INTERACT FORUM
More => Old Versions => Media Center 12 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: JimH on September 28, 2007, 03:10:55 pm
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I made a ten cent bet on this, so help me out. :-*
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shouldn't be like this?
- Music only
- Video only
- Images only
- Video and Music
- Images and Music
- Images and Video
- All three types
I don't get what the "All four types" are...
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I don't get what the "All four types" are...
There are three kinds of people in the world. Those who can count and those who can't.
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shouldn't be like this?
- Music only
- Video only
- Images only
- Video and Music
- Images and Music
- Images and Video
- All three types
I don't get what the "All four types" are...
thats data as fourth.
i use it for audio and images and for organizing video, but mostly not for playing back video.
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I voted four, with the fourth being a few data files. Mostly they're NFO files included with live FLAC recordings and things like that. I do also actually use MC to organize my various Freehand, InDesign, and Illustrator design documents though, which aren't really images so...
My ranking would be this (in terms of importance not number of files, though measured in GB would probably match as well):
1. Video
2. Audio
3. Images (pretty distant)
4. Various Data Types (extremely distant)
PS. I tried really hard not to make fun of the thread title, but "Do you using"? ;D ;D Me thinks English classes would help!
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I voted "Music Only." However, besides the 19,090 music files in my library, I do have two videos; Randy Pausch's Last Lecture, and a Simpson's episode (Weekend at Burnsies).
If it were easier to rip and manage video, I'd probably use that functionality more (and need more disc space). I use Adobe Lightroom for all my images.
M
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If it were easier to rip and store video, I'd probably use that functionality more (and need more disc space).
Have you tried ripping a DVD with MC12?
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i just installed the program a week ago and am currently organizing my library...
But my plan is to have my PC boot and have Media Center 12 maximized.
I'll use it for:
Music
Movies
Videos
TV/PVR (would love to do this, but I think SageTV is a better program for that function. Is there a way to somehow integrate a different PVR software into MC?)
Internet (maybe?)
Other Data (maybe)
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Have you tried ripping a DVD with MC12?
Not for quite a while. However, I just threw in my copy of Zoolander (happened to be closest video at hand), and it seems to be ripping! I might have to go back and edit my previous comments...
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50% success rate. Zoolander ripped perfectly. Glengarry Glenross loads and is recognized, but the "Rip" box is greyed out. Neither restarting MC12, reloading the disk, or clicking on "Insert a disc and click here" changes the fact that it won't rip.
Error message tells me to Insert CD - it thinks I'm trying to rip an audio CD, when part of the program recognized I've got a movie DVD in the drive. ?
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Mmmm intersting poll as to me it highlights the different perspectives we are comming from.
For example, on my HTPC I never think about "Audio" or "Video" seperatly as I always do both. The kids even know how to get a Picture slideshow going with an Audio track, I've got the Music DVD's ripped by track (into seperate MPG files) so I can mix and match these with mu audio WMA in playlists. Even it it is an "Audio" only I still use a viz (BlackStar Blue for me). On my HTPC box I use MC in T'View and use it pretty evenly accross the areas below (but images would be last):
=1st - Music / Music Videos
=1st - Movies (including Home Videos)
=1st - TV / PVR (and agree with steveklein this is still not a competitive area for MC)
4th - Images (with and without audio)
On my main PC the use is quite different. This is the box I do the Mgt of my media on, rip disks etc. It tends to be in STD View and on this I will tend to play music in the background as I do other things (like at the moment I'm listening to 100 random songs while I type this up).
Thanks
Nathan
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There are three kinds of people in the world. Those who can count and those who can't.
hehehe
I was just counting
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I voted 4.
Files by type in my MC library:
audio 100,000
image 12,000
data 8,000
video 3,000
Family photos/videos are managed with a different application:
images 32,000
video 1,500
I also do not manage my dvd collection with MC.
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I use it for all but video simply because the overhead on video is too high with my puny little cpu.
R
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Mmmm intersting poll as to me it highlights the different perspectives we are comming from.
