Winamp 5.3 Hell Yeah! Finally Unicode support

With this latest version Winamp finally supports Unicode character encoding, in other words it can finally properly display chinese characters (not only that though, from arabic to greek and cyrillic to even zhuyin are covered by unicode). I personally have been waiting for this for sooo long :slight_smile: They didn’t implement the unicode support for the medialibrary just yet though so when see a song with chinese characters in the title it might display some garbage like it did before but I believe they will fix that soon enough.

Some other features/fixes which might be worth noting are:

* New: Replaygain support for MP3, AAC, Vorbis, M4A and WMA
Replaygain is an open standard (replaygain.org) to solve a well know issue with audioplayers, not all tracks have the same volume. Especially when you have music from different sources the difference in volume can be quite significant which makes you keep adjusting the volume manually.
ReplayGain resolves this issue by scanning the whole file and calculating the avg and peak volume, these values are then stored in the metadata of the file. So all players which support ReplayGain can use those values to normalize the volume of all the tracks.

* New: [ml_pmp] Transcoding. Converts incompatible files on-the-fly for your portable device.
If you have your music collection stored in a lossless compression method like .FLAC or .APE and your [insert brand] portable audioplayer doesn’t support that then the tramscodng feature might help you out by converting it to a format your which player does support

[b]* Improved: [in_mp3] streaming id3v2 support

  • Fixed: [in_mp3] icecast utf-8 stream title support
  • Fixed: [ml_playlists] losing stream titles[/b]
    Some improvements for stream support. Winamp can finally properly display some of the newer radiostreams info.

Here’s the complete list of changes:

New:

* Unicode filename and title support :notworthy:
* M3U8 (Unicode) playlist support :notworthy:

* optional 24bit playback for many codecs (turn it on in Preferences → Playback)
* Replaygain support for MP3, AAC, Vorbis, M4A and WMA
* added ml views & playlists to Play-> submenu of right click popup menu
* added interface/x-winamp3-skin mimetype for WAL skins
* [ml_dash] Personalized content portal
* [ml_disc] optional replaygain scanning after rip (turn it on in cd ripping prefs)
* [ml_pmp] Transcoding. Converts incompatible files on-the-fly for your portable device.
* [ml_pmp] Playback now works for playsForSure and Creative NJB devices
* [ml_pmp] “Copy to Library” - transfer songs from any device to your local library (uses CD rip settings)
* [ml_pmp] Video sync support for portables
* [ml_rg] replaygain scanner (access via Send To menu)
* [pmp_ipod] gapless playback support on newer models
* [pmp_usb] USB drive support. Now all those thumbdrive MP3 players work with Winamp.

Improved:

* fullscreen video seekbar
* ATF updates
* DC filter on spectral visualization, to remove bass bias
* preference cleanups
* faster PLS writing
* 24bit EQ support
* "Close Winamp" option after installation (after clicking 'Send')
* [enc_aacplus] Improved AAC and aacPlus encoding!
* [enc_aacplus] saves itunes/ipod-compatible gapless information
* [enc_lame] added preset medium and fast medium
* [enc_wma] VBR and lossless modes
* [gen_ff] better sample rate display
* [in_cdda] faster ripping speeds through improved buffering and multithreading
* [in_dshow] AVI metadata reading
* [in_dshow] better WAV support
* [in_mp3] 24bit MP3 playback, 64bit internal precision

* [in_mp3] streaming id3v2 support
* [in_mp3] replaygain support for MP3 playback
* [in_mp3/in_mp4] 24bit AAC playback
* [in_mp3/in_mp4] itunes-compatible gapless playback
* [in_mp3/in_mp4] mp3-in-mp4 container support
* [in_mp4] FAAC-compatible (mostly) gapless playback
* [in_wave] better outputs bits-per-sample choosing
* [ml_playlists] added missing entries from pledit context menus
* [ml_playlists] option to not show playlists in send-to menu
* [ml_pmp] Only relevant columns shown in song views
* [ml_pmp] “Getting Metadata” now much faster
* [ml_pmp] devices can now be renamed
* [ml_pmp] added progress to portables tree item (no more switching views)
* [ml_pmp] metadata guessing based on filename
* [ml_pmp] improved GUI performance
* [pmp_ipod] support for iTunesLock

