Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[HiFiTubes]

Like many, I suggest MC around the web. Thought you all might find this interesting, and have comments.  
Where to start....? Lots of things run through my mind. Also, not sure how WMC integrates "clients".

Ok, so I am a bit confused here.

The website is pretty darn crappy at explaining why I would actually want this. I could grab the torrent and check it out, but I would need more enlightenment to even want to do that.

I currently use Windows Media Center to record tv, show pictures (any format, camera raw included), play music (any format, but generally WMA lossless works best), play movies (downloaded MKV's, bluray, dvd, etc)... everything is presented in a really nice looking manner and comes with album art, dvd covers, fan art, synopsis, cast, etc, etc. I can stream this data from any pc in the house.

What will JRiver give me that WMC won't???

[Matt]

We've been thinking about this question ourselves, with respects to website messaging.  It's hard to give a good answer without knowing a little more about the customer.

If we start talking about our industry-leading audio engine, will that resonate?

If we talk about Library Server, DLNA, WebRemote, WebPlay, will that tickle the customer?

Do they like control over how to view their media or want the fastest media database?

Do they care about access from their couch with a remote?

Is their main focus consuming media from lots of sources, and they just want an easy, pretty interface?

Does an active community and development cycle appeal to them?

Do they get any satisfaction from supporting something other than the Microsofts, Apples, and Walmarts of the world?

I'm sort of brain-storming out-loud here.  One idea Jim has been floating is to make our homepage try to triage users into 5 to 7 focal points (like the ones listed above) so we can better talk to each group.  For example, there's no point talking about RAW image support to someone looking for the premier audiophile solution.  And there's no point talking about ASIO, WASAPI, and Room Correction to someone hoping to hook up their new DLNA device.

[jmone]

Sounds like you already have your top level presentation done.

[JustinChase]

in general, few care that a car has a V-8 engine, most everyone likes to go fast.

few care that the walls have an R-36 insulation factor, most everyone cares that the home will be comfortable and bills will be low.

few care about the details, most everyone likes to enjoy the benefits of the details.

In other words, light on details, big on direct benefits to the user (whoever they may be).

"If we talk about Library Server, DLNA, WebRemote, WebPlay, will that tickle the customer?"  probably not.

If you talk about being able to enjoy all of your music, movies and photos, anywhere in the house (or out of it), with a remote control, or an iPhone, they might feel the tickle.

The real hard part is "to give a good answer without knowing a little more about the customer."  You got that right!!

benefits sell things, not details; you just have to figure out their needs, then explain the benefits of MC

I think a series of short clips showing the cool stuff it can do would be very beneficial.

(and don't overlook the power of a pretty model, or a sexy voice)

Finally, what I think the person quoted above is trying to say is that WMC works pretty well out of the box, and MOST people prefer that.

MC's learning curve makes even the Tibetan's scared of the climb

[JustinChase]

I was just browsing on ars technica, and saw an interview with the designer behind the gadgets in the star trek films, Michael Okuda, and in particular his take on how the iPad looks like the props they used on the shows.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/08/how-star-trek-artists-imagined-the-ipad-23-years-ago.ars

the article ended with this...

Whatever the advances, though, focusing on the end user will be the driving force behind the true innovations. "As devices get more powerful, hopefully we will continue to see things being considered in terms of the user's time and learning curve, rather than the power of the machine," Okuda said. "The complexity should be abstracted, synthesized down to the simplest possible interface for instant gratification, with the shortest possible learning curve—that is the wave of the future."

"At least, it should be," Okuda told Ars.

[raldo]

One selling point: MC is significantly faster than WMC.

A colleague just bought an Asrock 330HT and WMC was slow (switching views etc.). He's trialling MC now and he says it's significantly faster.

[jmone]

There are two distint types in the market that would be attracted to MC (but they need different pitches)
1) Consumers:  As pointed up by the posts above, many users want to know about the benefits and how to use the MC to do the things they want in a nicely packaged, straight forward way.  These consumers don't care how the product works - just that it does with a minimum of fuss and that it delivers the benefit as advertised.  Think how Apple makes, packages, and markets their Products and those that buy them.
2) Technophiles:  For us others, part of the attraction in MC is the actual technology itself, we they like to play, tweak and see what can be done.  Think of the 1980's HiFi "enthusiast" endlessly tweaking their Graphic Equalisers, cleaning their records with that special fluid and customised roller cleaner thingies....you know who are are!

