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[JimH]

What video services matter to you most?  Where will we be in 5 years?  What does JRiver need to do to be current?

This thread is a branch of this one:

Media in the Future

Thanks for your thoughts.

[stewart_pk]

Netflix. Don't know. 3D and blu-ray menus support.

[glynor]

Online video is, of course, a huge problem.  It is all, by and large, DRM-encrusted, and trapped in closed ecosystems.

Now.

But, the problem from a consumer's perspective is that it is separated into a ton of separate services, each of which have their own confusing rules, and fee structures.  It is more convenient, and diverse, than a "traditional" TV package in some ways (searching, massive libraries, and more niche products), but it is terribly confusing in others (because there is no "one place to go").  The "live event", mostly sports, problem adds a whole new dimension to the issue as well.  So, it decidedly does not replicate the ease with which you use a DVR at home, for example.  On the DVR, there is one place to go to find all of your stuff.  If it is there, it is there, and if it isn't, then you don't have it.

But now, you can spend more time figuring out what you have and where (and keeping track of all of those bills and shifting rules) than you spend actually consuming the content.  That's the big problem with current online content replacing traditional television delivery (ignoring the network infrastructure problem as well).  Different vendors of online services often call this "discovery".  But I don't think it is really just discovery (though that is a problem too).  The problem is more... Primal.  People don't want to think about what to do when they want to deal with this stuff.

If there could somehow become a single source (or perhaps a duopoly of two competing sources), then people could manage.  But that will never happen in the current climate.  I think, that works against the model the traditional media companies have been using for online video, which explains the disarray, and the slower takeover than music experienced (where first Napster, then iTunes became dominant "one stop shops", for a while at least).  I think, basically, some of the conglomerates recognize this problem.  But they also see what happened to their music wings/brethren when they let Apple "save them" from Napster (the damage was already done, and Apple really did save them, but they see it differently).  So they won't let it happen.  They're each vying to, themselves, somehow become that one stop shop by consolidating and competing.  But I think that's a fool's game, and the current disarray will just drive customers away entirely.  They're already competing against a "competitor" that has that killer feature they lack.  If anyone, it is The Pirate Bay that has that one stop shop, so they're all losing there.  YouTube has done it for short-form stuff, but long-form, episodic content has just been... Stuck.  So they've been fighting "piracy" tooth and nail in a holy war, but that's damaged further their relationship with customers.  The whole thing leaves them currently ripe for disruption.

What happens?

I don't know.  I certainly think it is possible that someone swoops in and disrupts the whole scene.  It has the feel of the search engine "market" before Google.  Or the smartphone market before Apple.  Customer satisfaction with cable television providers (particularly in the US) is in the toilet but somehow sinking.  The alternative online services are a confusing disarray of similar, but not identical, competing services.

In some ways, I hope not.  I think there is also a huge potential for podcasts (and podcast like things) for episodic content.  In fact, it seems like that kind of distribution system is effectively made for it.

What happens when the first J.J. Abrams (if not him, someone like him) decides that they can release a show, distributed like a podcast, to the whole world at once, and sell advertisements, and they get to keep the whole pie?

It might not happen, but why not?  I mean, sure, people will rip out the commercials and upload them to torrent sites.  But who will use them if the content is just free anyway, and you can get it right away at the same time as everyone else?  Without DRM and the closed ecosystems, you have a much broader audience than any of the Netflixes or whatever of the world.  You don't need to negotiate all those deals.  All those off-brand Android-based smartphones they sell mega-cheap (the ones with no official Google ecosystem used primarily by much of the world) are your audience, but so are high-end customers in the US and Europe and the BRIC countries and so on.  I think, if it happens, it only takes one big "star" to try it, and have success, and you'll see more and more move.  There's big money for high-end producers (like Abrams) in the current system, so there are golden handcuffs.  But... There's also the whole pie.

If consolidation doesn't happen, and the conglomerates become weaker, and more customers are driven away from that kind of "free time allocation" (and to games, and the Internet, and etc)...

So far, podcasts have been largely the equivalent of AM radio, allowed to diversify into tiny niche audiences.  That's powerful, but of limited appeal to a broader audience.  I can see many other possible outcomes, but there is a path there, and not an extremely unlikely one.

[eapool]

But now, you can spend more time figuring out what you have and where (and keeping track of all of those bills and shifting rules) than you spend actually consuming the content.  That's the big problem with current online content replacing traditional television delivery (ignoring the network infrastructure problem as well).  Different vendors of online services often call this "discovery".  But I don't think it is really just discovery (though that is a problem too).  The problem is more... Primal.  People don't want to think about what to do when they want to deal with this stuff.

