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[eezetee]

Youtube support is one of the more important features of my family system (as deemed by Ms. Eezetee )

I'd like to know that if the youtube engine is changed will it be fixed in MC20 or only addressed in MC21?

[adamt]

Is Youtube not working for you?  Some videos, especially music videos, won't work because of the protection on them.

[JimH]

What version are you using?  20.0.131 is on the MC20 board.

[chstuart]

I have a licensed copy of MC18 and have been very happy with it. I played around some with the MC20 trial version when I upgraded to my new machine two months ago. I really could not find a compelling reason to upgrade. What would I gain by upgrading to MC21?

I mainly use MC for my whole house audio system and control it through a 24" touch screen monitor in my kitchen or via Gizmo. The slidebar on MC18 is very narrow (not in theater view, but in regular view) no matter which skin I choose and hard to move up and down with the touchscreen monitor. So a fix for that would be nice. In fact any changes that make it easier to use a touchscreen would be a plus for me.

I also access MC via Gizmo remotely to listen to music. The connection is somewhat temperamental and music sometimes pauses or drops out. This may have more to do my crappy DSL service than MC, but again any upgrades in MC's use of Gizmo would be a plus.

I also spend a great deal of time tagging FLACs and MP3s using MP3Tag.exe to get the artist, track name, album, year, genre, and cover art all correct and organized. So anything that automates that process would be nice too.

It would be great to see a matrix of upgrades from MC18 through MC21 that would easily illustrate the benefits of upgrading. I apologize if there is such a thing on the forum, but I do not have a great deal of time to research this stuff. Any info you can provide on compelling reasons to upgrade would be much appreciated and I may just make the plunge...

[JimH]

MC20 has an option to enlarge the scrollbars on mouse over (or touch).  It's under the Tree & View settings.

MC has excellent tagging and cover art lookup capabilities.

[eezetee]

Is Youtube not working for you?  Some videos, especially music videos, won't work because of the protection on them.

Indeed it is currently however I've seen youtube make some changes and this broke JRiver but then after a JRiver update, the capability came back.

What i'm wondering is if I stayed on version MC20, and youtube once again broke, will there be fixes issued for it or MUST i upgrade to MC21?

[eezetee]

Just looking to make sure I don't get outdated (ie a system that can't be updated) with fixes should some capabilities break.

Can someone please advise if fixes for MC20 such as if youtube breaks will be supported if we don't upgrade at the moment

[JimH]

Once we stop working on an older version, we don't make changes to it for any reason.  That time is probably coming soon for MC20.

[eezetee]

Thanks JimH.  I guess that will be the deciding factor for me to move to MC21.

The part is that while I understand and regression work to address compatibility issues with Youtube, it's not really a feature update that I should have to pay for, right?  I'm not looking for any of the MC21 features at the moment (because I don't know what they are, despite possibly being great) but rather just want the features of MC20 to work, which should be covered by the initial purchase, no?

Tough decision to make, I understand but I think this could affect people's purchasing decisions.

[glynor]

The part is that while I understand and regression work to address compatibility issues with Youtube, it's not really a feature update that I should have to pay for, right?

Sure it is. It isn't like the YouTube support broke because of some kind of JRiver-created timebomb. Google changed the YouTube API. So, support for the new API is a new feature (they had to re-write a sizable hunk of code to support the new YouTube API).

At your job, if you completed a project a year ago, would you expect to have to update it again and again, for years afterwards, due to changes other people made, for absolutely no paycheck? Or if you buy a car with an FM radio and then all the FM stations shut down in your area a year or three later, you expect Toyota to come and replace it with a Internet radio doohickey of some kind?

We don't know, of course, when the next time Google might change the YouTube API will be.  They usually announce them well in advance, but they could also shut down the whole website tomorrow. In any case, if it breaks at some point in the future, you might need to upgrade then to get a new version that fixes it (of course, there's also no guarantee that it will be possible to fix, as Google could discontinue the API entirely).  Software maintenance costs money. $27 seems like a pretty reasonable deal, considering you can choose to pay it at any time (they support upgrades from MC v10 for the same price).

[csimon]

What's the positiion regarding things not working properly that are not caused by third parties?  If a bug is found in a purchased version of MC, is it reasonable to have to pay again for another release of the product in order to get it fixed, or should bugs be fixed in new builds of the original purchased product?  Is the support for bug fixes not included in the original purchase price?

[glynor]

I can't speak for JRiver, because I don't work for them, but I know how it works because I've been here a long while. You have, too, csimon.

Each major version of MC is developed actively for about a year. This year is divided into several "sections". Early in the development cycle, they are "free" to make major changes and add new features, which often breaks things. Later on, they slow down on adding new features and try to focus on "cleaning up their mess" (finishing the stuff they added and fixing the stuff they broke while making changes). Near the end of the development cycle, they add almost nothing, and work almost exclusively on polishing and bug-quashing (sometimes releasing minor features, or things that had been in development but unreleased for a long while). Then, at the very, very end (as they start on the new version), they usually put out a handful of new builds that fix up a few last issues discovered near the end.

We're in this last phase now. Then, after a few more builds, they stop development on the old version and move the team entirely to the new version.  Does this make the software absolutely perfect in every conceivable way at the end? Does that mean they fix every single thing reported by every single customer? No, of course not. Some things are discovered after they're done, some things are minor enough or only impact a subset of users (or are just too difficult to fix without causing lots of new issues), and some things they just decide aren't worth addressing for their own reasons. But, it does make it a stable platform that can be used without changing over the next few months while they break things in the new version and try to make us new, cool stuff to use.

All software made by humans has bugs. The copy of Adobe Photoshop CS5.5 I have has a list of known issues that can fill a short book. The copies of Polycom RealPresence Resource Manager, Digital Media Application, and RMX that I have, which I paid a quarter-million dollars for, have a literal book of bugs and known issues (and others that aren't in the books). If I stop paying the maintenance contract price every year, I stop getting upgrades (which fix some bugs and make new ones). Even hardware "code" has bugs. Every Intel CPU revision has a list of Errata they publish (and update as they find new things) in the Processor Specification Update. Some of these are fixed in microcode updates, some have published workarounds (which often amount to "don't do that"), and some require them to turn off features and fix it in the next go-round.

Because it is software made by humans which are imperfect, running on software built by humans which are imperfect, running on hardware built by humans which are imperfect. There's no such thing as perfection in this world.

[csimon]

Well, I've learned my lesson, I'm not paying the "maintenance contract" fee until I know that that the flaws I've reported for several years have actually been fixed. I've paid it for many years in good faith but it bears no fruit. And in the meantime I'm moving over from MC to other solutions that do actually work.

[glynor]

Well, I've learned my lesson, I'm not paying the "maintenance contract" fee

Media Center does not have a maintenance contract (which would be absurd for a product that costs essentially nothing, as MC does). When you buy a new version, you are buying that version as it is on that day. If it does not do what you want at the time when you purchase it, I'd recommend that you do not purchase it (I'd give the same advice for all products, everywhere).

Quite often, they will fix and improve things with upgrades throughout the year, and you've certainly gotten a lot of improvements over the years. But, there is no guarantee that what you find to be important and essential will match what JRiver finds to be important and essential (or even that they'll agree that something is "broken" that doesn't work the way you want it to).

That's fine. If you aren't satisfied with the product as it is, don't buy it. I don't think anyone could fault you for that.

[JimH]

A lot of this is covered in JRiver's Business Model.

You never need to buy an upgrade.  Your license will work forever.

Every version has a free trial.  You can use it for 30 days to decide whether it deserves your support.