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Why did you choose JRiver?

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JimH:
I had a long talk with a sales and marketing person today.  It made me realize that I can't say clearly why people choose to purchase JRiver Media Center when there are so many free options.  What I said was that it:

1.  Plays everything.
2.  Works well with networks and remotes
3.  Has a nice ten foot interface (Theater View)
4.  Delivers high quality audio and video
5.  A great forum with a lot of engaged users

I said what I've said before, that we're trying to let you play any media, anytime, anywhere.

So help me out.  Why did you choose JRiver?

For complaints, please use this thread.  I may move, remove, or edit anything off topic.

mwillems:
Why did I first try JRiver?  DSP.  Full stop.  I was unhappy with my hardware crossover/DSP solution for a pair of active speakers, and I couldn't find another software solution for less than $400 or $500 that even came close to what JRiver does.  JRiver is really unique in this regard, and once I figured out what I could do with it, it seemed like a steal at $50.

Why did I stay? DSP again, and the database and server functionality.  Between the DSP and the network functionality, I wound up replacing (and reselling) three or four hardware boxes by loading JRiver onto a spare computer (with a little help from the forum community).  Now I couldn't switch back if I wanted to  ;D

The remotes, theater view, and the high quality video playback were nice surprises and make me glad I came and stayed (they also help a lot with Wife acceptance), but in all honesty, if it hadn't been for the DSP capabilities, I probably would have never made the switch.

csimon:
Complete flexibility in cataloguing, indexing and browsing your media library, the way you want it, not in limited ways that are dictated by the software that you're using.  That is the precise reason that I found MC.  Now that I'm here, I find the audio processing invaluable (esp the output format bit) and the ability to switch between different settings and output devices for different purposes .

kstuart:
I would like to clarify that there are programs with several of those five points, but none with all of them.

Considering that everything has a discussion group/Forum these days (even Mercury Fillings), it's no surprise that all other media players have a Forum with engaged users.

The main distinguishing point of MC20 is that it has top quality audio and top quality video.

I first came across JRiver MC when, in another Forum, someone suggested it as the front end for a free audio player with no Media Library support.   When I tried JRiver MC, and made some careful comparisons, I found that the audio sound quality was actually slightly better than any of the free audio players.

I was using a free video media player with the motherboard's integrated graphics at the time, and later, adding a graphics card allowed me to use madVR with JRiver's Red October HQ, which also improved video quality.

JRiver MC also has a number of helpful features, including ZoneSwitch, digital parametric EQ, and a variety of DSP settings.

Home Theater PCs are fiddly enough that paying the small fee is easily warranted - especially since it goes to a small business rather than a huge multinational corporation.

cipher8:
Well that's quite simple really. Doing a side by side comparison playing various wav files listening through my studio monitors (neumann kh120's + Adam sub8), JRiver simply sounded better to me. So I said goodbye "windows media player" hello JRiver!!!!!!!

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