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[imugli]

JR already have their own streaming service - PMC. It's there as a Tree item in Standard View, but almost as a separate piece of software. So it's there but you have to log in separately, search separately etc. and there's no integration in Theater View, so it's no good for the whole "5 button" philosophy.

So with that in mind, here are my suggestions to make PMC a viable alternative to Spotify, iTunes radio et al (at least for MC users) -

• Login credentials stored in settings
• Higher quality streams

Standard View

• Integration with my library. A tree item for "Local Files" and another for "All" which includes both my library and the PMC catalog (Optional via Tools > Options)
• If PMC is turned on in options, Search function in standard view includes PMC catalog (perhaps with a marker to differentiate it)*
• Ability to combine local tracks and PMC tracks in Playlists and Smartlists (via an "Include PMC tracks" option in Smartlist creator)

Theater View

• Option to integrate PMC catalog with my own Library in Theater View (denoted by icon) OR perhaps a roller item separate to audio (so then the next Theater View view could have Artist, Genre secondary rollers)

*I'd love the option to include online sources in Search. The ability to select if I want search to include PMC, Netflix, Hulu, Youtube, Local Library would be fantastic.

[)p(]

The main selling point for me would be a close integration with the local library. That is really missing from all current services that I am aware of. And even if they have some form of integration nothing can touch mc's library customization. I tried performer a few years ago and loved that I could add Albums from it to my regular library.

The fact is a lot of new albums I discover I only play a few times. I still would love to have them in my main library but I can't really justify to buy them. Also with the quality of 320kbs on Spotify for most Albums I find that good enough. So I only buy albums now for music that I like most and niche artists for support.

for me to switch from Spotify it would take:
1. Even better integration with the local Library then I remember.
2. Better quality streams, ie  256kbs>
3. Integrated search for local and online content.
4. Similar artists radio
5. Similar artists radio from a playlist. (This I use most in Spotify.)
6. The ability to control all this from my ipad. Ie search the online library,  add albums to the mc library, start radio etc.

[csimon]

Is this available in countries other than the US?

[imugli]

Is this available in countries other than the US?

Officially, no. But as Jim would say... "You're in Kansas, aren't you?"...

[xplain]

I would love to see this integration as well,
but the problem with PMC, is that it's actually only for US users,
yes You can make it think that You live in Kansas, or any where else in the US,
but for me, I live in Denmark, I like some of our Danish artists, and these aren't in PMC,
so PMC needs to be worldwide to make a real impact.

Thomas

[6233638]

Even for casual listening/discovery as if it were radio (though I don't pay a subscription fee for Radio...) I can't stand to listen to highly compressed music. Until these services start to offer CD quality, I have no interest in them.
 
But I'm also not interested in paying for a service where I don't get to keep any of the music I listen to, and I don't like the idea of subscribing to a service where content may just vanish at any time due to licensing deals.
It might be less of an issue with music, but when I was trying out video streaming services, I had content pulled several time right as I was in the middle of watching a TV series, and that was the end of it for me.
 
I think Microsoft got it right when they included a number downloads equal to the price of your subscription every month - that way you are at least getting something tangible for your money.

[csimon]

LOL.  At a blistering broadband rate of 400kbps, streaming isn't for me either!

[Mr ChriZ]

I'm a big fan of Amazons Autorip service.  I've only bought about 5 albums so far, but it's great to have the best of both worlds, CD and Mp3 on immediate delivery, and sitting on the cloud.  Sadly I think the CD's days are numbered however.  I recently had a rental car that didn't have a CD player only bluetooth and USB slots.
Among my friends very few still buy CD's most the others instead turning mainly to spotify. Even DVD purchases are rapidly being replaced by Lovefilm/Netflix . 
I'd like to see more integration with on line services in MC somehow...

[imugli]

Even for casual listening/discovery as if it were radio (though I don't pay a subscription fee for Radio...) I can't stand to listen to highly compressed music. Until these services start to offer CD quality, I have no interest in them.
 
But I'm also not interested in paying for a service where I don't get to keep any of the music I listen to, and I don't like the idea of subscribing to a service where content may just vanish at any time due to licensing deals.
It might be less of an issue with music, but when I was trying out video streaming services, I had content pulled several time right as I was in the middle of watching a TV series, and that was the end of it for me.
 
I think Microsoft got it right when they included a number downloads equal to the price of your subscription every month - that way you are at least getting something tangible for your money.

While I respect that, I actually think that puts you in the minority these days. I think people are very quickly catching on to the "Pay for the right to listen" model, and at non-CD quality. Everyone is so used to listening to crappy compressed music on their iphones (or even their car radios) that (while I'd like more then 128kbps from PMC) I don't actually think it's an issue for the "mainstream"...

[6233638]

While I respect that, I actually think that puts you in the minority these days. I think people are very quickly catching on to the "Pay for the right to listen" model, and at non-CD quality. Everyone is so used to listening to crappy compressed music on their iphones (or even their car radios) that (while I'd like more then 128kbps from PMC) I don't actually think it's an issue for the "mainstream"...

