Winamp
Encyclopedia
Winamp is a media player for Windows
-based PC
s 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, and its popularity grew quickly, along with the developing trend of MP3 file-sharing.
, 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 ReplayGain 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.
filenames and Unicode metadata
for media files. In the 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.
service and retrieves the song's ID2 and ID3 metadata.
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 podcast
s.
s and Mass Storage Compliant
devices, Microsoft PlaysForSure
and ActiveSync
, and syncs unprotected music to the iPod
.
websites and automatically offering for streaming or downloading all MP3 files there. The Media Monitor is preloaded with music blog URLs.
, PS3, Xbox
and mobile phones.
(SDK) allows software developers to create seven different types of plug-ins.
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.
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, genre
s 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.
, integrated their Windows
user interface with the Advanced Multimedia Products "AMP (MP3 Technology)" MP3 file playback engine.
The minimalist WinAMP 0.20a was released as freeware on 21 April 1997.
Its windowless menubar-only interface showed only play (open), stop, pause, and unpause functions. A file specified on the command line or dropped onto its icon would be played. MP3 decoding was performed by the AMP decoding engine developed by Advanced Multimedia Products co-founder Tomislav Uzelac
, which was free for non-commercial use.
WinAMP 0.92 was released as a freeware in May 1997. Within the standard Windows frame and menubar, it had the beginnings of the "classic" Winamp GUI: dark gray rectangle with silver 3D-effect transport buttons, a red/green volume slider, time displayed in a green LED font
, with trackname, MP3 bitrate and "mixrate" in green. There was no position bar, and a blank space where the spectrum analyzer
and waveform analyzer would later appear. Multiple files on the command line or dropped onto its icon were enqueued in the playlist.
Version 1.006 was released June 7, 1997 renamed "Winamp" (lower case). It showed a spectrum analyzer, and color changing volume slider, but no waveform display. The AMP non-commercial license was included in its help menu
.
According to Tomislav Uzelac
, Frankel licensed the AMP 0.7 engine June 1, 1997. Frankel formally founded Nullsoft
Inc. in January 1998 and continued development of Winamp, which changed from freeware to $10 shareware. In March, Uzelac's company, Advanced Multimedia Products (which by then had been merged into PlayMedia Systems), sent a cease-and-desist letter to Nullsoft, claiming unlawful use of AMP. Nullsoft responded that they had replaced AMP with Nitrane, Nullsoft's proprietary decoder, but Playmedia disputed this.
Version 1.90, released March 31, 1998 was the first release as a general-purpose audio player, and documented on the Winamp website as supporting plugins, of which it included two input plugins (MOD and MP3) and a visualization plugin.
The installer for Version 1.91, released 18 days later, included wave, cdda, and Windows tray handling plugins, as well as the famous Wesley Willis
-inspired DEMO.MP3 file "Winamp, it really whips the llama's ass".
By July 1998, Winamp's various versions had been downloaded over three million times.
Winamp 2.0 was released on September 8, 1998. The 2.x versions were widely used and made Winamp one of the most downloaded pieces of software for Windows
. The new version improved the usability of the playlist, made the equalizer more accurate, introduced more plug-ins and allowed skins for the playlist and equalizer windows.
PlayMedia filed a federal lawsuit against Nullsoft in March 1999. In May, 1999, PlayMedia was granted an injunction
by Federal Judge A. Howard Matz against distribution of Nitrane by Nullsoft, and the same month the lawsuit was settled out-of-court with licensing and confidentiality agreements. Soon after, Nullsoft switched to an ISO
decoder from the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, the developers of the MP3 format.
Winamp 2.10, released March 24, 1999 included a new version of the "Llama" demo.mp3 featuring a musical sting
and bleating.
Nullsoft was bought by AOL
in June 1999 for US$80 million in stock.
Nullsoft relaunched the Winamp-specific winamp.com in December 1999 to provide easier access to skins, plug-ins, streaming audio, song downloads, forums and developer resources.
As of June 22, 2000 Winamp "surpassed 25 million registrants".