For example, on my HTPC I never think about "Audio" or "Video" seperatly as I always do both. The kids even know how to get a Picture slideshow going with an Audio track, I've got the Music DVD's ripped by track (into seperate MPG files) so I can mix and match these with mu audio WMA in playlists. Even it it is an "Audio" only I still use a viz (BlackStar Blue for me). On my HTPC box I use MC in T'View and use it pretty evenly accross the areas below (but images would be last):
=1st - Music / Music Videos
=1st - Movies (including Home Videos)
=1st - TV / PVR (and agree with steveklein this is still not a competitive area for MC)
4th - Images (with and without audio)
On my main PC the use is quite different. This is the box I do the Mgt of my media on, rip disks etc. It tends to be in STD View and on this I will tend to play music in the background as I do other things (like at the moment I'm listening to 100 random songs while I type this up).
Thanks
Nathan
You said in a post that you used MC for TV/PVR yet you also agreed with me when I said it was relatively uncompetitive with no easy way to set up a good consumer electronics interface, even in theater view.
i'm interested to hear how you've combatted the situation. do you have a different program you use for tv/pvr? somehow integrate a different application like sagetv or anything into j river? or do you just grin and bear it and hope for improvements?
the reason i ask is it is a huge deal for me to bridge the gap between tv and pc and right now i'm not sure i can manage that without an effective, efficient PVR system, full with a great interface, programming data, etc.
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How about music and tv, but images and video only in the sense of what gets synced to my ipod. Your handheld part of the program is the best of crowd by far.
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i'm interested to hear how you've combatted the situation. do you have a different program you use for tv/pvr? somehow integrate a different application like sagetv or anything into j river? or do you just grin and bear it and hope for improvements?
I've ended up doing a couple of things:
1) Grin & Bear it...well actually it is Hope & Pray but given the current situation I've had to:
2) Upgraded my Cable TV subscription to include their PVR/EPG (we can get all our TV Channels here in Oz from one box) - its arriving in a couple of weeks at which point the WAF/KAF for PVR funtionalty will go up but it will no longer be in the "box"
Ralf (RAYM) & Richard (rpalmer68) have had sucess using Girder5, MC12 and Webscheduler but I'll let them explain how they have got it working.....for me it should be in MC12.
Nathan
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I use it for all 3, but if it wasn't as good as it is for music, I wouldn't be using MC.
So please keep the music development features coming. :)
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I manage Music, Images, and Video. Pretty simple. On my desktop workstation, I essentially only view audio. However, I have a remote that when I push a button, will startup MC on a separate monitor (my television) and at that point, it's mainly Video.
But the pictures get thrown in there for obvious reasons. It's so easy to import them.
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I mainly use my MC for music.
The occasional video or movie is also played through MC.
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Only Music now. But would love to add Video under MC12 as well (using Zoomplayer today) but MC12 simply ignores my directoshow filters and settings when trying to play back mp4 files and keeps asking for Quicktime... A problem reported a while ago but not fixed yet :'(
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null
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If you want to get specific...I don't usually watch video in MC when I'm using the computer. I usually use VLC because it provides an easy windowed mode. It's just more convenient for player + working. I can resize it around and between monitors to the most useful area.
The key is that in the HTPC setup, it does everything I could want as far as playing content. I still have requests (smaller text!)
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I use it for:
1. Audio
2. Video
3. Images
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Used to use it for Music and Video, now I just use it for music.
With v12 and the new 'unified view', it is easier (for me) to send video to another player than to try to use MC in a multi-monitor environment. The only 'video' that I now even have in MC are podcasts.
My primary images are camera RAW files. MC doesn't (nor to I expect it to) come close to the dedicated tools for managing/processing these types of files. Currently using Lightroom for these.
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Music & Images and a few videos. I expect to start converting my VHS music & concert tapes shortly.
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music only, videos are easier to just store on dvd and pull out when required.
Images i use other, MC's not there yet for the odd crop here & there.
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music only, videos are easier to just store on dvd and pull out when required.
I use it for music and music video clips. I started ripping my DVD concert collection into individual video clips (one per song) about a year ago. It's nice to have a session mixing audio and video clips. Media Center works great for me in this scenario.
Thank you.
