foobar2000

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foobar2000
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Screenshot of a customised version of foobar2000 v0.9.5
Developed by Peter Pawlowski
Stable release 0.9.5.3  (May 24, 2008 (2008-05-24); 20 days ago) [+/−]
Preview release none  (none) [+/−]
OS Windows XP or higher
Genre Audio player
License Core: Proprietary
SDK: BSD
Website foobar2000.org

foobar2000 is a freeware audio player for Windows developed by Peter Pawlowski, a former freelance contractor for Nullsoft. Featuring a minimalist interface, it also has many features for metadata support and high-quality audio output. The theoretical maximum sampling rate is 1 MHz[1] and bit depth can be as high as 32 bits per sample. To maximize the audio fidelity of consumer-grade equipment, it provides noise shaping and dithering. It features a number of official and third-party components which add many additional features. While the core is closed source, the author provides an extensive SDK under the BSD license. Since version 0.9.5, foobar2000 supports Windows XP and later releases only. This version features a revamped default interface, with embedded support for album list, album art, spectrum visualization, and some other features and improvements.

The name foobar is derived from the common placeholder name used in computer programming.

Contents

[edit] Features

[edit] Installations

[edit] Core and minimal

  • Unicode support.
  • Tabbed playlists.
  • Gapless playback.
  • Low memory footprint.
  • Customizable context menus.
  • Basic single- and multi-file properties editor.
  • Command-line support for named actions supported within the player.
  • Media library featuring high-speed searching and arbitrary metadata field names.
  • Native cue sheet support, including internal cue sheets tagged into certain formats.
  • Support for many tagging formats including ID3v2[2], APEv2, Vorbis, ASF and others.
  • Rebindable application- or system-wide keyboard shortcuts for any action supported within the player.
  • Tone generator for generating pure tones of arbitrary frequency and duration. In the Add Location text box, type tone://Hz,seconds.
  • Silence generator for generating silence in between tracks. In the Add Location text box, type silence://seconds.
  • Playback of MP1, MP2, MP3, Ogg Vorbis, AAC, MP4/M4A, Musepack, WMA, Speex, WAV, AU, SND, AIFF, FLAC, Ogg FLAC, and WavPack.
  • Playback of high resolution audio sources.
  • Standard user-interface which integrates seamlessly with Windows and provides a minimal learning curve for new users.
  • Titleformat scripting language, commonly called Tagz, which allows the user to change what metadata is shown by the player in various locations like the playlist.[3]
  • Extensive component API which allows developers to change or add almost any feature, including the user interface, decoding of unusual audio files, output to unusual devices, visualisations, and DSP effects.

[edit] Normal

  • Replay Gain support.
  • Audio CD support, including secure CD ripping.
  • DSP plugins for equalization, audio limiting, and channel conversion.
  • Album list component, displaying a customizable, hierarchical view of media library contents.
  • Converter component which allows transcoding from any playable source to various formats.[4]

[edit] Full

  • freedb component for lookup and tagging.
  • Transparent reading and playback of ZIP and RAR archive files.
  • Advanced Masstagger component, capable of complex manipulations of metadata fields using Titleformat scripts.
  • ABX comparator, allowing for scientifically-valid distinction between subtle differences in two variants of one track.

[edit] Components

[edit] Additional

  • Convolver DSP component for impulses.
  • Batch binary comparison of decoded output.
  • Null output component for testing speed of decoding.
  • CD burning component which uses Nero Burning ROM.
  • File verifier to check for decoding errors that halt playback.
  • Autoplaylist component for dynamic playlist generation and updating.
  • Playback of Apple Lossless and Monkey's Audio, including .APL links.
  • Playback statistics for individual files, for data such as last time of playback and times played.
  • Kernel streaming and ASIO output components, which can bypass theoretical problems involving Windows' kmixer.sys.
  • Playback of .DTS files.

[edit] Third-party

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ foobar2000 SDK, "audio_chunk.h"
  2. ^ Reads all, but writes v2.4 UTF-8 by default. As of 0.9.4, supports writing v2.3 tags by demand but advises against it.
  3. ^ The official name of the language is now "Titleformat syntax," but the name Tagz is still commonly in use. The language gave rise to the Advanced Title Formatting used in Winamp 5.
  4. ^ Output formats are extensible through third-party command-line encoders. Prior to v0.9, the Diskwriter component handled transcoding.

[edit] External links

[edit] Official links

[edit] Components

[edit] Other