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Using Winamp To Automate A Radio Station?

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I saw a topic on the Winamp forums from a user wanting to use Winamp to automate the music for their radio station. Do I need a plugin to make playlists so it operates 24 hours? If so which plugins are the best? I want Winamp to never stop, It will be used for a small radio station Fact: Winamp is only good for listening to online Shoutcast Radio stations or to play a few music tracks. Winamp is NOT suitable for automating an Internetradio station Listeners expect high standards from streaming media these days You don't have any artist/title/album separation rules in Winamp So you're just going to hear the same songs/artists/tracks over and over. I certainly never found a way to stop tracks and artists from repeating within the current Winamp playlist. You get lots of silence between tracks or car crash crossfades with Winamp . Having large gaps of silence between tracks isn't going to win many listener

I Cannot See The Point In Winamp Anymore

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News broke this week that there will be a Winamp 5.9 coming out at some point. Winamp 5.9 will be released soon Winamp 5 for Windows is still an ongoing project We've now got a whole new development team The refactoring process is still on the way but its almost complete Its taken over 8 years to get to this point with Winamp Technology has moved on there are better audio players now Winamp is irrelvant tarnished yesterdays TECH This was posted by a Dev on the Winamp Forums: We can't use 5.666 5.666 includes software/libraries/codecs from Gracenote, Sonic, Fraunhofer & more which were exclusively licensed to AOL So 5.666 is basically illegal (for us to use) So Winamp 5.9 will indeed be a different beast to the orginal Winamp There are a few DIE hard Winamp fans trying to keep it alive but even with fancy Plugins and add-ons. Winamp was a thing 25 years ago but as I've already said t

Winamp Is 25 (How Time Flies)

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25 years ago (21 April 1997) the first version of Winamp was released by Nullsoft (Remember Them?) I discovered Winamp in 1999 when I was looking for an mp3 player on my first time using a computer running Windows 98. I was downloading music files from a website called AudioGalaxy at first even on a Dial Up connection. It was 2001 before I got my own PC running Windows XP which cost me the best part of 900 quid. In 2002 I learnt how to stream on Shoutcast along side Winamp for the music automation. Although It wasn't much KOP at automation & you had to change playlists manually PLUS it had no artist seperation rules built in. The Shoutcast DSP encoding software would regularly cut out Winamp is only good for listening to Shoutcast or playing tracks It's NOWHERE near suitable for automating an online radio station 24/7 A factor I later blamed for not attracting an

Winamp Can't Handle BIG Music Collections?

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Someone recently Tweeted about issues they were having with Winamp The Tweet was about Winamp not being able to handle 2TB worth of songs being loaded into it. My library is now is over 2TB and Winamp kinda chugged with it Winamp takes a long while to load (5+ min) & occasionally it crashes Its not the first time I've heard of people having issues with the amount of files they were attempting to import into Winamp I feel this users frustration I had various issues trying to use Winamp & recently a Windows 10 update broke it so I uninstalled it. Winamp hasn't seen any development since 2013 and v5.666 can be buggy as hell on Windows 10 As for the 5.8 leaked BETA that was even worse I couldn't get it working at all. Yes Winamp was a thing 20+ years ago but these days there is better and more robust software out there for playing music with. No activations – No contracts - No keys – No hi

NFT Winamp? (No Fucking Thanks)

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The owners of Winamp are saying they're auctioning Winamp Original Skin as an NFT The Winamp team is thrilled to announce the auctioning of Winamp Original Skin as 1/1 NFT AND the launch of Winamp Foundation! I've read up on NFT and I still don't get what they are all about I have a plugin for Tweetdeck that blocks NFT's so I never see them. A lot of users have taken to Twitter to say how disappointed they are that Winamp have decided to go down this route. I've been using Winamp for at least 24 years & I just gave up on it This does not in fact whip the Llama's ass Radionomy bought Winamp and Shoutcast in 2014 and haven't done a great deal with either piece of software. Sure theres been a couple of releases of Shoutcast 2.x.x but there hasn't been a lot happening on the Winamp front. Its taken them near on 8 years to get to this point and sadly their positioning has led to lots of users quitting Win

Oddsock Gen Song Request Plugin (Winamp)

