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[danielpugh]

jriver is great for music
jriver is good (and getting better hopefully) for tv
JRiver has great and unique audiophile features (dsp,  convolution,  etc)
To summarize -  great client (and server) software to act as media hub

plex is great streaming server (particularly because of the metadata, but also plex has is great for moving around the house as it remembers where you stopped watching and picks up automatically,  transcoding is also good)...  and because there is good support for embedded clients (tvs,  playstations, roku, phones, tablets,  etc).   It is unlikely that jriver is going to get clients (e.g. for smart tv).

It would be great if jriver could (via home theater mode) be made to act as a plex client so as to get the best of both worlds...



Please note i do not want a dlna client, but instead want the features if a proper plex client  (as I'm really not a fan of dlna!) with metadata,  imdb,  play from where i paused previously (when e.g. watching from phone)

At the moment I have a workaround of loading plex home theatre as a separate program from home theatre mode, which is ok but this is not great (mce remote  focus issues,  and want to use one app on htpc).

Mc is great but needs more integration like this (plex,  netflix,  tidal,  amazon prime,  bbc iplayer) ( all controlable via remote)  to go to the next level

An alternative might be an updated plugin framework that allows for simpler open source/community plugins.   At the moment plugins mostly seem limited to skins which implies it is not easy to integrate (im not a developer so may be missing something)...

[glynor]

but also plex has is great for moving around the house as it remembers where you stopped watching and picks up automatically

MC does this, and has for years and years. See:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Bookmarking

[kstuart]

See?   A Feature Request sub-Forum would be great for explaining all the existing features of MC20. 

[JimH]

That seems like a perfect job for the wiki.

[danielpugh]

Hi,

Thank you for replying but you all only seem to have read one part of the request.

Auto resume is not the requestĦ!!!!!!!!
The request is the ability to use jriver as a client for plex server.  Both plex and jriver

1. Auto resume in jriver is no help if i want to go downstairs and contine wstching on the roku box,  and thereafter continue from a remote location or on tv with built in plex client (both of which i do regularly).  JRiver is unlikely to get roku,  sony playstation,  samsung (tv) ,  lg (tv),  etc clients anytime soon..

2.  Plex has a lot that simply is not in jriver currently -  plex identifies movies and gets better metadata, (jriver required i manually fix lots of movies and completely failed to identify more than about 3 of 50 tv series). Not bringing jriver down at all here as its good (hence buying license).

[astromo]

2.  Plex has a lot that simply is not in jriver currently -  plex identifies movies and gets better metadata, (jriver required i manually fix lots of movies and completely failed to identify more than about 3 of 50 tv series). Not bringing jriver down at all here as its good (hence buying license).

I know my reply is selective but a miss on 3 / 50 TV shows? Are they all catalogued on thetvdb.com? If so, there's something adrift. I get a 100% strike rate with a sensibly named file.

[danielpugh]

well all the tv is in a folder called tv and detects absolutely fine in plex and kodi.
I have done several installs of jriver (windows 8.1, windows 10).
the name shows correctly, but only thumbnail images.

[astromo]

I suggest that you go to the top of the TV board and sleuth through a few Wiki links:
TV / DVR Resources

I expect that the answers you're after can be found there.

You can also import key meta data from a sensible folder structure via Fill Properties from Filename, F12. Depends on how you set up the import template.

Hard to give you really useful advice because you're not offering up how you've structured your files / folders. Check the Wiki links and it should become a lot clearer.

[danielpugh]

thanks for your reply.  yes I have already searched through the forums and hence putting forward the feature request.
if this was relatively easy to implement it would be a good feature.
as the plex and kodi code is open source (hence the many android remotes)

[danielpugh]

Ok so as an update...

