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Author Topic: Switch from Albumplayer to JRiver MediaCenter Questions  (Read 5183 times)

bigzosso

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Switch from Albumplayer to JRiver MediaCenter Questions
« on: April 20, 2016, 07:48:07 am »

Hi,

I currently am using Albumplayer but have just found out about JRiver MediaCenter Software and am interested, with thoughts of changing over. I have a few questions though if anyone would be kind enough to help please?

Firstly, this is my current music media PC setup:

Windows 7 64bit
4Gbs DDR3 RAM
3Tb Hard drive of just music albums (about 2.2Tbs used at the moment)
9,300+ albums, each in a named folder (a total of around 190,000+ tracks in mp3 format only)
All mp3's are correctly tagged and each album has a folder within it called "cover" and the cover art inside it is one file in .jpg format at around 100kb

My Questions:

1: Is JRMedia Player a simple download and "plug n play" install? (with a licence purchase)
2: Does it work ok with Windows7 64bit?
3: Is there a database/total albums, size limit?
4: Will it work OK with my amount of tracks/albums?
5: I used to be able to use iTunes remote to operate Albumplayer from my Android phone but for the last year it won't connect after trying lots of solutions, will/should the JR remote work with my setup?

Many thanks in advance

Carl
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RD James

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Re: Switch from Albumplayer to JRiver MediaCenter Questions
« Reply #1 on: April 20, 2016, 08:02:47 am »

1. Yes? Not entirely sure what you mean by this, but everything is self-contained, you don't need to download separate plug-ins etc. like other players.
2. Yes
3. No
4. 200k is nothing for JRiver, it will handle it with ease.
5. JRemote works great.
 
The trial is fully-featured and I believe it lets you use the program for a month before you need to purchase a license.
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bigzosso

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Re: Switch from Albumplayer to JRiver MediaCenter Questions
« Reply #2 on: April 20, 2016, 09:17:02 am »

Great reply James, thanks for the fast response, I am struggling for 6 months with Albumplayer problems after years of great use. Help is not forthcoming though, hence looking around. Thanks once again
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Arindelle

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Re: Switch from Albumplayer to JRiver MediaCenter Questions
« Reply #3 on: April 20, 2016, 01:19:57 pm »

Just to clarify .... as RD said its self-contained ... what do you  mean plug and play ? There is a learning curve, this is very powerful software.

you should read this and the links from this page on Audio set-up and Importing - will save you a bunch of time and frustration and you'll know the jargon if you need help from the forum here. https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Getting_Started

All the other points,  RDJames answered. You have thirty days before you have to actually pay, fully functional. With 9000 albums, you won't want to work with anything else :) But do read the wiki first before just plowing ahead and importing everything. If for some reason you don't have the cover art embedded in each file, the fact that you have it within each distinct album will make this very easy to correct if needed.
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bigzosso

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Re: Switch from Albumplayer to JRiver MediaCenter Questions
« Reply #4 on: April 21, 2016, 01:16:49 am »

Thanks Arindelle, by Plug n play I mean is it just download, hit install then import all my albums with the hit of one button, nothing else to do, no codecs to install etc.
With Albumplayer, the GUI is simple and a child can use it which makes it as user friendly as buying a hifi, press the power on button, insert and press play, I am hoping this is similar? Currently, my touchscreen when we have parties means any non-PC user can operate AP without having to understand PC folders etc.... they just touch the album and touch play or hit a track(s) to play, similar to a pub jukebox, no IT knowledge needed. Is this that easy to use?
I have all my albums tagged correctly with the cover image embedded in each track, all tracks in one folder and all named the same, Albumartist - Album - Track No. - Track Title - (track artist). i.e. "Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti - 01. Custard Pie.mp3
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Arindelle

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Re: Switch from Albumplayer to JRiver MediaCenter Questions
« Reply #5 on: April 21, 2016, 04:23:37 am »

codecs for video playback that you might need, will be downloaded and installed by the program itself. Nothing to do on your end. You don't need any codecs/pluggins for audio (unless you wanted to add specific VSTs yourself).

Concerning the UI .. yes you can set it up so that even a child can do it -- there is even a "party mode" to prevent drunken fools messing with your stuff.

However, this is a very powerful and complete program ... as such it is NOT plug and play to set it up for children or computer illiterate adults to use. It has a bunch of options to fine tune playback for lossless music to very complicated systems, network playback on multiple clients if desired, a complete and customizable database for your collection. Consequently, the more you want it to do, the more time you will need to learn the software. So, no it is not what I call plug and play. The trial is free for 30days and full featured, don't buy it until you try it (you get to try for 30 days, no refunds once you buy!).

If you need it to be networked, you have to have set-up a network, if you need to access your collection externally you need to know how to get into your router. etc. If you just want to play your local music coming off of a 4tb hard connecting to a DAC or running from an internal soundcard connected to your stereo. Reading the links listed on the page I listed above say 20 minutes +30 minutes more for a basic configuration, and you should be up and running. (importing is 10x faster than itunes at least - will depend on the speed of your processor). Understanding every feature, could take you years  ;D (but enjoyable ones!). Once you discover all the cool things you can do with a decent size collection, you might get hooked and become a power-user, spending hours customizing stuff, who knows  ;D

JRiver, like any good player, uses metadata (embedded tags) as the basis for its "Views" -- all of which are customizable. So the way you name your files is not important actually (if they are tagged). However there are a lot of reason to have your media file names and path names in a standard manner as you have done. Having Album Artist, Album, Track #, Track name, track artist allows you to recover all key tags in case of some disaster.  There will be no issues importing your tagging. (personally I put the track number first, but JRiver can change tha for you automatically if you want to -- for playback in JRiver won't matter; for playback from Windows explorer on other peoples machines it might.
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bigzosso

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Re: Switch from Albumplayer to JRiver MediaCenter Questions
« Reply #6 on: April 21, 2016, 04:43:31 am »

Brilliantly informative Arindelle, I think I may give this a try at least, 30 days is a good trial period for a full programme
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ferday

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Re: Switch from Albumplayer to JRiver MediaCenter Questions
« Reply #7 on: April 21, 2016, 10:20:06 am »

Ive used the trial for album player, the GUI is very pretty.  MC doesn't have some of the stuff (mainly the album information book) but can be made to look quite nice.  JRemote is excellent and quite nice to look at and use

MC is also a much, much more powerful and customizable program and has the best video suite out there

Get the trial, and when you have a question post in the forums and you'll get a quick answer!
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bigzosso

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Re: Switch from Albumplayer to JRiver MediaCenter Questions
« Reply #8 on: April 21, 2016, 12:05:58 pm »

Thanks ferday, what is MC you refer to? Albumplayer has all the Album info, it opens each album clicked on as a CD Jewel case and you can have all the sleeve notes etc.... and in the listings, I have in mine all the albums by cover with the artist, album name, date released and genre underneath the cover. Is this what you mean?
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ferday

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Re: Switch from Albumplayer to JRiver MediaCenter Questions
« Reply #9 on: April 21, 2016, 12:51:06 pm »

MC is JRiver Media Center, the program we are here for :)

MC doesn't have the sleeve notes and the pretty method of viewing the liner and artist bio etc.

JRemote does have a limited ability to view these notes however

as far as viewing the cover, metadata, etc. MC is as good as anything else out there.  when it comes to manipulating the database, MC is the best in the world, especially with a lot of files.  It also has an amazing zones capability for playback and top notch server capabilities

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bigzosso

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Re: Switch from Albumplayer to JRiver MediaCenter Questions
« Reply #10 on: April 22, 2016, 04:55:55 am »

Great, thanks
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