Confusion rules supreme...
While J River MC by all appearances appears to be and sometimes IS a outstanding media player "tool", it also is a beast trying to tame it in order to actually USE it. The so-called "help", how-to sections are often muddy, incomplete, misleading, go off into other areas, use terms undefined or make the foolish assumption you already know how to use all the many features of MC, making TRYING to use it a very frustrating and time wasting experience and I by no means am a newbie, having almost 30 years PC experience. If I'm getting confused (and I freely admit I am) then I shutter what others with far less PC savvy are experiencing even doing what should be simple tasks.
Memo to the creators of MC:
Actually try to USE your written instructions and then you'll see how easily it is to get lost, confused and frustrated. I suspect you are way too close to the application, know all its kirks and simply rely on your knowledge to get over the bumps. People new to the application have no such luxury and I for one am getting increasing frustrated TRYING to use this application that I actually like and would like much more if its many options were explained better. Something that I'm sure others are experiencing and obvously hurt potential sales. Because for sure people won't buy a application they have to fight with or endlessly refer make to muddy instructions then only to end up inn endless deadends and still not get what they want out of the application.
Specifically, in this thread I'll limit my comments to what MC can, (should do?) playing videos off a DLNA capable device such as a tablet or large screen tv either directly or through another media player such as Western Digitial WD LIVE TV (which I have) and am in the process of trying to sync with MC.
The first question is what is a user suppose to see if anything on screen on their linked device? You would think that would be obvious, but it is not. Let me go real slow. If I go to to my new DLNA capable Panasonic TV I see a list of "media servers". Right now that list is comprised of the following choices:
#1 Windows Media Player
#2 Twonky Media Player (access files on Qnap NAS)
#3 J River MC
#4 Negear (wireless 3700 router)
With the exception of #4 I can see various lists of files both on my networked PC and NAS, more or less get thumbnails in a list format and more or less play files on my big screen tv such as JPEG, MP3, MPEG-2, MPEG-4.
Is J River MC suppose to do MORE in the way of showing a more advanced presentation on my tv? Some shell, all the bells and whistles you get while playing off your PC?
Should I be looking for the full sets of controls it presents while viewing on my PC or am I expected too much?
I see all kind of options like Theater mode ON MY COMPUTER SCREEN, not on my TV, why not? Is that even an option? No where can I find any anwer to that. So that begs the question if not, what benefit if any does J River MC have (for playing vids off your TV since so far at least it does nothing different on my tv (just supply a dumb list of files) just like all the other media servers?
Now about Gizmo, and the TV remote offered, and other similar remotes.
I installed The MC Gizmo on my Samsung Transformer tablet. It won't control my TV, that seems blind to it. It will more or less give some basic control using the tablet. If I hook up WD Live to my TV, Gizmo "sees" WD live as a play option. Without making any menu choice from WD Live and while crudely done it gets some files to play off the tv, selected via Gizmo, but again poor to very limited control with all kinds of dumb things happening, like it plays the audio off the tv, then it starts playing the video portion off the tablet on some vids, the Gizmo control freeze, I totally lost control of both my WD Live device and my tablet and no matter what I did from within Gizmo, even disconnet the video's audio's portion at least kept playing on the tv with no apparant way to stop it, short of turning the tv off or exiting DLNA mode.
What typically happens. I launch Gizmo on my Tablet. I select WD Live, select a file through Gizmo, it appears on the tablet then several seconds later also starts to play on the TV, sooner or later the same vid playing on the Tablet goes away, continues to play on tv.
Is that all there is? Might sound like a silly question, but not really. What if anything have I gained using Gizmo, or by inference MC? It does nothing extra that none of the other media players do. If I were to purchase the MC remote or another media remote do I gain better control than Gizmo provides, if so what? Again, confusion, none of these issues are addressed anywhere I can find.
Is it (either a remote if I get one or Gizmo) suppose to do something else, like show all the fancy options it does when using from your PC, like a wall of thumbnails? Yes or no, there's no hint anywhere I can find in your documentation that it does or not... hence much confusion and frustration. I don't even know at this point WHAT you application is suppose to do, BECAUSE YOU DON'T SAY anywhere and leave me and others to guess and waste time.
It just gets more confusing... My tv is "smart" enough (I assume any DLNA TV would be) if put in DLNA mode to "see" any networked media servers. As I said in the beginning all, more or less provide a simple list, maybe thumbnails to choose from on the TV. Does J Rivers MC do more (as viewed from your TV and or other devices such as a tablet, if so is that documented anywhere? Because if it is I sure can't find it.