INTERACT FORUM
More => Old Versions => JRiver Media Center 25 for Windows => Topic started by: JimH on May 21, 2019, 10:37:32 am
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[Edit: A newer thread is here (https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,121371.msg839130.html#msg839130).]
I'd like to ask for your feedback on what we're doing with Cloudplay. Here's the Cloudplay wiki topic:
https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Cloudplay
As you may know, we've chosen not to support lossless streaming from Tidal and Qobuz. Though many people have suggested it, I don't have any confidence in their economic model, and that opinion is based on significant experience with similar services. They just don't work financially.
We've chosen to go our own way and that's Cloudplay. We've designed it so it falls under the rules for Internet Radio licensing which is more affordable. We've also chosen to make it listener supported, so it's up to you to decide what to pay for it. Hopefully, we can make ends meet with it.
The radio licensing has rules that were designed to make it more like terrestrial radio and less "on demand". You can use it to play the type of music you like, but you can't play only a single album or only a single artist. It's radio.
Our model uses the playlists that users upload to build Radio JRiver. We've recently been concentrating on kickstarting the playlist upload and it's been very successful. We're approaching 50,000 lossless tracks and 800 playlists. Now we'll begin using those to improve Radio JRiver.
For this discussion, I'm interested in whether you think this has potential and what you'd like to see happen.
I expect some negative responses, and I welcome your ideas for improvement. I may break sub-discussions off into new threads.
Thanks,
Jim
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In my opinion, I believe that the Cloudplay and Radio JRiver need more definition within MC to differentiate what they are. To me it's a little confusing. New users will have a hard time figuring out what each is for and would be turned off and not use it.
For Radio JRiver, if possible what I would like to see is that radio channels or "stations" be created based on genre. Granted, I know that there's a million different genres and sub-genres and, but that would make it easier to listen to "Hard Rock" or "Progressive Rock" or "Classic Rock" than have to be subjected to a generalized "Rock" genre that might play tracks that I'm not interested in listening to at the time. This will also help avoid the confusion in the naming convention that users name their playlists.
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For Radio JRiver I would like to see the use of dynamic playlists created by clicking on one of a number of genre buttons giving say 50 files from the specified genre, rather than the fixed playlists we see at the moment.
It would also be convenient if the playlist rules were clearly adhered to and defined. Example you cannot upload consecutive tracks from an album (So I deleted a lot of my playlists!) only to find that the majority of cloudplay playlists do just that. ?
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For Radio JRiver I would like to see the use of dynamic playlists created by clicking on one of a number of genre buttons giving say 50 files from the specified genre, rather than the fixed playlists we see at the moment.
I think we'll get there or at least close.
It would also be convenient if the playlist rules were clearly adhered to and defined. Example you cannot upload consecutive tracks from an album (So I deleted a lot of my playlists!) only to find that the majority of cloudplay playlists do just that. ?
We will tighten that up soon.
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Thanks JimH - You could have album uploads for private use by the uploader but used under the radio specs for jriver. I think a lot of users would be happy to have their files stored in the cloud under those conditions.
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Thanks JimH - You could have album uploads for private use by the uploader but used under the radio specs for jriver. I think a lot of users would be happy to have their files stored in the cloud under those conditions.
Yes, we will allow exceptions for private use.
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I like both concepts, and I see them as two completely different things.
Cloudplay is a music sharing service, where I can search through what other people like, and listen to the music I choose.
Cloudplay expands my range of available music, with quite some control. I'm not really an audiophile, so this is good for me. Discovery is one of the most difficult things to achieve. It drives whole industries. So listening to what other people like, and refining while still expanding what I like, is much appreciated. I do think that the search functions need to be significantly improved, particularly as the volume of playlists increases. I'm not sure exactly what I want with search, but it wouldn't be just Genre search, and just clicking on each users and looking at their playlists is getting old already. I would like some more intelligence in it. Perhaps a "tracks like this one" feature, calling on external metadata to fulfill that request. As Cloudplay is server based, and exists in one location, all that sort of processing can happen in one place, rather than being replicated on every PC. That would probably have implications for metadata licencing as well; one service at one location doing the analysis for a list building feature.
