Ultimate Winamp Audio guide

Ultimate Winamp Audio/Video Playback Guide

---What this guide attempts to accomplish: •

Full DirectShow Video Playback of: o .MPG, .MPEG, .M2V, .AVI, .MKV, .MP4 and .FLV are fully playable, pausable, and seekable with no issues.

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Full Subtitles in Videos: o Perfect quality subtitles for watching anything from foreign movies to fan subbed anime with embedded subtitles (such as .MKV).

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Full Audio Playback: o Pretty much any audio file that is supported by Winamp Pro at default will still be playable. No audio modifications will be made with this guide, EXCEPT for codecs needed to play certain video files. These will be provided by following this guide, but they will not affect audio playback at all.

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Flawless Integration with the Winamp Media Library: o All Videos that are supported by this guide will of course show up by default in the videos section. They are fully playable by searching and playing from inside of the Winamp media library.

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Full Thumbnailing in Windows Explorer For ALL Audio and Video files: o Audio thumbnails will come from the thumbnail pack for Winamp from the Winamp site. All video thumbnails will be achieved by using Icaros (which will be installed alongside the codec pack during the one-stage install!!

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Simplified Install Process: o Previous Guide Versions installed everything manually – this new version installs everything you need in one install!

---Limitations: •

NO MADVR: o Well, this should come as no surprise. Since Winamp is not designed to have MADVR support built in, it will not work. At least not without some serious recoding of Winamp itself. I have not seen any quality loss though, coming from MPC: HC with CCCP installed with MADVR, to using these tweaks with Winamp. I could only tell a difference if I played a video through something like VLC, which tends to wash out colors pretty bad (and occasionally tends to give me a damn seizure). So, for a majority of users, you can expect NO visual difference between this, and let’s say using MPC: HC with CCCP and MadVR.

---Requirements: •

The latest version of Winamp Pro (Version 5.65 July 23rd 2013 as of this guide) o I have Winamp Pro, and have not tried using the free version with these tweaks. So this guide will only apply to Winamp Pro users (for now). If someone would like to give the free a try and let me know if it works –great! o NO OTHER CODECS AND/OR PACKS INSTALLED. Also, older or newer versions of these codecs listed are NOT supported by this guide. o Removal of Icaros for thumbnailing is required. This was installed in previous guide versions and has been made irrelevant now with the pack install. It comes with its own version that will be setup during the install of the pack. Any other version will probably cause problems, so make sure to remove it. o General computer knowledge of software and hardware. This guide expect you know your way around your computer a bit and how to find install applications, as well as some basic knowledge of the hardware in your computer in order to know what settings to set up for hardware decoding. If you don’t know what Nvidia or Intel QuickSync are, then google them for an idea.

---Software Used in Guide •

winamp565_pro.exe o (Winamp Pro, Version 5.65) Get this from Winamp website: http://www.winamp.com  This is of course the Winamp media player.

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Winamp_Icon_Pack_2_3_4.exe o (The Winamp Icon Pack, Version 2.3.4) Get this from the Winamp website. http://www.winamp.com/plugin/winamp-icon-pack/222319  This is the Winamp Icon pack from the Winamp website. This will allow for great thumbnails for audio files. For instance, all your music files will have a Winamp icon while in the “Details” view while in Windows Explorer. That icon will also display in thumbnails view if you do not have your art tagged to your music files.

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K-Lite_Codec_Pack_1000_Mega.exe o (K-Lite Codec Pack, Version 10) Get this from the K-Lite website: http://codecguide.com/download_k-lite_codec_pack_mega.htm  This is the codec pack we will be using for Winamp. K-Lite now fully integrates with your system (after some tweaking) to allow flawless audio and video playbackThe most important and notable “sub features” of this codec pack are as follows: • LAV Video – Decoder supporting hardware acceleration • ffdshow – Decoder supporting older hardware and compatibility for certain formats that LAV cannot handle alone. • Haali Media Splitter – Splitter that is need to handle .MKV files. Without this, you will not get proper playback. • DirectVobSub – This will give you subtitles in videos that have them via xy-VSFilter. This will work automatically in most cases, and subtitle tracks can be changed at will via tray icons. • The codec pack installs it’s own configuration utility with shortcuts. This includes options for thumbnailing, as well as the Win7DSFilterTweaker tool that comes with the codec pack (needed after install to get Winamp to work).

