Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[6233638]

So I had people over last night that have never heard of or seen JRiver Media Center/JRemote, and while there was music already playing I handed them over the old phone that I've been using as a remote (iPhone 3GS running JRemote) just to see if they would figure things out.
 
And handing it over to someone that is not really familiar with anything like this was quite interesting - it highlighted a few problem areas both in my own setup (a 3 second latency on the AirPlay server is long enough that people wonder if their changes actually did anything and tap the play/pause/skip button again) and with Media Center / JRemote.
 
 
But one of the things which really stood out was Volume Protection.
Firstly, it's great that it is there - because almost immediately they went to seek near the end of a track and actually used the volume slider.


(you actually have to tap the album artwork to seek)
 
I suspect this is largely solved on newer devices that have more vertical room, therefore they don't have to hide the seek bar, and with the iOS7 style widgets that better differentiate the two.
But Volume Protection saved this from immediately going to ear-splitting levels.

However Volume Protection introduced a number of issues.
As I've said many times, it always caps the startup volume to 20, even when that is set higher.
And perhaps the bigger issue is that people have no idea what's going on when you try to increase the volume and it does very little - though I'm not sure how you would solve that without some visual indicator in JRemote.

• What would alleviate these issues would be to firstly use Startup Volume to specify the default level that Volume Protection starts playback at.
I don't see any reason you would not want those two linked together.
The current behavior where the volume is reset to the default after 30 minutes of being idle is great - the issue is that 20 is far too low for many devices.

• And being able to set a "safe zone" where Volume Protection is disabled would be very nice.
In that particular setup, ideally anything below 60% would just respond instantly as you would normally expect.
I'd only want Volume Protection to kick in above that level. This would have to be a per-zone control.

• Being able to adjust the maximum rate might also be useful.
6/s seems too restrictive and 12/s might be a better option in this setup.
But that may not be necessary at all if we're able to define a safe range of volume that allows for unrestricted control.

[mwillems]

What would alleviate these issues would be to firstly use Startup Volume to specify the default level that Volume Protection starts playback at.
I don't see any reason you would not want those two linked together.
The current behavior where the volume is reset to the default after 30 minutes of being idle is great - the issue is that 20 is far too low for many devices.

+1 on this piece.  My starting volume actually is 20% (40% on my system is darned loud, 60% is ear splitting), and I can testify that having volume protection return the volume to the "neutral" position is very handy.  20% made sense when there was no convenient way to set startup volume in a granular way, but we've got more and better startup volume options now.

Apart from that, slightly OT, this is a really interesting window into another world of JRiver use.  I'm an android user so I use Gizmo almost exclusively (eos once in a while); no one in my immediate circle uses any i-devices, so I've never actually seen JRemote in action.  In Gizmo, the volume control uses the hardware volume buttons (which I love), so I've never even noticed volume protection slowing it down because if you hold the button it just moves as fast as it can (there's no volume bar). 

Is the volume slider the only way to control volume in JRemote?  Do the hardware buttons work for volume control (do i-devices even have hardware buttons)?  Can the slider be disabled?  I only ask because when JRemote makes it's way to android, I'd like to try it, but I'm not a big fan of trying to do volume adjustment using a slider.  I like the fine control I get with buttons.

[6233638]

+1 on this piece.  My starting volume actually is 20% (40% on my system is darned loud, 60% is ear splitting), and I can testify that having volume protection return the volume to the "neutral" position is very handy.  20% made sense when there was no convenient way to set startup volume in a granular way, but we've got more and better startup volume options now.

It's more like 40/60/80 here, rather than 20/40/60, which is why I'd start at 40; have a safe-zone up to 60; and a maximum limit of 80 for that zone.

Apart from that, slightly OT, this is a really interesting window into another world of JRiver use.  I'm an android user so I use Gizmo almost exclusively (eos once in a while); no one in my immediate circle uses any i-devices, so I've never actually seen JRemote in action.  In Gizmo, the volume control uses the hardware volume buttons (which I love), so I've never even noticed volume protection slowing it down because if you hold the button it just moves as fast as it can (there's no volume bar).  

