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[Matt]

Some things are so good, they only come around once in a lifetime -- your favorite sweatshirt, that old Firebird, the perfect game of ping-pong, the next version of Media Jukebox...

So you're in luck -- if you'd like to play with the future of Media Jukebox, here's your chance to try a preview of version 9.

Some of the fun new toys include:

 image and video support with thumbnailing
 built-in file explorer
 faster, lower overhead, and more flexible database
 integrated file properties with "fluid" tag updating
 undo and redo of all tagging operations
 audio analysis that adds BPM and Intensity to Replay Gain and Peak Level
 improved drag-n-drop support (to and from other programs, folder creation for data CD's, etc.)
 output plugin architecture with built-in support for ASIO

Keep in mind that this is only a preview -- many things don't work, lots of things crash, and your data may not be safe.

Don't use this preview with files that can't be replaced.  If you don't consider yourself an expert with Media Jukebox, please wait for a later release.  Backup your database (and files) before doing anything else

So play around.  Don't report bugs unless they're really ugly.  Ideas are very welcome.

Thanks to the whole JRiver team for making this possible. (especially the Godfather, JimH)

A newer version is out.  Please see this thread now:

http://www.musicex.com/cgi-bin/interact/NeoBoard.pl?Action=ShowPost&Board=inter&Post=13568

[Matt]

By the way, if you're running version 8,

1) backup your library
2) uninstall version 8
3) install version 9

They won't work together.  When you're done, uninstall 9 and put 8 back.

[JimH]

Thanks, Matt.  Thanks to the whole team, whose true MJ godfather is Nikolay.  I'm just an innocent bystander.

If you're going to try the new version with digital photos, you'll need this:

[corrections welcome]

How to import images
It's similar to import of audio or video files.  Use Tools/Import Media.  Don't forget to check the image file types you want (jpg, bmp, gif, for example).

Viewing images
Select Media Library.  In the content view (right window) sort the list by clicking on location, for example.  Select the image files you want to see.  Hit enter or the play button.

Seeing just image or just audio files
An icon allows you to set MJ to show only images or audio in the library.  If this icon is not present, you can right click on the menu bar, choose "customize" and add it.

Toggling between list and thumbnail modes
Choose View on the Menu Bar, then Toggle List Style.

Thumbnail size
You have several options in options/tree & view for how to create and display thumbnails.

How to start a slideshow with music
There are two ways to do this.  

The easiest way is to create a playlist and then add both audio and image files to it.  Then select it and press the play button in the player window.

The fastest way is to start audio files playing first by selecting them and pressing play.  Then select images and hit enter (not play).

The best display for image playback is in full screen and this can be activated automatically by setting this option in Tools/Options/General/Behavior and set "Jump on Play" to "Full screen (if has display".

On the display window, the arrows at the lower left switch among "None, Image, Track Info, and Visualizations".  To show images, this must be set to "Image".

[KingSparta]

looks like a good alpha (better than Alpha 8.0), beta next week?

seems to load up fine on EP

I did get it to crash on the startup screen, it was looking for media jukebox 8.zip somthing or other and crashed.

but after i rebooted, the normal Start screen came up.

it grabed some cover art, showed me some visuals, played some files etc....

never crashed again (5 mins of play time)

[JimH]

> never crashed again (5 mins of play time)

Don't push it.

Listening to: '05 - Ne Me Quitte Pas (If You Go Away)' from 'From Paris to Rio' by 'Karrin Allyson' on Media Jukebox

[KingSparta]

naa I am going to use one of my restores.

[JimH]

bold

[ChicoSelfs]

What i'm going to say? i know: I LOVE THIS MASTER PIECE specially in the tree the Explorer and the decade. i must tried more things and find that bugs hehehe but not find none yet

[Dragyn]

Some minor issues: "My Computer" needs to be more explorer type. Images need to have more sorting options like last modified (basically everything explorer can do).

