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[jimm2]

Installed the Mac trial but the GUI text was so blurry on my macbook pro that I couldn't take it. I don't see any way to improve this. Am I missing something or does everyone have this problem? Thanks

[JohnT]

It doesn't look too bad on my Macbook Pro.  It's a little on the soft side since with retina displays there is an implicit 2X scale factor so the application draws at one size and then the Mac OS scales it up which leads to a little softness.  In the near future we will be enhancing Media Center to take the scaling into account when drawing text so it will end up looking very sharp.

[jimm2]

Thanks John. I'll keep an eye on future developments to see how this improves. Maybe I'm more picky than others regarding the blurry text and graphics. Functionality wise, it looks very promising but just couldn't get past the GUI issues. Had high hopes for this as an iTunes replacement but the quest goes on I guess.

[pcstockton]

yes... it is blurry.  Not ready for retina yet.

[6233638]

If you use "get info" on the app, you can enable low resolution mode which at least disables the filtering so it's still low resolution scaled up, but not blurry any more. Scaled / Low Resolution
The UI scaling for Media Center may not be finished yet, but from what I saw it's at least far enough along that the JRiver team should hopefully be able to enable Retain support soon.

[Dan1970]

You really notice it when switching to another application from Media Center; looking forward to the enhancement!!!

[bplexico]

This blurriness extends to album art as well. See the two attached snapshots of the same album (sizing isn't perfectly matched but very close). The first  from MC, the second from iTunes. Both from a Macbook Pro with Retina display.

[jimm2]

Yes, I also found the album art is blurry as well as the text. It's pretty jarring when compared to other apps on the mac. For me personally it's not something I could live with.

Overall, it looks like a good product but frankly I'm surprised it's being sold like this. Will continue to monitor the development to see if the interface improves over time.

[pcstockton]

Overall, it looks like a good product but frankly I'm surprised it's being sold like this. Will continue to monitor the development to see if the interface improves over time.

That's what free 30 day trials (with FULL function) are all about.  

I have been a user since MC15 and have bought every upgrade through MC18.  I run a Mac OS sometimes (I usually run Win7 in Bootcamp) on my MacBook Pro and thought it would be nice to have MC there easily (without using Parallels).  I downloaded the trial and see that there is some work to be done.  I will wait a bit.  I was mostly excited to see how video streaming went and looked with the retina screen.  But I dont think it has been implemented yet.

Give them a chance to sort it all out.  It is still better than any other audio player for MacOS.

-Patrick

[6233638]

This blurriness extends to album art as well. See the two attached snapshots of the same album (sizing isn't perfectly matched but very close). The first  from MC, the second from iTunes. Both from a Macbook Pro with Retina display.

There are two issues you're seeing there:
 
1. Media Center uses a ton of JPEG compression for their thumbnails, whereas applications like iTunes do not - I think they're actually using PNG. I've been complaining about the quality of thumbnails for a while now - just brought it up again recently.
 
2. Media Center does not currently have retina support. As I understand it, the way OS X handles things is that a 13" MacBook with a 2560x1600 Retina display reports itself to applications as a 1280x800 display at 2x scale.
Non-retina applications render 1280x800 @ 1x, and OS X scales that up, resulting in a blurry image. Applications with retina support render 1280x800 @ 2x (2560x1600) and OS X does not scale the image.
 
Media Center recently added in the option to scale up its UI to 200%, but it does not have Retina support yet.
 
If I override my MacBook Pro's resolution from being 1280x800@2x to 2560x1600@1x with DisplayMenu, and set Media Center to 200%, it looks really nice.
Some of the graphics have not yet been updated to retina-quality assets, but it's still much better than it was before.
 
Unless there's some hurdle I'm unaware of, it seems like retina support is probably not that far away.
 
Here's a quick comparison:

• 1280x800 @ 2x (current MC)
  
• 2560x1600 @ 1x (faux-retina)
  

[jimm2]

That's what free 30 day trials (with FULL function) are all about.

Very true but seems a bit odd to me that a software package being sold for full price has such glaring UI issues. This is the 1st thing you see when installing the software so it leaves a pretty bad initial impression. Normally you expect this type of thing to be addressed before the product is released for sale.

[jimm2]

Media Center recently added in the option to scale up its UI to 200%, but it does not have Retina support yet.
 
If I override my MacBook Pro's resolution from being 1280x800@2x to 2560x1600@1x with DisplayMenu, and set Media Center to 200%, it looks really nice.
Some of the graphics have not yet been updated to retina-quality assets, but it's still much better than it was before.
 
Unless there's some hurdle I'm unaware of, it seems like retina support is probably not that far away.
 