The next major Winamp version, Winamp3 (so spelled to include mp3 in the name and to mark its separation from the Winamp 2 codebase), was released on August 9, 2002. It was a complete rewrite of version 2, newly based on the Wasabi
application framework, which offered additional functionality and flexibility. Winamp3 was developed parallel to Winamp 2, but "many users found it consumed too many system resources and was unstable (or even lacked some valued functionality, such as the ability to count or find the total duration of tracks
in a playlist
)". Winamp3 had no backward compatibility
with Winamp 2 skins and plugins, and the SHOUTcast
sourcing plugin was not supported. No Winamp3 version of SHOUTcast was ever released.
In response to users reverting to Winamp 2, Nullsoft continued the development of Winamp 2 to versions 2.9 and 2.91 in 2003, even alluding to it humorously. The beta versions 2.92 and 2.95 were released with the inclusion of some of the functionality of the upcoming Winamp 5. During this period the Wasabi
cross-platform application
framework and skinnable GUI
toolkit was derived from parts of the Winamp3 source code. For Linux
, Nullsoft released an alpha version of Winamp3 on October 9, 2001 but has not updated it despite continued user interest.
The Winamp 2 and Winamp3 branches were later fused into Winamp 5. Nullsoft joked that "nobody wants to see a Winamp 4 skin" ('4 skin' being a pun on foreskin
). It was also joked that "Winamp 5 is so good they skipped a number" and "Winamp 2+3=5," thus making the version history a Fibonacci sequence
. Winamp 5 was based on the Winamp 2 codebase, with several Winamp3 features (e.g. modern skins) incorporated. Winamp 5.0 was released in December 2003.
From version 5.2 onwards, support for synchronizing with an iPod
is built-in.
.
As of version 5.55, Winamp development is credited to Ben Allison (Benski) and Maksim Tyrtyshny.
In October 2011, Winamp Sync for Mac was introduced as a Beta release. It is the first Winamp version for the Apple Macintosh platform and runs under Mac OS X 10.6 and above. Its focus is on syncing the Winamp Library to Winamp for Android and the iTunes Music Library (hence the name, "Winamp Sync for Mac"). Nonetheless, a full Winamp Library and player features are included. The developer's blog states that the Winamp Sync for Mac Beta will pave the way for future Winamp-related development under Mac OS X.
: hidden features that are accessible via undocumented operations. One example is an image of Justin Frankel
, one of Winamp's original authors, hidden in Winamp's About dialog box. The included easter eggs have changed with versions of Winamp, and over thirty have been documented elsewhere.
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
-based PC
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
s and Android devices, written by Nullsoft
Nullsoft
Nullsoft, Inc. is a software house founded in Sedona, Arizona in 1997 by Justin Frankel. Its most known products include the Winamp media player and the SHOUTcast MP3 streaming media server. In recent years, their open source installer system, NSIS, has also risen in popularity as a widely used...
, now a subsidiary of AOL
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...
. It is proprietary
Proprietary software
Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary...
freeware
Freeware
Freeware is computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee, but usually with one or more restricted usage rights. Freeware is in contrast to commercial software, which is typically sold for profit, but might be distributed for a business or commercial purpose in the...
/shareware
Shareware
The term shareware is a proprietary software that is provided to users without payment on a trial basis and is often limited by any combination of functionality, availability, or convenience. Shareware is often offered as a download from an Internet website or as a compact disc included with a...
, multi-format, extensible with plug-ins and skins
Skin (computing)
In computing, a skin is a custom graphical appearance achieved by the use of a graphical user interface that can be applied to specific software and websites to suit the purpose, topic, or tastes of different users....
, and is noted for its graphical sound visualization, playlist, and media library features.
Winamp was developed by American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
programmer Justin Frankel
Justin Frankel
Justin Frankel is an American computer programmer best known for his work on the Winamp media player application and for inventing the gnutella peer-to-peer network...
and Russian
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
programmer Dmitry Boldyrev, and its popularity grew quickly, along with the developing trend of MP3 file-sharing.
Playback formats
Winamp supports music playback using MP3MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
, MIDI, MOD
MOD (file format)
MOD is a computer file format used primarily to represent music, and was the first module file format. MOD files use the “.MOD” file extension, except on the Amiga where the original trackers instead use a “mod.” prefix scheme, e.g. “mod.echoing”...
