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[JimH]

Ganesh T S wrote this about JRiver:

"For those wanting things to work out of the box, JRiver Media Center 17 is highly recommended. I usually only recommend free open source software for HTPC users (except for Blu-ray playback, where there is no alternative but to pony up for one of the software Blu-ray players). However, a majority of HTPC owners don't have time to play around with different codecs and their merits and other settings. Codec packs were designed to solve this problem, but they have a tendency to mess up the system even more. JRiver Media Center 17 is a $50 player with self-contained filters (which can be further configured, if necessary). It also has a mode in which it can use system filters, but that is not of interest to us in this section. JRiver's Red October initiative enables users to enjoy LAV Filters and the madVR renderer out of the box."

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5814/asrock-highend-vision-3d-252b-htpc-review/11

Thanks, Ganesh and Anandtech.

[JustinChase]

There's more about JRiver in there too.  I'm looking forward to this...

JRiver Media Center 17 has a large number of other features which we haven't touched upon (maybe in a dedicated review down the line). It is possible to integrate Netflix and Hulu Plus into the MC 17 experience, and while they don't play back with madVR as the renderer, YouTube clips do. In fact, you can even force the Video settings to play back YouTube clips at the highest possible bitrate.

Congratulations on the ever-increasing (and well deserved) recognition of MC17!

[glynor]

Wow!  I saw that article and added it to my Instapaper, but I hadn't read it yet.

I was planning to come over here to the PC Hardware forum and post a link, because even without the JRiver mention, it'd probably be worth a look for many Interact-lurkers.

That's even better!

Just a sideways mention on the front page of Anandtech in a HTPC-focused article is huge.  To get the "highly recommended" is amazing.  Nice to see some folks out there are finally coming around to what we've known all along.

And, remember all that pain with the initial Red October builds?
Totally worth it.

[CountryBumkin]

Not much of a review (says he may do an indepth review later) - but the recommendation is nice.
Disappointing screen shots though - looks like Anand didn't get the coverart downloaded. Also he said he had to do a custom LAV/MadVR setup because he said he had too many frames dropped.
If he was able to fix the frame dropping by tweaking LAV/MavVR, perhaps JRiver should review the default settings.

[glynor]

Also he said he had to do a custom LAV/MadVR setup because he said he had too many frames dropped.
If he was able to fix the frame dropping by tweaking LAV/MavVR, perhaps JRiver should review the default settings.

I was thinking about this too.

I think the issue there is that they're testing on a SFF box.  The new ASRock 3D is no slouch, but it is still just a dual-core Sandy Bridge with a low-end laptop GPU.  It just can't quite handle the very high-quality settings of ROHQ.

But does changing ROHQ to work here (which will be lower-quality for people who have brand new desktop-class GPUs and quad-core CPUs) make a whole lot of sense?  Perhaps for MC18 the answer is to make a three-tier Red October system.

ROST - Baseline.  Good quality.  Works on everything, even an older PC or a netbook with an Atom.
ROMQ - Mainstream.  LAV/MadVR.  Tuned to work well on your "average" Sandy Core i3/i5 with a low-end 3rd party GPU, or an Ivy with onboard graphics.
ROHQ - High-end.  Full-sized ATX class performance.  Tuned for Quad-Core CPUs and current-gen $200+ GPUs.

PS.  Even better would be if it would detect the performance of your system on first launch, and set itself to the mode most suited to the system at hand.  It doesn't have to be perfect (conservative is better), but something like what most modern games do to "optimize quality" for a particular system would be great.

[pcstockton]

I just bought the non "Vision 3D" version of this.... the CoreHT 252B.   Same deals just without the nvidia card.

I am LOVING it.  Plus I scored it for <$600.... so no gripe with the price.

It is nearly silent.  That is what I like.  Plus it quadrupled by J River Benchmark score to 2800 (nice).  I added 8 gb of 1600 RAM (replacing the 4GB of 1333 it came with), slapped an Intel 330 120GB SSD in it and I got almost to 3000.

It plays back Blurays just fine (even though my HDTV is a little older an only displays up to 1366 x 768).  720p looks fantastic.

Roilling in fully standard ROHQ and I dont notice ANY problems.

Buy without hesitation.

Cheers!
Patrick

[pcstockton]

Regarding the video performance.....  How would I know if I am "dropping frames"?  What else is there to worry about?

I set J River to ROHQ the day I installed it and have never tweaked anything.  Should I?

Once again, i5 Sandy, HD3000 here in my ASrock CoreHT 252b.  I dont even have the little GPU add-on.

Thanks,
Patrick

[glynor]

MadVRs OSD can give you a running count of dropped and delayed frames.

But if it isn't bothering you, then my advice would be to ignore it.  Once you see, you cannot unsee.  Of course, it could be just that you aren't displaying at 1080p.  Rendering to 720p is a LOT easier on the CPU and the GPU, assuming that the renderer doesn't just render to full-quality and then scale as the last step.

[pcstockton]

That is exactly what I thought.  I should wait until I "see something" bad.

When you differentiate between 720p and 1080p are you talking about the DVD vs Bluray?  There aren't 1080 DVDs right?  Sorry for being a total dumbass here.

I only use my cablebox for anything HD at this point.

Although I did use MC+AnyDVD to play a Bluray just to see that it works.  Looked good enough to me.  Apparently that is downscaling though.  My HDTV is old and only 1368 x 768 max.

Cheers!
Patrick

[MrHaugen]

Very good publicity! Great to hear more praises about Red October and the online scraping system. It's well deserved.
Just a shame that these "reviews" almost consequently gets a minus for GUI and Theater View eye candy.

[Urbanito]

Congratulations Jim from a member that started with lots of problems, being a P in the asssssssssssssssss, and now is very very satisfied with JRiver. Now I make mine the words "the best media center on the planet.»

[glynor]

When you differentiate between 720p and 1080p are you talking about the DVD vs Bluray?  There aren't 1080 DVDs right?  Sorry for being a total dumbass here.

I mean....

My HDTV is old and only 1368 x 768 max.

It only has to work as hard on the deinterlacing and whatnot as your final resolution.

[Osho]

I just noticed this via the email in my Inbox today morning. First of all, many congratulations for getting recommendation from a first tier tech website such as Anandtech - they are highly influential. And, I hope, such recommendations would do a world of good for J River.

Second, I do hope that Anandtech (and other such first tier websites) do a thorough review of MC17 on its own merit - I am sure MC17 will do quite well there as well.

Last, some of the less than glowing comments about 10-foot UI should be taken constructively to find out where MC17 can be improved upon to make it the absolute best (just like it is with audio and video playback) in 10-foot UI.

Thanks,
Osho