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[davidjgrais]

Why could JRiver not provide real, telephone support?

Are there consultants who could tell me how to configure JRiver as I'd like for a library of opera and other classical music? I'm happy to pay a reasonable fee.

-David Grais

[JimH]

Have you tried searching for information on the wiki or the forum?

http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Classical_Music

[adlelare]

Jim,  i sympathize with david's plight.  IMO a key weakness of the JRiver experience is the lack of proactive help to better assist customers to get the best experience from JRiver.  as a comparable i set up XBMC almost entirely based on youtube videos which proved very helpful.. now i went back to JRiver as except for Inet TV i find JRiver a superior experience... but even setting up the TV experience in JRiver was a lot of experimentation and oh crap and ahhah moments (i not a techie by any stretch), which with a short video from you folks coulda likely cut my experimenting time by 80% (and i kept with it as the TV image was better with JRiver than either WMC or XBMC and Gizmo is by far the best networking approach i've used (still like to do .flac over .mp3 but oh well) for tablets and phones (my 3 year old granddaugther uses Gizmo extensively to watch all the TV i PVR for her on her tablet which is supremely cool).. anyways just a thought as i think it would make JRiver far more accessible.

[JimH]

We recognize the problem of complexity.   The problems are infinite and our resources are finite.  At the moment, we're devoting most of them to development.

[crawfofd]

I'd like to add a comment to this post also.  I have been trying to configure my mc19/mc20 for just about 3 months now. I purchased mc19 and also upgraded to mc20. I really like the program when it works, but everytime I try to add a new feature or try something that should be a piece of cake to do, I get frustrated because I cant just look it up without going through a thousand forum posts and still not finding what I need to do. Yea you can post it here on the forum but by the time someone contacts you if they do your frustrated because it should not take days to set up one feature.
Don't get me wrong, great program. I know developement is high on your list, but really what good is developement if you loose the people you're trying to develope for.
Sorry if I've ruffled any shoulders.

Frank.

[JimH]

... everytime I try to add a new feature or try something that should be a piece of cake to do, I get frustrated because I cant just look it up without going through a thousand forum posts and still not finding what I need to do.

The advanced search might help.  You can narrow the date range, for example.

Google search of the forum also works well if you add JRiver forum.

[crawfofd]

Trust me I've tried it all.  I've read on the wiki and forum that Hauppauge Colossus is supported, but I've been trying to get it going for two days. It is just easier if there was some sort of guide. You see it as not a problem because you work with it every day. If people have to spend days to do something its very frustrating. I don't mind searching if you find something. Thanks for your reply.

[JimH]

No, I do see the problem.  I just don't have the answer.

Devices change quickly, for example.  We don't always have them.  We're (oddly) not always expert on them.

Did you ask the question on the TV board?

Did you try Hauppauge?

[adlelare]

Jim, again i am a long time committed customer of JRiver (upgrade everytime as amongst all else i know you folks need to be paid for your service and work), and JRiver works better than anything else (so FYI my granddaugther with two clicks on Gizmo she has Dino Dan or Sesame Street or Frozen or.. in her own restricted group which is very cool, but it took a lot of funnin around but i figured with enough playing around i could get there, which i did)...but how bout you make one ten minute initial setup video for JRiver and see what reaction you get, i suspect you will find customers (not the long termers like me or the techie programmers or...) find it very helpful  forums and wikis are fine (sort of) but can be discouraging if you are frustrated before you even give it a go (FYI when i recently turned to JRiver for TV i read the forums and wikis but they weren't too helpful and so i just jumped in, backed up everything and started playing around , very time wasteful but i got there eventually)... cheers

[Listener]

Why could JRiver not provide real, telephone support?

Are there consultants who could tell me how to configure JRiver as I'd like for a library of opera and other classical music? I'm happy to pay a reasonable fee.

Classical music (and other music such as broadway showtunes for which the composer is as important as the performers) is the bulk of my collection.  I've posted many times on this and other forums about adapting JRiver MC for such music.  Here is the view that I use most often for classical music




The composer field is already present in the library database (but it isn't filled out when you rip CDs with JRiver.) You may want to define some custom fields to support the way you want to use MC.  I added sub_genre, version, work name and singers.

Here is a recent post I made on the details of defining a new field and making it visible in the tag window.

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/question-about-jriver-media-center-user-friendly.335254/page-9#post-11074049.

[DHF]

I would like to give props to JRiver on their support.  This forum is the best level of support I have ever gotten from any software package.

Try going to Microsoft for something relatively simple - go ahead and call the number.  Its ugly.

The thing is that I think JRiver works pretty well right out of the box.  And once you get the hang of asking good questions on the forums, the support is crazy good.  And this software is so configurable.

To be able to ask questions and get the guys who write the software to answer them - well - dont change it.

Just my $-02

[crawfofd]

DHF,
No one is trying to say that the support is not good from the developers. They are great, but they are limited. They can only handle so many questions/posts. All we are trying to convey is that with better documentation and maybe some videos there would be more non-techy people using the program and in the long run better for all. Heck I don't mind paying for upgrades/support. Its part of software developement, but when you pay for something you like to have some good documentation to support it. That my 2cents.

[gappie]

Why could JRiver not provide real, telephone support?