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I use it for:
1) Music and Picture tagging and playing\viewing
2) Video tagging only (still use external player)
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I started ripping my DVD concert collection into individual video clips (one per song) about a year ago. It's nice to have a session mixing audio and video clips. Media Center works great for me in this scenario.
The replies were split to a new thread:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=42758.0
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Kind of looks like everybody uses MC for playing music (no video only votes) and as of right now the higher percentage use it only for music. Interesting.
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Kind of looks like everybody uses MC for playing music (no video only votes) and as of right now the higher percentage use it only for music. Interesting.
Always good to know what your customer base is.
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Kind of looks like everybody uses MC for playing music (no video only votes) and as of right now the higher percentage use it only for music. Interesting.
I would say your reading of the statistics is a little skewed... Right now, the results are:
64.6% of responding users use MC for more than just Audio (some combination of Audio, Video, Images, and Data)
35.4% of responding users use MC for Audio only
So, a large majority (well more than the approx 50% Jim predicted in the other thread) are using MC for more than just audio. In fact, what I find interesting is that even when you group the users who use MC for "Audio and Images" with the Audio-only users, the "Video Users" are still in the majority by a fairly sizable margin:
Audio-Only or Audio & Images: 45.5%
Using MC for Video (and other stuff): 54.5%
I was actually surprised by the number of users who are using MC for video (I would have guessed those results would have been exactly the other way around -- 45% video, 55% audio and images). I suspect that all the changes to video support in MC12 have made a big difference in this regard!
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With 99 voters the situation is the following:
Music: 100,00%
Video: 54,50%
Images: 50,50%
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Music: 100,00%
Video: 54,50%
Images: 50,50%
Ummm... Check your math. Video can't be 54% to 50% because that would equal 104%. We now have more than 99 voters, but when it was still at 99 (I still luckily had that page loaded in another tab), it was:
Music Users: 100% (as I would expect)
Video Users: 54.5% (which leaves 45.5% non-video users)
Image Users: 50.5% (which leaves 49.5% non-image users)
I would also say that, of course, this poll is going to be somewhat skewed based on the fact that it is "responding" users, not "all users". Of course, the people who frequent this forum and respond to this type of poll are going to be skewed to the power-user sect, rather than an accurate picture of the full user base. Still, the results are surprising to me!
One thing that isn't surprising to me at all is the Video-Only at 0% (and it wasn't a choice but I'd guess Images-Only would be 0% as well). I'd guess that anyone who, like me, has a large library of video files and is using MC to organize them and manage them, would quite likely be at least somewhat of a "digital collector" and would be exceedingly unlikely to have no music files at all. That, plus the fact that for pure-video-playback-only there are plenty of free players out there that could handle the task quite well, and MC excels at Music organization above-all-else... So, if you (A) have a digital music collection, and (B) you have MC and use it to organize your video collection, then why wouldn't you use MC to also manage your Music files??
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Good poll, interesting. I wonder how many people purchased MC for music alone and then later realised it would do the rest as well? I'm definitely in that category, rather than MC growing with my needs, my needs grew "into" MC.
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Ummm... Check your math.
Commas are used commonly in europe in place of periods.
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Commas are used commonly in europe in place of periods.
Oops. My bad. I knew that, and forgot. Sorry.
(And that makes a lot more sense now... I couldn't figure out why he bothered to type the other "half" of the ratio.)
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Hi,
Mainly use it for Music like in the good ol'time of mediajukebox.
I've never used any other music player since I stumbled upon MJ 6 years ago.
Marginally use it for video but I'm not into videos anyway.
And don't use it for photos althought I think MC has recently made significant progresses in this field (IPTC/XMP support)
But for me the real thing is music,
keep swinging guys !
Christian
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Well, i use it for music and video only. For images i use FastStone products and for watching tv ChrisTV ('cause MC isn't supporting my tvcard...).
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So, a large majority (well more than the approx 50% Jim predicted in the other thread) are using MC for more than just audio.
