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[Bob L.]

Thanks to Jim et al to make it possible for all of us to weigh in on this and so many other important issues related to MJ.  An honor and privelege!  And if any community is up to it, it's this one.

As with many, I was initially drawn to MJ for it's library functionality, but also thre rest of the rich feature set all in one place.  Eg: although my research led me to believe that EAC might give me more flexibility and maybe higher quality (at no cost) I liked the idea of staying within the MJ interface (and the ongoing support that a for-profit product should offer).  In this vein, I think it makes sense (given available resources to do it right) for MJ to evolve into a comprehensive media center as more and more people will be using PCs for photos and other multimedia.  I think your "average" consumer likes an all-in-one as long as it does most things reasonably well and provides them with a consistent interface and upgrade path.

I've seen brief mentions of Microsoft Media Player 9 in some way requiring the use of DRM restricted files.  If this is indeed the case, it would seem that MJ could take the lead as the best all-in-one "open" system.  No matter what story you have to tell, though, I think marketing is one of your biggest challenges.

I don't envy JRiver task of sorting this all out, but you guys have my admiration and support.

Good Luck!

Bob L.

[LCtheDJ]

Recently you've had people asking for a Lite Version of MJ.  You also have some asking for more and greater features.  Now you ask "Which path should we take?".

For me, I want an MJ with fewer functions but with more powerful features within those functions.  Like others, I have other software to do some of the functions MJ does.  I had the others first, and I'm comfortable with them.  MJ excels at organizing, and that's what I like best about it.

Which path? Which path?...  As a devout fence sitter, I couldn't pick one.  Why not take BOTH?  Many software publishers have different level versions of a program (ex., PCDJ-silver, blue, red), or similar programs in the same field aimed at users with varying needs.  Can't you do the same?  Let the market response determine on which path to continue.

On a side note, I find the forums to be a great place to get helpful information about the product; on the flip side, I also find it a place to find everyone's complaints and troubles with the product.  Some areas seem to come up frequently and I'd have to agree with an earlier sentiment, fix it or drop it.  Where some see the frequent releases as a quick response to users' troubles, others might wonder "Why so many patches, isn't this product stable YET?".

Like I said - a devout fence sitter.

[Pennames]

Music all the way, with an expanded/improved Media Server for home networking/remote listening.  

Look, if you try to be all things to all people, you'll alienate little groups here and little groups there and price out others who only want one thing and don't want to pay for or deal with functionality they don't use.  WMP and REAL are trying to be all things and consequently they are not the best at any one thing.

[nila]

I agree, windows Media Player is great as a Player but it sucks as a jukebox. It does what it's name claims though, it plays files great (esp. v6.4)
Media Jukebox also does what it claims great, it's a GREAT jukebox program.

[zak326]

ve some strong feelings on this one.  I have tried virtually every jukebox /center product out there and I have come to one conculsion.An everything playerr sounds good, but does anybody have the resources too do one right that does not take over someone's computer and still be stable and still cast something people will pay. I don't think so.  You have a strong loyal customer base. You have a quality product. If you start trying to be all things to all people, the quality will suffer at least for the foreseeable future. And the loyalty of people on the net is fragile.  They'll skewer you in  a second. (the emails on the registration issue are an  example.

Now having said that. If you want to do another player that does some of those other things and does not mess up the successful one but can complement it,, Then thats anothwer story!

Real player weas doing fine with player and then jukebox but this real one thing is a mess. no one want s to give that kkind of control of their pc to anyone.  We all hve Microsoft on  our minds and don't want to create another monster.

[Phydeaux]

A case study for you to consider:

I have recently sold a computer system to an exclusive wine bar / restaurant for MP3 playing purposes. They wanted something that could handle playlists and automate much of the headache that goes into the simple task of finding music that plays right and the right time, that doesn't skip and that is easy to use.

Without hesitation, I recommended Media Jukebox (and will be purchasing a licence for them during the course of the week!).

The moral of the story? Know your client base -- in this case the managers have a restaurant to run and need a simple, yet sufficiently powerful system to run. Their attention needs to be focussed on other things, not learning how to use a piece of software that plays music. If it is too much hassle, they'll use a CD player.