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Oddsock Gen Song Request Plugin (Security Risk!) I noticed a post on the Winamp forums where someone was asking for a song request plugin for the program. Another user suggested they should use the Oddsock Gen Song Request Plugin. While the Oddsock Gen Song Request Plugin was great for interacting with listeners years ago. Things have moved on somewhat especially in the world of Internet radio request scripts for websites. The Oddsock Gen Song Request Plugin is full of Security holes which in turn means the person using it could easily have their copy of Winamp hacked or worse their computer. Heres the report that I found online while looking stuff up. Advisory Name: Oddsock Playlist Generator Multiple BufferOverlow vulnerability Software : Song Requester Version : 2.1 Platform: Windows NT/XP/95/98/2000 Severity: DoS Vulnerability that terminates Winamp Summary: Oddsock Playlist generator is used by Radio DJs to allow listeners to choose a song to play from the Winamp P

Promise Of A New Winamp?

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I was alerted to fact the Winamp website had changed recently. Seems they've finally decided to do something with Winamp after an 8+ year Hiatus. There been lots of discussion on the Winamp Forums about this news. I think personally the Good Ship Winamp sailed years ago. If they do upgrade Winamp I reckon its only going to be a shadow of its former self. It was the 20th Dec 2013 when AOL shut down Winamp and Shoutcast. Radionomy (Now Shoutcast) bought the rights to the software from AOL in 2014. I might try the new Winamp but I won't go beyond testing it as I now use RadioDJ. Update May 24th 2022: This was posted on the forums by DJ Egg Winamp 6 will be more like a continuation of WAFA but a cross-platform app for Android, iOS, web Winamp 5 for Windows is still an ongoing project We've now got a whole new development team! The biggest job of all was to get the Winamp 5 project ported over fro

Real DJs don't use Winamp

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Saw a topic a topic on the Winamp forums where someone said they were using Winamp to DJ at parties. OMG! Are you seriously attempting to use Winamp To DJ with? Man I bet your DJ sets suck the life and soul out of a party! Another user replied to the post with this: Real DJs don't use Winamp to DJ it doesn't crossfade properly Indeed DJ's don't use Winamp to produce mixes or radio shows. We use other software that is built for the job. I attempted to use Winamp over 20 years ago There wasn't much choice of radio playout software and it just didn't do the job I wanted it to do. I would regularly hear it repeating artists & songs, The crossfading between tracks in Winamp was just awful. I'd end up with dead air of around 3-5 seconds between tracks. SAM Broadcaster didn't fare much better... But that's another story. Winamp is only any good as a media player for listening to Shoutcast streams. While Winamp m

The Glory Days Are Gone (Winamp)

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It was 2014 when Radionomy bought Winamp & Shoutcast for $5M from AOL. Since then there have been a plethora of Shoutcast v2.x.x releases but not much has been done to Winamp since. Sure theres a BADLY CODED BETA version but according to lots of reports it doesn't work properly. This is a quote from an Ex Winamp Dev: Winamp as a thing is a dead-end with the brand effectively tarnished/irrelevant, its glory days are long gone Winamp doesn't have the massive fan base it once had. Just a few die hard users hanging onto the past! Technology has moved on far too much for Winamp to be considered USEFUL Indeed since Winamp was sold other audio software has evolved to overtake it. Winamp wasn't a great media player many a time I'd listen to a Shoutcast stream and It would start buffering after a while. I attempted to use it for my Internet radio stream back in 2002 it wasn't great at

If Only RadioDJ Had Been Around In 2002

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I've been into Internet radio and streaming for eons now. It started out with me tuning into a LIVE365 Station way back in 1999. In that time I've spent a lot of time using and testing various radio automation solutions. Although my interest in Internet radio had started in 1999 it was 2002 before I had a Broadband connection. Radio automation software offerings back in 2002 were PANTS. You didn't have a great deal of choice. I tried Winamp with DSP plugins to try and stream but I ended up with large gaps of silence between songs so that wasn't ideal. Winamp would casually crash when you least wanted it to. An unstable DSP Plugin was usually to blame for that. Badly written Plugins were common back in Winamp's heyday! A lot of the DSP and General plugins from the Winamp website either wouldn't work or they would cause Winamp to freeze. You also had to change playlists manu