Are there consultants who could tell me how to configure JRiver as I'd like for a library of opera and other classical music? I'm happy to pay a reasonable fee.

-David Grais

i think you are on the right place... this forum is better then any consultant.. there are a lot of dedicated users here who, as long as you ask your questions clear, like on the telephone, would help you setup mc the way you like it, with more know-how about the program then some consultant could give you (like listeners post).. so tighten your seat belt. especially with classical music, there are so many options and no standard. enjoy the ride.

 
gab

[AndyU]

Why could JRiver not provide real, telephone support?

Are there consultants who could tell me how to configure JRiver as I'd like for a library of opera and other classical music? I'm happy to pay a reasonable fee.

-David Grais

David, I've a decent library of classical music, including opera. Happy to help you get going through this forum any way I can. What's the first two or three things you'd like to do? Just guessing, but you probably want a view by Composer (possibly composer surname), then possibly some sub-grouping such as Opera/Concertos/Chamber... then the pieces themselves. JRiver can do this kind of stuff very simply, what you have to do is decide what you want  - happy to help you get going.

[adlelare]

DHF, neither i nor anyone else is slagging JRiver (nor do i presume that is what  you are claiming we are doing) and the reference to Microsoft was quite funny (i never knew Microsoft offered support!!!) but here is the example and potential risk to JRiver.... i have a many, many, many device homes (PC's , laptops, tablets, Android boxes, phones) i decided to cut the cord and go OTA.. i had completely set up XBMC (not JRiver) to meet my needs largely because of all the video support that XBMC offers that makes setting it up and customizing it a reasonably straight forward process (time consuming but with certainty to get to an end)....but XBMC when on tablets set up the way i wanted was a gigabyte+ in size (fine for PC's but not optimal for tablets) and so as i very much like Gizmo i went back to exploring JRiver capability and got it to work (although without Inet TV), with a lot of trial and error, to my needs.  had XBMC file size not been so big on the tablet i likely would relegated JRiver to stay at audio only (and very likely wouldn't have upgraded)...that is the risk and IMO likely cuts across all JRiver capabilities (except for photo's which JRiver as best i know is complete give or take compared to anything else)... cheers

[DHF]

OK.  I will admit that things are not well documented.  And often the wiki is several years behind.  But I like the forums for support.

The FAQs are very limited in scope, IMHO.

I would offer a suggestion to the developers.  Many times, people on these forums will create a tutorial on how to do something.  And they are often very good.   The problem is finding them.  If you don't hit the right keywords on the search, you get nothing.   My suggestion, is to create a sticky called tutorials, and grab the best of them out of the forums.   Will make it easier to find.

[BartMan01]

...I like the forums for support...

Really the best way to get support for configuration is to ask clear and specific questions with a clear title.  The real experts are in the forums, and some of them are doing things that the good folks at JRiver never imagined.  If your post drops off the front page with no reply, don't be afraid to bump it with a reply and add more information on what you are looking for.  It looks like some of the Classical music aficionados have already dropped in on this thread, but a better title would have been something like 'Need help configuring JRiver for classical music'.  That would immediately draw the attention of those that have really good configurations for handling that type of music.

Once you get the basics down, know what you want to do next and really don't know how to do it - just start a new thread for that specific question and try to keep posts to one question each.  Some people just post a large wall of text with dozens of different and unrelated items and those posts usually die on the vine.

[Listener]

Some suggestions for the OP:

- When you ask questions, provide enough detail to allow potential contributors to make good suggestions. And keep the complaining down to a minimum.

- MC is quite flexible which allows each of us to adapt it to our needs.  I don't use it the same way AndyU does or VincentKars does.  It is up to you to figure out how you want MC to be setup for you.

- You'll need to understand the basic concepts that MC is built on: tags in files, the library database, ripping CDs, importing files and views - what they do and how to create or modify them.

- Expect to experiment on a same set of files to learn what you what and how you can get that from MC.

- If you are going to rip CDs, it will take some time and effort.  You need to accept the task.  Get your ducks in a row before you plunge in so that you can rip your CD collection once and get it right.  Do backups and you should never have to rip those CDs again.

[marko]

OK.  I will admit that things are not well documented.  And often the wiki is several years behind.  But I like the forums for support.

The FAQs are very limited in scope, IMHO.

I would offer a suggestion to the developers.  Many times, people on these forums will create a tutorial on how to do something.  And they are often very good.   The problem is finding them.  If you don't hit the right keywords on the search, you get nothing.   My suggestion, is to create a sticky called tutorials, and grab the best of them out of the forums.   Will make it easier to find.

We have a "Notable Threads" topic on the go that's worth bookmarking. If you come across more, please do add them...
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=59513.0

[larryrup]

Concerning help, I find the forum great 98% of the time, but when it does not appear to be a common problem, or more likely a problem but not a MC bug, it gets a bit intimidating asking again (and again) when few if any are having the same issue.

Case in point.  I am trying to use v20.  It  crashes quite often on two different machines, and on one I'd like to use ASIO, but cannot get any audio.  How best to get help when others aren't having the issue?  I understand no one should ask for or expect help troubleshooting someones PC.  Seemingly MC v20 is the only program having the issue.   v19 works fine.

 Is this too passive aggressive?  LOL

Larry