Hi,
I first stumbled across JRiver Media Center a week ago when looking for an alternative to Windows Media Center, which I had try to configure on my wife's PC for playing music from the family's ripped CD collection stored on a NAS. I had become increasingly frustrated with the erratic import, sort and display issues with Windows MC, as many CD were showing with no album covers, incorrect album covers or a single CD split into several different instances with different album covers.
Our audio and video collection is stored on an HTPC in the library/home theatre (my room), and back-up of all content is on the NAS. The HTPC runs Cinemar software, which controls a number of DVD and BluRay changers, along with my receiver, Plasma screen etc. We like to watch movies in my room, but my wife prefers to watch TV Shows and listen to music in the main living room (her room), which she says is less gloomy.
So, I was looking for alternatives to Windows and came across JRiver. I downloaded it, and was amazed: Within minutes - literally - my entire CD collection (about 300 CDs I guess) was imported and displayed (and played) perfectly!
Then I noticed that JRiver could also be used for video content, something I had tried, but completely failed with, on Windows. So I imported my video collection, which consists of copies of DVD ripped with AnyDVD, probably around a 1000 DVDs worth, of which I estimate 80 % are TV Shows. This worked near perfectly for my movies, but not for my TV series. Since my files are disc based, and not downloaded from the internet or recorded from TV (episode based?), my TV Series imported into correct folders, series and seasons, with great artwork. However, the discs, which is the lowest entity/unit/component of my collection, whilst downloaded and working correctly, where displayed in a useless way, all approximately 800 of them appear as ViIDEO_TS. See attached screen grab 1.
Since I want to run the program in Theatre Mode I wish to optimize the set up accordingly, with a clean and simple look for my wife. However, the result is like in screen grab 2: the component for starting the virtual disc is there, in the form of buttons which link to and start the play of the correct files. However, since the buttons are all called the same, and are not listed in order, i.e. the top button may not be Disc 1 ad the bottom button may not be the last disc in a series, this makes it extremely difficult for my wife to know which button to press to start a show she wants to watch (or to be precise, she can start the correct show, but cannot find the disc containing the episode she wants to watch). Since the primary purpose of the files on the NAS are as back-up for the main HTPC system in my room, I don't want to changes files names, file structure or anything along those lines. My filepath looks like this: "\\READYNASULTRA6\Video\Shows\2 Broke Girls\Season 1\Disc 1\VIDEO_TS.IFO"
As can be seen, the information on the disc I want to play is right there as the folder name for the file that is being shown, in this case Disc 1. I did mess around with the settings in Theatre View Customize File Info Panel, and managed - briefly - to achieve something along the lines I wanted, see screen grab 3. However, since this resulted in the importing of incorrect artwork and description/dates etc, I tried to get rid of the incorrect info, and deleted the sidecar files and images imported into the Disc folders. After that i have been unable to recreate the buttons with the disc numbers, even though I have reinstalled MC18 and re-imported the files I have been testing on.
I have been working almost all day every day for the last week on this. I achieved an almost perfect result on import of all files in less than 15 minutes, but have not been able to do anything worth while after that despite a lot of work (obviously not good work, but still hard work). Audio and Movies are great, but since we will not be watching movies using MC18, and the TV show part at present is useless, due to the issue on not being able to see which discs have been imported, I am thinking that for me MC18 can only be used as an Audio player, and that I need to look elsewhere for a media player for my ripped DVDs.
I am hoping that someone will prove me wrong! ? I have received quite a lot of help and friendly offers of assistance here on the forum, but so far, after about a week, I am no further towards my goal. My wife, who is no paragon of virtue when it comes to patience, is getting annoyed that i am spending so much time on something "that will obviously not work...". I would very much like to prove her wrong
SO, CAN SOMEONE GIVE ME SOME TIPS ON HOW I CAN GET THE DISC NUMBER (THE FOLDER NAME FOR THE FILE) TO SHOW US AS THE LABEL OF THE FILE I WANT TO PLAY? I ONLY NEED TO SEE IT IN THEATRE VIEW, BUT OBVIOUSLY IT COULD BE USEFUL ALSO TO SEE IT IN STANDARD VIEW.
I am about to throw in the towel, but would like to make a final effort. I will be very grateful, and willing to pay a reasonable gratuity, so the person who can help me! I can let you log into the PC, I can call you on the phone, or do this via e-mail.
best regards
Christopher
PS I am working from Oslo, Norway, so i am on Central European Summer Time, i.e. GMT+2