Tuesday, February 7th, 2006
AjaxAMP 2.0: Ajax Media Player
Category: Showcase
Gabriel Levy has released a new version of AjaxAMP the network control for WinAMP.
What’s new?
There are numerous UI and performance enhancements, but the most obvious difference is the addition of the Media Library, which lets you share files on the server and browse/play/enqueue them from the browser with all the lovely Ajaxian snappiness people are learning to love these days.
- Added Media Library! Browse/Enqueue/Play shared files remotely
- Drag n’drop from Media Library to Playlist
- Intelligent cache for much increased performance w/large playlists
- Fixed Firefox 1.5 render bug
- Added controls to hide playlist/media library
- Many small bug fixes
4.4 rating from 78 votes
[...] http://ajaxian.com/archives/ajaxamp-20-ajax-media-player [...]
Love this plugin, and there’s certainly some awesome ajax at work here, but my question is: what’s the point? I load up winamp on my laptop, and access the server from another pc to play music ….. on my laptop? If this allowed me to load up my playlists at home and then access them from work and stream them through the browser, now that would be EXTREMELY useful. Other than using one computer on my network to control music being output from another, there’s no use for this.
Thanks for the comments. I originally wrote this plugin because my desktop machine at home is hooked up to my stereo, forcing me to get up off the couch everytime I wanted to adjust the music. With this plugin, I use the laptop to control the “stereo machine” from anywhere in the house. Similarly, at work, everyone can control whichever computer in the office is playing music, useful for muting the music when the phone rings or just adding to the playlist. Now, I agree that this has somewhat limited appeal, but I think those who use it for this type of set up find it pretty useful.
That said, I have already been hard at work adding streaming from remote media libraries to version 3.0. Incidentally, this will allow you to play music FROM one computer ON another computer USING a third computer…strange concept. Remote DJing? If you’d like to beta test it, email me.
I disagree with the first comment about uselessness. My roommates and I use this plugin to share a playlist that we broadcast over our network via Shoutcast. Glad to hear, though, that this extra step might be unnecessary in version 3.0.
I have noticed one issue, though, involving network shares. If a user attemps to access (or enqueue) a remote directory that is not currently available, AjaxAMP’s ML (or playlisit) goes blank. And the only way I’ve found to restore it is to restart the browser. Is there a way to fix this?
Overall, though, stellar work on this plugin! It’s by far the best of its kind.
I tried Mediastork the other day and that thing works great, it’s still in an alpha stage, but good enough for remote media streaming you can stream video and music and games. The only problem is that you’ll need to have coldfusion installed and it can be a little bit tricky to setup.
Mediastork Manager
I will look around if I can find any other similar programs / plugins.
Excellent!
perfect performace…
This is fantastic. Excellent performance and great promise for some amazing network functionality. Adding streaming to this program would make it the best plugin of all time.
This is just what I’ve been looking for, but I can’t get it to work. I can view the current playlist and start/stop playing stuff in the playlist, but nothing is listed in the media library. Tried re-installing Winamp and the plugin, plus re-adding music to the media library. Get the same problem in IE6 or Firefox 1.5.
If anyone knows how to fix this please email me at mark.harri5@ntlworld.com. Thanks.
This is a great plugin. Unfortunately I can’t get it to install on my music server which is running Win 2k. When I try to run the installer I get a message that the file is corrupt, incomplete, or is a virus. It presents the option of running it with the command line switch of /NCRC but the same thing happens.
Does anyone have any suggestions? ( other than upgrade my OS)
TIA!
Correction to the above post. I eventually got it working by downloading from a different box and transferring the install file. For some reason that box didn’t want to get the whole file.
Things are working great. I love the plugin. It is exactly what I have been looking for. One glitch though; my playlist shows up but the ML window is always blank. Any thoughts?
Keep up the great work!
The first time i used it was at school and for some reason, everything works well except the sound. And what’s the point if there is no sound. So hopefully u guys can explain this. Just to make it clear so that i dont have to repeat, the playlist comes up and i can see my entire library, but the sound doesnt play even though i can see the player running.
Thank you!
Wow… this is exactly what I was looking for today! Very slick. I can wander the house with my laptop and control the music piped from my main PC to the stereo system.
The only glitch I’m having is that the media library window appears empty. I’ve tried in both Firefox 1.5.0.1 and IE 6. Any thoughts on this would be welcome.
What an awesome implementation of a great idea :)
Do you have a list of current bugs and features for your version 3 rather than repeating stuff again?
One feature id really like to see is IE Mobile support for my Ipaq! I was hoping there was a template to alter but you have built it all into the plugin.
P.S. Toddz, you have to add the folders seperately for this plugin in its options dialog. It doesnt actually use winamps media library as a source.
We use this on our LAN at work (one computer plays MP3s, that’s pretty much all it does) and we mount network drives from that machine to our shared directories… it’s a great setup.