Fixed:

* Burning files that require resampling
* multiple copies of Winamp when opening too many files/folders from explorer
* freeze when exiting Winamp while minimized
* Delay/hang when loading dead stream url's
* crash when directdraw fails to create primary surface
* 4x burn speed limit with Pro
* registry handling when disassociating filetypes
* better detection of video input plugins
* [dsp_sps] 24 bit fix
* [enc_aacplus] more compatible HE AAC MP4 file creation
* [enc_lame] broken vbr presets
* [enc_lame] 24bit input support
* [enc_lame] bitrate lower bound on alt-presets
* [in_cdda] CDDB lookups clearing the ENTIRE playlist cache
* [gen_ff] layerfx not being redrawn on colortheme change
* [gen_ff] gradient drawing glitch and crash
* [gen_ff] custom color themes bug
* [gen_jumpex] hang when suspending or hibernating
* [gen_ml] tree icon fixup (divide by zero crash in ICM32.dll)
* [in_cdda] cutoff of last few sectors
* [in_dshow] crash when using DSP/EQ on anything bigger than 16bit stereo
* [in_dshow] seek to key frame
* [in_midi] truncated playback of some MIDI files
* [in_mod] title display bug for module streams with no title
* [in_mp3] crash when editing ID3 tags
* [in_mp3] ID3v2 and ID3v1 Comment & Genre tags shared
* [in_mp3] Inaccurate Time Remaining display for AAC files
* [in_mp3] do Viz after DSP

* [in_mp3] Icecast stream title UTF-8 support
* [in_mp4] detection of HE AAC in file info box (Alt+3)
* [in_wm] DRM Video playback on certain hardware
* [in_wm] freezeup when seeking a paused wma
* [in_wm] Hang with dead WMV link in pledit in Repeat mode
* [in_wm] freeze when stopping streams that have rebuffered
* [in_wm] small memory leak on each track play
* [in_wm] Windows Media Screen Codec not playing properly
* [ml_disc] CD ripping / playlist generation bug
* [ml_disc] CD Ripping view showing up when clicking on other ml views
* [ml_history] Ctrl+H shortcut
* [ml_local] fixed crash when trying to create a new view before mldb has loaded
* [ml_local] background scan crash when media library DB isn’t loaded
* [ml_local] scheduled background scan always starting at startup
* [ml_online] Online Media bugfix (don’t try to play NULL streams)
* [ml_playlists] losing stream titles
* [ml_playlists] sort by title
* [ml_playlists] Send To from local media to ml playlist replaces instead of enqueues
* [ml_playlists] Enqueue as default broken in left pane
* [ml_playlists] Playlist title > rt-click > New Playlist = broken
* [ml_playlists] tracklength bug
* [ml_playlists] playlist paths issue
* [ml_pmp] Transfers stalling after encountering a dupe
* [out_ds] volume not hitting 0dB when using log or hybrid volume control
* [pmp_ipod] Artist list on iPod not sorting “The” correctly

Updated:

* Coding Technology aacPlus Encoder 8.0.0
* [gen_ff] Freetype 2.2.1
* [gen_ff] libpng 1.2.12
* [gen_jumpex] Jump-to-File 0.97.7
* [in_wave] libsndfile 1.0.16
* [libmp4v2] MPEG4IP mp4v2 1.5
* [enc_lame] LAME 3.97 Final
* Sonic Engine 3.2.40.500 (requires reboot)

Oh yes almost forgot :doh:, heres a link where you can get the latsest version: winamp.com/player/free.php

Oh boy. Unicode support more than 3 years after the Windows release of iTunes which supported Unicode from day one. Yippee!

Oh well there still are some people out there, like me, who are using Winamp as their default audioplayer. So Im happy with this update, although I do have to admit they took their time implementing Unicode support.

I used WinAmp for its internet radio player and was very satisfied with this feature. I liked its XM Radio and Jazz Radio programming immesely.
What I did not like was its turning all of my mp3 files into .wim or .amp or whatever the hell they became.
This created havoc and is the reason I removed all traces of this bitch prog from my system.
I wish I could have the streaming radio feature w/out this take-over of my mp3 files.