Now the new Winamp 5.2 (FINAL) is out!
Highlights are (Scroll down for the full changelog):
1) gapless mp3+aac playback.
2) vastly superior wave file playback (24bit etc etc).
3) compatibility fixes with tagging.
4) many unicode updates.
5) native portable device support.
Check this thead for the links: http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=236311

Current changelog:

5.2.0473 (silent update release)
* Fixes the issue where unicows.dll wasn't being installed under Win9x

5.2.0469
FINAL release!

5.2.0449 Beta
* Fixed id3v2 url tag writing bug
* Fixed filename display for mp3 with no tags if atf is disabled
* Fixed some Win98 bugs (????? in taskbar, crash on stop/close, etc)
* Other general minor bugfixes & optimizations
* New JTFE 0.97

5.2.0440 Beta
* Fixed playlist loading bug (see above)
* Fixed reverse/randomize playlist focus bug
* Fixed blocking vorbis editor bugs
* Fixed crash when editing vorbis files in ml
* Fixed saving genre via drop-down menu in vorbis editor
* Fixed in_wave playback issues (pause at start etc)
* Other general minor bugfixes

5.2.0436 Beta
* New: gen_tray v1.0 (thanks DrO)
* Fixed: id3v2 album art no longer removed when editing tags
* Fixed: video playback crash (bug in prior beta)
* Fixed: modern skin font size issues (bug in prior beta)

5.2.0430 Beta
* [pmp_ipod] Less crashing when transfers complete
* [ml_pmp] More general fixes
* [core] More general minor bugfixes

5.2.0427 Beta
* Fixed: [in_mp3] Lyrics3 tag support
* Fixed: [in_mp3] Tracklength reported the same as currently playing track when drag+dropping/enqueuing mp3's
* Fixed: Winamp.q1 not created for new users in multi-user setups
* Fixed: msvcp71.dll dynamically linked in gen_ml
* Fixed: IE7 beta incompatability issues
* Fixed some gen_ff freeform skin engine bugs (ref)
* Lots of ml_pmp bugfixes (more still to come)
* Lots of other minor bugfixes that no-one can seem to remember at the moment
* New: Online Services (ml_online.dll) - see main post for more info
* Improved: Rip & Burn ui (new logo, icons can be dbl-clicked, etc)
* Improved: ml tree icons, and fixed a few skin compatibility issues.

5.2.0393 Beta
* Fixes a memory leak when using playlist winshade mode in the modern skin.
* Fixes in_mp3 security hole.
* Added experimental skin-colored icons to media library tree - let us know what you think.
* Changed the "Devices" parent node (in media library) to "Rip & Burn". The dialog on this page is still in the experimental phase.
* Portable Media Player fixes
* Fixed blank titles for unknown filetypes ("Fixed in_mp3 blankness. Still gotta fix in_vorbis")
* Fixed blank titles when atf is disabled (uses default "artist - title")
* Fixed not all tracks showing in ml for cd's ripped to m4a
* Fixed tracklength display for mp3's with CRCs
* Fixed tracklength displaying as 0:00 for dragged url's
* Fixed "Show Winamp in folder context menus" always being checked on upgrades
* Fixed winamp not loading if winamp.m3u is deleted or read-only
* Fixed reading of id3 tags not written in Unicode or ISO-8859-1

5.2.0365 Beta
* mp3 tag writing crash
* german language pack crash
* in_midi song length glitch
* foreign characters from incorrectly tagged id3v2 files