What he said... plus throw a 4 year old and a babysitter in the mix.  The four year old doesn't care that Tumble Leaf is on Hulu and Mighty Machines is on netflix.  He wants to watch what he wants.  The sitter doesn't know what is where, so she can't find it.  Sure, google might help, but it might not. My kids don't think in terms of channels, they think about content.  They don't think about providers, they think about content.  Organize that content in a manner that eliminates the 'overhead' and you are the next apple, facebook, or google.

I think Glynor covered the challenges well.  When someone does come along with a better way to approach the problem, they get shut down.  Apple and Netflix change the API. Amazon wants to be everything for everyone, but I am not sure they get it.  All of the providers still have to play by the rules that are dictated by the content creators.

[RoderickGI]

. . . content creators.

. . . content distributors.


(Except of course where the distributors are the original content creators, such as HBO. Which is an interesting development in the whole market.)

[imugli]

What he said... plus throw a 4 year old and a babysitter in the mix.  The four year old doesn't care that Tumble Leaf is on Hulu and Mighty Machines is on netflix.  He wants to watch what he wants.  The sitter doesn't know what is where, so she can't find it.  Sure, google might help, but it might not. My kids don't think in terms of channels, they think about content.  They don't think about providers, they think about content.  Organize that content in a manner that eliminates the 'overhead' and you are the next apple, facebook, or google.

For me this is probably the most important thing, and the reason I've asked a few times for (at least the option) of a "global" view of my media, with icons bottom-right or bottom-left of thumbnail to tell me if it's local or Netflix or cloud etc.

I'd love for my son to be able to press "Shows" on the remote and have it show Recorded Shows, Series AND Netflix TV shows (Bo on the Go, Ben Ten etc.)

Regardless of the fact that there are many operators and many ways of paying etc., I think consumption is definitely moving in this direction.

Further, I think the time will come where, if JR doesn't cough up the coin to get proper access to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, HBO etc. MC will fall behind in terms of sheer convenience and ease of use, making things like ROKU or the new Google TV or AppleTV boxes a more viable option (at least for video / online consumption). Of course, AppleTV and GoogleTV have access to itunes / GooglePlay library as well, which is a major advantage to them. That is obviously a choice JR will have to make, based probably on the bottom line.

My 2c worth.

[fitbrit]

I think that there will be a splintering of media consumption in the future. In fact it's already started. I'll give my industry predictions below, followed by what each of these might mean for MC. This was written over many hours with interruptions in the double digits - a screaming kid that needed to be fed and put to bed, and a demanding wife who deserved pampering after covering (for Reuters) the first day of the trial of Canada's most horrific murder case in decades. Sorry for the rambling, disjointed blob of words that I am about to spew out:

Streaming Vs Physical Media
There will be low bitrate, but hi-res, video streaming that will grow in popularity. e.g. Netflix 4K. As the current under 40s get older, there will be more and more cord-cutting going on. On the other hand there will always be people who want to watch video with the highest fidelity possible, and they will buy physical media if they have to.


Audio in Video
With new audio standards like ATMOS and Auro making their way into the home the enthusiasts will try to keep up with these. However, most people might be happy just streaming stereo Neflix through a soundbar under their 50" 4K TV.

Screen size/resolution
Front projection systems in the 100" or smaller ranges may dwindle as larger screen TVs become more affordable, even among enthusiasts. Large screen home theatres will move to bright laser/LED illumination for the front projectors. When they become affordable though, 80" to 100" TVs will gain ground in homes that can get those sets into the theatre rooms. In 10 years, we may have floor-based ultra short throw projection systems like those shown by LG(?) and Vizio(?), or maybe it was Sony/Sharp(?) in the current sub 70" price range.

3D
3D is something I am a fan of. I have seen one 3D movie in a cinema. The quality of 3D in my home, with a ~$2000 projector just blew away the cinema experience. With a large screen, 3D and tactile transducers and 11.1 DTS-Neo:X, my home theatre offers me the most immersive viewing experience I've ever had. People like me, with all this gear, are in the minority Movies are continuing to be made in 3D, even if 4K is the big trend being pushed to us instead of a vast array of 3D TV sets. I think the manufacturers are waiting to see which glasses-free 3D TV format wins out, and my guess is that it will be StreamTV's Ultra-D technology. Ultra-D will come out with products within the next six months (I hope), and these are supposed to be not much more than the cost of similarly sized mid-budget 4K panels. That technology might cement 3D's foothold in home video watching. They supposedly have a deal with Sky broadcasting in the UK, who have adopted it as their future 3D broadcast technology. To appreciate 3D at its best currently you really need:
1) A bright image
2) A full resolution image
3) Glasses
4) Content that improves the viewing experience in 3D
5) IMHO, a LARGE image

I think only 2011 and newer front projection systems, or 65"+ active 3D TVs can achieve all of these at a reasonable price.