---Important Information Regarding Decoders (Must Read!) LAV Video and ffdshow. You will need to give this a read. No matter what your hardware is, we will be installing both LAV video and ffdshow. These are used to decode audio and video streams from files. There are important differences though, and which you need to use will depend on your hardware. Read below for an explanation of each decoder, and which one you should use depending on the requirements. Please note that BOTH need to be installed. If you end up using on or the other, some file formats will only play on a particular decoder in certain circumstances (example: .FLV depends on LAV splitter to play the audio/video stream from the file correctly. However, it also relies on some functions of ffdshow depending on hardware, so both are required in nearly every circumstance.) •

LAV Video o This is the current best in my opinion. It allows you to use hardware acceleration for your video files. Meaning it takes the load away from your processor threads. This of course is the easiest way to get the best looking video. Use this if you have a fairly modern GPU or a CPU with built in decoding (Like Ivy Bridge Processors). Pretty much any modern GPU above an Nvidia 9800 or an AMD HD 4770 will handle any modern high quality video with ease while using LAV for acceleration.

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ffdshow o ffdshow is an older decoder. However, this doesn’t require or use GPU hardware acceleration, so it is the preferred tool on older hardware, such as older laptops with weaker CPU’s and no dedicated GPU. It also has more features than LAV, such as post processing options you can change to your liking. Some prefer this, but LAV can give you better quality video playback, so don’t use this unless you have to. You still need ffdshow with LAV video to play certain formats.

---Pre-installation Steps Removal of ALL CODEC PACKS and or CODECS This is an ABSOLUTE MUST. This guide will only work if your computer is clean of other packs/codecs, even if the codecs used in this guide are the ones you have on your computer. I will be having you install and configure things in a specific order for a REASON - which reason is that I have got this to work on THREE different systems without issue using these steps. It is a fool proof way to get the codecs to work for you. Not following this guide to the letter can and probably will lead to problems. One system had only 2GB and a Dual Core Pentium 4 Processor running Windows 7 Home Premium x64, and it still had flawless 8-bit playback and subtitling for 1080p videos. That performance is achieved through precision and careful installation. I have made this guide after the successful install and testing of these tweaks, even with heavily fan subbed 10-bit .mkv's on my desktop.

Clean Installation of Winamp Supported version as of this guide is 5.65. Even if you have Winamp installed and it is this version, it might be a good idea to complete remove it and do a clean reinstall. Completely remove Winamp, reboot your computer, and then reinstall. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE YOUR WINAMP PRO KEY. You will probably need it during reinstall.

Active Winamp Pro Open Winamp if it is not running already, and go to options > preferences. You can enter your Winamp Pro key in the "Winamp Pro" tab on the left. If you are already registered, it will say so.

Ready Winamp for Codec Packs The default Winamp pro setup has a few plug-ins that will cause issues. The best way to do this is to completely exit Winamp and completely remove them from your plug-ins directory located in: Program Files > Winamp > Plugins The files that you will be deleting are the default Input plug-ins. Most come even with Winamp free, some included with Pro (I think). These either don't work well at all normally such as with .MKV playback, or just plain cause issues. The five files to delete from your plug-ins folder are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

in_avi.dll (Nullsoft AVI Demuxer) in_mkv.dll (Nullsoft Matroska Demuxer) in_mp4.dll (Nullsoft MP4 Demuxer) in_swf.dll (Nullsoft Flash Control Playback) in_flv.dll (Nullsoft Flash Video Decoder)

Install the Winamp Icon Pack The Winamp Icon Pack will change all audio and video icon files for users who do not use thumbnailing at all, or for those who do, will give thumbnails in the “Details” video of explorer. Install with default settings, and select your color pack during install. You can also change the color pack from inside Winamp itself, located in the Winamp Preferences under General Preferences > Jump To File > Extras. If you install the pack, make sure it is enabled and has the checkbox “Enable ‘File Types’ preferences page additions in order for custom file icons to work in Windows.

---Installation Steps K-Lite Codec Pack Install First, let’s begin installing the K-Lite codec pack. Simple run the “KLite_Codec_Pack_1000_Mega.exe” file from your computer as ADMIN. MAKE SURE TO INSTALL HIS AS AN ADMINISTRATOR. The codec pack will NOT install correctly otherwise. The first thing that will popup is a very generic install prompt. Click next to continue.

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Next, you will be prompted with the installation type. We will need to configure some settings during install depending on your hardware, so let’s choose the “Advanced mode:” install.

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Now the installer wants to know where to install the codec pack. Just leave this alone, and click next again.