I don't understand why my comments keep getting misinterpreted. I never said that I believe that MC is used ONLY for audio. I said: "I can guess that the largest percentage of MC users are using it for audio." No where in there does it say ONLY. I even use it for more than just audio. There isn't a Poll option of Images Only but I would say that right now 100% of the users are using it for audio which means I get my 10 cents. ;D
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I don't understand why my comments keep getting misinterpreted. I never said that I believe that MC is used ONLY for audio. I said: "I can guess that the largest percentage of MC users are using it for audio." No where in there does it say ONLY. I even use it for more than just audio. There isn't a Poll option of Images Only but I would say that right now 100% of the users are using it for audio which means I get my 10 cents. ;D
Just to explain.... In the comment you quoted, I wasn't reacting to your initial comments in the other thread, I was reacting to (as I quoted), this:
and as of right now the higher percentage use it only for music.
That statement simply wasn't true, and certainly did include the word "only". It was clearly a simple mis-reading of the results, but an important one. The higher percentage of users (by far) use it for more than just music. As I explained, the higher percentage of responding users reported using MC for Video (and other stuff).
As I said, I'm only explaining why I said that you were skewing the results. I agree wholeheartedly that most (I would say all, actually) users of MC probably use it for music. For me, that's not my "primary" use (video is) but it is certainly nearly equally important.
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Just to explain.... In the comment you quoted, I wasn't reacting to your initial comments in the other thread, I was reacting to ...(the above post)
Sorry, my misinterpretation.
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I voted Video and Music.
If anybody could help me (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=42749.0) then I'd increase my vote to Video and Images and Music! :-*
M.
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Music, Music, Music, Music. Now I've voted for all four.
I chose MC for the music capability and the apparent commitment to stay on the leading edge. The database features are great. I couldn't find anything else that could compare with MC. As for video, it requires too many resource to be practical at this time. As for images, I've been using Adobe for some time and do not see any reason to change.
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For music MC is almost perfect.
I would love to use it for my images but I haven't found a good way to organize them.
(I use Photools iMatch for images but would like to integrate them to MC)
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As for images, I've been using Adobe for some time and do not see any reason to change.
Just out of curiosity, with Adobe can you tag files using user defined fields or create smart playlists as you can do with MC? Because that's what I use a media manager sw like MC for; I know that many other programs have better editing capabilities than MC, but most of the time I view (and mainly I use smart playlists based on my tags) my pictures rather than editing them.
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Just out of curiosity, with Adobe can you...
Sorry. Personal pet peeve. Adobe is a software company, not a product. Adobe makes a TON of different programs, each of which is quite different. You would not use Adobe On Location or Adobe In Design to manage or edit photos.
What Adobe application are you guys discussing? There are even quite a few that handle image editing and management...
1. Photoshop
2. Lightroom
3. Photoshop Elements
4. Bridge
5. Photo Album
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What Adobe application are you guys discussing?
The one tunetyme is using... 8)
Ok, i'll rephrase my phrase: is there any Adobe apps with tagging\smartlists capabilites comparable to MC?
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The one tunetyme is using... 8)
Ok, i'll rephrase my phrase: is there any Adobe apps with tagging\smartlists capabilites comparable to MC?
Comparible? Well, no...
Do they have any applications which allow tagging and organization? Certainly. I actually like both Bridge and Lightroom quite a bit. Lightroom has quickly become my go-to application for photo-manipulation, selection, and printing. For organization? MC still has it beat by quite a formidable margin, once you get a workflow set up in MC.
Bridge is a nice browser, which I use a lot on my Macs, but MC beats it for most serious heavy-lifting organizing tasks.
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Comparible? Well, no...
Do they have any applications which allow tagging and organization? Certainly. I actually like both Bridge and Lightroom quite a bit. Lightroom has quickly become my go-to application for photo-manipulation, selection, and printing. For organization? MC still has it beat by quite a formidable margin, once you get a workflow set up in MC.
Bridge is a nice browser, which I use a lot on my Macs, but MC beats it for most serious heavy-lifting organizing tasks.
Printing? Lightroom doesn't offer soft proofing or any output sharpening. (Or creative sharpening. It does have excellent capture sharpening.) Everything I go to print in LR still has to roundtrip its way to CS3. Bah! Junk. Poor replacement for Raw Shooter Premium. (RIP)
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I highly recommend ThumbsPlus from cerious.com for photo organization, searching, viewing, and printing. It also comes with photo editing tools that suffice for minor adjustments and you can always shell out to Photoshop for more demanding edits.