Images load very fast (probably faster than acdsee...let's hope!). I like the new file properties. I like how the tools menu is now separate from file properties. Same goes with replay gain. I see the tools/settings menus have been combined, good job there. Definately like the dual monitor support. Works great, thanks!

There are a lot of other things I would like to see in MJ and some things I don't. I'll probably keep them to myself (for now). I'm also gonna hold off in bug reports until later down the road. I'm sure you guys have lots to do.

Good news is I only had it crash a couple times (minor database errors). Keep up the great work. I'm sure MJ9 will be the best.

[DocLotus]

What can I say but... WAY TO GO GANG!!!

Working surprisingly well for a first beta.

A few quips…
* Rotating images bombs.  Get message saying ‘Failed to rotate image’.
* Would like to see variable image sizing like ACDSee & Thumbs Plus  as that is the only way I can ‘tweak’ the size to fit ‘just so’ in the space I have available for thumbnails.

Otherwise have been playing music while watching beautiful babe images go by with slide show in full transition effects.  Working for over an hour now with little problems.

All I can say is ‘You guys are miracle workers’.

Can’t wait for the next beta.

[DocLotus]

It's way past my bedtime, but I'm having to much fun to stop now.

The file names for imported files are much too long.  They show the complete path & take up the whole of the right screen.  Can't seem to find where I can revert to just the name (only) of the selection without the whole path.

Would also like to see more 'views' of files.  The only two currently avaliable are 'thumbnail' & 'detail'.  Most file manager programs have five views... Small icon, Large icon, List (file names only), & Detail views (all details shown).

Have been running for two hours now without a crash (Win XP Pro).

[DcoLotus]

WHOPS... Spoke too soon.  Had several crashes; mostly when looking at left column under artist.  As I go down the list, it seems to be ok; but sometimes (and only sometimes) if I try to go back up the list (after first goning down) it will crash.

[DocLotus]

Did'nt get much sleep last night... new toy to play with.

Question... when ripping a new CD, what is the difference between 'Copy' & 'Auto Rip'?

[JimH]

Doc,
Glad you're having fun.  So are we.  A couple quick comments:

> * Rotating images bombs. Get message saying ‘Failed to rotate image’.

I had the same problem the first few times on MJ at home and then it went away.  Don't know but try reinstalling and try rebooting.

> * Would like to see variable image sizing like ACDSee & Thumbs Plus as that is the only way I can ‘tweak’ the size to fit ‘just so’ in the space I have available for thumbnails

Did you find the "thumbnails" section under options/tree & view?  It gives you three choices.

[SBrandsborg aka Mouseman]

VERY NICE!

[DocLotus]

Whe ripping a new CD (WMA) I am getting the following error message.

"Failed to save tag information for 'File Name xxx'"

[sekim]

MJ 9 looks good so far. A few questions though...

1) Is there gonna be more toolbar buttons? Replay Gain for instance.

2) And this one is real important, when I uninstalled 9 and reinstalled 8.0.360 I get the splash screen and a little surprise message that says the database is to new for v8. Ummmm, I want to get my database back. Any thoughts?

Nevermind on Q 2. Just had to delete the Library files and that did it.

[Mirko]

Thank you!

Bug report: Importing media doesn't show picture-filetypes.

[JimH]

Mirko,
You can add them to the end of this key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\JRiver\Music Exchange\1.0\Media Jukebox\DescriptionTypes

Was anybody else successful in getting digital images to work?

Jim

[DocLotus]

Hi Jim;

Did you find the "thumbnails" section under options/tree & view? It gives you three choices.

Yes, there are actually 5 choices plus spacing but none are quit the exact size that I want; would just like to see variable sizing like ACDSee & Thumbs Plus|PLS| to give me the right size.  I like to set the size so I have whole images at the bottom of the screen; currently all the sizes chop off at some point at the bottom of the screen.  The reason I like having only complete images on the screen are so I can page down a screen at a time without any chopping off of images.

[JimH]

Sounds like you've found the options.