Here's a quick comparison:

• 1280x800 @ 2x (current MC)
  
• 2560x1600 @ 1x (faux-retina)
  

You're right, looks much better. If you do this though, won't other programs be too small?

Also, from what I can tell it looks like only the Noire skin can be scaled up unless I'm missing something. Probably just my tastes but would prefer not to use that. Reminds me of something from the old XP days. Looks like there are a few user developed skins available so may give that a whirl.

As someone who is new to Media Center it appears that the software functionality is miles ahead of anything else I've tried for Mac (or windows) but it's currently let down by an interface that could use a refresh. Granted, this is only important to some but sure would be nice to find a combination of both.

[6233638]

You're right, looks much better. If you do this though, won't other programs be too small?

Yes, they will be too small. I just set it to that after copying over a handful of albums to do some testing the other day - I don't really use the Mac version right now. (actually, I think the trial is about to run out)
 
I was just showing that MC scaled to 200% is almost there as far as retina support is concerned, they just need to actually have MC run as a proper retina application.

Also, from what I can tell it looks like only the Noire skin can be scaled up unless I'm missing something. Probably just my tastes but would prefer not to use that. Reminds me of something from the old XP days. Looks like there are a few user developed skins available so may give that a whirl.

Only the Noire skin has had any work done on it for retina support, but you should still have retina-quality text and album art with other skins once it's implemented.

That's the problem with anything running on a Retina Mac though - anything created before they were introduced will need to be redrawn to properly take advantage of them. The new Noire skin is being created at 4x size to account for Retina, and allow for scaling up to 200% even when on a Retina display.

As someone who is new to Media Center it appears that the software functionality is miles ahead of anything else I've tried for Mac (or windows) but it's currently let down by an interface that could use a refresh. Granted, this is only important to some but sure would be nice to find a combination of both.

I somewhat agree with you - the functionality is good enough that I can't see myself moving away from MC, but there are a lot of UI changes I'd like to see too.

[jimm2]

Downloaded the .88 trial after I noticed it included experimental retina support and tried again. Have to say this is much better now. Still not usable on a daily basis since it has to be reset every time you start the program but definitely a big improvement in the text sharpness and also the album art, at least for me.

I noticed from browsing the forum that the JRiver team doesn't like to comment on upcoming plans which I can respect but was hoping to get an idea of the general interface enhancements that might be coming in V19. Trying to decide if I should purchase now or wait until the next major release.

Specifically, do you plan in V19 to make retina support available for all skins or just the few that are out of the box like Noire? Also, any plans to update the core skins? No offense intended but Noire and the others are looking a bit dated, just my opinion FWIW.

I was able to find a few user developed skins that are nice but these would need to be modified a bit for OSX. After reading up on skin editing, it doesn't look too difficult through xml edits and Photoshop but if retina support wasn't going to be available any time soon for user skins, then why bother.
 
Overall, I think if you can freshen up the interface a bit and add video library support, this would allow a lot of mac users to ditch iTunes once and for all.

 

[6233638]

Downloaded the .88 trial after I noticed it included experimental retina support and tried again. Have to say this is much better now. Still not usable on a daily basis since it has to be reset every time you start the program but definitely a big improvement in the text sharpness and also the album art, at least for me.

I'm sure that will change relatively soon. The biggest challenges with implementing retina support seem to have been overcome now.

Specifically, do you plan in V19 to make retina support available for all skins or just the few that are out of the box like Noire? Also, any plans to update the core skins? No offense intended but Noire and the others are looking a bit dated, just my opinion FWIW.

User created skins will have to be updated by their creators. You can't just flip a switch and suddenly have 4x the resolution for them. Everything has to be redrawn to add retina support.
Adding retina quality text and album art to existing skins should be possible though.

Overall, I think if you can freshen up the interface a bit and add video library support, this would allow a lot of mac users to ditch iTunes once and for all.

Noire has mostly been redrawn/redesigned at this point. The main theme has been freshened up, and all the icons have been replaced with iOS 7 style ones.
 
Video support probably won't be coming in MC19. That's a big job.

[jimm2]

Thanks for the response. That helps.

I was able to load up a few Windows user skins after I enabled retina support in Noire and it maintained the crisp text and album art for these skins too. All the skin graphic elements looked pretty decent but I agree that some changes would be needed for it to be perfect although they were both very usable as is. I just copied the skin files into the standard view skins directory in OSX and they worked fine for the most part.

Do you know if it's possible to skin the track info area on the Playing Now screen? I see the Windows version has separate track info skins but I don't see that functionality in the Mac version. Maybe I'm missing where it's located in the Media Center directory.