, MPEG-1
MPEG-1
MPEG-1 is a standard for lossy compression of video and audio. It is designed to compress VHS-quality raw digital video and CD audio down to 1.5 Mbit/s without excessive quality loss, making video CDs, digital cable/satellite TV and digital audio broadcasting possible.Today, MPEG-1 has become...
audio layers 1 and 2, AAC
Advanced Audio Coding
Advanced Audio Coding is a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit rates....
, M4A, FLAC
FLAC
FLAC is a codec which allows digital audio to be losslessly compressed such that file size is reduced without any information being lost...
, WAV
WAV
Waveform Audio File Format , is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on PCs...
and WMA
Windows Media Audio
Windows Media Audio is an audio data compression technology developed by Microsoft. The name can be used to refer to its audio file format or its audio codecs. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. WMA consists of four distinct codecs...
. Winamp was one of the first common music players on Windows to support playback of Ogg Vorbis by default. It supports gapless playback
Gapless playback
Gapless playback is the uninterrupted playback of consecutive audio tracks without intervening silence or clicks at the point of the track change. Gapless playback is common with compact discs, gramophone records, or tapes, but is not always available with other formats that employ compressed...
for MP3 and AAC, and ReplayGain for volume leveling across tracks. CD support includes playing and import
Ripping
Ripping is the process of copying audio or video content to a hard disk, typically from removable media. The word is used to refer to all forms of media. Despite the name, neither the media nor the data is damaged after extraction....
music from audio CDs
Red Book (audio CD standard)
Red Book is the standard for audio CDs . It is named after one of the Rainbow Books, a series of books that contain the technical specifications for all CD and CD-ROM formats.The first edition of the Red Book was released in 1980 by Philips and Sony; it was adopted by the Digital Audio Disc...
, optionally with CD-Text
CD-Text
CD-Text is an extension of the Red Book Compact Disc specifications standard for audio CDs. It allows for storage of additional information on a standards-compliant audio CD...
, and burning
Optical disc authoring
Optical disc authoring, including DVD and Blu-ray Disc authoring , is the process of assembling source material—video, audio or other data—into the proper logical volume format to then be recorded onto an optical disc .-Process:To burn an optical disc, one usually first creates an...
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
Nullsoft Streaming Video
Nullsoft Streaming Video is a media container designed for streaming video content over the internet. NSV was developed by Nullsoft, the makers of Winamp....
. For MPEG Video, AVI and other unsupported video types, Winamp uses Microsoft's DirectShow
DirectShow
DirectShow , codename Quartz, is a multimedia framework and API produced by Microsoft for software developers to perform various operations with media files or streams. It is the replacement for Microsoft's earlier Video for Windows technology...
API for playback, allowing playback of most of the video formats supported by Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player is a media player and media library application developed by Microsoft that is used for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as on Pocket PC and Windows Mobile-based devices...
. 5.1 Surround sound
Surround sound
Surround sound encompasses a range of techniques such as for enriching the sound reproduction quality of an audio source with audio channels reproduced via additional, discrete speakers. Surround sound is characterized by a listener location or sweet spot where the audio effects work best, and...
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 database. It supports full UnicodeUnicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
filenames and Unicode metadata
Metadata
The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...
for media files. In the 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 GracenoteGracenote
Gracenote, Inc., formerly called CDDB , is a company that maintains and licenses an Internet-accessible database containing information about the contents of audio compact discs and vinyl records. It provides software and metadata to businesses that enable their customers to manage and search...
service and retrieves the song's ID2 and ID3 metadata.
Podcatcher
Winamp can also be used as an RSSRSS
-Mathematics:* Root-sum-square, the square root of the sum of the squares of the elements of a data set* Residual sum of squares in statistics-Technology:* RSS , "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary", a family of web feed formats...
media feeds aggregator capable of displaying articles, downloading or playing that same content as streaming media
Streaming media
Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider.The term "presented" is used in this article in a general sense that includes audio or video playback. The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather...
. SHOUTcast Wire provides a directory and RSS subscription system for podcast
Podcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
s.