The HTPC and JRiver
Media consumption
a) In 5 years, streaming will have gained much ground and live 'broadcast' TV might have dwindled accordingly. I'm not sure what the demand for PVR functions will be like in 5 years, but they surely must be significantly less in 10 years. In 5 years, 4K BluRays will be the gold physical media standard. The players may be bundled with TVs. I can only imagine they'll really only take off, relatively speaking, if the discs are bundled with standard 1080p BluRay versions. DRM won't go away, and neither will Slysoft, so there will still be people with ripped discs on massive media servers. These guys and disc purchasers/renters should still have MC as their default media software. However, I don't think this market will gain ground because of the Netflix phenomenon; the only reason one would store video on a home server, as opposed to affordably streaming it from a cloud service, is if the viewer is concerned about video quality. It appears from anecdotal accounts that audio/video quality is secondary to young people, with ease of accessibility being prime. I hope that MC is able to evolve so that the quality crowd can watch their videos as easily as the YouTube generation. If MC can become a "hypervisor" that can integrate video locally and from streaming services, it would be a winner. I like imugli's idea of the icons on the thumbnails to denote the source.

Audio in Video
b) The HTPC enthusiasts will want to see new audio formats cracked so that they can be decoded on the PC, freeing them from the constant AV Receiver upgrade cycle. However, there's always a lag between a new format being released, and decoders for them debuting. That's the period when being able to bitstream the codec is essential. Once the 3D formats come out and establish themselves, what's left other than the capacity to add more physical channels (Dolby ATMOS-SPHERE?), or increased processing power to deal with even more metadata on top of the TrueHD track? Perhaps JRiver would blow everything away with their own take on 3D object-oriented audio with JRSS 3.0?

screen size and resolution
Well, it seems 4K is here to stay. It's easy to predict faster, more capable iGPUs and video cards with associated drivers to handle this all in MC. HDMI 2.0 video cards are already coming out. H265 decoding will be the norm, and I expect Hendrik to keep up with all of this easily. Not because it's easy per se, but because of the confidence in him that I have. I should also lump in increased "colour space" video standards here, which would also be in the realm of needing new hardware and drivers to exploit fully.

3D
I would dearly love to see MC support 3D, if possible. That means MVC decoding and rendering, and also an OSD/Subtitles that appear in a usable way when the 3D content is either side-by-side or over/under (both formats that MC can currently play very well, because it's the display device that converts them to frame-packed format on the fly.)
The good thing(?) about UltraD is that the TVs will come with an integrated mini-computer to generate the images from 2D or reading current 3D information and converting it to Ultra-D. That means that MC may not need to handle 3D decoding and rendering itself, but rather be able to send the data in a form that the Ultra-D TV can understand. For front projectors, though, full support of the current formats would be required, and there seems to be a gap in the market there now.


 

[Castius]

Has anyone here used playon/playlater. http://www.playon.tv/

I have been using it for a long time. It looks like they have made arrangements with some providers. (Who knows maybe they haven't.)
But they can go as far as recording netflix to play later. To create a DVR like system for internet video.
In many cases using there software has been the only way to watch what i want when i want where i want.

I would imagine they use a browser as the back end to capture and transcode all media.

The way things are going. I think this might be the only way. It's not high end enough for some but i think in time it could be.

I think kaledescape is trying pretty hard to close that gap for bluerays. http://www.kaleidescape.com/experience/
But that is way outside the price range most would be willing to pay.

I think glynor is right most of the time when you want video you want quick easy discovery. Unless you're looking for a film/theater experience.
Right now providers are still trying to find the best way to make there money without paying someone else.
So we suffer in quality and availability. And i have no idea when that will get better.

I'd say partner with playon and create a better interface for it in MC. Or roll your own system that beats it.

[locust]

I don't know too much about this. It seems like a huge task to develop plugins especially since most online content providers are walled gardens nowadays. 

Plugins and apis are an issue, so I suggest there needs to be some sort of fallback that would work with any online content provider, so people can still access online content.

If theatre view could seamlessly integrate a browser window quickly and provide some sort of last pass like auto login (Not necessarily online, just stored in options would do) to online services so we don't need to continually login. Allow the keyboard and remote control to traverse the html dom which could be tricky but do-able, if a plugin breaks or api changes, it might me an uglier way to access the content but at least users could still access online content whilst plugins get fixed. It would still need the same rules of theatre view, rollers on top and press left to get back to the rollers.