Anyway - Which market is JR after? can you do both? can you really do both? is there any $ in the consumer market?  is there really any money in the consumer market?  To play devils advocate for that WMC user, if WMC does what he wants & is "Free" why would he want MC and why would JR want to chase him?  Case in point, I "sold" MC to my brother-in-law on a whole bunch of features back in MC14 days.....and he said on the W'End he really needs to have a play with it at some time!  I'm guessing he is consuming his media from the iPod/iTunes, DVD Player, etc etc.  JR got the sale but it is not great value to either JR or my brother-in-law.

To me the target market are those users who are happy to pay for the "next level" over the "free" stuff they can get on Windows already (and that includes WMP, WMC, iTunes, MediaPortal, PS3Media Server/TVersity etc etc) and the JR Web presence needs lots of work (no argument from me) to target the potential users well.

Nathan

[HiFiTubes]

This guy's approach scares me.

Google will buy out MC in ten years? And then I'll be forced a stock view scheme....AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

"JRMC25, bundles now available with the GoogleDAC"

I like to TWEAK, for a reason, for usability, for creativity.

I agree with his general intention: make the foundation easy to use. NEVER take away my ability to configure.

"NO USER SERVICEABLE PARTS INSIDE"

I was just browsing on ars technica, and saw an interview with the designer behind the gadgets in the star trek films, Michael Okuda, and in particular his take on how the iPad looks like the props they used on the shows.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/08/how-star-trek-artists-imagined-the-ipad-23-years-ago.ars

the article ended with this...

Whatever the advances, though, focusing on the end user will be the driving force behind the true innovations. "As devices get more powerful, hopefully we will continue to see things being considered in terms of the user's time and learning curve, rather than the power of the machine," Okuda said. "The complexity should be abstracted, synthesized down to the simplest possible interface for instant gratification, with the shortest possible learning curve—that is the wave of the future."

"At least, it should be," Okuda told Ars.

[HiFiTubes]

There are two distint types in the market that would be attracted to MC (but they need different pitches)
1) Consumers:  As pointed up by the posts above, many users want to know about the benefits and how to use the MC to do the things they want in a nicely packaged, straight forward way.  These consumers don't care how the product works - just that it does with a minimum of fuss and that it delivers the benefit as advertised.  Think how Apple makes, packages, and markets their Products and those that buy them.
2) Technophiles:  For us others, part of the attraction in MC is the actual technology itself, we they like to play, tweak and see what can be done.  Think of the 1980's HiFi "enthusiast" endlessly tweaking their Graphic Equalisers, cleaning their records with that special fluid and customised roller cleaner thingies....you know who are are!

Anyway - Which market is JR after? can you do both? can you really do both? is there any $ in the consumer market?  is there really any money in the consumer market?  To play devils advocate for that WMC user, if WMC does what he wants & is "Free" why would he want MC and why would JR want to chase him?  Case in point, I "sold" MC to my brother-in-law on a whole bunch of features back in MC14 days.....and he said on the W'End he really needs to have a play with it at some time!  I'm guessing he is consuming his media from the iPod/iTunes, DVD Player, etc etc.  JR got the sale but it is not great value to either JR or my brother-in-law.

To me the target market are those users who are happy to pay for the "next level" over the "free" stuff they can get on Windows already (and that includes WMP, WMC, iTunes, MediaPortal, PS3Media Server/TVersity etc etc) and the JR Web presence needs lots of work (no argument from me) to target the potential users well.

Nathan

There is also the question which asks what the growth of the "Technophile" user base will be in 5 to 10 years. Are we assuming a lot to say the "Consumers" will drive a market ridden with "technology in 5-10 years? Do you really have to cater to both? Maybe raise the bar, simplify what you can, and assume that growing tech. and devices will help bring the prols up to speed 

[kurushi]

windows media center is certainly a good soft for all the enthousiast audiophile but j river is best in this area & for remote WMC can use it too but MC has certainly more features than wmc , is growing very fast ,have tagging feature very more powerfull & is very lightweight too i think MC is the best for the audiophiles users & for a casual user WMC can do a good job .
Anyway if the 2 softs are free i choose for sure MC over WMC!