Media player device support
Winamp has extendable support for portable media playerPortable media player
A portable media player or digital audio player, is a consumer electronics device that is capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, video, documents, etc. the data is typically stored on a hard drive, microdrive, or flash memory. In contrast, analog portable audio...
s and Mass Storage Compliant
USB mass storage device class
The USB mass storage device class, otherwise known as USB MSC or UMS, is a protocol that allows a Universal Serial Bus device to become accessible to a host computing device, to enable file transfers between the two...
devices, Microsoft PlaysForSure
Microsoft PlaysForSure
Starting in 2004, Microsoft PlaysForSure was a certification given by Microsoft to portable devices and content services that had been tested against several hundred compatibility and performance requirements. These requirements include codec support, DRM support, UI responsiveness, device...
and ActiveSync
ActiveSync
ActiveSync is a mobile data synchronization technology and protocol developed by Microsoft, originally released in 1996. There are two implementations of the technology: one which synchronizes data and information with handheld devices with a specific desktop computer , and another technology,...
, and syncs unprotected music to the iPod
IPod
iPod is a line of portable media players created and marketed by Apple Inc. The product line-up currently consists of the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the compact iPod Nano, and the ultra-compact iPod Shuffle...
.
Media Monitor
Winamp Media Monitor allows web-based browsing and bookmarking music blogBlog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
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, WiiWii
The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...
, PS3, Xbox
Xbox
The Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Microsoft. It was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and Europe and is the predecessor to the Xbox 360. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console...
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 kitSoftware development kit
A software development kit is typically a set of software development tools that allows for the creation of applications for a certain software package, software framework, hardware platform, computer system, video game console, operating system, or similar platform.It may be something as simple...
(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.
- VisualizationMusic visualizationMusic visualization, a feature found in electronic music visualizers and media player software, generates animated imagery based on a piece of music...
: provides sound activated graphics. - DSP/EffectSound effectFor the album by The Jam, see Sound Affects.Sound effects or audio effects are artificially created or enhanced sounds, or sound processes used to emphasize artistic or other content of films, television shows, live performance, animation, video games, music, or other media...
: 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 playerPortable media playerA portable media player or digital audio player, is a consumer electronics device that is capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, video, documents, etc. the data is typically stored on a hard drive, microdrive, or flash memory. In contrast, analog portable audio...
s.
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
NES Sound Format
NSF is the DOS 8.3 filename Filename extension of the audio file format originally designated as NESM by the inventor Kevin Horton. This format was originally designed for playback in a custom hardware device named HardNES by the inventor...
, USF, GBS
Game Boy Sound System
The Game Boy Sound System for the Game Boy is akin to the sound system of the Nintendo Entertainment System , the difference being that GBS has a higher pitch than NES sound format...
, GSF, SID
MOS Technology SID
The MOS Technology 6581/8580 SID is the built-in Programmable Sound Generator chip of Commodore's CBM-II, Commodore 64, Commodore 128 and Commodore MAX Machine home computers...
, VGM, SPC
SPC700 sound format
An SPC700 sound file is a video game music file consisting of scores and music data from RAM used by the SPC700 sound chip on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System or Super Famicom...
, PSF and PSF2.
Skins
SkinsSkin (computing)
In computing, a skin is a custom graphical appearance achieved by the use of a graphical user interface that can be applied to specific software and websites to suit the purpose, topic, or tastes of different users....
are bitmap files which alter the aesthetic design of the Winamp graphical user interface
Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
(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, genre
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
s 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
Klingon
Klingons are a fictional warrior race in the Star Trek universe.Klingons are recurring villains in the 1960s television show Star Trek: The Original Series, and have appeared in all five spin-off series and eight feature films...
, iPod
IPod
iPod is a line of portable media players created and marketed by Apple Inc. The product line-up currently consists of the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the compact iPod Nano, and the ultra-compact iPod Shuffle...