On a completely different topic, you can set options for image playback by right clicking on the screen.  Try auto-pan on zoom.  It will move right to left when you zoom in (mouse scroll wheel).

Save as wallpaper is also available.

[phelt]

Given my recent history with restores, I'm too chicken to play with v9 yet. But it sounds like I will be uninstalling a host of little utilities when they are replaced by MJ9. Sweet.

[Mirko]

Thanks, Jim. I did import pictures using the "Import to"-context-menu-item withing the computer-browser, but now I will have an easier way ('cause I do have a lot of pictures)

Some small points:
1 let me import whole directories using a similar function as the one mention above

2 I gave pictures the genre "Bilder" (engl. pictures) and in the comment I noted the type of picture (e.g. "Vacation", "Flowers" and so on). Then I used the "add view scheme" using the "A-C"-subcategories trying to show me this structure:
 - Bilder
   - Flowers
   - Vacation
But I did not succeed in this. Maybe an option to "subcategorize by [field]" would be usefull

3 I personally don't like to property-window on the right side. Is it possible to switch this off using the "old" right-click-tools-menu?

4 MJ seems to be quite slow in 9er. Is this because of debugging-things? I think so ;-)

5 I used skinning with version 8. After uninstalling and installing 9 MJ first showed up quite...black (no skin). Copying the skin from my 8-backup did "un-black" MJ. This should be noted to the user, I think.

6 the plugins "Security, Chart, Sleep Timer, Web" did function properly

7 thumbnailing is _fast_. Very good work!

8 maybe an option to show a specific playlist or view scheme in thumbnail-mode per default (and the others as specified by the toolbar button) would be usefull

9 the DSP is not functional (and this leads to why I did reinstall ver8 again)

10 add the picture-file-types to this registry key during install ;-)

11 if I have very much pictures in one category (this is "Vacation") the MJ-views get quite... un-easy handling; I usually organize my vacation-pictures by location and so on; it would be usefull, if this could be done in MJ also

I hope this helps.

Mirko

[KingSparta]

phelt

I did not need to use any restores when i went back from MJ9 to MJ8.

The only reason i went back to MJ8 was because i am in the middle of a project.

I did play with MJ a total of an hour or more and really had no major problems.

[JimH]

Mirko,
> let me import whole directories using a similar function as the one mention above

You can do this by using the browse button under import.  You can also drag files into MJ.

> 2 I gave pictures the genre "Bilder" (engl. pictures) and in the comment I noted the type of picture (e.g. "Vacation", "Flowers" and so on). Then I used the "add view scheme" using the "A-C"-subcategories trying to show me this structure:
- Bilder
- Flowers
- Vacation

For Genres?  Should work.  I keep my folders organized like this:
 images
   year
     place or subject (just names like california, garden, people)

Once I imported, I used the Properties/Tools/"Fill properties from filename" and then entered "year\genre" for directories and skipped filename.  This filled the year and genre correctly.

> I personally don't like to property-window on the right side.

You can close it or detach it as a separate window.

> MJ seems to be quite slow in 9er.

This version is slow?  Shouldn't be.  It's at least as fast as 8 for me.

> I used skinning with version 8. After uninstalling and installing 9 MJ first showed up quite...black (no skin). Copying the skin from my 8-backup did "un-black" MJ. This should be noted to the user, I think.

There are LOTS of loose ends to be fixed.

> maybe an option to show a specific playlist or view scheme in thumbnail-mode per default (and the others as specified by the toolbar button) would be useful

> if I have very much pictures in one category (this is "Vacation") the MJ-views get quite... un-easy handling; I usually organize my vacation-pictures by location and so on; it would be usefull, if this could be done in MJ also

Smaller thumbnails might help.  Or you could edit properties and move the files according to the properties.

[LCtheDJ]

I installed MJ9 twice on a 'test computer' and had a problem with installing; I got an error message when it came to the point of installing 'in_wma.dll'.  The message said the install failed, but it seemed to continue anyway.

