I have been a quiet Beta tester of MC9 for a while now. And for background sake I am a computer support technician with plenty of software experience. I have worked for a couple of hardware developers and am now a network tech for a med. sized business. My wife works for a software company, so I understand the process involved here and I have the requisite knowledge to handle a not quite user friendly product such as ver. 9. (No offense, but it is pretty daunting for a regular user).
I have been frustrated with a few things, but overall it is pretty solid. Thanks for the great product, which I happily paid for and would pay to upgrade.
I absolutely LOVED MJ8 and (considering the problems I list below) wish I could go back (the converted DB won't let me now...
)
But here is my list of stuff that ain't workin' or is missing:
1) In AutoPlaylists, you can no longer delete a single file from the playlist without deleting it from the library. I use this feature all the time and it seemed to disappear somewhere in the middle of the MC9 development, about the same time the new Delete function was added. I like the new delete, but please give us back the ability to remove one file from an Auto Playlist!
2) Recording from mic/line in is all screwed up on my version. I have unistalled and reinstalled and I can't get this to work right -
a) The auto level function takes 2-3 minutes now
b) Unless I use .wav encoding, I just get recordings of static
c) The "listening" is off. Waiting for sound and track splitting only work properly if I boost the input level to the point that there is intolerable distortion on the recordings. Please don't tell me to try the fixes mentioned on the website, I have tried them all. I have a lot of experience using recording in Ver. 8 and earlier versions of 9, so I am not a boneheaded newbie.
d) A holdover problem from 8 is that you cannot manually assign track numbers to tracks. For instance if I record 2 songs and then exit the recorder, I want to go back and record the rest of the album. I have to record the other songs with the incorrect track numbers, and then manually change them in the player mode.
3) If I try to send a second file to the external media editor, it opens about 20 media editor processes (which I have to close with task manager) and locks up media editor. This used to work - and I (used to) use it extensively.
4) If you select multiple tracks using the Ctrl key, and then change the album attribute in the tag, they disappear from the library. Importing function finds them, but fails to list them. I have to use win explorer to rename them and move them to a new folder to import them again. I have have this problem repeatedly and I have tried many things to fix it myself, but I think it is a bone fide bug.
5) Is it possible to have the tag boxes auto populate as you type? Right now you need to hit alt+down aroow to make the list pop up and then start typing, and then hit enter when you have typed enough letters to get to your entry. AND this function does not seem to be available at all for the Artist tag.
6) I have never had much luck getting the replay gain to equalize the volume during playback. I analyze the files, turn on the DSP function and still get some songs blaring at me. Although not as bad as without it. But to me this is a minor problem.
7) Please upgrade the website to include more support help without having to trawl through the message boards. This is really just a basic thing that most software makers do for their paying customers. I relaize it requires a lot of time and upkeep, but it will make the product more valuable and desireable. Overall, I would give the website a C+ for design and content.
One of the fixes I tried to get my CD player to create CDs that could be played in my boombox (a problem on the player end it turned out) was to install the ASPI layer you guys reccomend. This completely screwed up my cd-r and I had to roll back XP, then reinstall my cd-r software and reinstall ver. 9 to get it working again. I followed all of the instructions to the letter and read all of the documentation, so I am confident I installed what was reccomended, but it was a mistake.
Again, thanks for the hard work. I was ecstatic when I found MJ and I would love MC to work as well. I have not found another program nearly as adept at helping me encode my vinyl, and that is the BIG reason I like MC. Please get this working the way it was in good ol' ver. 8 please. Or else let us convert the database back to ver. 8.
Here's my sys info for reference:
Media Center Registered 9.0.149 -- C:\Program Files\Media Jukebox\9\
Microsoft Windows XP Workstation 5.1 Service Pack 1 (Build 2600)
AMD Athlon 1199 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 261 MB, Free - 60 MB
Internet Explorer: 6.0.2800.1106 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82 (xpsp1.020828-1920) / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2800.1106 (xpsp1.020828-1920)
Shell32.dll: 6.00.2800.1145 (xpsp2.021108-1929)wnaspi32.dll: N/A
Ripping / Drive D: Copy mode:ModeBurstBigBuffer CD Type:Auto Read speed:Max
Digital playback: Yes / Use YADB: Yes / Get cover art: No / Calc replay gain: Yes / Copy volume: 32767
Eject after ripping: Yes / Play sound after ripping: No
Burning / Drive D: BTC BCE4012IM Addr: 1:1:0 Speed:40 MaxSpeed:40 Use MJ Engine:Yes
Test mode: No / Eject after writing: Yes / Direct decoding: Yes / Write CD-Text: No
Use playback settings: Yes / Normalization: 90 %
Any help or further improvements are really appreciated! Thanks again for a great product and keep up the good work!
starrdog