, 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
XMMS
The X Multimedia System is a free audio player for Unix-like systems.-History:XMMS was originally written as X11Amp by Peter and Mikael Alm in November 1997. The player was made to resemble Winamp, which was first released in May that year. As such, XMMS has supported Winamp 2 "classic" skins...
player for Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
and Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
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
Alpha compositing
In computer graphics, alpha compositing is the process of combining an image with a background to create the appearance of partial or full transparency. It is often useful to render image elements in separate passes, and then combine the resulting multiple 2D images into a single, final image in a...
transparency, scripting
Scripting language
A scripting language, script language, or extension language is a programming language that allows control of one or more applications. "Scripts" are distinct from the core code of the application, as they are usually written in a different language and are often created or at least modified by the...
control, a docked toolbar, and other innovations to the user interface.
Initial releases
Winamp was first released in 1997, when Justin Frankel and Dmitry Boldyrev, formerly students at the University of UtahUniversity of Utah
The University of Utah, also known as the U or the U of U, is a public, coeducational research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The university was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret by the General Assembly of the provisional State of Deseret, making it Utah's oldest...
, integrated their Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
user interface with the Advanced Multimedia Products "AMP (MP3 Technology)" MP3 file playback engine.
The minimalist WinAMP 0.20a was released as freeware on 21 April 1997.
Its windowless menubar-only interface showed only play (open), stop, pause, and unpause functions. A file specified on the command line or dropped onto its icon would be played. MP3 decoding was performed by the AMP decoding engine developed by Advanced Multimedia Products co-founder Tomislav Uzelac
Tomislav Uzelac
Tomislav Uzelac is the Croatian programmer who created AMP, considered the first successful MP3 player.Uzelac studied at the University of Zagreb's Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing under professor Mario Kovač, working on MP3 software decoding. In 1997 he created AMP, and also...
, which was free for non-commercial use.
WinAMP 0.92 was released as a freeware in May 1997. Within the standard Windows frame and menubar, it had the beginnings of the "classic" Winamp GUI: dark gray rectangle with silver 3D-effect transport buttons, a red/green volume slider, time displayed in a green LED font
Seven-segment display character representations
The topic of seven-segment display character representations revolves around the various shapes of numerical digits, letters, and punctuation devisable on seven-segment displays. Such representation of characters is not standardized by any relevant entity The topic of seven-segment display...
, with trackname, MP3 bitrate and "mixrate" in green. There was no position bar, and a blank space where the spectrum analyzer
Spectrum analyzer
A spectrum analyzer measures the magnitude of an input signal versus frequency within the full frequency range of the instrument. The primary use is to measure the power of the spectrum of known and unknown signals...
and waveform analyzer would later appear. Multiple files on the command line or dropped onto its icon were enqueued in the playlist.
Winamp 1
Online help
Online help is topic-oriented, procedural or reference information delivered through computer software. It is a form of user assistance. Most online help is designed to give assistance in the use of a software application or operating system, but can also be used to present information on a broad...
.
According to Tomislav Uzelac
Tomislav Uzelac
Tomislav Uzelac is the Croatian programmer who created AMP, considered the first successful MP3 player.Uzelac studied at the University of Zagreb's Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing under professor Mario Kovač, working on MP3 software decoding. In 1997 he created AMP, and also...
, Frankel licensed the AMP 0.7 engine June 1, 1997. Frankel formally founded Nullsoft
Nullsoft
Nullsoft, Inc. is a software house founded in Sedona, Arizona in 1997 by Justin Frankel. Its most known products include the Winamp media player and the SHOUTcast MP3 streaming media server. In recent years, their open source installer system, NSIS, has also risen in popularity as a widely used...
Inc. in January 1998 and continued development of Winamp, which changed from freeware to $10 shareware. In March, Uzelac's company, Advanced Multimedia Products (which by then had been merged into PlayMedia Systems), sent a cease-and-desist letter to Nullsoft, claiming unlawful use of AMP. Nullsoft responded that they had replaced AMP with Nitrane, Nullsoft's proprietary decoder, but Playmedia disputed this.
Version 1.90, released March 31, 1998 was the first release as a general-purpose audio player, and documented on the Winamp website as supporting plugins, of which it included two input plugins (MOD and MP3) and a visualization plugin.