5.2.0359 Beta
* New: [ml_pmp] Synchronization the Media Library with your portable media player
(Compatible with iPod, Creative, and Microsoft Plays For Sure devices)
* New: [enc_aacplus] Coding Technologies aacPlus High Bitrate encoder available in Winamp Pro
* New: [enc_aacplus] Using Coding Technologies encoder for LC-AAC
* New: [enc_aacplus] AAC+ in MP4 container
* New: [in_mp3] gapless MP3 playback
* New: [installer] multi-user profile options
* New: [in_wave] in_wave 3.0
* Improved: new ATF functions and tags
* Improved: Stereo beat visualization for modern skins
* Improved: [in_midi] provides metadata to media library
* Improved: [in_mod] provides metadata to media library
* Improved: [in_mp3] unicode id3 tags
* Improved: [in_mp3] preliminary id3v2.4 support
* Fixed: broken playlist sorting
* Fixed: playlist problems with multi-line tags (e.g. %comment%)
* Fixed: shuffle with only one song in playlist
* Fixed: ghost seek slider appears if Winamp loses focus during seeking
* Fixed: [enc_lame] bit reservoir
* Fixed: [enc_lame] cutoff of last frame
* Fixed: [gen_ff] GDI Object leak with Current Skin prefs page
* Fixed: [in_midi] not following winamp's title formatting options
* Fixed: [in_midi] reset button blocks further access to config
* Fixed: [in_mod] not following winamp's title formatting options
* Fixed: [in_mp3] incorrect version identification (showed 5.18 in 5.12)
* Fixed: [in_mp3] incorrect information shown for AAC+ files
* Fixed: [in_mp3] reading incorrect id3 comment tag
* Fixed: [in_mp3] sometimes failing to read last id3 frame
* Fixed: [in_mp4] loss of album art when modified metadata
* Fixed: [in_vorbis] not following winamp's title formatting options
* Fixed: [in_vorbis] registry usage (now multi-user profile safe)
* Fixed: [in_wave] 32bit floating point WAV playback distortion
* Fixed: [in_wm] changes made with Attribute Editor not updating in ML/Playlist
* Fixed: [vis_milk] missing files from distro (you can stop bugging us now, Rovastar
* Fixed: [vis_milk] 100% cpu usage when paused
* Updated: [enc_lame] LAME 3.97b2
* Updated: [gen_ff] FreeType 2.1.10

Link, courtesy of DJ-Egg, from the Winamp 5.12 thread: http://download.nullsoft.com/winamp/beta/

First test with the new AAC encoder and it crashes... Does anybody have the same behaviour ?

What is　Coding Technologies aacPlus High Bitrate encoder?
There is not information either.

-- removed incorrect assumption --

Seems like CT applied aacPlus technique to high bitrate aac encoding, now not only for low bitrate situation.

Listening test is welcome here.

Edit: BTW, does somebody know any frontend that can use all aac encoding options?

Quick test with one track of my CD encoded @ 128k. The result showed that they are totally different encoder (not bit-identical).

With "Coding Technologies aacPlus High Bitrate encoder", the encoded aac file was reported as samplerate of 88200 with foobar v0.8.3. Compared with CT's aacPlus encoder, it's bit-allocation fluctuate much more than the old CT's aacPlus encoder.

I think this new encoder worth a listening test.


Edit: foobar2000 v0.8.3 cannot identify the m4a contained aac stream correctly (identified as LC-AAC). The raw aac stream be identifyed as double the samplerate.

Is gapless playback tweakable please?
I've re-ripped a live album and a studio one having EAC leave out gaps but there's still half a second of silence between tracks.
Is it a buffering issue maybe?

Gapless MP3 playback: How does it work? Is it using the encoder-delay like foobar2000 or the modified in_mp123.dll? Or is it just some kind of a smart crossfader?

DARcode: Try resetting the DirectSound output settings to default. The "buffer ahead on track changes" needs to be about 400-500ms to overcome the time it takes to start playing the next file. It was changed to 500 by default, but old Winamp installations might still be set to 0

amano: Dolby LC-AAC isn't being shipped anymore. However, the encoder from 5.12 might still be present if you installed over an old version.

Enig123: CT calls the new mode "Oversampled SBR". Basically, SBR is used to fill in frequencies from 16k-22k, rather than 8k-16k. It is oversampled to 88200 (harmlessly) in some cases. However, the CT decoder will play back at 44100 for MP4 files (where it can pre-configure itself using the audio descriptor)

kurtnoise: are you trying the encoder within Winamp? (i.e. ripping a CD) Or using a third-party front-end?

elmar3rd: it uses the delay information placed inside the XING/INFO header by LAME.

This version's default is 0, set it to 400 and it's working pefectly, thanks a lot!

Call me stupid... but what's the difference between beta_full, beta_full_devices, beta_pro?

Full_devices _is_ slightly larger.. 100k, approx. Enough to be able to upload to mp3 players, maybe? I don't know, try them all...

Yep. Sorry, that must have been a "leftover".

So there are 3 CT modes for us:
a) LC Mode
b) SBR-HE Mode for low Bitrates
c) special oversampling SBR mode

What do the bitstream options (MPEG 2 vs MPEG 4) do?
What do the accurate vs compatible options do with the MP4 container?

MPEG-4 bitstream enables the use of TNS (temporal noise shaping) and LTP (long term prediction, although I have no idea if the encoder actually uses it - i've heard mixed things about it). MPEG-4 should always be better, but older AAC decoder might not decode it.

