VQF plugin for Winamp

Handling special types of multimedia files often requires, besides some dedicated players with built-in support for numerous formats, a set of appropriate codecs and filters for decoding the streams or encoding them, depending on the task at hand.
When it comes to music files, Winamp is usually the first choice for many users, mainly because it is equipped to work with many types and its capabilities can be extended through the use of plugins.
VQF plugin for Winamp is one example of add-on that brings a completely new functionality inside the well-known player by allowing users to listen to TwinVQ format music tracks. This particular filetype was created as an alternative to the widespread MP3 and it is quite different from it.
Decoding the VQF files in Winamp after this plugin is installed is just as fast as in the case of MP3s. The main difference here is in terms of size, because the new format allows for the creation of much smaller files, with similar quality.
If the encoding MP3 tracks is pretty fast, the same cannot be said about the VQFs, because it takes a lot more time to create these files. There are other differences here also because insofar as the widespread MP3 type is concerned there are usually losses in frequencies, while for the VQF files the compromise is in the overall lower tonality.
The installation of VQF plugin for Winamp is a simple job, thanks to the installer that takes care of everything and places the required DLLs in the plugin directory inside the installation folder of Winamp.