The installer for Version 1.91, released 18 days later, included wave, cdda, and Windows tray handling plugins, as well as the famous Wesley Willis
Wesley Willis
Wesley Willis was a musician and artist from Chicago. A diagnosed chronic schizophrenic, he gained an enormous cult following in the 1990s after releasing several hundred songs of simple but unique music, with emphasis on his humorous, bizarre, and frequently obscene lyrics...
-inspired DEMO.MP3 file "Winamp, it really whips the llama's ass".
By July 1998, Winamp's various versions had been downloaded over three million times.
Winamp 2
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
. The new version improved the usability of the playlist, made the equalizer more accurate, introduced more plug-ins and allowed skins for the playlist and equalizer windows.
PlayMedia filed a federal lawsuit against Nullsoft in March 1999. In May, 1999, PlayMedia was granted an injunction
Injunction
An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a court order that requires a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. A party that fails to comply with an injunction faces criminal or civil penalties and may have to pay damages or accept sanctions...
by Federal Judge A. Howard Matz against distribution of Nitrane by Nullsoft, and the same month the lawsuit was settled out-of-court with licensing and confidentiality agreements. Soon after, Nullsoft switched to an ISO
International Organization for Standardization
The International Organization for Standardization , widely known as ISO, is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. Founded on February 23, 1947, the organization promulgates worldwide proprietary, industrial and commercial...
decoder from the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, the developers of the MP3 format.
Winamp 2.10, released March 24, 1999 included a new version of the "Llama" demo.mp3 featuring a musical sting
Sting (musical phrase)
A sting is a short musical phrase, primarily used in television shows and films as a form of punctuation—for example at the end of a scene, or as a dramatic climax is imminent...
and bleating.
Nullsoft was bought by AOL
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...
in June 1999 for US$80 million in stock.
Nullsoft relaunched the Winamp-specific winamp.com in December 1999 to provide easier access to skins, plug-ins, streaming audio, song downloads, forums and developer resources.
As of June 22, 2000 Winamp "surpassed 25 million registrants".
Winamp3
Wasabi (software)
Wasabi is a "mostly open source" cross-platform application framework and skinnable GUI toolkit. It was developed as the framework for Winamp3, but designed to be flexible and extensible enough to be useful for other programs. Although most of Wasabi was zlib licensed, it depended on code still...
application framework, which offered additional functionality and flexibility. Winamp3 was developed parallel to Winamp 2, but "many users found it consumed too many system resources and was unstable (or even lacked some valued functionality, such as the ability to count or find the total duration of tracks
Song
In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...
in a playlist
Playlist
In its most general form, a playlist is simply a list of songs. They can be played in sequential or shuffled order. The term has several specialized meanings in the realms of radio broadcasting and personal computers.-In radio:...
)". Winamp3 had no backward compatibility
Backward compatibility
In the context of telecommunications and computing, a device or technology is said to be backward or downward compatible if it can work with input generated by an older device...
with Winamp 2 skins and plugins, and the SHOUTcast
SHOUTcast
SHOUTcast is cross-platform proprietary software for streaming media over the Internet. The software, developed by Nullsoft , allows digital audio content, primarily in MP3 or HE-AAC format, to be broadcast to and from media player software, enabling the creation of Internet radio "stations"...
sourcing plugin was not supported. No Winamp3 version of SHOUTcast was ever released.
In response to users reverting to Winamp 2, Nullsoft continued the development of Winamp 2 to versions 2.9 and 2.91 in 2003, even alluding to it humorously. The beta versions 2.92 and 2.95 were released with the inclusion of some of the functionality of the upcoming Winamp 5. During this period the Wasabi
Wasabi (software)
Wasabi is a "mostly open source" cross-platform application framework and skinnable GUI toolkit. It was developed as the framework for Winamp3, but designed to be flexible and extensible enough to be useful for other programs. Although most of Wasabi was zlib licensed, it depended on code still...
cross-platform application
Application software
Application software, also known as an application or an "app", is computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks. Examples include enterprise software, accounting software, office suites, graphics software and media players. Many application programs deal principally with...
framework and skinnable GUI
Gui
Gui or guee is a generic term to refer to grilled dishes in Korean cuisine. These most commonly have meat or fish as their primary ingredient, but may in some cases also comprise grilled vegetables or other vegetarian ingredients. The term derives from the verb, "gupda" in Korean, which literally...
toolkit was derived from parts of the Winamp3 source code. For Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
, Nullsoft released an alpha version of Winamp3 on October 9, 2001 but has not updated it despite continued user interest.