The accurate vs compatible options are to help out old decoders. Older decoders might choke when they see certain SBR modes in the audio configuration.

p.s. added obligatory hydrogenaudio "cropped picture of a cat" avatar.

We should thank Winamp for simply giving us access to an open beta download folder; no repeat of that fiasco having an early 5.10 build available and being hotly debated here after Winamp "recalled" it!
First (very small!) bug: aacPlus encoding © 1998-2005 Coding Technologies.
Turn over the calendar page!
I've not yet seen any files with property described as 88.2 sample rate, perhaps because I encoded that aacPlus High Bitrate Encoder v1.2 at 160 kbps instead of the 192 it had initially defaulted at.
I would especially like to know how the resampled LC-AAC files work in iPods -- I have an iAudio X5.
But, I do have a Loox 720 PocketPC (2003 OS), and I'm now listening with TCPMP to files I encoded at 48 kbps with the parametric stereo option -- totally freaking awesome! I used Stanley Hwang's Media Coder, merely copying the newer 500 kb (vs 560 kb) enc_aacplus.dll to MediaCoder\codecs . The tags were correctly transferred from FLAC and are read in TCPMP. Transcoding speed from FLAC was slightly above 25x, comparing to about 29x using Lancer oggenc2 (and definitely lots faster than Nero's initial ver 7.0 implementation of tweaked low bitrate HE-AAC).
I think (sort of a question) that the space overhead for an MP4 container is more significant at these rates, and am glad MediaCoder created *.aac files smaller than what I got using MP4/aacPlus Encoder v1.2 with "File Information: Accurate Information" directly using Winamp 5.2.
One really has to wonder why there's no news of a Flash music player with playback support for these tweaked HE-AAC formats. Do the math -- an 8 Gb Flash music player filled with 48 kbps files is the equal of an iPod stocked with 26.6 Gb of iTunes store files (for $7,000 -- yeah, right!).

yep, ripping a CD. I've an error return "...can't find a decoder" something like that.

I also encountered the same problem. Just make sure you have enough previliege (administrator) and the CD driver is not slave.

Would you please tell me if FAAD can handle this?

benski, I've been playing with another Transcoder GUI that gives the option of choosing MPEG-4 for the aacPlus Encoder v 1.2, and my FLACs were turned into *.aac, all about 2,500 bytes larger than what I had got with MediaCoder. Is that 2,500 byte difference devoted to Temporal Noise Shaping?
I notice that the *.m4a files obtained by directly ripping the original CD and encoding in Winamp with that same codec were around 35.000 bytes larger still. Is that difference simply the container and tag info or is there additional sonic goodness?

Not sure how MediaCoder is working, but the extra 2500 bytes are likely the result of 0 padding added when Winamp tells the encoder that input has finished.

The extra 35,000 bytes in your m4a file is probably tags and MP4 container overhead.

Yo, Winamp guys!

Care for some write-ups?

The HA Wiki page for Winamp is still a stub...

Why not blabber yourself silly there

This is completely wrong.

TNS was already included in MPEG 2 AAC. The only relevant feature added in MPEG 4 AAC is PNS, which will help at lower bitrates. LTP isn't used by any sane encoder, because almost no decoders support it (FAAD2 does, but anything in hardware almost certainly wont). In fact, it's not even compatible with HE-AAC!

So, enabling this is safe except for very old hardware decoders.

FAAD2 has handled this for ages. (It's sometimes referred to as Downsampled SBR)

I believe this mode is a loss in almost all conditions btw, i.e. you will never get better quality than in normal modes. We have it in Nero AAC too, but it's disabled. Guess why

MP4 container should be quite low overhead (much less than AAC ADTS!).

Compared to ADIF AAC it may be bigger, but at least you can still seek (quickly).

Yeah, my bad. Mixing up acronyms.

TOS #8? (sorry, couldn't resist)

Thanks very much, Garf!
I'm wondering if ADIF is what XM Satellite uses, since there'd be no need for seeking in the broadcast stream.

That probably just uses a raw stream without headers, or packed with custom headers which are relevant for their application.

You should test it in any case. Just don't blindly encode all new files in this mode, without actually checking what happens, just because it seems new.

There is also LOAS, which allows raw streaming with light synchronization overhead. No idea what XM uses, tho.

