, with no explnation of what I'm being invited to decline or accept. No choice but to close the tab.

Re: Winamp source code leak

#207

Post by munificent »

caddywompus wrote: post #12

Interestingly enough, there has been a community project dedicated to keeping the last Winamp version alive (last version from the original creators), and it really great to use. https://getwacup.com/ It includes a skin that allows it to work on modern display resolutions. It's really interesting to see just how low-res screens were when it was in it's hey-day, given that they are nearly unusable on a 4k monitor. Edi…

> It's really interesting to see just how low-res screens were when it was in it's hey-day, given that they are nearly unusable on a 4k monitor.

When WinAmp was big, typical resolution was 1024x768 (XGA). Wikipedia has a nice comparison image to give you a sense of how tiny that was compared to 4K:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_resolution#/media/File...

Re: Winamp source code leak

#208

Post by phendrenad2 »

jchw wrote: post #120

I just can’t understand the point of the DMCA takedown here. This software is very dead and abandoned at this point, and the only thing bearing its name is vaporware that appears to be so distant from the original as to effectively not even compete with it. Of course, the copyright holders have every legal right to do so. But doesn’t it seem pointless? This codebase probably has more historical interest than commerci…

How do we know the DMCA takedown even came from the rightsholder? It's trivial to pretend to own something, and companies aren't really obligated to verify the authenticity of takedown requests.

Re: Winamp source code leak

#209

Post by romwell »

smolder wrote: post #125
0des wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yikes, okay. I trust Justin Frankel, I don't know you, previous team or not.. The world can go on using Winamp 2.x forever and be just fine, its GRAS. If you're bringing something that isn't that, previous dev history or not, you're going to have to differentiate yourself from the folks who are also putting out winamp-alikes. I'm not trying to be a jerk, that's just the reality. Knowing what the code I'm running is d…

> you're going to have to differentiate yourself from the folks who are also putting out winamp-alikes. No one giving away software has to do anything. Maybe they'd get more donations as OSS or something, but it's no guarantee.

Yes, but nobody has to use their work.

I'd assume that people who make general-purpose open-source software with the intent of it being used by someone other than themselves.

So read the "have to" as "if you want to have people use and appreciate your work, this is a necessary step".

Post reply on HN