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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Tuesday, September 3, 2002

BYTE MARKS
Winamp3 takes on Real Player

By Burt Lum

By now I would hope that you have made your voice heard in support of the Internet Radio Fairness Act, HR 5285.

Aside from faxing and calling your congressional representative, you can do what Internet broadcaster Rabbett has done and visit each office of the Hawai'i delegation. Read about how his efforts online.

In spite of Library of Congress royalty fees, there is still a ground swell of activity on the multimedia front. Last month, NullSoft announced a major upgrade to its popular Winamp player. Download instructions can be found at the Winamp Web site.

What initially caught my attention about the announcement was the fact, included in the statement, that NullSoft is owned by AOL Time Warner. I've always enjoyed the Winamp player, but I never thought twice about its origins, since it was preloaded on my Windows PC. These details sometimes escape me but once realized, it certainly puts things in proper perspective.

The peak popularity of Winamp, for me, was during the Napster heyday when MP3s were a national obsession. The Winamp application allowed one to manage the audio files efficiently. At that time, it focused on files on your computer's hard drive, unlike Real Player or Windows Media that targeted online streaming of audio and video files.

Until the press release, file handling was the niche I saw Winamp playing. That has all changed now as Winamp3 goes head to head with Windows Media and Real Player for the streaming market. Version 3 of Winamp comes after two years without any major enhancements to the application. With the new version come customizable features like skins, an online browser window, ShoutCast radio support and added file management.

Files played on the Winamp3 are stored in a media library database allowing the entire media collection to be sorted by year, genre, artist, year, and type. The Winamp Thinger is key to accessing all the new features. It allows one-click access to the playlist, media library, video window and the visualization studio. It's like an electronic Lava Lite. Essential! ;-)

Burt Lum is one click away at burt@brouhaha.net.