Topic: EC -- Beta -- We need your feedback (Read 9806 times)

JimH · « **on:** April 15, 2004, 10:57:53 am »

We've been working on a modified version of JRiver Media Center. For now I'll call it EC. (This is the missing third I've mentioned before -- the ice beneath the MC berg.)

It has the ability to add music and movie services. These services belong to other companies. We don't run them. They aren't ours.

They are commercial services, not free downloads. For example, one of the services sells music files for 99 cents a track. Another sells movie downloads that can be watched for 24 hours for $2.99 or so.

We think we are ready to do a beta test. Probably next week, maybe the week after. The player is free, but the files are not.

If you're interested in taking a look, there will be a couple of requirements that we'll ask you to agree to:

1. It needs to remain confidential. This would mean no discussion here or on chat or anywhere else. (We may set up a private board for help and limited discussion.)

2. After you've used it for a few weeks, we will ask you to complete a 10 minute survey and tell us what you like and don't like.

If you're interested, please send me an e-mail with a subject that begins with "EC". When we're ready, I'll contact you with more details. I'd appreciate having both your real name and your user name here.

Thanks!

Jim Hillegass
jimh @ jriver.com

pank2002 · « **Reply #1 on:** April 15, 2004, 12:49:34 pm »

Hi Jim.
This sounds exciting. Check you mail.
- Rasmus

edit: Howcome your avatar change all the time. It has been a mystery to me ever since v9 when I joined.

bjsolem · « **Reply #2 on:** April 15, 2004, 04:11:30 pm »

WOO HOO!!!

JustinChase · « **Reply #3 on:** April 15, 2004, 05:01:40 pm »

Jim, is it available for testing without purchasing?

I would be happy to give it a go, but I don't know that I'll be spending any money on more music just now, maybe movies, but i'm not sure about that.

if not, that's cool, I just thought i'd check.

JimH · « **Reply #4 on:** April 15, 2004, 07:50:46 pm »

The beta version will be a free program, but downloads will be at the charge described above.

Monkeyboy · « **Reply #5 on:** April 16, 2004, 03:20:19 am »

Jim, is this open to UK people as well?
Rich

paulr · « **Reply #6 on:** April 16, 2004, 05:04:38 pm »

Email sent yesterday. I'll test the music portion (maybe the movie part, not sure yet) if it offers lossless files. Since this is to remain confidential, I don't expect a response to that query.

Question: Will it interfere with our MC 10.0 install? I'd like to keep it seperate.

fex · « **Reply #7 on:** April 16, 2004, 05:26:23 pm »

I fear not to be a big help sitting here in Europe. We have some other (copyright-) laws. If I could help you...

Vermaje · « **Reply #8 on:** April 19, 2004, 04:42:32 am »

... Questions :

EC, In Europe too ? ... and for exemple in France ?

And downloading audio files, in what format ? MP3 ? MSP ? AAC ? OG ? ...

Cmagic · « **Reply #9 on:** April 19, 2004, 03:45:51 pm »

Salut Vermaje

I doubt we can take part on the EC beta-testing in Europe.

But maybe later this will become possible. Itunes still not available over here.

Maybe Jim will tell us more in the subject....

Ciao, Salut, Bye, Adios, Auf Widersehen.

C.

Vermaje · « **Reply #10 on:** April 20, 2004, 12:13:10 pm »

Ok.

MC is in Europe, EC will be perhaps ....

Ate logo, Ciao, Salut, Bye, Adios, Auf Widersehen, au revoir.

JimH · « **Reply #11 on:** April 20, 2004, 12:21:43 pm »

Cmagic is probably correct, but I'm not certain whether it will work now.

8thNote · « **Reply #12 on:** April 20, 2004, 04:00:26 pm »

What are the restrictions on music and movie downloads? Is the movie like a rental, or a purchased download that I can watch weeks from now? What kind of protections are in the music?

cascius · « **Reply #13 on:** April 22, 2004, 03:49:46 am »

8thnote,

As far as I know, there's only 2 companies providing video on demand over the web. (but i could be wrong). Those are: Movielink and CinemaNow. The way it typically work is as follow:

- Once you rent the movie, you have 1 month to watch it; or 24 hours after you first started playing it.
- You can start watching it while downloading. On DSl it takes between 1-2 minutes before you can start watching it.
- Qualitywise, it's good enough for a regular TV. I have a 32 inch Sony trinitron and the compression is quite acceptable. On some movie, it's even hard to see much difference than with a DVD. If you were to use a HD tv though, you would probably be disapointed with the quality.

Anyway, for more info, go and check out the respective websites of those companies. (just add .com at the end of their names)

Hope this gives you a better idea of how this will most likely work.

As far as the music is concerned, I don't have a clue how the service will work.

-Cascius

JimH · « **Reply #14 on:** April 22, 2004, 09:42:06 am »

8thnote,
Cascius is pretty close on the rules. I expect that the rules will loosen up over time and that the quality will improve.

urlwolf · « **Reply #15 on:** April 22, 2004, 10:36:42 pm »

Quote from: pank2002 on April 15, 2004, 12:49:34 pm

edit: Howcome your avatar change all the time. It has been a mystery to me ever since v9 when I joined.