Their database is second to none in my opinion. It is built on the Access engine which means you can get at the schema and tables in the event they ever go out of business. I have tens of thousands of hours invested in my photo database so it is very important to me that the data is stored in an "open" format that can be moved to another application if necessary.
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You really want as much stored in the image file as possible. That's why I recommend just using keywords for organization. That way the application you are using or the database associated with it can be corrupt and you can just reload from the files. We do that with keywords.
I also like using DNG for my raw files for the same reason. No sidecar files to lose. If you have the file you have the information.
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Printing? Lightroom doesn't offer soft proofing or any output sharpening. (Or creative sharpening. It does have excellent capture sharpening.) Everything I go to print in LR still has to roundtrip its way to CS3. Bah! Junk. Poor replacement for Raw Shooter Premium. (RIP)
We use Lightroom quite heavily for printing. However, it sounds like we might be doing a much different kind of printing than you are. For a "production" environment where you have a photographer who might have taken 300-400 shots, as part of a large photo shoot, and you need to go through and choose the best one of each subject and print out photo packages Lightroom beats the pants off of the old way of doing it in Photoshop. Jobs that used to take days now take us hours. In this type of situation, anything more than minimal effort to "save" a photo is not realistic -- just choose one that isn't broken instead.
Is it perfect? No, of course not, but it's version 1.
BTW... Lightroom 1.2 now has the same sharpening engine as Photoshop under the Develop "tab". You have full control over the Unsharp Mask Amount, Radius, Detail, and Masking. You can't selectively sharpen via a layer mask like you can in Photoshop (and, yes, it doesn't have any soft proofing features) so I still go to Photoshop for "saving" images, but that's generally not how I use Lightroom anyway...
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MC is one of the three most used applications on my computer. Of the numerous features and capabilities, I would boil it down to two core strengths: a database with sophisticated query capabilities tailored for digital media and a central hub/player for a network of HTPCs.
I use MC primarily to manage my music collection. I also use it to store and play video.
There is no single app I've found that is adequate for images. With respect to tagging, I like Elements' find faces for tagging feature. I use a different app for geotagging. Lightspeed has emerged as my main app for processing, manipulating, and managing images. I use it for keywording and ITPC tags. Its interface has problems, but the basic flaws are known and will be fixed in v2. As discussed in a different thread, the problem with tagging in MC is that, other than keywords, the tags do not comply well with standards and, therefore, can only be used in MC. Once the initial tagging is done, MC is good for managing and accessing the images as part of managing and playing the entire digital media collection.
Other features in MC that I use a lot are the podcast capabilities and the handheld syncing.
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Lightspeed has emerged as my main app for processing, manipulating, and managing images.
What is Lightspeed? Or did you mean Lightroom?
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Yep, Lightroom
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With all the positive comments, I will take a new look at using MC to organize my photos. Candidly, photos are not one of my primary interests. Music is and MC Rocks! As for Adobe, I use Photoshop and does everything I want or need to do.
My task was to answer the poll and simply state how I use the MC software. I think it is great how passionate people are about their favorite software.
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I also like using DNG for my raw files for the same reason. No sidecar files to lose. If you have the file you have the information.
Can MC import and organize DNG fies? If so, I might look into converting all my raw files.
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What I find interesting is that this poll started out with about 15% saying "music only" and has steadily grown. "Music only" is now at 40%.
What does it mean?
And the other interesting thing is that "All four" has 8%. I originally threw that in there for jgreen, but either 1 in 12 are using MC for documents or 1 in 12 are "social aberrants" and are fooling around with us.
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But statistically speaking, I would argue that music only listeners are generally not as sophistocated as those using it for multiple data types. Practically everyone in the world manages music on their computer in some program. Photos are kind of just there and most people have their photos all over the place and no good organization. Video, hmmm. That's even further down the list. There isn't a very easy way to get lots of video content that the users will want to keep and organize.