I see the field for BPM but cannot access it to enter anything into it. I tried using 'Properties' and also direct entry in the 'Playing Now' grid.  I used Helium2 to add BPM to some test files but MJ9 does not read the info.  This makes me wonder if you are inventing your own method of storing BPM instead of using the official ID3v2.3 tag identifier 'TBPM'.

Are you planning on using some the items from some of the community's heated discussions, like multiple panes in the windows?

[JimH]

Maybe.  Nothing is frozen yet.

For BPM, select files, do tools/analyze audio/analyze.

The in_wma file is just a loose end.

[sekim]

When I played around with this earlier I noticed that the Tree options were somewhat different. Just curious, how are you using these options without a checkbox option? I had the box pop-up, but at this point I wasn't going to mess with it much. I guess I need a little explanation as to how you guys are doing the field naming.

Additional:

I like the way Replay Gain is implemented from the tools. This was very quick in loading up by the way.

File Properties is also great. The ability to leave the properties open and just pick files from the library is much more useful then the right click on everything. And it's detachable! Object Desktop inspired?

I understand this is only early alpha at best, but could you drop a hint as to what else may be added that isn't now?

[ChicoSelfs]

i play with this and i like that, but when i finnish unnistall the program links stay's on the start menu

[KingSparta]

JRiver.

There may be issues with MJ and the MJ programing Tools a user reported that my program tells him he is not registered, and states that MJ9 tells him he is registered.

could the new fuctions

IsRegistered()
SaveToTag()

The two new fuctions be added if it has not been

[JimH]

Wrong forum.  

"Sir, do you know how fast you were driving?"

[KingSparta]

>> "Sir, do you know how fast you were driving?"
Ok I am off the wagon, no breath tests today

[sekim]

I think the new toy got a hold of my cover art. Gone. Bummer. Oh well, I didn't have many anyway.

[DocLotus]

LCtheDJ wrote...

>> I installed MJ9 twice on a 'test computer' and had a problem with installing; I got an error message when it came to the point of installing 'in_wma.dll'. The message said the install failed, but it seemed to continue anyway. <<

I'm having the same problem.  Each time I install MJ9 I get the error even though the 'in_wma.dll' file is already there.  As soon as I try to play a WMA file, MJ9 goes to the web site & downloads WMA plug-in even though it is already installed.

[sekim]

Cover art directory is gone. Was in the default, but when I uninstalled 9 and put 8 back in, the directory most have went with it. Should note, had to uninstall Library files (from the uninstaller) to get 8 back in. This is where it may have disappeared. Like I said, not many covers to begin with. Was still in the process of adding all this stuff from the OS upgrade and harddrive addition.

[KingSparta]

MachineHead

when you Un-Installed MJ8 or MJ9 I am sure the cover Art went with it. since it removes the Dirs\folders.

[sekim]

Yeah, I figured as much. May have to point it to a new location next time.

[RemyJ]

GREAT WORK!!!

If you get DSP working and fix a minor import bug (track number and replay gain are lost on files written by V8), I'm there!

Nice to see Replay Gain getting some attention and the View Scheme Groupings are cool.

One request:  Can you have V9's registry keys qualified with the version number so both versions can be installed at the same time?  I don't want to run them at the same time or even share the same library, but having to install and uninstall is a problem.

Remy

[Mirko]

JimH: Thanks for answering so fast.

-> Genre/Comment-Folders <-

For Genres? Should work. I keep my folders organized like this:
images
year
place or subject (just names like california, garden, people)

Once I imported, I used the Properties/Tools/"Fill properties from filename" and then entered "year\genre" for directories and skipped filename. This filled the year and genre correctly.

I don't understand that... You have this tree?