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Now comes the chance to select what components to install. Now really pay attention, because this may be really easy or take some extra configuration depending on which decoder you are going to use: LAV Video (hardware decoding) or ffdshow (older hardware). First, select “Profile 2: Default (without player)”. This will install the codec pack, but will NOT install MPC: HC that comes bundled with as well as some other things that are not needed. We will be using Winamp, so this option is the best.

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Now you need to decide on if you are going to use LAV Video, or ffdshow. Refer to page 4 if you are not sure of which to use. IF USING LAV VIDEO: Simply click next at the bottom of the page! That’s it! For LAV video, no extra configuration is needed. Winamp will play using hardware acceleration on formats it supports, and will use ffdshow for those that do not in rare cases. .FLV playback will work using ffdshow in order to play, but will also use LAV for hardware acceleration. IF USING FFDSHOW: You need to change a few settings on the “Select Components” page. Since we will NOT be using LAV at all because your hardware is too old or incompatible, we will make is so you can still playback audio/video using only ffdshow. Steps as follows: 1.) Change “H.264” to use “ffdshow” 2.) Change “MPEG-4” to use “ffdshow”

3.) Change “MPEG-2” to use “ffdshow (libavcodec)” 4.) Change “VC-1” to use “ffdshow”

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5.) Change “Flash Video” to use “ffdshow” 6.) Since this is it for this page, you can now click next after verifying settings are indeed correct.

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This next page is asking what to name the start menu folder. Just leave this as default and click next.

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The page “Additional Tasks and Options” needs to have two settings changed. Scroll down to the bottom of the box on this page and make sure to check this first option and uncheck the last.

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This page do nothing. Ffdshow users will need no LAV config later. LAV users will configure LAV Video later in the guide after the codec install is completed.

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This page is for the configuration of the built in Icaros tool. It will generate video thumbnails for all support video types in Windows Explorer. You want to “Select all” to select all video types, then click next to apply the changes.

NOTE: You will want to use Disk Cleanup to clean your Windows thumbnail cache. This is very important to get the thumbnails to generate correctly. Make a mental note and do this later.

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Now comes our speaker configuration. This is not your windows configuration, but the speaker mixer configuration the codec pack will use for video playback in Winamp. Select your MOST USED audio channel setup. If you have 5.1 surround sound, but nearly always watch your movies/videos with headphones like I do, then you will want to set this to “2.0 (stereo)”.

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The next few pages are offers for the usual “spyware” toolbars you see on any free software. Make sure to uncheck those. Once you get to the final page, make sure to check “Run Codec Tweak Tool”. This will open the configuration utility we need to access a few settings we will need to change regarding the codec pack.

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Now, the “Codec Tweak Tool” should have popped up after finishing the codec install. If not, you can find it as “Codec Tweak Tool” in your start menu or start screen. If you did not check it and run it from your install and need to open it, MAKE SURE TO RUN IT AS ADMIN. Once you have the window in front of you, you need to click “Preferred Decoders” underneath “Win7DSFilterTweaker:” This will pull up the DirectShow filter selector tool so we can set our decoders to work properly.

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Now you should have the DirectShow filter tweaker open. It should look something like this:

Now, since I use LAV Video, you will notice how I have LAV selected. Since I use LAV, I selected it throughout the whole program where it was available. This sets LAV to be the default decoder and splitter in all cases so I get hardware acceleration. If you configured the codec pack for ffdshow during install, you just do the same thing, but select ffdshow where available instead of LAV Video. Note that some options will only have “Microsoft” as a valid option. Don’t worry, sometimes the built in decoders that come installed with Windows are good enough for basic formats. Once you have made sure you have selected everything relevant to your preferred decoder, make sure to hit “Apply”, then “Apply & Close”. Then that’s it for the codec configuration! You can exit out of the tweaker tool. We are not done yet! We have to set up some other settings, so keep going! Almost there…

---Configuring LAV Video Acceleration If you chose LAV video, we skipped turning on acceleration earlier because we will have to set up additional settings. Find and run “Codec Tweak Tool” once more as ADMIN. Once you have the tweak tool open, click on “DirectShow Filters” under “Configuration”.

This will pull up the window of the filters installed by the codec pack. We will set the video acceleration for your GPU type, as well as what formats to use the acceleration on. Do this by clicking on “LAV Video Decoder (x86)”

Now, in the top left, set your desired Hardware Acceleration under “Hardware Acceleration”. Depending on your GPU type, use the following under the drop down menu: Nvidia

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NVIDIA CUVID

AMD/ATI =

DXVA2 (native)

Intel IGPU =

Intel Quicksync

Also, you need to set the enabled codecs to be used for hardware acceleration. Make sure the to check the ones that are checked in the next image, and leave the two that are not checked unchecked.