The secondary roller could essentially just be bookmarks that the user could add if they wish, to various parts of the website of the online content provider.

This isn't exactly elegant but at least, it would somewhat guarantee access to content. Could be a bigger task than I imagine. Also you'd need to make sure that the browser scrolls smoothly just like theatre view and not like a traditional browser that is jerky but that could be a achieved with jquery.

Hope I've provided some food for thought because I'll never forgive the online content providers if they continually cut great software out of the loop.

I just don't understand why they do these walled gardens, it's not like someone watching netflix on theatre view isn't going to pay for it, crazy logic if you ask me.

[rec head]

Wow you guys have really nailed it.

I would say that the way MC is positioned now with the "want quality people" I think keeping up with modern features is a good place to go. I would like to use MC for 3D video and the new 3D audio formats. I don't care if I have to bitstream those formats, I just want to be able to rip and store them in my library. 4K is important too. Not yet to me but it will be.

[Castius]

Angelo.R i completely agree that's probable a better place to start.
I have suggested that many time before myself.

Plus most sites are already redesigning for that anyway. look at https://www.youtube.com/tv#/

I just wanted to put up playon method out there. Because i haven't seen anyone do it any better yet.

In regard to plugins. i think that is a great way to reduce some of JRiver's overhead.
Many user will do a lot of great work to keep some things working. Or add new things.
Why should they fix youtube download every time youtube changes, It's seams impossible to maintain.

[thane108]

I use Netflix for most of my viewing, Amazon for newer stuff that's not on Netflix yet, and J River for recording over-the air broadcast (and for the TV Guide in Theater View).

With all the flexibility of on-demand TV/Movies, I miss the old paradigm of "must see" Thursday.  I like the old days when we organized our lives around Star Trek or Bonanza.

So - my wife and I now rotate between four or five series on Netflix and/or over the air broadcasts, and drop in a movie on our movie night (Fridays).  We try to keep track of the order so we still remember the major plot points in the various series.

It would be great (at least for my wife and I) if in the Theater View TV Guide we could create our own schedule, using the various sources for content - create our own "must see" Thursday, so to speak.  Longmire would fill the Thursday at 21:00 slot - when selected MC would pass us through to Netflix and start the next episode.  The same for content from Comedy Central, Amazon, etc.

So perhaps you could become a kind of scheduling switchboard . . .

[contium]

Since we cut the cord, we watch OTA (as recorded on JRiver), Netflix, and Redbox Blu-Ray for bigscreen stuff. I know more and more people doing the same.

[CountryBumkin]

It's all been covered from my perspective - but to reiterate ...

1) 3D Movies (either seamless playback using a third party player (like PowerDVD) or built into MC. I don't want a solution that requires me to program some script or requires me to know expression language to make it work. Out of the (JRiver) box it should work.
2) BD Menus. Not for me - but it is often requested.
3) Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, etc. streaming apps. I would like to access these streaming services from within the JRiver program (my smart TV has these apps, it would be great if JRiver did too).

[skarsol]

The two biggest drivers for me would be consolidation of services and ease of access. It shouldn't matter where the content comes from, it should all be accessible from one place. Once it's in that place, it should be easy to consume. I think you guys are doing yourselves (and me) a huge disservice by not putting more resources into integrating with Chromecast and other simple streaming devices. "Build a media server with JRiver and then watch all your content on any TV for $30" is a pretty nice feature. Once you're at that point, and New Media Service X comes out, all I have to worry about as a consumer is if JRiver can connect to Service X, and then I can go back to watching it wherever I want.

As it is now, dealing with streaming all over the house definitely doesn't meet the WAF bar.

[newguy1]

1 - Online streaming
2 - Consolidated viewing experience as mentioned above, except my 4 year old tells the babysitter how to play the video he wants, well, he does it himself 

[adlelare]

my 2cents are this:

consumers of media will constantly desire a more immersive, pleasurable, etc. viewing experience, this will drive development. 

continued improvements in hard and soft tech will enable this improved consumption (and timelines to increases continue to shrink (eg. B&W and rabbit ears, to colour, to cable, to big screen, to hd, to 3d, to ultra hd) (fyi my internet service now runs at 150mb/sec download, i have no idea how to use it now but i know i will eventually)...

i see some day your house has walls of video (life size football games for instance) and the virtual reality experience.

