Be Excellent To Each Other

I used to use it years ago... Windows Media player is hacking me right off at the moment so I'm on the look out for a replacement.

So.. the question you've been waiting for since reading the topic.. Is Winamp any good?

For music, yes.

For video? Better off with VLC.

I use Winamp. I like it. I am unaware of the qualities of other players. I think it is good.

Dimrill - aged 6 1/2

I use musikcube for musics, and Zoom Player for videos.

I used to use VLC, but I really prefer Zoom Player now.

I use VLC, though it does annoy me at times (if it's set to 'Always On Top' and then you fullscreen it, you have to minimize the bastard tools window out of the way, every damn time). Still, it also plays DVDs, and it can do streaming too, which may possibly be of use to you.

For music, I use iTunes, because I have an iPod/iPhone, and because I really like iTunes for playlisting, sorting, rating etc. To my knowledge, the 'best' player for Windows in terms of being the most 'awesome' is foobar2000, but they haven't got the iPod connectivity *quite* there yet. It's also as fiddly as fuck to get to grips with.

I have Winamp installed still, but it annoys me. Neither its Media Library or Playlist Window are what I want them to be. It's nice that this means its 'main' bit can be smaller, but it's not really THAT small anymore. So I just use iTunes, minimize it to the tray out of sigh, and use the Media Keys on my keyboard to control it (except to change playlists). Hope something in that helps.

I use Winamp, sometimes. I switch though, as all the players in Linux simply outclass it. I haven't found anything that quite compares in the Windows world. I used to use Quinnware Media Player, but it has been in beta since 2004 and frankly isn't getting finished.

For videos I usually use Media Player Classic, but I do have VLC installed too.

Try Zoom Player, it is basically like VLC, only it doesn't do this, and it feels a bit slicker.

I use Winamp for everything except video playback. I even use Winamp for managing the music on my iPod and iPhone as I find it's much easier to use than iTunes.

Thanks for everyones advice there.. I'm learning things all the time, like I didn't know Winamp was compatible with my iPod! Wow!

Thanks CUS for the informative answer too.. You're the best, I never doubted it for a micro second!

I think I'm going to give Winamp a go.. what's the worst that can happen?

If you do decide to use Winamp with your iPod, download and install the ml_ipod plugin for it as it's far, far better than the default iPod-support plugin that ships with Winamp 5.

I used to use Winamp Pro, but it doesn't seem to like Vista much; it keeps crashing whenever I add a playlist.

Why on earth are you even using Vista, Davydd? Tch.

Oo: any Winamp users with an iPhone have success? Using their iPhone (with Winamp (on their computer))?

Because when I try to install this here copy of XP it freaks out and crashes and stuff, and I panic.

I use foobar2000 now, purely so I can put on a lossless copy of 'That Song Represented By A Mathematical Formula' by Aphex Twin and freak people out with the spectrogram.

On a related note, what do people like to rip CDs with? I like Realplayer for its database and its naming options but it won't work with my SATA dvd drive. Windows media player doesn't seem to rip to a folder with artist name and album but I do quite like how it can give each track a different artist.

Ah, an easy one! EAC / Exact Audio Copy

I refuse to believe that I could possibly be wrong on this.

EAC is good, for convenience, I use CDex.

Yup. Using the ml_ipod plugin I linked to above, I can sync my iPhone with my Winamp Media Library just as easily as I can with other iPods.

I'm on Vista Premium too as it goes and I'm having no problem.

It really kicks the llama's ass.

*whips* the llama's ass. Pshaw.

Winamp is awesome. I've used it since about 2.66, and even made some skins for it; sadly they were awful.

I've never liked WinAmp. It looks all small and confusing.

I use iTunes as I am a sheep, and it does everything I would want from a music player.

iTunes takes far too long to load for me. When it does, it's as slow as all heck. Pants.

Wot he said.

I've run a radio station off of Winamp. Twice. On proper FM and everything. It's a remarkably reliable player with a huge number of plug-ins. It also certainly used to have a small memory footprint.

Don't use it for video though.

I switched to Winamp from Windows Media Player a while back and while Winamp isn't perfect, it does the job. I use the Winamp mobile (Orb) to stream stuff to the 360 too and that's worked fine so far.

Really, I take it you don't want your tunes to show the artist in the left hand column then?

I use Winamp, though for some reason it occasionally enjoys losing my "big" playlist. For CD ripping, it is always EAC.

Also, through judicious use of Quicktime Alternative, current versions of Quicktime and an attempt to install an old version, I have totally broken iTunes on my laptop. Good thing I don't buy music online, really.

I use Media Monkey quite a lot, although I still haven't got around to organising my music collection properly. I really should...

I'm really not bothered by whether it appears in column one or column two. Way back in the day, before iTunes, I used RealPlayer, which defaults to the same, I believe. In fact, since the left hand column is the one a human eye (trained in the Western method of reading left - right) will alight upon first, it seems sensible to have song name before band name. Otherwise I might look at the song list and say, 'I wonder what the next song on this fine album is... why, it's The Dresden Dolls... and so are the next five songs... EEK!'.

Or something.

In summary, the ability or lack thereof to have the artist name on the far left hand side of my display is far from the top of my priority list.

Being easy on the eye, seamlessly integrated with my iPod, connected to the iTunes Store for the rare times I purchase music online and generally being very user friendly for anything I've ever tried to do wtih it as a music player are (priorities, that is).

Good call, CUS. And while we're at it, here's a useful guide to follow in regards to setting it all up correctly.

Blimey. From a standard home broadband connected PC? Or maybe you shouldn't admit to too much.

Although I mainly use iTunes, I prefer to use WinAMP for fresh downloads, as it's much easier than buggering about adding the files to my music library, then having trouble finding them in iTunes because the ID3 tags aren't configured properly. It is a bit annoying that every new version of WinAMP seems to be trying ever harder to 'be' iTunes, when that's not what I blimmin' well want it to be.

If you want to make WinAMP look really spanky on your desktop, CD Art Display is well worth a look.