So music only users make up a large percentage of the user base and since there are more users overall, they are more likely to be less indepth/sophisticated and aren't as likely to visit this forum as much. But since there are more music only users, they will steadily increase the poll count. So if you leave it up, the music only item will probably rise steadily while the other options will remain nearly the same with only small changes.
It all depends on your bet and what you're rooting for. Music only? Leave it up. Otherwise, CLOSE it. <-- this has already been proven by what you just said.
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What I find interesting is that this poll started out with about 15% saying "music only" and has steadily grown. "Music only" is now at 40%.
What does it mean?
And the other interesting thing is that "All four" has 8%. I originally threw that in there for jgreen, but either 1 in 12 are using MC for documents or 1 in 12 are "social aberrants" and are fooling around with us.
Perhaps the more sophisticated users monitor this forum more frequently and therefore were the first to complete the poll?
With regard to my documents and images, the majority are cover art and txt/mht information about music albums. I wonder if some people would have answered music only in this scenario?
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Can MC import and organize DNG fies? If so, I might look into converting all my raw files.
Should work. As always test before you convert them all.
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I was wanting to say that:
Perhaps the more sophisticated users monitor this forum more frequently and therefore were the first to complete the poll?
So initially, the more sophisticated users would vote -- starting with a greater All/ non-music only audience and now gradually gaining on the music-only end as less sophisticated users skew the results.
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I organise music and pictures in MC.
I would use it to organise video if the auto import options was better so that you could add tags based on filename and set up different rules for different locations.
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Practically everyone in the world manages music on their computer in some program.
Your "world" seems to be pretty small. You _are_ aware that a large percentage of the "world" doesn't even have regular access to computers, aren't you?
My usage of MC is roughly 95% audio, and some image organization. Audio & iPod support is where MC really shines IMHO.
PS:
So music only users make up a large percentage of the user base and since there are more users overall, they are more likely to be less indepth/sophisticated and aren't as likely to visit this forum as much.
Sigh... The rules of netiquette don't allow me to express what i think about that kind of "logic". I'm glad you're just a user, and not a business consultant for JRiver.
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See. These two previous posters have a relatively low number of posts. So my assumptions seems somewhat valid.
Yea, I know lots of people don't have computers. But they still manage their music don't they? Sure, it may be instruments in wicker baskets but in that case, they're using iWicker.
I prefer Media Center.
Those iWicker proclaimers are obviously not going to spent time organizing their photos because they'd just blow out of iWicker.
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Sigh...
:)
So to be sophisticated all I need is an MC library consisting of a couple of Spice Girl CD's, a dozen photos of the cat and a video of myself doing the hokey cokey? Brilliant!
I reckon digital content is just digital content - doesn't matter what the nature of it is in the context of how "sophisticated" a user you might be. The rest is just daft arguments over who's got the biggest "server"..
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Benn are you really saying that number of posts directly corresponds to a persons level of sophistication?
The unsophisticated user is more likely not to be using MC since it did not come bundled with their MP3 player or available somewhere for free. I may not have many posts but have been around a while and comment when I think I really have something to add to a topic, at least I think I have something to add anyway others may have other opinions.
I use media center for audio only because I have found other apps that are better at handling photos and videos the way I want. I would love to have an all in one solution but not at the expense of functionality.
MC is improving in the areas of photo and video and I try it out every once in a while to see where it is at but until they are better than what I am using I will stay with my current apps.
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Perhaps the more sophisticated users monitor this forum more frequently and therefore were the first to complete the poll?
I would suggest a slight vocabulary adjustment:
'Sophisticated' is a poor word choice here. 'MC Power Users' would probably be a better description. 'Sophisticated' implies more about education/social stature that usage.
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Hmm I don't think anyone's misinterpreted his words. Benn is clearly saying that these so-called unsophisticated users skew the results of the poll because of their music-only use, implying that their vote doesn't count as much as his.
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Hmm I don't think anyone's misinterpreted his words. Benn is clearly saying that these so-called unsophisticated users skew the results of the poll because of their music-only use, implying that their vote doesn't count as much as his.
That was how I read it too, but keep in mind that he did not first use that word so I am assuming that is not exactly what he meant. If it is, then he is flat wrong. There are valid reasons not to use MC as a video/image management tool.
