I don't need to transcode video. I wouldnt *want* to transcode video LMAO!
JRiver just does playback of network shares (the clients other people use also have xbmc on them which scrapes the directories I manually look at) on the clients when it comes to video (I for the most part have BD50s and remuxes so I wouldn't want to transcode)
If you're sure you don't need transcoding or TV, it might be a good fit. One caution, if you use gizmo to stream video to tablets or phones, that currently requires transcoding to function (gizmo always transcodes for local android video playback). If you have a PC-only ecosystem and no need for on the fly transcoding, and don't need TV tuner management, MC for linux might work just fine for you.
So like if I used a linux machine running JRiver, I could access the music library as I currently do from all my windows clients?
I think so, yes. I don't have a linux MC server online right now, so I can't 100% confirm. I have linux clients accessing my windows server, though, and it works perfectly fine in that direction, so apart from the limitations I mentioned above I'm not sure why a Linux library server wouldn't work perfectly for windows clients. That's where I hope to be eventually myself as I'd prefer to have a linux server. Just to be clear, I don't work for JRiver; I'm just a user, but I've had good luck in a mixed windows and linux ecosystem.
JRiver offers a 30 day trial for MC linux, same as for windows, so you could try it out for a month and see if it fits your needs.