Is the volume slider the only way to control volume in JRemote?  Do the hardware buttons work for volume control (do i-devices even have hardware buttons)?  Can the slider be disabled?  I only ask because when JRemote makes it's way to android, I'd like to try it, but I'm not a big fan of trying to do volume adjustment using a slider.  I like the fine control I get with buttons.

Well keep in mind that this is an old version of JRemote. The latest version only runs on iOS7+ which is not supported on the 3GS.
But as far as I know, it still requires that you use the on-screen controls rather than the hardware buttons. I also find it frustrating to use a touchscreen for volume control.
 
If I want to go from 20 to 60, I have to scroll to 60 and hold my finger there for 8 seconds (I was mistaken, the rate is 5/s not 6/s) which would be equally frustrating with buttons.
And actually, with that 3 second buffer (which I will be changing) it would be quite bad to be holding a physical button as you'd end up 15 steps louder than intended.
So in that regard the touchscreen works better. But yes, trying to use the physical volume buttons is the first thing they did when they actually did mean to adjust the volume.
 
I was thinking that I might do a separate post about JRemote-specific issues, and that was going to be near the top of the list.

[mwillems]

Well keep in mind that this is an old version of JRemote. The latest version only runs on iOS7+ which is not supported on the 3GS.
 
But as far as I know, it still requires that you use the on-screen controls rather than the hardware buttons. I also find it frustrating to use a touchscreen for volume control.
 
If I want to go from 20 to 60, I have to scroll to 60 and hold my finger there for 8 seconds (I was mistaken, the rate is 5/s not 6/s) which would be equally frustrating with buttons.
 
And actually, with that 3 second buffer (which I will be changing) it would be quite bad to be holding a physical button as you'd end up 15 steps louder than intended. So in that regard the touchscreen works better. But yes, trying to use the physical volume buttons is the first thing they did when they actually did mean to adjust the volume.
 
I was thinking that I might do a separate post about JRemote-specific issues, and that was going to be near the top of the list.

Eos now supports hardware buttons too, but allows for customizing the "steps" that each button press performs.  So JRemote is the "odd man out" on that issue.  It seems like a volume bar eats up screen real estate too.  Thanks for confirmation, and sorry to de-rail.

[6233638]

Eos now supports hardware buttons too, but allows for customizing the "steps" that each button press performs.  So JRemote is the "odd man out" on that issue.  It seems like a volume bar eats up screen real estate too.  Thanks for confirmation, and sorry to de-rail.

Well it perhaps derails from the Volume Protection discussion a little, but was one of the issues that was highlighted when I handed them the phone, and still relates to volume control.

[glynor]

But as far as I know, it still requires that you use the on-screen controls rather than the hardware buttons. I also find it frustrating to use a touchscreen for volume control.

Nope.  Works fine.

[6233638]

Nope.  Works fine.

Must have been added some time between when I last had an iOS7/8 device and now then.
It works when playing to the phone, but not when using it to control other zones. But as I said, this is an older version of the app because iOS6 support was dropped.

[glynor]

It works when playing to the phone, but not when using it to control other zones.

Hmmmm... I was talking about the former.  Don't know about that.  Might be an iOS limitation.  They don't like re-purposing buttons, and I agree (don't want random apps to be able to do stuff to change expected behavior of buttons).  In this case, it would be "correct" but if you let one animal through then they all come through.

Dunno though.  I'd have to test it, and the four year old is sleeping.

[mojave]

Startup Volume has priority over Volume Protection.

20.0.16 (9/15/2014)
5. Fixed: Volume protection would override the startup volume setting.  Now startup volume has precedence.

According to this thread it only works when you first open JRiver and not after Volume Protection has reset the volume  after 30 minutes. I would also like the reset to match Startup Volume.

I use the volume slider in eos just as often as I use the hardware buttons. I haven't found its slider to present any difficulty in changing the volume level. I really like the volume increment settings for the hardware buttons, too (1%, 2%, 5%, and 10%).

[6233638]

Startup Volume has priority over Volume Protection.
According to this thread it only works when you first open JRiver and not after Volume Protection has reset the volume  after 30 minutes. I would also like the reset to match Startup Volume.

That's correct. It does work within the first 30 minutes of launching MC.
However my AirPlay zone is rarely ever in use right after launching MC and it could even be several days before it sees any use depending on what rooms we want to listen to music in. (not everything is using AirPlay)