for JRiver the opportunity/risk is that consumers will adopt a unified interface to what will be an overwhelming amount of choice from (OTA/Cable/Sat/Inet etc.).  Apple will simply win/keep a large portion of the market because of its unified interface.  the likely other big winner will be Google again because it is world-wide, and while disjointed in its interface has considerable scale.

to date i see XBMC as way ahead of JRiver in this regard (and it is being adopted with significant speed). I am somewhat unsure of their business model but it seems to run off a large developer community who work off contributions, although i believe XBMC is a NPO...i have no idea how large an enterprise JRiver is but it seems fairly small and so faces significant challenges related to scope and scale and the capacity to become a significant player as todate i have seen JRiver having aced audio (relatively straightforward i assume) but are challenged on TV (and as it positions itself as a HTPC solution... well) and PS i am a long time user of JRiver.  Gizmo is a potential "ace in the hole" (the primary reason i still stick with JRiver) for JRiver.  for me i don't consider the price of JRiver excessive, what i desire from them is a far better TV/video capability.  Jim, hope this helps

[skarsol]

Just to reinforce the Gizmo stuff, I'd be more than willing to pay extra for Gizmo if that meant it got more attention.

[JimH]

Just to reinforce the Gizmo stuff, I'd be more than willing to pay extra for Gizmo if that meant it got more attention.

We asked Robert Ryan (LesPaul on the forum) to join JRiver, in part for this purpose.

[adlelare]

skarsol,


<<Just to reinforce the Gizmo stuff, I'd be more than willing to pay extra for Gizmo if that meant it got more attention.>>

as would i.. FYI on my android devices (phones, tablets, TVboxes) i generally use an app called NeutronMP for music playback and not Gizmo, as NeutronMP provides me (IMO) a better listening experience.  It cost all of $5.00, IMO JRiver should benchmark/target this kind of price and target say Neutron for audio playback, expand the Gizmo interface (like streaming live TV, which i now do on HDHR via some app called InstaTV pro (again cost about $5.00 or so).. one of JRiver other gems is the integrated database, which other apps generally don't offer (ie even XBMC is kinda geeky on this point), which greatly enables relatively easy whole-home entertainment and adapting the interface to each person's desire (as i posted before my 4 year old gdaughter has her own tablet and with two taps in Gizmo she has complete access to TV shows, Movies and Music that i setup for her)

[skarsol]

Watching on tablet works fine. Watching anything on any TV in the house, not so much (but it's been getting way better, especially with the advent of the Chromecast).

As for NeutronMP, it looks nice for audio, but it doesn't appear it will let me play my home audio in my car/at work easily. If I'm at home, I'm not listening to music on my phone.

[adlelare]

skarsol,

<<Watching on tablet works fine. Watching anything on any TV in the house, not so much (but it's been getting way better, especially with the advent of the Chromecast). Smiley

As for NeutronMP, it looks nice for audio, but it doesn't appear it will let me play my home audio in my car/at work easily. If I'm at home, I'm not listening to music on my phone. >>

the wonderful world of different setups.. i have android phones, tablets and tv boxes (eg. Minix Neo7 that are full on android devices) and so i don't use Chromecast.  re. NetronMP i use it for home audio, store flac files on mico-sd cards and i believe but i don't use it that you can stream from your home setup via internet to anywhere.  PS i listen to it on my phone when i run, work in the yard, etc. etc.  but the bigger point for JRiver is that NMP plays .flac files perfectly over both my wired and wireless home network, and Gizmo is stuck at 320 mp3.

[crawfofd]

In my humble opinion I believe the trend will go where ever the user finds it to be the easiest for them to use. Currently it looks like it is going towards online. It is so easy to just go to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, PlayOn/PlayLater or any online venue that will give a user what they want with no or little hassle. That being said there will always be some market for the select users that like to have control of there own entertainment.

I know I can get all the shows I need or want to watch online, a lot of it with now commercials. So why do I waste my time trying to get MC to work?

I just do! 

[TheLion]

My prime concern is about JRiver may want to have a battle plan for the 2015 release of the 4k disc based format.

I am not sure how deep JRiver should dive into streaming services - I guess that is a battle that cannot be won. In audio and video the core strength of JRiver is file based content management and best possible playback quality. The streaming crowd will always favor more "casual to use" services like Spotify and Sonos.

In video I see basically two directions: streaming services and (the last?) disc based format which will arrive in 2015 ("4k Blu-ray")

I am not sure what added value JRiver can provide for the first. And I am very concerned about the second, with even Blu-Ray not being full featured supported after so many years. I fear there is a chance that JRiver will end up being caught in the middle. 