Images
- Year
  - Place/Subject

Do you organize this by hand (e.g. moving the files to a playlist which is bound to a folder)? Could you please post the view scheme?
I thought about the following:
Smartlist with filter "g=[Bilder]" and View Scheme search criteria like "c=[Vacation] or [Flowers]". I think this should do organize them like this:

Bilder
 - Vacation
 - Flowers

The only point is, that I need to edit the search criteria whenever I add a new one.

Thanks for listening.

What about DSP? ;-)

[JimH]

[Mike Noe's post moved here]

First, bang up job just to get this beta out so soon and with a feature set that will take literally weeks to uncover it appears. I've been earning my living developing software for the last 15 years, albeit in the corporate/application arena, and I've seen a little good and alot of bad, and IMO, you guys rank right up there with the best.
Anyway, 'nuf brown nosin'. Keep up the good work.

Generally, I can't keep v9 running. I'm using the ASIO output, slider toward "more responsive". After playing a few songs, MJ stops and then the buffering/playing status msg occurs, but it never picks up and plays again. Pretty soon, MJ "stops responding" and I have to kill it. If I then kill "explorer", restart it, other apps can play, but MJ won't play when restarted. Until I reboot, MJ won't play.

Others:
-I too get intall "plugin" failure for "in_wma.dll"
-On first convert, options choose Monkey, downloads, installs but doesn't reflect the options in the second combobox until I cancel the dialog and come back.
-Check for updates wants to "upgrade" to v8.356

In the tree, right clicking and album, choose play, doesn't work. Seems to load my last selected playlist into playing now and start playing that instead. Only way I can get an individual album to play is by double-clicking it.

Listening to: 'Just As I Am' from 'Red Headed Stranger' by 'Willie Nelson' on Media Jukebox

Media Jukebox PLUS 9.0.49
Install Path: C:\Program Files\J River\Media Jukebox\

CPU: Intel Pentium III 448 MHz MMX
Memory: Total - 261 MB, Free - 104 MB
OS: Microsoft Windows XP Workstation 5.1 (Build 2600)
Sound Card: RME Digi96/8 PST (driver v2.023)

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2600.0000
ComCtl32.dll: 6.00.2600.0000
Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2600.0000
Shell32.dll: 6.00.2600.0000
wnaspi32.dll: Internal ASPI Layer

[Griff]

Very nice, was looking forward to ver 9 and images.

Major prob:
Same as everyone else, except one.
TV:
Scan of channels keeps looping.
Locks up sound card.
This seams simular to earily vers of 8.
(aiw7500 and Santa Cruz)

Images:
Stupid move-I imported tons of them.
What a mess, I had. So backed them all out and started again.
All my pic files are setup like this E:\pic\mmddy\mmddy000, 000=pic no. 000 to 999. Did one dir at a time, went to recently imported,select all, put in year and under comment put mt and date.
Next created a new view in Media library called Pictures with year and comment field.
Bingo,just the way I wanted it. Years with mts and days inside.
The Audio combined with Images is great.
This is the exact setup I was hopeing for in ver 9.

But    (there is always a but, right JimH)

"The view filter button"

Unless Im missing something, this is an overall filter.
Would it be possible to move this filter to the items under Media Library. Like a rt ck on Album and then to be able to select filter type for that particular media.

Thanks
Griff

[JimH]

Griff,
Try adding a new view and use Media Type as your first level.

[Griff]

Thanks JimH

Tried it, it did separate the audio jpegs from the image jpegs, but this isnt going to work for me. I have tons of audio on one HD, Images on another and there will probably be another HD for Vedio. I do not want everything running together in Media Library. I want them sep. So I noticed the comment field was blank on my all my audio files and I use this field as mmdd for images. So I created search strings for Album, ect. and pictures, now everything is separated.

Thanks JimH

If there is a better way, please let me know.

[JimH]

Check out what "fill properties from file name" can do.  Select your files, do a right click, then choose properties, then tools.  Experiment on a few first.

[sekim]

Yikes!!! While playing a song and clicking on an album cover it automatically changes tag info. Went back into options and unchecked the auto update tag feature. This could cause total mayhem if you're not careful.

