OVERVIEW

Windows Media Player 7; Real JukeBox; all those give-away media players: I've tried them all, and simply put, none of them live up to their role model - Nullsoft's Winamp. Winamp was one of the first widely distributed mudia players targeted at the MP3 industry, and it remains the best. Sporting support for all the common audio codecs, in addition to CD music and Microsoft's MP3 comepetitor, WMA, it can easily be used as an all around multimedia player - yet what I say next might surprise you. I don't recommend it. Part of what makes Winamp attractive is its simplicity and efficiency - streamlined and designed around playing MP3s. And as an MP3 player, the category in which I review this, it continues to "really kick the llama's ass" (as the promo reveals), earning it a well deserved rating of 5 stars. If I was to rate it as a general purpose audio player, I'd give it 4. As a CD player I'd give it 2. I'm not going to elaborate much - the software interface just isn't designed for other types of media - either it lacks options or it is cluttered with too many that have no function with other types of media. As a streaming media player I'd give it 2 stars for anyone with less than a T1 connection; I'll get into that later. With that said, anyone looking for an efficient, small, highly customizable MP3 player - look no further.

WINAMP AS A PIECE OF SOFTWARE

Efficiency is Winamp's middle name, in drastic opposition to the standards set (and despite the competition, perpetuated) by Microsoft and Real Media. The basic MP3 player is a little under a mere 600K download (about a half a megabyte). The full featured download, featuring a fancy visualization plug-in (which can also be downloaded sperated) and support for WMA comes in around 2 megabytes, still relatively small. Winamp's install might take you one minute, and when it plays audio, the impact on your memory and CPU is minimal (unless you're running an archaic non MMX supporting CPU). Unless you're doing very processor intensive work (say, resizing a huge graphic), Winamp plays smoothly without interruption or skipping. It crashes almost never, and when it does, it can easily be restarted. Microsoft's latest player weighs in around 10 megabytes, performs sluggishly, and eats up memory. Winamp's software is extremely fine tuned and effecient (when it comes to MP3 playback)- full support for MMX and 3DNow! further enhances its performance and reliability.

Winamp's setting controls also extend beyond those found in similar software. One can control most aspects of the audio playback, ranging from the device to decoder. For any feature not already built in, a huge selection of available plug-ins can probably fulfill that extra needed feature. The interface is simply, displays all the information necessary (bit rate, frequency, and even a neat spectrum analyzer. All the basic controls are right there, including panning and volume. It can be shrunk down to a mini interface about the width of the title portion of your Windows application. One can open and close other windows including a graphic equalizer and playlist. A right click will offer more features. One can also increase the size of the main player to double size. Winamp handles playlists well, effortlessly saving multiple playlists and opening them - when you open it, the last playlist (saved or not) appears. You can even publish your MP3 playlist into an HTML page (useful for sharing with friends).

PERSONALIZING WINAMP

Winamp set the standard for personalizing any application. Users can "skin" the player, allowing you to change the look and feel of the user interface. While the location of the buttons can not be arranged, the texture, colors, and fonts can all by modified. There are hundreds of skins available to date. Furthermore, visualization options allow you to download and use multiple plug ins that create dynamic images using the waveform of the audio. General plug-ins, enabling a "mix" transition effect between MP3s, 3D audio, and amplification to name a few are also supported.

STREAMING MP3'S WITH WINAMP

The only true complaint I can find involves Winamp's handling of streaming MP3's (playing the MP3s as they download). Playback quality is not an issue, the interface still works, and it does require the entire file to be downloaded (unlike some programs, which otherwise provide errors). However, there's one major issue - you cannot rewind MP3's you're in the middle of downloading to play from the beginning. If you try to restart the MP3 from the beginning while streaming it, the MP3 restarts its download. I have however, found a simple solution. One can download the MP3 with the regular "save to disk" option in your browser. If you download the file in your web browser, and add the MP3 to your playlist, Winamp treats it like a regular MP3 with no control over the downloading process. However, since I'm also not truly rating this as a streaming media product, it has no affect on my rating of Winamp.

CONCLUSIONS

For MP3 playback Winamp is almost perfect - I'd recommend it to anyone with out hesitation. It lacks the excessive (often useless) features of RealJukeBox and Windows Media Player 7. The result is a far more efficient, streamlined, and easy to use audio player. At the same time, it can be highly personalized to your liking. Who says more is better?



Recommended: Yes