Let me explain. The following is what I posted in the beta forum regarding >7.1+ upmixing:
At the moment Atmos (with true Atmos content becoming available on Blu-Ray, and Atmos being a big thing in theaters atm) is - together with the omni present content streaming - THE feature Receiver/PreAmp manufactures try to sell new units with. It doesn't matter much if it all makes sense - how many customers will place 8+ speakers in their rooms? It is like 3D all over again.

The point is: I understand that for a company like JRiver it is hardly possible/affordable to follow each and every trend, nor seem many of them useful/relevant BUT:

Playback software like JRiver can hardly afford to lag behind J6P Walmart $200.- receivers in features, especially ones with huge marketing attention. IMHO. How do you explain a potential customer to switch to computer based content playback, when even very basic features (the way too often discussed menu based playback/3D/integrated DTS-HD MA/now ATMOS...) he is used to are missing?

Personally I don't really care about any of them, but trust me: In each and every discussion I have with somebody I try to convince to switch to computer based playback these points come up. And now they are asking about ATMOS...and next year they will ask about ATMOS and all the other selling points of the new 4k disc format. I sure wish JRiver has an answer by then - or neither the "streaming crowd" nor the "best possible quality" crowd will be served well. This is what I meant with being caught in the middle - when you support some streaming features and some features offered by disc/file based quality content, that may be not good enough for both groups of customers.

[adlelare]

The Lion,

you continue on on some issues i posed earlier, the JRiver business model.  and i guess only the owners of JRiver can answer that but... does JRiver compete against the freewares of the world like XBMC, the ecosystem of Apple, etc., the Plexes, or the PowerDVDs, the android apps of NeutronMP, etc.  they need to well map their place in the world as pricing to zero for a lot is the norm these days and JRiver needs to differentiate (which it does in audio).

I suggest JRiver should adopt a BModel that prices the core offering but then customers buy whatever addons they desire, but these addons are best in class type offerings as JRiver is for audio (not TV or Inet but audio).. i would happily pay for a Gizmo offering that was best of class (and Gizmo and the integrated database are ace in the holes IMO) i would also pay for 3dbluray, etc. (as if i go from from PS3 i will have to pay $$$ for summin)... this way JRiver can better size and focus to meet various needs and offer best of class software.

I suspect JRiver caters to the above average income crowd who place significant value on their time and the quality of their experiences, and are likely relatively price inelastic.  for instance, i right now pay $2.00 a month for an adblocker program that (at my router) stops all pop up garbage ad, sidebar ads, etc. just cause i got sick of them.  a valued entertainment experience is worth more than that to me.

regards.

[RoderickGI]

How do you explain a potential customer to switch to computer based content playback, when even very basic features (the way too often discussed menu based playback/3D/integrated DTS-HD MA/now ATMOS...) he is used to are missing?

This strikes to the core of my concerns about JRiver as a customer, and with regard to the long term future of the product.

Outside of audio JRiver MC provide ~60% of the required minimum expected feature. Stuff that just should be there, in any similar product. Us geeks move that fit up to 80 to 90% by using external tools, tweaking MC with views and scripts and so on, but the market of people willing and able to do that, either from a skill or expertise point of view, is fairly small. Many people in that market see XBMC and Plex and other solutions as a better fit.

Many people have compared setup of MC to Windows MC, saying WMC was so much easier. Yet WMC spawned a huge number of forums and web sites to discuss how to make it do what people wanted. Then there were add on products, and eventually competitive products, such as JRiver. Development on WMC has basically stopped, leaving a huge potential market in the near future. But that market is made up of people who just want to install something and have it do "everything", without having to spend hours tweaking on it.

"Yes, we do Blu-ray . . . but not menus or 3D."
"Yes we have the best sound . . . but we can't do DTS-MA ourselves."
"Yes we can convert TV recordings to other formats . . . but we only output audio in stereo."
"Yes we provide an EPG (a tough one, I know) . . . but mainly for North America, maybe Europe. Oh and if you have to run external programs to collect XMLTV, we give you 10 minutes to finish, then kill the process." (Okay, that is now 20 minutes, due to my efforts, and may become user configurable, but why was it ever a problem in the first place?)
"Yes we look up TV data online so you enjoy an attractive and inviting viewing experience . . . but we only look up TV data if the Season and Episode number are known . . . even though a free, well supported OTA XMLTV grabber can not only look up the TV data, but it can find the Season and Episode number for a program based on the Series and Episode titles."