As to the results - I would suggest that users with large image (like me) or video libraries already use other tools that provide functionality currently missing from MC for these tasks.
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Since I'm obviously incorrect, someone explain why music only keeps rising but started at a tiny percentage of the overall count.
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Ever sit and watch election results come in?
How often do you see a few districts report in solidly for one candidate only to see the person ultimately get trounced.
It's always a mistake to read too much into early results.
In this case I think the majority of users are music only. I say that because there are many long time users here that started when it only was a music product. It still attracts people because of its music roots. Over time as its other features are added and catch up to other apps it will start attracting a larger percentage in those categories.
Not everyone spends their time glued to the forum so until a period of time elapses such that you get a good cross section of the user base what you see is really meaningless. Over time it will settle onto the correct level.
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Since I'm obviously incorrect, someone explain why music only keeps rising but started at a tiny percentage of the overall count.
The 'average' frequent forum user is most likely to be a JRiver Employee/Beta Tester/MC Evangelist. The 'average' MC user will not use MC the same way, or to the same extent. This does not make them unsophisticated (connotation of that word is back woods inbred hick), just different.
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Don't you agree that evangelists of MC are much more likely to use MC's other features? Yes, they still may use only its music abilities but I'd say they are more likely to put their trust in MC as a complete media management program.
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Benn the false assumption is everyone has the same interest as you do. If you are a photo enthusiast then that will be your focus. If music then it is music. The poll only serves to show what are the dominate features being used today. That will change over time as MC continues to develop and market its product to groups other than music enthusiasts. It has nothing to do with sophistication or being a power user. Not everyone who logs on is willing to be polled nor do they have the time always to take the poll. The may not like the way the poll is worded. Who knows. Clearly MC is known best for music and the numbers reflect that fact That's why I bought it.
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dont know about its users, but mc is very sophisticated indeed. 8)
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I use it to manage my music and my musicvideos. So I chose Music & Video. I tried to organise my images within MC, but ACDSee does a better and faster job for this. I never figured out, how I can listen to music (and controll it) and watch pictures (and controll the slideshow) at the same time. It looks easier to me to have a seperate programm for doing this.
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Since I'm obviously incorrect, someone explain why music only keeps rising but started at a tiny percentage of the overall count.
IMO, it's because average people don't think in terms of managing images and video. I know I don't. When I think of a media library, I think of music. I don't really need an image library, because explorer in thumbnail view gets me where I'm going. I don't have a video library, so the idea of maintaining a database of videos makes no sense for me. Maybe I need to sync some music to my phone. Maybe my wife needs to make a mix CD for her car. These are real life examples of why someone would need a music database. Image and video management simply doesn't fit into MY worldview.
I'm not a MC power user by any stretch. I use it at about 2% of it's total capability, if that. It does what it does well enough to suit me, and if the next build suddenly became music only, I may not even notice.
I think that's the mindset of average users. We migrate from Winamp, or Itunes, or WMP. and we bring our music-centric mindset with us. I simply lack the need/initiative to expand my mindset to include an "all encompassing media management system." I simply don't care, and I would venture to guess that there are a lot of MC users just like me. Does that makes us unsophisticated or computer neophytes? Perhaps, but more likely not. The appeal of MC is going to be to the converts from other programs, and the headliner is going to be the music management functions. Cover art browsing is cool, smartlists are cool, transcoding for portable use is cool. Tagging images, directshow filtering for DVD/video playback, TV tuning, etc, are all waaaay advanced for us average users. Maybe we'll stick around long enough to learn what it is that we're "missing." But don't hold your breath, since it's us average users that are going to be the engine that drives MC development forward with our continued conversions and upgrades.
Power users rock, and in other programs, I fit that category. But for MC, I just need it to keep doing what it's doing until I feel like doing more.
Maybe this strikes a chord with other people and helps explain where at least ONE of those "music only" votes came from.
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I find a delicate balance in life is to use only what you need and want to use, not necessarily everything you have or paid for. Buying something really expensive may lead you to feel like you have to use it more than you'd want to. I always find that you have to restrict your use to just what you truly need or want.