Winamp 5
Foreskin
In male human anatomy, the foreskin is a generally retractable double-layered fold of skin and mucous membrane that covers the glans penis and protects the urinary meatus when the penis is not erect...
). It was also joked that "Winamp 5 is so good they skipped a number" and "Winamp 2+3=5," thus making the version history a Fibonacci sequence
Fibonacci number
In mathematics, the Fibonacci numbers are the numbers in the following integer sequence:0,\;1,\;1,\;2,\;3,\;5,\;8,\;13,\;21,\;34,\;55,\;89,\;144,\; \ldots\; ....
. Winamp 5 was based on the Winamp 2 codebase, with several Winamp3 features (e.g. modern skins) incorporated. Winamp 5.0 was released in December 2003.
From version 5.2 onwards, support for synchronizing with an iPod
IPod
iPod is a line of portable media players created and marketed by Apple Inc. The product line-up currently consists of the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the compact iPod Nano, and the ultra-compact iPod Shuffle...
is built-in.
Winamp 5.5
Winamp 5.5: The 10th Anniversary Edition was released on October 10, 2007, ten years after the first release of Winamp (a beta preview had been released on September 10, 2007). New features to the player included album art support, much improved localization support (with several official, localized Winamp releases, including German, Polish, Russian and French), and a unified player and media library interface skin. This version dropped support for Windows 9xWindows 9x
Windows 9x is a generic term referring to a series of Microsoft Windows computer operating systems produced since 1995, which were based on the original and later modified Windows 95 kernel...
.
As of version 5.55, Winamp development is credited to Ben Allison (Benski) and Maksim Tyrtyshny.
Winamp for Android
Released as a beta product in October 2010, the Android version for OS 2.1 includes syncing with Winamp desktop (ver. 5.59 beta+) over USB or WiFi. It was received with some enthusiasm in the consumer blog press.Winamp Sync for Mac
Winamp was rumored to be coming to Mac as far back as 2001, but the software was never released.In October 2011, Winamp Sync for Mac was introduced as a Beta release. It is the first Winamp version for the Apple Macintosh platform and runs under Mac OS X 10.6 and above. Its focus is on syncing the Winamp Library to Winamp for Android and the iTunes Music Library (hence the name, "Winamp Sync for Mac"). Nonetheless, a full Winamp Library and player features are included. The developer's blog states that the Winamp Sync for Mac Beta will pave the way for future Winamp-related development under Mac OS X.
Easter eggs
Winamp has historically included a number of Easter eggsEaster egg (media)
Image:Carl Oswald Rostosky - Zwei Kaninchen und ein Igel 1861.jpg|250px|thumb|right|Example of Easter egg hidden within imagerect 467 383 539 434 desc none...
: hidden features that are accessible via undocumented operations. One example is an image of Justin Frankel
Justin Frankel
Justin Frankel is an American computer programmer best known for his work on the Winamp media player application and for inventing the gnutella peer-to-peer network...
, one of Winamp's original authors, hidden in Winamp's About dialog box. The included easter eggs have changed with versions of Winamp, and over thirty have been documented elsewhere.
Derivative works
Unagi is the codename for the media playback engine derived from Winamp core technologies. AOL announced in 2004 that Unagi would be incorporated into AOL Media Player (AMP), in development. After beta testing, AMP was discontinued in 2005, but portions lived on in AOL's web-based player.See also
- List of media players
- Comparison of media playersComparison of audio player softwareThe following comparison of audio players compares general and technical information for a number of software media player programs.For the purpose of this comparison, "audio players" are defined as any media player which can only play audio files...
- List of feed aggregators
- Comparison of feed aggregatorsComparison of feed aggregatorsThe following is a comparison of notable RSS feed aggregators. Often e-mail programs and web browsers have the ability to display RSS feeds. They are listed here, too.Many BitTorrent clients support RSS feeds for broadcatching ....
- List of audio conversion software