I know the media world is a legal maze and nightmare these days, with significant royalties and licence fees for everything, copyright issues even if you don't violate copyright, but just create the capability for someone else to do so. But is the answer really just to avoid the issue all together by not providing functionality that may or would incur royalty and licence fees? Could there be some middle ground where partners take the risk, providing plug-ins to JRiver, at incremental cost so as not to erode the revenue stream for JRiver?

The only saving grace to this, and I for one am grateful for it, is that JRiver listen to user concerns and are responsive to them. Very responsive. Thank you for that.

[CountryBumkin]

This strikes to the core of my concerns about JRiver as a customer, and with regard to the long term future of the product.

Outside of audio JRiver MC provide ~60% of the required minimum expected feature. Stuff that just should be there, in any similar product. Us geeks move that fit up to 80 to 90% by using external tools, tweaking MC with views and scripts and so on, but the market of people willing and able to do that, either from a skill or expertise point of view, is fairly small. Many people in that market see XBMC and Plex and other solutions as a better fit.

Many people have compared setup of MC to Windows MC, saying WMC was so much easier. Yet WMC spawned a huge number of forums and web sites to discuss how to make it do what people wanted. Then there were add on products, and eventually competitive products, such as JRiver. Development on WMC has basically stopped, leaving a huge potential market in the near future. But that market is made up of people who just want to install something and have it do "everything", without having to spend hours tweaking on it.

"Yes, we do Blu-ray . . . but not menus or 3D."
"Yes we have the best sound . . . but we can't do DTS-MA ourselves."
"Yes we can convert TV recordings to other formats . . . but we only output audio in stereo."
"Yes we provide an EPG (a tough one, I know) . . . but mainly for North America, maybe Europe. Oh and if you have to run external programs to collect XMLTV, we give you 10 minutes to finish, then kill the process." (Okay, that is now 20 minutes, due to my efforts, and may become user configurable, but why was it ever a problem in the first place?)
"Yes we look up TV data online so you enjoy an attractive and inviting viewing experience . . . but we only look up TV data if the Season and Episode number are known . . . even though a free, well supported OTA XMLTV grabber can not only look up the TV data, but it can find the Season and Episode number for a program based on the Series and Episode titles."

I know the media world is a legal maze and nightmare these days, with significant royalties and licence fees for everything, copyright issues even if you don't violate copyright, but just create the capability for someone else to do so. But is the answer really just to avoid the issue all together by not providing functionality that may or would incur royalty and licence fees? Could there be some middle ground where partners take the risk, providing plug-ins to JRiver, at incremental cost so as not to erode the revenue stream for JRiver?

The only saving grace to this, and I for one am grateful for it, is that JRiver listen to user concerns and are responsive to them. Very responsive. Thank you for that.

Well said.

[TheLion]

This strikes to the core of my concerns about JRiver as a customer, and with regard to the long term future of the product.

Outside of audio JRiver MC provide ~60% of the required minimum expected feature. Stuff that just should be there, in any similar product. Us geeks move that fit up to 80 to 90% by using external tools, tweaking MC with views and scripts and so on, but the market of people willing and able to do that, either from a skill or expertise point of view, is fairly small. Many people in that market see XBMC and Plex and other solutions as a better fit.

Many people have compared setup of MC to Windows MC, saying WMC was so much easier. Yet WMC spawned a huge number of forums and web sites to discuss how to make it do what people wanted. Then there were add on products, and eventually competitive products, such as JRiver. Development on WMC has basically stopped, leaving a huge potential market in the near future. But that market is made up of people who just want to install something and have it do "everything", without having to spend hours tweaking on it.

"Yes, we do Blu-ray . . . but not menus or 3D."
"Yes we have the best sound . . . but we can't do DTS-MA ourselves."
"Yes we can convert TV recordings to other formats . . . but we only output audio in stereo."
"Yes we provide an EPG (a tough one, I know) . . . but mainly for North America, maybe Europe. Oh and if you have to run external programs to collect XMLTV, we give you 10 minutes to finish, then kill the process." (Okay, that is now 20 minutes, due to my efforts, and may become user configurable, but why was it ever a problem in the first place?)
"Yes we look up TV data online so you enjoy an attractive and inviting viewing experience . . . but we only look up TV data if the Season and Episode number are known . . . even though a free, well supported OTA XMLTV grabber can not only look up the TV data, but it can find the Season and Episode number for a program based on the Series and Episode titles."

I know the media world is a legal maze and nightmare these days, with significant royalties and licence fees for everything, copyright issues even if you don't violate copyright, but just create the capability for someone else to do so. But is the answer really just to avoid the issue all together by not providing functionality that may or would incur royalty and licence fees? Could there be some middle ground where partners take the risk, providing plug-ins to JRiver, at incremental cost so as not to erode the revenue stream for JRiver?

