Tech: Winamp

Subject: Tech: Winamp
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 05:06 AM

I have quite a few music files in various formats in various folders and subfolders on various computers and external drives on my network.

I wouldn't be sure I could list all the formats - mp3 and wmv (is that the native file for Windoze media player?) to start with, might be some wav, there will be some in whatever Realplayer uses, and maybe some for the native format of VCL media player - could be others - ogg vorbis or whatever.

Now I'm sure that Winamp will play all of them. Surely there is a way to tell Winamp just to search for eerything it can play and put them in a list, isn't there? How do I do it without being able to name all the file types by extension (if I could do that it would be easy to search for all of those and then copy them all into a central folder on one of the external drives).

Subject: RE: Tech: Winamp
From: Sky Sailor
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 05:45 AM

From Winamp's 'File' menu choose 'Add Media To Library'. A dialog box opens which allows you to select a Drive, Directory, or even My Computer. Select your starting place and click OK. Winamp will find all the files it can play anywhere within the directory tree below your chosen strt point.
If the files are 'Tagged', Winamp will display information such as Artist, Album, Title etc.

Best of luck.

Subject: RE: Tech: Winamp
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 03:53 PM

You might want to try VU player which plays a vast collection of file types including FLAC

Subject: RE: Tech: Winamp
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 05:06 PM

My main problem is finding them, not playing them, but I might try it.

Warning! If anyone wants to try VCL Media player it seems quite capable but it installs a shitload of spyware (and a hijacker) at the same time that takes some removing.

Subject: RE: Tech: Winamp
From: Bill D
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 07:21 PM

There is a program called "Media Monkey that will search your computer and compile a relational database of everything playable, allowing you to look for items by many categories.

It is really amazing. The basic version if free, and I have never needed what the pay version does.

Subject: RE: Tech: Winamp
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 04:56 PM

"VCL Media player "

I take it you mean VLC. I've never found that any stuff that comes with it causes any problems, and it does seem to be able to play just about everything.

Subject: RE: Tech: Winamp
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 05:28 PM

I agree with McGrath. VLC 'seems' to be able to play anything I can find.

I mentioned Media Monkey because of its feature of finding and cataloging media. It does not attempt to play Real Media as VLC does, but does play most common formats.

Subject: RE: Tech: Winamp
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 06:31 PM

Yes, VLC. Well it installed a "Gaming harbor" hijacker on me and a range of spyware that Avast would find but not remove, and I only got rid of after iterations of Spybot, Ad-Aware, and AVG several times.

Subject: RE: Tech: Winamp
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 06:35 PM

MediaMonkey looks excellent! I have downloaded and will see sometime soon if it will search the whole network including subfolders for me!

Subject: RE: Tech: Winamp
From: Arkie
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 12:43 PM

I have used Media Monkey for some time and it has been quite useful in organizing files, file searches, and particularly in writing ID tags. If file names are coded correctly time can be saved by writing the ID tags from the file names. It can be directed to find all kinds of sound files. I am now using it to burn CDs. The latest free version burns CDs fast enough for me. I tend to use slower speeds for burning music anyway. I have also found it useful in setting up compilation albums to play on the Zune which my son gave me. Artwork can even be added to the albums. The one thing I will never do again is check the Level Volume box when burning a CD. It also plays music tracks and can be configured in a number of different ways. Reports can be saved and printed if needed.

Subject: RE: Tech: Winamp
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 02:47 PM

It might make a difference where you download VLC from. There seem to be any number sites which offer a download, and I imagine some might be a bit dodgy. I got mine from the VideoLAN site.

Subject: RE: Tech: Winamp
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 03:10 PM

I alwasy make a point of going through the custom install and removing any automatic associations with file types. I think it's better to decide on that kind of thing as and when.

Subject: RE: Tech: Winamp
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 04:41 PM

I've no idea how relevant or useful this may be

[because I stubbornly refuse to own an mp3 player
or over-complicated media playing mobile phone,
and definitely can't be arsed learning to use any new software.
at the moment]

but I found info about this software on a music download site last night.

http://www.beatunes.com/

".. build better playlists.. Clean up your library! Get beaTunes 2!
What started out as a BPM detection tool for DJs, runners and dancers, has become one of the finest iTunes™ library management tools around.

beaTunes' powerful inspection feature lets you clean up your iTunes track data in a way unrivaled by any other software on the market today. Easily find typos or different spellings of artists' names, automatically fill in the album artist names, and much more. No more R.E.M. and REM in your iPod's artist list! No more albums hidden in the compilations section.

beaTunes can even help you to find the titles of tracks that have no artist or title associated with them.

And once you have a clean collection, the built-in playlist generator works even better.

Here are some more examples of what you can do with beaTunes:

Automatically determine BPM (beats per minute) and store the result in iTunes
Look up track metadata using acoustic fingerprints
Inspect and fix your music library (typos, wrong genre, wrong sortname, missing file
a.k.a the iTunes exclamation mark problem, etc.)
Create matchlists, i.e. playlists based on one or more sample songs
Sort existing playlists so that matching songs succeed each other
Browse songs from your music collection that match the currently selected song
Discover albums that aren't in your music collection, but would complement it
Keep up to date through Amazon™ album charts
Automatically detect the tonal key your songs are in
Categorize songs by their sound color
Automatically set start and end times of songs based on their volume
Create blog entries on blogger.com with your favorite playlist or songs
Add del.icio.us like tags to your songs
Detect the language of lyrics already stored in iTunes
Manually determine BPM and store the result in iTunes"