Make sure to hit “Apply”, then “OK”. After that, set the EXACT same settings in the previous image for the “LAV Video Decoder (x64)” if you are on a 64 bit system. This will ensure acceleration works.

---Configure Winamp for Audio and Video Playback Now we configure a few Winamp related audio settings. First, make sure your audio settings on your computer are set to 2 Channel, 24 Bit, 48000 Hz if possible. This will give you absolute quality audio playback for headphone/stereo users. Change channels to 5.1 if you listen to most of your audio/video on 5.1, etc. Just select your MOST used speaker config (stereo 2.0 in most cases). Note this picture: This is my audio configuration on my Asus Xonar Phoebus, a $200 PCI-E audio card. I do not have highest setting selected – because UPSAMPLING causes AUDIO LOSS and DISTORTION in most cases. Mine is set to 2 channel, 24 bit (to support 24 bit audio when available), 48000 Hz.

You can up the Hz to a higher setting if your card supports it, but you will only be up-scaling your audio unless you record your OWN audio and video at higher frequencies. Up-scaling will give you DECREASED audio quality, not improved. If your audio card supports 24 bit audio and has correct audio drivers installed, we can enable 24 bit audio playback instead of 16 bit for increased audio quality inside of Winamp. This is NOT up scaling. Winamp will only output 24 bit audio for files that are encoded in 24 bit (rare cases – if you are audio supports it, enable it). Otherwise output will still be 16 (all .mp3’s for instance are 16 bit, usually 44.1 or 48 MHz). You can do this in Options > Preferences > Playback, and under the Audio section check "Allow 24bit". You will be given a warning, but ignore it and try some music. If it works, you are good to go. If not, either your audio card is old/junk or you have driver issues with sound. Revert the "Allow 24bit" audio setting to restore sound.

Next, we need to tell Winamp to use the codecs on the computer we installed for certain files it cannot play. We do this by going to Options > Preferences > Plug-ins > Input. o

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You need to double click the "Nullsoft DirectShow Decoder" to pull up its settings dialog. In here, you will replace everything inside of the text box with the EXACT following:  "MPG;MPEG;M2V;AVI;MKV;MP4;FLV" Minus the quotes of course. Make sure to hit "OK". This will tell Winamp to use the codec packs threw DirectShow for those formats, enabling playback.

---Troubleshooting This guide has been tested on three of my builds. The weakest having a Single Core Pentium 4 and 512MB of ram, all the way up to my newest desktop, with a 4.5 GHz i5-3570k on water cooling, with 16 GB of ram and an Nvidia 660 TI. I have had no issues with this guide on either machines, 2 using LAV Video as the primary decoder, and the older one with a single core using ffmpeg (and my desktop in a previous version of this guide). If you have issues and cannot get playback to work, please try these steps below. •

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First, try to reconfigure the packs. You may have forgotten to run certain configs as admin. This is extremely important because in both Windows 7 and 8, UAC tends to be a pain. But take note I am using Windows 8 on my desktop, and no issues with this guide. I just made sure to install everything and configure it via it’s apps as admin via the right click interface from Windows Explorer. Any issues with Windows Explorer thumbnailing would be related to your cache settings in most cases. Use disk cleanup to completely clean out your thumbnail cache, then restart your computer. Next, try a clean install of everything. That means codecs, Winamp, any codec pack leftovers on your computer, other media/video players (this guide attempts to make it so you don’t EVER need any other player). Chances are your computer might have some left over configurations from older codec packs or players. Just make sure to uninstall everything from control panels “Programs and Features” (that’s what it is called in Windows 8, not sure about earlier versions). Make sure to uninstall Winamp, and to uninstall all its preferences during that uninstall. I installed this on a fairly clean system, with Windows 8 installed just a few weeks before.

If you still have issues with this guide, please let me know everything you can via any of the contact info options at the end of this guide. The thread on the Winamp Forums is the fastest way as I will accessional check that almost every day. The link is at the end of this guide. ***NOTE*** This is a collection I have made myself are spending countless hours testing and tweaking to find the correct filters, codecs, and settings to get this to work. I have NOT created any of the original files found in this guide, and am not taking any credit for the actual software. I am only taking the credit for compiling the files and guide so anyone can enjoy using Winamp Pro in a way that really makes your computer a media powerhouse

---Contact Info Christopher Suttles aka “LoliHunter”

Email: [email protected]

Thread Link for Support and Guide Info: http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=369826