Easy, just create a cron job (if under unix/linux... there must be a way to do that in win, maybe the scheduler?) to rename the file that you use as avater. Rotate several files, and rename them as e.g., 'avatar.jpg'.

A cron job is a task that the system does periodically.

Cheers,
-urlWolf

JustinChase · « **Reply #16 on:** April 24, 2004, 12:45:52 pm »

Any idea if this is still in the works?

If so, any idea as to time frame? I was under the impression that the 'secret 1/3' would be revealed with version 10's final release, then it was to follow shortly after, then there was the opportunity to beta test, and that still has not happened, as far as I know.

I'm not complaining, I'm just trying to get an idea if Jim's lawyers are working to get product released, or, if they are like my ex-wife's attorney, and they just want to find reasons to do more work so they can charge more money.

I'm not a huge fan of our legal system, and it's supposed to be one of the best in the world, scary

/end rant

JimH · « **Reply #17 on:** April 26, 2004, 07:31:18 pm »

Justin,
I feel your pain. Or felt it once.

It's not an attorney problem. It will happen.

As you might know, we're a mouse among elephants. They don't always watch where they step, so we have to pay attention.

A lot is happening though it may not seem so.

Good luck on your travels and stop in when you get to Minneapolis. I think a lot of folks understand what's moving you now.

Jim

bedessy · « **Reply #18 on:** April 27, 2004, 06:03:56 pm »

Brian here how can I get involved in the test, is it ready for testing now or in the works still. I tryed e-mailing jim, but dont know if he got my email or not. If you did and it's ready for testing send the info. bedessy, out

JimH · « **Reply #19 on:** April 27, 2004, 06:50:00 pm »

I received your e-mail. Thanks. We hope to release this by next week.

cascius · « **Reply #20 on:** May 18, 2004, 12:28:37 pm »

Any news on this project?

-Cascius

bjsolem · « **Reply #21 on:** May 26, 2004, 08:44:12 am »

I know the beta is coming any day now (I hope) but I was playing around in iTunes last night and had some thoughts, nothing revolutionary just observations.

I decided that I love the iTunes music store. I say this not to be negative about what J River is working (you guys rock after all), but just to recognize the quality of the 'competition'.

I like the relatively clean interface of iTunes. I like how the banners at the top fade in and out. I like that the 'Front Page' is changing all the time. I like the cheesy touches like the celebrity playlists. Rather than getting an unusable list of the 700,000 songs they have, they give you an opportunity to explore and be surprised. I like their iTunes essentials compilations that show off what they have available. I like that they have a few live tracks here and there, even if they aren't part of a list of some sort, just a single live track, usually a good one, for a buck if you want it. I like that they have things like the Sessions @ AOL tracks (theres a great version of Maps by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs). I really like that apple is going back to record companies and looking for out of print or unreleased tracks and get them added to the store. I like that if I decide I want something, I can click on buy song and it starts downloading.

I found myself saying "oh, they have that now too" a lot.

The experience was the closest to the fun of exploring a record store of anything else I've found. For those of you J River folks that are from the Twin Cities, I'd compare it to exploring a store like Let it be, The Electric Fetus, Cheapo or even Northern Lights to go back a few years, instead of Best Buy. They have created an environment where you can really explore and truly 'discover' music.

I know (or at least I think) that your 'Big Secret' is pretty much run by your partners and that you will be giving them the shell in which they can add their service. So I don't know how much control you have over the 'experience' of the music/movie stores. My intent here is simply to recognize that on the music side of things, the bar has been set fairly high by the competiton, and I can't wait to see what you guys come up with as an alternative.

JimH · « **Reply #22 on:** July 07, 2004, 02:51:21 pm »

This beta was delayed several times, but we now expect it to begin next week or the week after. Anyone who has sent an e-mail will be contacted, and I'll announce it here.

Thanks for your interest.

pank2002 · « **Reply #23 on:** July 07, 2004, 05:00:37 pm »

Hey, that's cool. Will it be like a addon to current MC or will it be it's own product?

JimH · « **Reply #24 on:** July 07, 2004, 06:12:55 pm »

The MC you know now supports services. Some of the new ones just aren't visible yet. You can see how they are added or hidden in the service manager under tools in MC.

rar2667 · « **Reply #25 on:** July 08, 2004, 03:32:44 pm »

JimH,

I poked around at CD Baby after I discovered it was there. Now that I read about CD Baby being mostly independent labels, it explains why none of the searches I did got a hit since I was searching for more mainstream artists. However, I wanted to point out that the fuzzy search seemed pretty fuzzy...maybe you should get a "no match" message instead of some stuff that is not even close? Just a thought...this is a new era dawning. Cool.

JimH · « **Reply #26 on:** July 19, 2004, 01:19:32 pm »

Quote from: JimH on July 07, 2004, 02:51:21 pm

This beta was delayed several times, but we now expect it to begin next week or the week after. Anyone who has sent an e-mail will be contacted, and I'll announce it here.

Thanks for your interest.

Sorry, but it's been delayed again by contract changes. It's still going to happen though.

INTERACT FORUM

Author Topic: EC -- Beta -- We need your feedback (Read 9806 times)

fex

rar2667