Perhaps, but I don't think Media Center is a "mainstream" player though - which doesn't mean that it's not a popular player, but when it costs $50, it's mainly going to attract people who are invested in high quality audio playback.
 
I think Microsoft had the right idea with the Zune Pass offering 10 free tracks and unlimited streaming for $15/month.
Compared to other services, $15 seems too much these days however.
 
I personally don't consider it worth a premium for high quality audio - that's something which determines whether I use your service or not.
$5 and 5 tracks/month for CD quality audio or better is something I'd be willing to consider, and something which would attract people that have previously not had any interest in streaming services.
 
 
The reason high quality audio is not taking off, is because companies like HDtracks are trying to charge premium prices for it, turning it into a niche market.
 
Quality should be used to attract customers, rather than driving them away with high prices.
Few people consider audio quality to be worth a premium, but if it costs the same as other services and sounds better, then you're likely to do well.
 
And if the cost of a subscription includes a certain number of track downloads per month, it shows that there is value to owning tracks rather than only streaming them, and people are more likely to start purchasing tracks from you as well.

[glynor]

But I'm also not interested in paying for a service where I don't get to keep any of the music I listen to, and I don't like the idea of subscribing to a service where content may just vanish at any time due to licensing deals.

+1

I'm not interested in any of the current mainstream streaming services at all.  I might use iTunes radio sometimes for free because it is right there on my phone, but mostly not, because I'd just use JRemote.

I'd also, generally, I'm not "too sure" on the whole "streaming is the future" talking point.

This was going to be the year streaming services "took over" for a long, long time.  The ground is littered with the remains of failed attempts.  And this current crop?  I don't know, none of them are profitable (or they aren't saying, which is the same thing).  And then, as 6233638 mentioned, there's this.

That all said, I do think MC could make some changes in this space, and perhaps they'd be better able to integrate with a less "commercial" service like these current walled gardens.

What about Soundcloud?  I had a look at their API terms, and it looks pretty open.  Basically you just need to allow users to upload content, not only leach it, and then, what you do is pretty much cool (even for commercial use).

Uploading to Soundcloud would be a sweet feature for musicians and DJs anyway.  A way to organize and build playlists of your own content, test it nicely, and then seamlessly upload it to Soundcloud?  That'd be quite awesome, and if you could browse the content there too, integrated into MC (and especially Theater View) and searchable?  Yeah, I'd take that.

[imugli]

This was going to be the year streaming services "took over" for a long, long time.  The ground is littered with the remains of failed attempts.  And this current crop?  I don't know, none of them are profitable (or they aren't saying, which is the same thing). 

I agree that the market at the moment is probably too fragmented and I think we'll see some consolidation in the not too distant future, to the point where we probably end up with 3, maybe 4 players (Google, iTunes, Xbox, and MAYBE Spotify or Pandora if they don't get swallowed up), but I still think it's the way things are going.

I think it's important to remember that we are the guys who spend hours making sure each movie or piece of music is tagged just the way we want it so we can search it, playlist it, smartlist it, expression it etc to within an inch of its life. A lot of (most?) people aren't like that. The are happy to just listen to a song or watch a movie, without needing the CD or DVD or an uncompressed, bitrate perfect copy of it stored on their local system or server.

[6233638]

I think it's important to remember that we are the guys who spend hours making sure each movie or piece of music is tagged just the way we want it so we can search it, playlist it, smartlist it, expression it etc to within an inch of its life. A lot of (most?) people aren't like that. The are happy to just listen to a song or watch a movie, without needing the CD or DVD or an uncompressed, bitrate perfect copy of it stored on their local system or server.

This is true, but even with the ubiquity of streaming services and the availability of music these days, I know fewer and fewer people that actually listen to music for enjoyment now, and just have it on as background noise instead.
 
I think a lot of that has to do with the quality of the music people are listening to these days, and what people are listening to music on now - whether they're aware of it or not.
Stream highly compressed music to a phone and use earbuds or a cheap pair of fashion accessories to listen to it, and it's just noise.
Play CD-quality music on a good pair of headphones, and you really get involved in it.
 
Stream music from your phone to one of those wireless speaker docks which generally have a low quality mono sound (even if it's technically stereo) and it's fine for background noise.
Play some CD quality audio or better through a decent pair of stereo bookshelf speakers and people really get engaged in the music.
 
 
I don't think many people these days are going to get interested in listening to music as an activity in itself any more (got to check the phone every two minutes, play a game, read a magazine etc.) but I've certainly noticed the difference when I play some high quality music on a good audio system rather than when people just sync their phone up to a bluetooth dock and stream from Spotify and the like.
 