AES article: aacPlus, Only a Low-Bitrate Codec?
Preprint Number: 6199 Convention: 117 (October 2004)
Authors: Ehret, Andreas; Horich, Holger; Kjorling, Kristofer; Purnhagen, Heiko; Roden, Jonas

Some listening tests are there.

At least the new CT's LC-AAC encoder has a frequency cutoff @ 16k Hz @ 128k bitrate (confirmed with Audacity).

IIRC, one of a former listening test degrade CT's LC-AAC encoder due to a low frequency cutoff (15.5k Hz).

Since AES is not accessible to everyone: at 80kbps to 96kbps it broke even, but at a large cost in extra processing, and a loss of compatibility.

In fact - one good use of single-rate SBR is compatibility with iPods but with following restrictions:

Pro - Single Rate SBR files would be played back on LC devices as 44.1 kHz encodings, with less pre-echo and little bit more bandwidth

Con - In fact, better quality could be achieved by directly encoding in appropriate LC mode

Con - Single Rate SBR, decoded on compliant decoder is not better neither than double rate SBR (except in few pre-echo cases) nor LC-AAC at 80 and 96 kbps - in best case it is marginally better - at least according to the listening tests from that AES paper

Con - Single Rate SBR bears very high penalty in decoding performance costs - something not to be bothered with on todays P4 PC, but still - it is a huge drop in performance

112 and 128 kbps modes are still to be investigated - but at this point I don't really think single-rate SBR is a way to go.

i have heard some rumours that multichannel aac encoding isnt supported anymore? is that true?

@Benski or someone else : could you provide short samples from aacplus encoder (with mpeg2 and mpeg4 bitstream), please ?

I would like to check something. Thanks...

the Winamp 5.2.0365 Beta build is out!

It fixes this stuff:
* mp3 tag writing crash
* german language pack crash
* in_midi song length glitch
* foreign characters from incorrectly tagged id3v2 files

I uodated the first thread posts.

At last, unicode support for ID3v2 tags in winamp. I won't stop using fb2k though.

I just had to do the silliest things

Transcoded some .ogg to .m4a, then out of sheer curiosity, rename one to .aac and try to play it in WinAmp.

It crashed spectacularly.

New build out with these fixes:

5.2.0393
* Fixes a memory leak when using playlist winshade mode in the modern skin.
* Fixes in_mp3 security hole.
* Added experimental skin-colored icons to media library tree - let us know what you think.
* Changed the "Devices" parent node (in media library) to "Rip & Burn". The dialog on this page is still in the experimental phase.
* Portable Media Player fixes
* Fixed blank titles for unknown filetypes ("Fixed in_mp3 blankness. Still gotta fix in_vorbis")
* Fixed blank titles when atf is disabled (uses default "artist - title")
* Fixed not all tracks showing in ml for cd's ripped to m4a
* Fixed tracklength display for mp3's with CRCs
* Fixed tracklength displaying as 0:00 for dragged url's
* Fixed "Show Winamp in folder context menus" always being checked on upgrades
* Fixed winamp not loading if winamp.m3u is deleted or read-only
* Fixed reading of id3 tags not written in Unicode or ISO-8859-1

Why does it call home when I close it?

You can turn that off. It tries to update its (shoutcast,...) server list.

General Preferences --> Media Library --> Online Media --> Modify Preferences -----> There uncheck the "Look for new online media channels on exit"

I agree. That should be grouped with all other "online" preferences, to make Winamp's internet behaviour more transparent.

Don't know if this is fixed yet in latest build (failed to download it several times), just want to report that build 365, I can view/edit .ogg properties only once per file. If I close the dialog box and want to open it again for the same file, it won't. I can open the .ogg properties for other .ogg files, also only once.

Have to restart Winamp if I want to view/edit .ogg properties of the same file.

It's in the known bugs here: http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?po...395#post1851395.

I think that it is to note that the new Winamp developer team is much more focused on sound quality and standards compliance. Gapless MP3 playing, LAME encoding, MP4 containers, proper unicode support (even support for ape tags is planned!).

I still have to bug them to turn off the crappy MP3 equalizer by default and to use the much better global one (from 4Front).

Couldn't see where it's mentioned, can you please point it out ot me?
Thanks, I still forget about it msyelf sometimes, but it just takes a quick listen to notice.

Certainly not for, 5.2 but (maybe) for a later release.



OK. It sounds rather like a "maybe", but it is more than it was before.

A build 427 was posted for download a few hours ago.
The Winamp forum thread is at http://tinyurl.com/8fga6 .