I've Tried Lots of Radio Software

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As the title of the blog post suggests in my 20+ years of being into Internet radio I have tried all sorts of different radio automation software. I wish I could remember the name of half of the different pieces of software but here's a few... DRS 2006, SAM Broadcaster, Jazler, Raduga, Zararadio, Winamp (Plus Others) When my interest piqued for Internet radio in 1999 I tested software that was available at the time. I started out as listener at first and discovered Winamp for listening to Shoutcast stations. It was 2001 before I bought my first PC and I set out to discover what Internet radio was all about. One of the Oldies stations I'd discovered was asking for DJ's so I applied and got a weekly 3 hour show. The software I had to use was SAM Broadcaster and that went wrong so often I lost my position on the station. Wether that be encoders buffering or the program freezing the software never worked as it should. I was lucky to get

RadioDJ And Its Magic Crossfade

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I'm sat here surfing the web & RadioDJ is playing away in the background doing amazing crossfades between songs and jingles. The crossfading in RadioDJ is just another reason to LOVE the software I'm happy I've found the most perfect piece of audio playback software. If only technology had been this advanced in the 1980s I wouldn't have a bad back from carrying boxes of Vinyl Most of the DJ automation software I tried out back in 1999/2000 was a nightmare to work with in all honesty Some of the DJ software offerings 20+ years ago were so bad they would would crash if you tried adding a large library of songs. I tried Winamp 2.9 and it was OK as a media player but wasn't ideal for doing DJ work with, Winamp struggled to crossfade smoothly between tracks even with the use of DSP Crossfading plugins. Then I discovered a program called MusicMatch Jukebox which at the time was the best audio player available. It had a reasona

I Have Zero Stress With Radio DJ Free Radio Playout Sofware

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I got into Internet radio in 1999 when I tuned into a LIVE365 station when Internetradio was in its infancy. It was late 2001 before I got my own Computer and Internet connection and was able to look into Internet radio a bit more. I then set about learning about how to stream on the Internet. I lost a position on an Oldies station in 2002 because of software constantly Malfunctioning without warning. They let me go after a few weeks because I couldn't manage to do a full show even though it was software at fault. I then set about trying to setup my own Internet radio station using a Shoutcast server which I rented for £7.50 a month. Radio automation software offerings were few and far between in 2002 Winamp with DSP plugins, Streaming Audio Manager, DRS 2006 were a few of the available pieces of radio software available. Winamp isn't suitable for running a radio station it has no artist/title repeat rules

Sound Empire Caster Stable

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I've tested lots of encoding software in all the years I've been into Internetradio. Oddcast, Edcast, Altacast, MB Recaster, BUTT, SAM Cast (Simplecast) & Various Winamp DSP Encoders. Most encoding software has been OK but a couple of the programs I tried to stream with caused buffering on my stream(s) The Shoutcast DSP plugin for Winamp was one of the worst encoders I tried my stream would often cut out and buffer The SAM DSP/Simplecast encoders would also buffer and cut out. SAM Cast can't handle title streaming so if you use that your listeners wouldn't know what you were playing on your stream. The encoding software DSP solutions I was trying and testing 18 years ago weren't much KOP. Fast forward 18 years and I think I've found the most stable piece of encoding software ever Sound Empire Caster I've been testing it for quite some time now and I haven't had to deal

Reasons Not To Use SAM Broadcaster Pro & Studio

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I can think of a few reasons WHY you might want to choose an alternative to  SAM Broadcaster Pro or Studio 1) Lousy Customer Support: When SAM Broadcaster goes wrong (and it will) don't expect to get much help from Spacial Audio: The Spacial support department sends users the same old canned replies without actually helping anyone. Spacial Audio like to play BIG Corporate with their small Support team that have never even used or opened the software themselves The Customer service manager is rude to users on a regular basis Even the forums and social media accounts are staffed by people who don't really care about the software. People have even taken to Social media to vent their frustrations at not getting much in the way of support. @Spacial Audio are the worst software company I have EVER come across @spacial Customer Support makes me feel more like a Victim, than a Customer Pointless you keep ask