 
And what happens when an album you want to listen to gets pulled from the service, the service is down for maintenance, you run into bandwidth limitations (someone on your network started a download) or your internet goes out?
Another issue with streaming services is that, by necessity, they are often quite mainstream. There are a lot of films, TV shows, or specific albums/singles/tracks/mixes that just don't get licensed.

[imugli]

This is true, but even with the ubiquity of streaming services and the availability of music these days, I know fewer and fewer people that actually listen to music for enjoyment now, and just have it on as background noise instead.
 
I think a lot of that has to do with the quality of the music people are listening to these days, and what people are listening to music on now - whether they're aware of it or not.
Stream highly compressed music to a phone and use earbuds or a cheap pair of fashion accessories to listen to it, and it's just noise.
Play CD-quality music on a good pair of headphones, and you really get involved in it.
 
Stream music from your phone to one of those wireless speaker docks which generally have a low quality mono sound (even if it's technically stereo) and it's fine for background noise.
Play some CD quality audio or better through a decent pair of stereo bookshelf speakers and people really get engaged in the music.
 
 
I don't think many people these days are going to get interested in listening to music as an activity in itself any more (got to check the phone every two minutes, play a game, read a magazine etc.) but I've certainly noticed the difference when I play some high quality music on a good audio system rather than when people just sync their phone up to a bluetooth dock and stream from Spotify and the like.
 
 
And what happens when an album you want to listen to gets pulled from the service, the service is down for maintenance, you run into bandwidth limitations (someone on your network started a download) or your internet goes out?
Another issue with streaming services is that, by necessity, they are often quite mainstream. There are a lot of films, TV shows, or specific albums/singles/tracks/mixes that just don't get licensed.

I agree with all of this and I am guilty of the background music theory myself. However, the topic is about how JR could make PMC a more viable option for MC buyers WANTING a streaming service, because Spotify et al don't allow commercial use of their API. It's really not about why people do or don't currently use streaming services. It's as a result of a few ppl asking for Spotify integration and Jim's suggestion that a thread be started to garner some ideas :-)

We can all agree that the quality is average at best, that compressed music sucks etc etc :-)

[)p(]

 
I think a lot of that has to do with the quality of the music people are listening to these days, and what people are listening to music on now - whether they're aware of it or not.
Stream highly compressed music to a phone and use earbuds or a cheap pair of fashion accessories to listen to it, and it's just noise.
Play CD-quality music on a good pair of headphones, and you really get involved in it.

Spotify premium streams at 320kbs thats good enough for most people. All serious tests I am aware of between properly encoded 256kb> lossy and standard 44.1 lossless files suggest that its very hard to hear a difference or in blind tests even at all.

[tmarnik]

However, the topic is about how JR could make PMC a more viable option for MC buyers WANTING a streaming service, because Spotify et al don't allow commercial use of their API. It's really not about why people do or don't currently use streaming services.

Hear, Hear! That's exactly right. I love high quality audio as much as anybody - I've had an Adcom amp and preamp along with a pair dbx Soundfield One speakers for years, and you can't beat the experience of sitting down and really getting lost in some great music, but this is not about that. And why does it always have to be an "either\or" choice anyway? I truly appreciate JRiver's audiophile capabilities, and I use them whenever I have time for dedicated critical listening, but the fact of the matter is that I spend much more of my time in situations and locations where audiophile-level critical listening just isn't an option. But thanks to the wonders of technology, I still have the ability to listen to a pretty vast selection of pretty decent quality music. I would like to able to use the great features of JRiver to help me organize and enjoy that music no matter where I am, or what I'm doing.

So here's my situation: I have about 6,000 FLACs in my library, and about 6,000 songs in a Performer Media Center playlist that I've built up over the years. I've been a subscriber since it's introduction and I continuously add songs as I learn about new artists, and new stuff comes out. I have one big "All Music" smartlist that I generally just listen to shuffled when I'm at home. This is just fine for me because MC just seamlessly plays everything whether it's coming from my hard drive or the Performer Store. The problem starts when I leave the house. I travel a lot for work, and I love using Gizmo to access my movies and music, but when it comes to the music, it's incredibly frustrating that Gizmo will not play the songs from the Performer Store. It is also frustrating that I can't download songs from the PS to my Android phone and listen to them offline when I'm on the plane. I've tried the portable subscription, and that doesn't work on my phone for some reason. To top it all off, I just got a Sonos Play:1 speaker for Christmas and it is totally cool that it just shows in MC as a DLNA device and I can stream music to it, but totally uncool that I can't stream any of the songs from the Performer Store.

So for me, the most critical feature missing right now is the ability to stream from the PS via Gizmo and DLNA. Next would be the ability to download PS content to my phone.

[JohnT]

...So for me, the most critical feature missing right now is the ability to stream from the PS via Gizmo and DLNA. Next would be the ability to download PS content to my phone.

Thanks for your input, and for supporting Performer since the beginning.  Although our current deal with Medianet doesn't allow us to support Gizmo and DLNA playback of subscription tracks, we'll continue to look around for other options in this area.