I'm currently listening to Wmhess' "Beethoven - 5 Concertos" playlist. Nice.
Radio JRiver is an internet radio station, so I just get what is being offered, like any other radio station. Although I can, of course, select which station I want to play.
I would like to see Radio JRiver "stations" become more of "listening style" source of music. While I might take note of particular tracks and seek to learn more about them or the artist, I tend to do that less often with Radio JRiver, which has been static for some time. It is good that Cloudplay will be a source of new material for Radio JRiver. There is a lot of competition in the internet radio market, and most others are very well curated sources. I'm not sure how JRiver will compete with that, other than the audio is processed by MC, which is a big advantage, and there are no commercials, although many internet radio stations have few commercials.
I think Play Doctor style functionality belongs in one or both features. Probably not in Radio JRiver, because it is an internet radio, and hence content is fixed. But maybe in Cloudplay, and maybe it could be used to build dynamic playlists.
I've been somewhat frustrated by the apparent lack of overall design and organic growth in both features. Both started at a very low level of functionality, and are progressing quite slowly, with lots of "Oops, we broke it" moments. Sure, that is JRiver's development philosophy, but it is still frustrating. I guess this thread might lead to some more designed-in features.
I haven't supported these features financially yet, because I don't consider them delivered products or services. They are still a novelty. Experimental. Maybe post Beta, but definitely not complete. When I can rely on them, and have a greater range of music to choose from, then I may provide some support. Honestly, I'm not sure if the listener supported financial model is any more viable than the streaming services that have fallen by the wayside.
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Cloudplay - For me there's one issue that really makes it less useful that it could be - I would love to be able to pull up playlists in a browser and play them via a typical installed media player (e.g windows media player , VLC ) so I can listen in work . Unfortunately the use of .mpl files makes this pretty much impossible (at least I haven't found a way)/ I remember that you were looking into using .m3u or more preferably .m3u8 , did any progress get made?
Radio JRiver - I use far less - probably because I find the current playlists very repetitive with lots of tracks being by the same artists. Far more variability and better categorization of the various channels would improve thing. Radio JRiver is useful initially to discover new music (though for me not so much as I find most of the artists on the list are the ones I would expect (e.g. Led Zeppelin in Rock) but because the playlist do not change regularly (at least they appear not to change ) they get stale.
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Both of those are on our list. The Radio programming will expand first. We got stuck on browser support, but we'll get back to it.
We're also working supporting Cloudplay in Panel and JRiver for Android.
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I like both concepts, and I see them as two completely different things.
I've been trying to get my head around the differences, and I've come to the conclusion that they are pretty closely related.
A radio station is just a set of playlists. Ours are. Radio Paradise's are. They might change from week to week, but they are just a set of playlists. Curation matters, but I think semi-automated curation may be possible.
Discovery is one of the most difficult things to achieve. It drives whole industries.
I agree that this is an important aspect. I've already bought some music I heard on Cloudplay.
So listening to what other people like, and refining while still expanding what I like, is much appreciated. I do think that the search functions need to be significantly improved, particularly as the volume of playlists increases. ... Perhaps a "tracks like this one" feature, calling on external metadata to fulfill that request.
I agree that search now is primitive, but I'm not convinced that search will be as important as having a way to branch off from music we're hearing. I think we'll be able to add Play Doctor functionality soon.
Radio JRiver is an internet radio station, so I just get what is being offered ... While I might take note of particular tracks and seek to learn more about them or the artist, I tend to do that less often with Radio JRiver, which has been static for some time.
That should be improved this week.
I think Play Doctor style functionality belongs in one or both features. Probably not in Radio JRiver, because it is an internet radio ...
I think Play Doctor can also be used there, by allowing a user to click on a track and invoke it.
I've been somewhat frustrated by the apparent lack of overall design and organic growth in both features.