[c00ld00d]

I think folks are missing something here. You can not compare MC to WMC alone. WMC is 10-foot only. You really mean WMP/WMC. Windows Media Player does all the media management, and as far as I know can do many (but certainly not all) of the things MC can do. Personally, I much prefer MC to WMP. But for 10-foot, For me it is WMC, since it currently gives me all I need. I've been a MC user since version 8 at least, and will say I've not spent a lot of time with MC's 10-foot interface, but I've simply not had a compelling reason. ASAIK, there's limited third-party extensions available, which is huge in WMC. Plus, it just works.

CD

[Clawdeath]

The only thing I think it's better in WMC is the view scheme, in WMC you can set a custom image to represent a field without apply it to the inner fields, you just need to name the image as folder.jpg and put in in the root of the field, if I place a picture of the band Iron Maiden inside Iron Maiden folder I will see the picture representing the band in the "artist" field, but if you double click the picture and enter in the albums field each album had their own cover art that are not affected by the image you use to represent the outer field.
And in the video library I can use a Lost logo to represent Lost series and scans of my dvds cover art of each season to represent the seasons field and this will not affect the thumbnails of the videos that are taken from a screenshot of the video, but WMC had ways less compatibility, even with CCCP, Real alternative and quick time alternative installed it will not play some rmvb and mov with sound and MC play them flawlessly, so I'm still using MC (And hoping that the option to choose the "root view" will be added as soon as possible), it's better a barely usable view scheme than incompatibility.

[fitbrit]

The only thing I think it's better in WMC is the view scheme, in WMC you can set a custom image to represent a field without apply it to the inner fields, you just need to name the image as folder.jpg and put in in the root of the field, if I place a picture of the band Iron Maiden inside Iron Maiden folder I will see the picture representing the band in the "artist" field, but if you double click the picture and enter in the albums field each album had their own cover art that are not affected by the image you use to represent the outer field.
And in the video library I can use a Lost logo to represent Lost series and scans of my dvds cover art of each season to represent the seasons field and this will not affect the thumbnails of the videos.

I would love this functionality in MC15 for TheaterView. I think with the sidecarfiles it should be possible to have a certain image associated with certain fields like [Season] or [Program], or [Episode] etc. Then we wouldn't have to use the folder.jpg method, and can organise our media (on disk) anyway we want. I would continue to use a specific cover art folder, for example.

[HiFiTubes]

I would love this functionality in MC15 for TheaterView. I think with the sidecarfiles it should be possible to have a certain image associated with certain fields like [Season] or [Program], or [Episode] etc. Then we wouldn't have to use the folder.jpg method, and can organise our media (on disk) anyway we want. I would continue to use a specific cover art folder, for example.

I have a custom field for Artists and it would be handy to be able to apply a custom image to the field per artists, like a headshot, so when browsing I'm looking at faces of the artists.

[zxsix]

We've been thinking about this question ourselves, with respects to website messaging.  It's hard to give a good answer without knowing a little more about the customer.

If we start talking about our industry-leading audio engine, will that resonate?

If we talk about Library Server, DLNA, WebRemote, WebPlay, will that tickle the customer?

Do they like control over how to view their media or want the fastest media database?

Do they care about access from their couch with a remote?

Is their main focus consuming media from lots of sources, and they just want an easy, pretty interface?

Does an active community and development cycle appeal to them?

Do they get any satisfaction from supporting something other than the Microsofts, Apples, and Walmarts of the world?

I'm sort of brain-storming out-loud here.  One idea Jim has been floating is to make our homepage try to triage users into 5 to 7 focal points (like the ones listed above) so we can better talk to each group.  For example, there's no point talking about RAW image support to someone looking for the premier audiophile solution.  And there's no point talking about ASIO, WASAPI, and Room Correction to someone hoping to hook up their new DLNA device.

This has merit.  Our company has a new website, still on a testing server, that we will roll out this fall.
Our main change was to split the main page into sections by customer type.  We determined 7 very different groups.  We assigned a picture and title for each group.  Once the customer selects their group, then they drill into a more detailed page that describes how the software is used specifically in that industry.