[sekim]

Ok, I'm starting to see a few things here that are very nice.

1) It looks like Slideshow is included in this. Added some files that are standard XP images to a playlist and the images start to cycle as the playlist is being played. Also, when dragging the slider bar for the vis window the picture automatically resizes. Like this much.

2) Album View like option of clicking on a cover and the song starts. This is one of thee most requested features for MJ ever, and now it is included. May need some more work, but I've only had it running for about ten minutes.

3) Even though the DSP isn't working, or rather showing, it is still using clip protection. I have installed DFX which doesn't show up either but seems to be processing. May need to play around more to make sure.

4) The decade feature is very nice. A little modification and it shows which tags have not been updated. Also, lets you specify what type of media you are looking for-mp3, ape, and surprise, images. Now I don't have many images, yet, but am I to assume that you could add date info to these as well?

5) The toggle view button on the toolbar is nice for checking either album covers or lists in Media Library. Any way of making them both show up together?

6) Auto Size columns needs some tweaking. Covers up the Artist instead of expanding to show who it is. Even with short names like Bush.

7) You need to do something with the slider bars. It isn't immeadiately apparent that there is a pane to the right for File Properties. No need to right click or select properties from the dropdowns. I griped about this in 8, and if any of the suggestions from the 'How Complex...' thread about UI's are applied, this needs to be one of them. I've gotten used to looking for these things, but a newbie isn't gonna see this kind of stuff right off the bat. Hell, I didn't notice it right away. I recall that there was something about this that gave MJ fits. Should really find a way to make this work so it would be an attention getter, the arrows and slider handle just do not show up well enough.

That UGLY player display window. There has to be something slightly more attractive then that. I've resorted to copying Green Eyes display into this for the time being. Fluff, I know, but maybe a sticking point...

Need to dig around some more...

I guess dsp isn't working. Bummer.

Intensity - What's the significance of this? Is it just for replay gain showing how much adjustment is being used on a particular track. This is what I'm guessing it is for.

[DocLotus]

HELP!!!

Yes Jim... I’m SCREAMING.

When trying to play a lot of my WMA files I am getting the following message…

‘Failed to save tag information for “XXX”’

I deleted all playlist & re-imported all files from disk & also updated the database.  Same problem… a lot of files that used to play get the ‘Failed to save tag information for “XXX”’ message.  I would say about 70% of my 2000|PLS| files now have the problem.

I then used the delete Tags command… same problem.

I used the ‘File\Library\Clear Library’ command & re-imported all files from disk & also updated the database.  Same problem.

If I associate my files with Windows Media Player, they play just fine.  I re-associate with MJ 9 & the problem comes back.

I un-installed MJ9 & re-installed MJ8.  Guess what?  The problem is still there.

What happen?

What’s going on?

ALSO…

* Do WMA files have tag information?  Seems like I read in one of the forums a long time back that they do not.

* If so, which type ID3 v1 or v2?

Thanks All…

[JimH]

Doc,
There may be tagging problems with WMA.  I don't know.

From the first message:

Don't use this preview with files that can't be replaced. If you don't consider yourself an expert with Media Jukebox, please wait for a later release. Backup your database (and files) before doing anything else.

[DocLotus]

Hi jim;

I had already restored all my music files from two weeks ago (have not added since then).  Same problem... ‘Failed to save tag information for “XXX”’

Am getting another problem... This one seems to be from many versions back.  When I try to play a song, often the cursor will jump down one or two selections.  I saw this a long ago but was fixed on one of the builds.

[DocLotus]

More on my play problem...

If MJ9 is NOT loaded, then I double click on any music file in windows Explorer, MJ9 will load & play the file without any problem.

If MJ9 IS already loaded, then I double click on any music file in windows Explorer, MJ9 will not play the file.

If I try to play the same file in MJ9, either nothing happens, the cell pointer moves down one or two selections, it does nothing, of I get the ‘Failed to save tag information for “XXX”’