I agree. I can only say that there are a lot of moving parts in it.
I'm not sure if the listener supported financial model is any more viable than the streaming services that have fallen by the wayside.
It's a different license structure than on-demand services.
Thanks for your thoughts.
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The Eclectic station was just updated on Radio JRiver. It has about 4x the content.
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I'm just starting to use Cloudplay. So far so good, although my use is limited to a windows client and it's laptop speakers. Aim to add dlna playback as soon as possible, it would be nice to send this to the idpi.
Haven't tried uploading from my Linux JRiver server yet, last I read that doesn't work yet... Is this still true?
I would happily upload my whole music library when you are ready. Prices for backup of 2tb hover at $80-$200, depending on the service. "Free" sounds a lot better than that, although I would happily pay you for that service as long as I can download everything ar reasonable bit rate. Is that the direction you are headed?
I'm not there yet, but I'll be honest and say 90% of my video media I stream from YouTube and the other 10% is Amazon. Music is trending that way for me as well, any music that I don't already own or have files for is from on-demand streaming. So my music usage is 40% on demand streaming, 15% radio style streaming, and 45% JRiver local files. So the best cloudplay can do is eat into my 15% radio. Whereas, on demand streaming could could potentially take over all my local albums except for a small handful of rare recordings.
Aim to build an on demand FLAC streaming service if you can.
[edit : to clarify I mean album style streaming and unrestricted track selection by "on demand", the same as we can now do with local files]
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I would happily upload my whole music library when you are ready. Prices for backup of 2tb hover at $80-$200, depending on the service. "Free" sounds a lot better than that, although I would happily pay you for that service as long as I can download everything ar reasonable bit rate. Is that the direction you are headed?
Just wanted to clarify that it's not equivalent to a backup service. You'll be able to listen to the music you uploaded but you won't be able to download the tracks. Even if we decide later to offer some limited download ability, the tracks you download would not be guaranteed to be identical to the ones you uploaded. It would be similar lossless audio quality but the metadata may be altered, cover art changed, etc.
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That is understandable given the constraints of the service.
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A few more ideas:
Cloudplay + PlayDoctor => DLNA playback will be great, but only if Cloudplay contains a huge library with good metadata.
Think Pandora, they are very good at this right now. Radio stations are generated by track matching via metadata (like PlayDoctor). Pandora has more metadata than PlayDoctor, I think, but you might be close here. Pandora's library is close to 8,000,000 tracks, Cloudplay has 50,000. What is your goal for the Cloudplay library? You could set a high goal here -- 1,000,000 tracks would mean 20x the current size. A Pandora sized library means you need over 100x growth, that's a lot.
Is there any incentive you can think that could encourage uploads? If streaming services are really losing money fast, can you buy a library for cheap on the auction table? Fast exponential growth should be your goal. Maybe that is already happening.
I've already bought some music I heard on Cloudplay.
Where do you buy this music?
Perhaps you bought a CD, that's what I still do. But I think I am done with that part of the audio hobby soon. I already have a stack of CDs piling up that I can't be bothered to rip. Purchasing and ripping CDs is very time consuming and more and more seems like a waste of time and energy. I'm 40-ish, and life is busy man -- truth is I don't ever want to buy and rip another CD!
Problem is, there aren't a lot of CD bitrate lossless audio stores out there, esp for "normal" non-"hires"-non-PatriciaBarberAudiophile music. HDTracks and PrestoClassical and Bandcamp, that's it.
I love that Cloudplay's library already looks totally different from HDTracks. That's because it is music that people actually like and listen to. So question, once JRiver has a huge library, can you sell tracks to users? Do sites that sell lossless music files (HDTracks PrestoClassical BAndcamp) make money and stay in the black?
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Problem is, there aren't a lot of CD bitrate lossless audio stores out there, esp for "normal" non-"hires"-non-PatriciaBarberAudiophile music. HDTracks and PrestoClassical and Bandcamp, that's it.
