Hello everyone
I've seen some
questions about this on a couple lists so I thought I'd write this
up. It is a bit lengthy as the subject line says but I hope you'll
stick with it. A while ago, the subject of converting files using
Winamp came up, and I thought I'd explain the process in some detail
for those who are interested. Unfortunately, real audio files don't
really work well with Winamp nowadays. At least, that's been my
experience. If anyone's been able to get them to play in Winamp 5.5,
please please let me know!
However, if you have a WMA file that you want as an mp3, or if you
have a cd track as a wav file that you want as an mp3, you can use
Winamp's discwriter plugin to do this task.
So, here's how you do it, step by step. Remember, if you have an
interest in this, save the e-mail somewhere and go back to it later
so you can perform the steps.
Ok, here we go!
1. Fire up Winamp, you knew that one would be in there.
2. now find the file that you want to convert and open it up in
Winamp, either by pressing enter on it or through the open file dialogue.
3. Ok, now press the letter v to stop it, we don't want it to keep playing.
4. now here's where the fun starts. go to the preferences, control
plus p of course.
5. go to the plugins section and then choose output in the tree view.
6. now tab over to the list of plugins, and focus on the one called
the Nullsoft Discwriter plugin, your version number may vary but it
all comes to the same.
7. now, it's time to configure it so that we can tell what type of
file to convert to.
so tab to the configure button.
8. now you're going to be in a dialogue with some buttons in it. the
first one will determine where your output file, that is to say your
converted file will be saved. you may hear something like,output file
location c:\doccuments and settings...my music button.
If you press that button, a dialogue will pop up and you can then
determine where your file will be saved.
9. now that you've done that, you'll be back in the dialogue, and the
next thing you'll see is a checkbox that says,output to directory
containing source files, and by default, this is unchecked. This is
so that you can have your converted file in exactly the same folder
as the original file was.
so check that if you want the file to go there, i would do that for
simplicities sake. You can always move it later.
10. Next checkbox you'll see says, display save as dialogue for every
file. This is so that if you're converting an entire list of files,
you'll be able to determine where each file goes. I would imagine
that you would probably want them all to go in the same folder, but
maybe not? so check that if you like, i normally leave it as is
because usually I'm only converting one file. This is unchecked by default.
11. Next up, we have a combo box that determines if there are or
numbers at the beginning of your outputted file name.
the choices you have are, disabled, 1 digit, 2 digits, 3 digits and
4 digits.
I can't imagine why anyone would actually want 4 digits, that is
unless you're converting literally thousands of files, which i've
never done and probably won't ever do. If I'm converting something
from an album i like to at least have a number at the beginning of
the file name, 01, or 02, depending on where you are in the playlist of files.
but if you want to disable this, you can.
12. Next, we have a combo box that determines the title format, the
one by default is % title %. this means you get the % which equals
the first 2 numbers like we mentioned before, artist name, title and
then the track name. so i would keep that as is.
13. Next we have output file type, and the choice is set to auto
recommended. this is so you can choose different file formats. and
after that there is a checkbox that says enable single mode, which
I'm not sure about. so leave auto recommended as is, and the single
mode check box on my system is unchecked.
14. Ok, now we're getting to the good part here, hang with me
folks! this next checkbox will determine wether or not Winamp
actually remembers what file you convert to a lot, so if you convert
to mp3 a lot, leave this checkbox checked so you can just perform the
final few steps.
Now, tab once again and you'll land on a button that determines what
file you can actually convert your file to. for mine in particular,
this button says,
MPEG layer 3 192KBPS, 44.1 K Hertz, stereo
that's usually what i convert to, but if you want something
different, you can press this button and you can change the file
type, bitrate and sampling rate of your file. Note that if you don't
have the radium codec installed, you won't be able to convert to
anything higher than 56k, 22.50 k hertz stereo.
I believe the lame encoder will fix this too, and the lame encoder
should be very easy to find if you do a little hunting around.
15. Ok, now that you've determined everything about your file, it's
time to actually do the conversion! So tab past that next checkbox,
i have no idea what the thread priority hack refers to, so just press
ok and you'll be in the preferences again. so now, close the
preferences in the usual way.
16. Ok, now to convert your file, press the letter x which will,
essentially play your file, but you won't hear any sound. Trust me,
you won't. that's just how this plugin works because it moves very quickly.
If you want to know the status of your conversion, press the hotkey
which reads your title bar, insert t for JAWS and control shift t for
Window-eyes, or whatever one you use. You will know your file is
converted when you hear the name of your file, followed by Winamp
stopped. Note that while the file conversion happens, you may notice
that software speech is slower to respond, and sometimes it just
doesn't happen at all, but like I say the conversions happen very quickly.
17. If you followed all the steps above, congratulations, you just
converted your first file with Winamp. Believe me, subsequent
conversions won't be such a long process, especially if you have the
checkbox to remember your file type preferences. But before you go
listen to your newly created file, you have to switch your output
plugin back to the one you ordinarily use. If you attempt to listen
to another file, you'll just be creating more files and you'll have
a lot of stuff on your hard drive you don't want. So, open the
preferences again, tab over to the list of plugins and then choose
the plugin you used before, i would bet it's either the Nullsoft
waveout plugin or the direct sound one. But the idea here is to
change it back to whatever plugin you were using before. so once you
do that, tab to the close button and you can now go back to rockin
with Winamp! I hope this wasn't too long but i did want to write this
process out. This is especially cool because when you want to
convert a file again, all you'll need to do is switch to the
discwriter plugin, play your file and Winamp will convert it. then
all you have to do is switch back to your regular plugin and life's
good. Hope this helped some folks!
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