We’ve been using BrowseAmp for a few years and we’ve really enjoyed it, but for some reason it seems to lock up WinAmp from time to time (forcing us to reboot that machine). AjaxAMP seems to have alleviated this problem and so far it is MUCH faster to load than BrowseAmp.
Everyone loves it so far, thanks for all of your hard work!
This Plugin is really awesome! I’ve been searching for a solution like this for nearly 2 years. Almost every plugin in this category (remote control) seems to look bad or has less features.
AJAXAMP is damn fast in responding and starting up and additionally it looks pretty good!
I am using it to control my desktop (which is connected to my hifi-stereo system) from my notebook over WLAN.
DAMN cool!
But theres something missing that i use pretty often: the search (located at DEL and F3) perhaps this is realizable..?
Wow I really appreciate all the feedback! Version 3.0 is almost done. Just a few minor issues to work out before I start the beta testing phase. This release will fix some annoying bugs and address a lot of the concerns people have raised here. Streaming from remote media libraries, searching, sorting, it’s all in there. I’m also trying to get the website together before I launch the next version officially. It has gotten to the point that some proper Docs and an FAQ are necessary for the uninitiated to understand how to use this thing to its full potential. Stay tuned!
It’s a great plugin. But I’m disappointed with the Media Library. How do I add some files in there? It’s always blank and the choice of controling only one playlist makes the plugin lesser useful.
The Media Library i empty by default. To add folders to it, you must go into the AjaxAMP configuration screen, click the “Library” tab, and add some folders to the library. You can reach the configuration screen by right-clicking Winamp and going to Options->Preferences->Plugins->General Purpose Plugins
The plugin doesn’t seem to properly support network drives. I would very much like to see this work. I use the plugin in my office so everyone can have some influence on the music that is played. However, I wouldn’t want to download everyones music to my own computer.
Exactly what I needed… I too am too lazy to stand up and press next. This beat’s RDP to remotely contol my MM PC by a mile.
Thanks.
Hello! I came across your site from a yahoo search. I must say the content here is sweet. If I may post my opinion I also agree with the above views. Good job :-)
I can’t find this plugin on the winamp site (and the link doesn’t work). Does anyone know what’s going on, has Mr. Levy disappeared from the planet along with his marvellous creations? :)
I can’t find the plugin either. What happened?
Maybe ver 2.0 was removed before ver 3.0 was posted? I’ve seen this happen before. Check back in a few days I bet.
Version 2 was removed from the Winamp site to make way for the release of version 3. I’m hoping Ajaxian.com will do another showcase on the new version. In the meantime, you can download version 3 at http://www.ajaxamp.com.
This is a great site. Not everyone has to agree but I sure do. Can’t wait for some more posts.Keep it real.
Exactly the same problem here. Using the latest versions (Winamp 5.21 & AjaxAMP 3.0.2).
This is my first visit here, but boy, its been a great help. I was looking for something exactly like this. Thank you very much.
I think I have a solution for the firt comment. If you could use something like a “Hamachi”, get connected to your home PC via virtual LAN, you can access your home music. If your office firewall alows u to do that, that is.
The first time i used it was at school and for some reason, everything works well except the sound. And what’s the point if there is no sound. So hopefully u guys can explain this. Just to make it clear so that i dont have to repeat, the playlist comes up and i can see my entire library, but the sound doesnt play even though i can see the player running.
Exactly the same problem here. Using the latest versions (Winamp 5.21 & AjaxAMP 3.0.2).
got tghe same prob, but i can download the songs….
“The first time i used it was at school and for some reason, everything works well except the sound. And what’s the point if there is no sound. So hopefully u guys can explain this. Just to make it clear so that i dont have to repeat, the playlist comes up and i can see my entire library, but the sound doesnt play even though i can see the player running.”
got tghe same prob, but i can download the songs….
I to can see the whole thing over the net, but i cant get any sound, however i can download the music… any clue? what is wrong?
I have a dedicated PC feeding audio to our stereo,
winamp as the player.
Now my blind wife can use her screen reader on her
PC to select music …. enabling technology!
I’m looking to hack the html to make it more accessable –
is source available in any manner? (I can reverse engineer
the html/js, but commented code can make that an easier
task :>)
Next step: control of the cd player, radio & tv off her screen
via IR interface. You’ve inspired me.
Coder Proposal for a Media Player (respond to daviddanish@gmail.com)
1. We need someone who has experience in AJAX and has a media player coded out that can skin & implement it with an already designed MP3 player and video player (which we could have converted into CSS for you or you could do it yourself if it’s easier).
2. Below is a link to the mp3 & video player images
1. http://picasaweb.google.com/daviddanish/TheILLIST20?authkey=roiw8Fer3h0
3. Specifically, we need all of the following formats:
1. Audio:
1. MP3
2. WAV
2. Video:
1. MPEG
2. AVI
1. If you can do WMA for really cheap, that’s a bonus, otherwise forget WMA.