I use Qobuz for buying 16/44.1 all genres of music downloads and eclassical for classical music (pricing is by the second at eclassical).
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I usually buy a used CD through Amazon and rip it.
We might someday sell tracks.
It's possible that it might evolve into offering backup as one of the features.
I'm not sure where this is going. It's interesting to read your thoughts.
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50,000 tracks doesn't sound like much next to Pandora's 8 million, but I'd bet that only 5 or 10% of the 8 million get listened to very much.
I've been posting the numbers here:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,120166.0.html
A week ago, Cloudplay had 37,000 tracks. Today it has 52,000. That's a 40 per cent growth rate.
A month ago, there were 24,000 tracks. It's doubled in the last month.
I'm starting to be more concerned about too much growth than not enough. That's a nice problem to have, but high volume too quickly could be challenging.
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I usually buy a used CD through Amazon and rip it.
We might someday sell tracks.
It's possible that it might evolve into offering backup as one of the features.
I'm not sure where this is going. It's interesting to read your thoughts.
You could make amazon search link from track containing your provision information and open it in browser so people could support CloudPlay by buying music from there. Or is this kind of thing still possible with amazon?
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... I'm not sure exactly what I want with search, but it wouldn't be just Genre search, and just clicking on each users and looking at their playlists is getting old already. I would like some more intelligence in it. Perhaps a "tracks like this one" feature, calling on external metadata to fulfill that request.
We've added this. Play Doctor Meets Cloudplay (https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,120871.0.html)
Radio JRiver is an internet radio station, so I just get what is being offered, like any other radio station. Although I can, of course, select which station I want to play.
I would like to see Radio JRiver "stations" become more of "listening style" source of music. While I might take note of particular tracks and seek to learn more about them or the artist, I tend to do that less often with Radio JRiver, which has been static for some time.
It is good that Cloudplay will be a source of new material for Radio JRiver. There is a lot of competition in the internet radio market, and most others are very well curated sources. I'm not sure how JRiver will compete with that, other than the audio is processed by MC, which is a big advantage, and there are no commercials, although many internet radio stations have few commercials.
All four stations were refreshed in the last few days. Several times the content for each.
I think Play Doctor style functionality belongs in one or both features. Probably not in Radio JRiver, because it is an internet radio, and hence content is fixed. But maybe in Cloudplay, and maybe it could be used to build dynamic playlists.
It's there now. See the link above.
I've been somewhat frustrated by the apparent lack of overall design and organic growth in both features.
Cloudplay design is getting some attention now. You'll see improvements today or tomorrow.
I'm not sure if the listener supported financial model is any more viable than the streaming services that have fallen by the wayside.
I wonder the same thing.
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You could make amazon search link from track containing your provision information and open it in browser so people could support CloudPlay by buying music from there. Or is this kind of thing still possible with amazon?
We're thinking about something similar. It makes sense to be able to buy what you're hearing. Amazon doesn't sell lossless files though.
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It bothers me that there's no option to disable it, compared to nearly every other feature in Media Center.
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In my opinion, I believe that the Cloudplay and Radio JRiver need more definition within MC to differentiate what they are. To me it's a little confusing. New users will have a hard time figuring out what each is for and would be turned off and not use it.
For Radio JRiver, if possible what I would like to see is that radio channels or "stations" be created based on genre. Granted, I know that there's a million different genres and sub-genres and, but that would make it easier to listen to "Hard Rock" or "Progressive Rock" or "Classic Rock" than have to be subjected to a generalized "Rock" genre that might play tracks that I'm not interested in listening to at the time. This will also help avoid the confusion in the naming convention that users name their playlists.
Play Doctor lets you do that now. You can start with a track in your own library, then play from Cloudplay.
The wiki topic links to more information:
https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Cloudplay
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We're thinking about something similar. It makes sense to be able to buy what you're hearing. Amazon doesn't sell lossless files though.
They still sell CDs ;)
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We've made significant progress on UI issues. Here's a summary:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,121039.msg836745.html#msg836745