The only saving grace to this, and I for one am grateful for it, is that JRiver listen to user concerns and are responsive to them. Very responsive. Thank you for that.

My thoughts exactly. And you bring up a point I mentioned (and even directly suggested to JRiver management) before - providing features that cause considerable licence fees as plug-in solutions for additional cost to those customers that value these features. I really don't know if companies like e.g. Dolby (Atmos) offer such an licensing scheme in general (royalties on a per user basis) or if it takes forming partnerships to get there. Look what Amarra did with Dirac Live integration for example. That's win-win for all parties involved.

[thorsten]

Wow you guys have really nailed it.

I would say that the way MC is positioned now with the "want quality people" I think keeping up with modern features is a good place to go. I would like to use MC for 3D video and the new 3D audio formats. I don't care if I have to bitstream those formats, I just want to be able to rip and store them in my library. 4K is important too. Not yet to me but it will be.

+1

And I like the absence of BD- menues!!!!!!!!! And no hassle with the pain on Disney-BD-previews that can't be skipped 

[MrHaugen]

Even though some services like Netflix have shut down for most developers, there are still lots of services that allows people to use their API to access their services. JRiver might be able to spend the time and resources to add some of those services, but services constantly change things as well, so it's a cat and mouse situation.

In my opinion, the only reasonable way to attack this exact problem is allowing for better plugin development in MC. If more features and better control had been presented to third party developers, there would be lots of more plugins for MC.

With some effort of exposing more features and allowing intuitive use of an API, with a decent documentation, you could look at an explosion of nice features added to MC. Practically for free!

[lisbethfox]

Better netflix integration from the video tab would be great! I'd also love for a way to have it automatically switch VPNs depending on the region I need content from. While I don't store / manage my films with MC (57TB or so of remuxes and very high quality encodes is too much to have it try to deal with and organize) it would be so sweet to be able to search and see whats available through netflix (along with a hint of which region said one will stream in). Turns out netflix has a really big library so I'll often try to see if a film is on there and watch it for 10 mins or so while a proper encode downloads.
4K isnt a priority as MC will play back 4K MKVs I believe which is all thats needed for 99% of people who don't have any urge to pay for or spin physical discs.
Atmos would be lovely but not happening and if it does will be much like DTS-HD support in the form of an accessible third party decoder.
3D is cool but its a pretty garbage format in the home unless you have a needlessly overkill dual projector setup. Would definitely be nice to support it but that rests on Madashi's MadVR in the end.

[ldoodle]

Netflix.

Ditto.  Imagine a world where physical media is dead and it's streaming only (with no proper download-and-keep option).

Where would JRiver, and other media players, be then?  If I had to use a web browser for video content (which is 90%+ of my usage) I may as well use a browser for audio too (Spotify etc.).

So no point at all in having a media player.  I realise you can only provide features you have access too (NetFlix, Amazon Instant etc. integration APIs for example), so if those APIs stay closed circuit not sure what you;d do really.

As MrHaugen says, maybe allow these content providers to build plugins for MC, like Windows do for the NetFlix app.  Personally I'd pay for an Amazon developed plug-in, but only if it was confined to the UI for MC, not some completely different looking Amazon plugin for example.  But then would content providers be happy with that restriction?

"Rock" and "hard place" come to mind.

[imugli]

I think it's fairly safe to assume Netflix integration is gone, never to be seen again.

But how about Google Play Movies / Music integration?

[ldoodle]

I use Netflix for most of my viewing, Amazon for newer stuff that's not on Netflix yet, and J River for recording over-the air broadcast (and for the TV Guide in Theater View).

Really, in the current era of technology, that should all absolutely be doable from one interface.

Shame on those content providers....

[ldoodle]

providing features that cause considerable licence fees as plug-in solutions for additional cost to those customers that value these features.

Yes, yes and YES.  I am not expecting JRiver to pay for Java licensing to incorporate BD menus for example, and not pass on that cost to me if I want those features.  If you upgrade early enough it's $20.  I'd do it for $20, + $10 for X features which include BD menus plus some other nicities, + $5 for Y features which include Amazon Instant, Netflix integration etc. if that's what it took for these providers to open up their APIs.

Windows 8 has an app for Netflix, and soon Amazon Instant if you believe the internet, because Microsoft are on their 'preferred' list of integrator's, presumably because of their 'paying' ability.

But on the flip side, there's no point JRiver paying any fees if it's just me who buys them!

[ldoodle]

never to be seen again.

As I say just above, money talks.