Winamp releases new version after four years in development

Winamp has released its first release candidate after four years in development, officially bringing the popular media player out of beta.Before music streaming platforms rose to prominence, we needed to rip our music from CDs and play the resulting MP3 files on a media player.
One of the most beloved media players to play MP3s was Winamp, which included retro skins and animated visualizations that synced with your music.
Winamp ceased development after version 5.666 was released in 2013. That was until October 2018, when Winamp 5.8 was leaked online, and the developers decided to publish it themselves on the Winamp.com website.
Since then, the developers have promised an updated version with cloud streaming support and more modern features. Finally, in November 2021, the Winamp.com website received a facelift with a new logo and a beta signup form to be notified when new versions were released.

Winamp releases new version after four years in development

A Guy

It now comes with Quinto Black CT Skin as a built in option which previously required a separate download.

Also video playback support that also used to require a separate plugin to be downloaded and some settings that needed changing. Window can be dragged and resized although to be honest there are better dedicated video player apps. Still it's okay if you want to create a video playlist and scroll through it.

Glad someone actually is interested

A Guy

I'm interested as well.
If WMP is ever withdrawn I'll consider MusicBee & WinAmp as potential replacements.

For WMP, I do a lot of manual editing of playlists [in Notepad]. Do WinAmp playlists have an understandable & hence editable structure if viewed in Notepad?



All the best,
Denis

@Try3

I've found that winamp playlists can be imported into other media players with no problems. I have not tested that extensively.

Winamp playlists in notepad look like this:

I don't have WMP and have never really used it.

See:

How can i back up my 'Winamp Playlist' ? Wont play if i save it

Hello @A Guy,
Thanks for the update information, very interesting and informative.

Callender said:

Winamp playlists in notepad look like this:

Thanks for that picture.
It looks quite a straightforward structure.

- When I've played a series of radio recordings on a playlist that I think I will want to listen to again one day, I move the series from my Radio folder to my RadioArchive folder then archive its playlist as well and manually edit the archived playlist to show the new location.
- Doing so keeps them out of my current audio library, it reduces clutter.
- When I want to listen to the series again, I copy the edited playlist back into the main playlist folder and it's shown in my media player {without any need to move the mp3 files around}.

It looks like WinAmp playlists will be as easy to manipulate as WMP's are.

Thanks,
Denis

You can create and edit any number of playlists via the GUI.

Yes, WMP's the same in that respect.
But my edits are almost always global replacements of one folder path with another so Notepad's Replace all function is just the ticket.
And I also deliberately remove playlists from the media player GUI to reduce clutter. The edited ones are saved in my archive folders and are re-instated easily [using a SendTo shortcut to the proper Playlist folder]. This all suits me because I've got thousands of radio recordings.

All the best,
Denis