Secondly, these people do not want (or even care about) an image processing system and will not want to buy a bloated piece of software for features that they have absolutely no interest in using. Ever.

Who is your market? Are there many people who are looking for a swiss army knife that has a tent attached, or are they looking for a tent with a swiss army knife attached? Find out which part of your software is useful and sell that. Don't sell people stuff they don't want otherwise you end up with resentment and having to pay large prices.

[Sam]

I think you're going in the right direction.  I'd like my PC to be the hub of my entertainment center.  If it's not MJ, then it'll be Microsoft or Sony.

TiVo-like functionality will be very common in the next two years.  Most people don't know what it is.  Most people will love it when they try it.  And soon after that, they'll realize that the PC can improve the TiVo experience considerably (just as it does with the music experience).  There's so much more you can do with a high-resolution display, keyboard, and mouse - than you can with a TV screen and a remote.

No one does TiVo on PC well yet.  The TiVo box is still the easiest way to TiVo.  I think that's a great opportunity for you.

With ordinary TV or DVD playing, I don't see how PC software can improve the experience much.

And with images on PCs, that's another PC thing that will become a bigger part of people's lives though they don't know it yet.  But there's a lot of competition here, and many are good at it already, including Windows Explorer, AOL, Kodak, and Snapfish.

[duhva]

For the immediate future, I'm interested in MJ's music functionality.

In terms of the swiss army knife discusssion, I personally use specific applications to do specific things that they are the best at.

Having said that, I don't have a digital camera or TV image capturing device, etc. But if I did, I would probably watch TV and captured video on my TV, like I do with DVDs today.

Keeping an eye on the future, then yeah, in maybe a year or two I may be interested in video or image management.

[nila]

I kind of agree with the last statement.
For now (v9) and probably v10 as well, I'd just like the focus to be on purely enhancing what is there already and adding audio and library related features as well as GUI changes.
Maybe after all that is rock solid then worry more on all the extra features, possibly as plug in's to  help with the pricing structure.

[lizzySom]

I have over 20K mp3s.  I am in the process of ripping an entire (very large) cd collection.

I don't care about movies.  I want a database that doesn't crash or hang (which it is doing now).  I want the media server to work well.  I would like better web support.

I have a tv for movies.  I have other software for movies.  I don't watch DVD's on my computer.

Better management - PLEASE.

[LCtheDJ]

I know I already responded, but I just had another thought on the subject.

Microsoft.  Like them or hate them, they've done something right to grow so huge.  One thing they've done, I think could work here.

Take a look at Microsoft Office.  It's a collection of separate applications that work well together as the Office suite.  If you don't need the entire suite, you can purchase the individual apps that you do want.  Get one, get several, or get them all - it's your choice.  Whatever you choose, you know they will work together (OLE; copy from one, paste into another, etc.).

It's all about choices.  We've seen there are several differing wants and needs among the current users.  I think a mix and match approach would come the closest to making them all happy.

[kandarohi]

[edited by JimH for readability]

If you are serious about going the all in one route, you need to be sure that whatever product mj becomes will be organizationally superior to any other software you anticipate being in the market at the time you release your own.

I would think you would need to be thinking not just what your present customers may want, but what the next generation of computer users habits and inclinations are likely to be.

I think you are safest staying as leader  in the audio market myself, as that decision would not require you to research future trends nearly so much, or holistically, and would therefore be cheaper for yourselves as a company, with plugins development
to cover yourselves if the market does develop for all in one media management software.

Remember, the more expensive your product is, the more likely it is to become the target of hackers, crackers,

Incorrect pricing and/or insufficient competent market research could kill your company.

[TomJ]

Thanks for the opportunity to comment.

I would prefer that MJ remain a music management tool. Yes, you have to compete with Microsoft, Real, etc., but if you keep MJ "open", then you will have a great opportunity to maintain and increase the user base.

Having just installed the WMP9 beta, I am disturbed by Microsoft's efforts to manage "licenses" and I hope that all who install WMP9 take time to learn of the possible consequences of this license management scheme.

Finally, based on my experiences with MJ, I would buy a TiVo-like PVR from JRiver.

Tom Jacoby
Houston, TX

[Scronch]

"Do what you're good at and pay others to do the rest."

