Hi to ya’ all;
I’m new to JRiver Media Center (presently using v17.0.173 as a trial on Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit), coming from many years of iTunes, and getting fed up with that particular puppy, just like I got really peed off with M$’s WMP all them years ago.
Ok then, MC looks and feels
pretty darn good, certainly sounds great (after playing with & adjusting them various settings), and the UI’s are a treat, particularly in Theater Mode. Having said all that, MC is, however, a rather very different beast from where I’m coming from, and definitely requires the user to spend a fair amount of time getting to know its multitude and deeply layered/leveled menus, settings and options. My gut feeling says this will take me a couple of weeks – and I’m pretty handy with UI’s, coming from an IT/SAD background.
Below are some of the major things I so far haven’t been able to figure out, and perhaps some kind soul – and/or vastly more experienced user of MC – on this board could help me out with / point me in the right direction. So here goes (my apologies for the lengthy post):
Question 1: Where can I backup/export my custom MC configuration (and I mean the whole shebang, including the libraries and playlists)?? I mean, what happens if I have to reinstall the OS, and MC? Do I have to go through the whole setting-up exercise again? It’s not like it takes a few minutes (as in iTunes, and even that puppy stores its settings in its library so that they are back after a quick reinstall, provided the library is kept out of C:\). Can’t I simply backup all my custom settings, libraries & playlists, and then import them if/as needed?
Question 2: Starting MC: I’d like to start it off in Theater Mode, in the Audio section. OK, I figured out how to make it open in Theater Mode, though I still need to click on Audio to get to the screen that shows my music collection. Where/how can I set MC up so that I don’t have to click on Audio every time?
Question 3: I’d use MC primarily (like 99% of the time) as my music player. I have a fairly large and varied music collection (some 1600 full albums of HD 320bit mp3’s, near enough to 27,000 files), with each album having its original cover art embedded into each track, plus a 500x500 pixel file called Folder.jpg. In iTunes there is that handy little function whereby I can direct iTunes to shuffle either tracks, or full albums. Where in MC can I do this? I searched this forum, and it seems that this is one trick MC either despises or simply can’t (won’t?) do. I mean, from a developer’s point of view, it shouldn’t be that hard to incorporate such an option. Or do the guys ‘n gals at MC HQ simply feel that such an option is just a colossal no-no? I mean sure, I agree, most people would just shuffle tracks, but some folks like to listen to whole albums as they were conceived by the artists – Pink Floyd albums are a case in point! In iTunes I have a playlist with all my Pink Floyd albums, and iTunes can shuffle through this one album by album. Hey, if iTunes can do this, why not MC??
Question 4: Talking of cover art: Unfortunately it seems MC does that same stupid and unforgiving no-no M$’s WMP introduced all them years back. Namely, cutting down all cover art to 200x200 pixels!! As far as I’m concerned that’s just hideous. My files are my files, and I want to control what happens with them! I didn’t spend years of collecting and sorting and cleaning up my collection, for someone to come along and change things without even telling me! Now looking at MC and the way it comes across, I simply find it hard to believe that there isn’t an option somewhere to prevent changes to cover art when importing audio files / collections. So what do I need to do to stop this from happening again?? Luckily I have a few external backups of my collection, so for me it’s no biggy, just
really annoying! But I guess some other people might get mightily pissed off about such a strange invasion / behavior … And before someone asks:
Yes, prior to importing my music collection into MS's library, all Folder.jpg files were 500x500 pixels ...
Question 5: The Ctrl+1 Mode is pretty handy to use from time to time. But is there an option to auto-hide the (left) sidebar when not in use / needed? Sure, I could go into the Ctrl+5 Mode, but that doesn’t show me the player and player control buttons at the top of the screen. Any pointers on that one?
Question 6: Next: is there a way to prevent MC from creating/downloading/adding
any and all additional images, artwork etc. for the audio and video libraries/modules? Seems to me MC downloads artwork, images etc. for all video and audio files the user adds to MC’s libraries. If, however, the user doesn’t want that (and granted, I can imagine that a lot of users will be rather happy with that constant flood of online visuals), can it be disabled?? And if so, where? I managed to disable those (for me very distracting) Van Gogh backgrounds in Theater Mode, but it seems MC still downloads all sorts of stuff in the background. Ok, I could use my firewall and block MC from having unrestricted internet access, but that does seem a tad harsh …
Question 7: Oh, and talking of images: I tried the Image Module and imported my collection of images (mainly photos and such). Is there a way to sort this
by folders? I mean the sort options I see (like date, names etc.) sort my images into (for me) totally meaningless groups? If I want to view all (and only those) images from holiday_xyz, which happen to be in a folder called holiday_xyz (which is a sub-folder of my Images folder), then that’s what I would expect any good graphics library program to present me with. Hell, even good ol’ ACDC does that. So how’s this done in MC (I couldn't find an option to sort my image library just by folders)?? And BTW, is there a way to turn off those rather ghastly white frames MC tends to throw around each of my image files??
Question 8: Lastly, is there a way to unload/remove the modules I wouldn’t use (such as images, videos, gadgets etc.)? I do like what MC can do, and how it does it. But I would use it primarily only as a very good and competent, plus great sounding, jukebox for my audio collection.
So, please, don’t get me wrong; I think MC is a pretty amazing puppy. Not for the faint-hearted or the quick-n-easy crowd (they can stick with WMP for all I care, or even with bloatware iTunes plus its non-stop useless/pointless updates and horribly clunky & dated UI), but it’s
a great tool for audiophiles like myself.
All advice, pointers and tips would be very much appreciated.
Cheers, peace and thanks to ya’ all.
P.S.: If the answers to some of my above questions are deemed obvious and/or easy to find, then please have some patience and forgive this MC newbie; perhaps I'm half-blind and/or have a multitude of "blond moments" ...
Thanks heaps ...