Request was for mc to be a client for plex server

Why i was struggling
I have multiple play locations in house (roku,  standalone tv,  two phones and tablet) each used as client of plex

Tv/theatre unstable and painful to match channels

What i ended up doing:
Kodi with plex client addon (plexxbmc)
Tv via nextpvr (gets epg from live broadcast)
Stable (no crashes)

Why this is not perfect
Kodi is stable and customizable but...  Not as good as jriver home theater
Its clunky,  has poor submenu navigation ( e.g. Lots of ".." entries and text)
Music playback quality/control is simply not as good (e.g. No dsp)

So what would be the answer:
Mc21 theatre client (more stable pls)
Using plex (or emby) as source for videos
Using itself for music (nothing beats jriver for music and plyback)
May never happen,  but worth a feature request i think as an improved more flexible home theatre is common request
Typically i find software that separates client and server is always much more stable and easier for developers to manage and grow (after the difficulty caused by split of code to client and server)

[JimH]

We're not likely to make a Plex client.  You could start a new thread on what you believe could be better in MC.

[danielpugh]

even as a plugin of some sort?  its a plugin on kodi that is open source...
sounds like its a dream not to come true.

does this mean that plugins for displaying media streams are difficult with jriver currently?
which would explain why there are no plugins for e.g. bbc iplayer and other media sources?

i had a look at the sdk but couldnt see a lot

[blgentry]

Why i was struggling
I have multiple play locations in house (roku,  standalone tv,  two phones and tablet) each used as client of plex

Tv/theatre unstable and painful to match channels

So what would be the answer:
Mc21 theatre client (more stable pls)

I don't run MC on Windows, so I have no experience with Theater View.  But MANY people here discuss it quite often and many people say they use it on a daily basis.  So I assumed that Theater View was perfectly stable and usable day to day.  If you have seen "instability", maybe something is wrong with your setup.

If you were to describe your Theater View issues, I'll bet someone here could help you. 

Brian.

[danielpugh]

It crashes once a day,  grey screen with option to wait or close.   Roughly once per day,  but sometimes more frequently.

By comparison..
Emby once every 3 days,
Kodi once per week
Plex home theatre never recently

To be fair im running win10 since release and mc21, about the same.   Its to be expected really, and not really complaining.   Without blowing my own trumpet i am reasonably proficient,  its a stable system (brand new skylake, asus gene mb with 512m.2 ssd.

Like i say generally happy,  but a few tweaks would help.
Hence the primary feature request as per subject.

I.e. Ability to use as a client for plex (or emby)  so as to provide multi-room functionality.

[blgentry]

In my world of computing, even a full crash once a week is essentially unacceptable.  Even once a month to me means something is wrong.  <shrug>

If you're happy, I'm happy. 

Brian.

[glynor]

Theater View crashed for me once last year I think.  Maybe.

All of my television viewing has gone through it for 4 years or so.

If you're getting regular crashes, especially in Theater View, this typifies a GPU Driver issue.

[danielpugh]

Not just in theater view,  but with tv on.   
Like i say not that worried about the crashes as using mc21 which was only just released combined with windows 10. Newer kit is likely to be less stable (although there were occasional crashes on the amd win7 box which had beenstable for years with mce (mostly waf related ;-)

My real aim is to have a single media source wirh good identification (i.e. Knows a file is from episode 5 series 3) and metadata lookup that feeds _all_ my devices throughout the house.

JRiver is close (to perfection with sound quality management)  and ticks a lot of boxes,  but really designed to work on one box and isnt a streamer (to clients)

The other way would be to make clients for playback for roku,  fire etc.

[BartMan01]

I can't recall MC (Theater view or not) ever crashing on me. I am sure that it has at some point, just not that I remember. Given the crashes you mention with MC and other programs I would suspect some system level issue.

Out of your list, the only thing MC doesn't already have is apps for the different third party set top boxes like the Roku/Apple TV. MC will stream to set top boxes and TV's that support DLNA without a dedicated app (Apple TV and as far as I know Roku don't support DLNA). MC also streams to tablets/phones - but you are correct that it doesn't track state across devices (JRemote/Theater View/Gizmo/etc).

If you are having problems with metadata look up, I would suggest you start a thread for that with examples of the file paths/names that are failing the built in logic.

[JimH]

Rant removed.  Thread closed.