I would twist that a little to answer your question.  JRiver has developed the best music organizer.  You need to be careful not to let that part lapse by applying your resources to other areas.  I've seen engineering software companies go in the dumper because of this.  They were very skilled at one niche of the engineering marketplace; they then tried to offer everything; they pissed off their original users and never really fulfilled their new goals; they cashed out and sold off the company.  Very sad.

I think you should structure it like this: keep the bulk of your resources on the proven application: music organization.  Treat the other areas as separate profit centers.  Bootstrap by giving them X man-months.  When they are releasable, release them as optional add-ons.  Those profit centers that customers want will support themselves.  Those that don't will become unsupported or phased out.

This allows you to keep the Base MJ price low, and still offer add-ons--but only those who want them will have to pay for them.

Scronch

[gkerber]

Music Music Music.  There are other great programs out there to help me manage my digital photographs (ThumbsPlus).

My fear is that to make it "easy" to use for other things, it will become harder to use for music.  Please don't "AOL" it, making it so easy to use for the masses, that I can't use it anymore.

Has anyone tried to use any tape back software lately?  It's horrible, loaded with wizards, that it's hard to get it to do what I want.

Be careful.....

[Mirko]

Another idea...

What would it be like adding more features to the COM-interface and let plugin-developers support different media-types? You have to provide the apropriate options into the MJ-framework, but could left the actual work to others. I guess, there are quite capable developers who would like to join in...

For an example look at the plugins already existing. They are all quite high quality and the functions are necessary and nice done. This means also, that these afforts are not holding you from adding features and improving the software.
The more you add, the more I would like MJ. But it seems like I'm not representative for the customers in general.

What do you think?

Mirko

[Moonshine]

Split it up.   Audio Jukebox at X$ and priced for an extra Y$ the full Media Jukebox.  Then people will have to find other things to argue about.  

Build them both off the same core, even make the Media Jukebox an big upgrade plugin as suggested.  

Feature I would like to see:

Let the media server re-encode on the fly. Then for people like me (who rip everything to ape) could stream things via something like 256kbps MP3 to work.  

[Callithumpian]

[shadow=red,left,300]Plugin Plugin Echo Echo.
[/shadow]And as above I agree with a philosophy of Mastery first bells, whistles etc, later
Master the core - which is database and organisation.
This has got to include everything that say, MJ 7 had - burning, ripping, rename and all that stuff.
Then charge for extra modules of new stuff like slide show, image handling etc.

Outstanding new board BTW.
You'll have to excuse me while I post 86 fillers to make my 500 Citizen Kane-ship

[JohnT]

Machine Head,
I am sure, I checked this out a while ago on the forum.
I used to be able to uncheck the 'Use Generic Driver' option which would then enable cd-text on my machine and on older builds I could do this and it worked fine. It used to write the cd text for me. I cant remember what build it changed in but after that build it no longer was possible for me to disable the generic driver ...

Have you tried changing the setting of "Use internal ASPI..." on the cd writer settings page?

[nila]

That worked,
had to uncheck that, restart MJ, uncheck generic.

Thanks

Slightly long winded way of having to do it

[zevele10]

Again,as i say from mister average.I do nost understand most of the posts as i do not really understand most of the Mj fonctions and stuff like 'generic driver' and so on.

I am on music at 100%.And would like MJ to first solve some problems-burning songs who need to have the name shortened-and some others things.

I would like MJ9-10-11 to be stable as 7.2 was,not as 8 is.
I would like MJ to get some small new features like burning cd\mp3 not in a,b,c,d order.I would like JRiver staff to crash they heads to find the faster way to rip using the same encoder than now.
If at the same time MJ moves to the 'image' field and a more 'full service' media manager,why not.

If the musical side of MJ not only stays the same but improves in some fields who-sorry- do not work that well,i do not mind any other changes.

Concerning the price,on my side i would pay the $50 for 9 if the music section improves.
But you may have to thing about pluging to buy on the top of a starting price not to high

Here my 2 shekels

[Dave T]

I'm a "best of breed" man myself.  Maybe once you've added every missing feature to the music side of things, I'd change my mind.  But, for now, I'd much prefer you concentrated on the Music Jukebox features.  Unless MJ becomes the best at something (DVD Playback, Video Capture, etc), I'd still continue to use the other apps I use for that, anyway.