INTERACT FORUM
More => Old Versions => Media Center 14 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: tunetyme on September 05, 2009, 05:58:58 am
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What is a fair price for MC? That will be determined by the market place. There are those who have posted their wholehearted support for MC at any price. The question remains is sales. If sales drop off and then there is less revenue to JRiver we all lose. In these times when everyone is watching their pennies one must question the wisdom of raising the price.
I think I am an average consumer of software products. I've been using ACT software since the first release. I stopped upgrading 5 or 6 versions ago since they have not made any tangible improvements in the core software itself. They add new compatibility with Blackberry and Treo but the core software that I use hasn't changed. Why upgrade? So I can say that I have the latest release?
I think everyone can agree that the core product in MC is music. If there are not any improvements in the core product why upgrade? The fundamental question gets down to basic economics and marketing. Will new users buy MC at $50 bucks and produce more revenue or do they lose that business to other software. Will current users upgrade for $25? Time will tell.
I am one of those users that only use MC for music. I think all the other features are nice and at some point I will expand into video as well but the rest is chasing the bleeding edge of technology. The key question is how many people buy MC for those capabilities vs. the core product? I looked at a lot of different products before selecting MC. It does provide a good value for me and I have recommended it to others who have bought MC as well. There is a lot of excitement being on the bleeding edge and I have watched over the past 30 years many companies fold because they were ahead of the marketplace.
I think some of the earlier posts were trying to express the need for tangible improvements in the core product that will incentivize people to buy or upgrade. What I read is a group of insiders blowing smoke. Frankly, that kind of feed back is ultimately destructive. Every business needs good intelligence of the market place and what is in demand. We users who have a vested interest in MC's success need to provide that by informing JRiver what will incentivize buyers to part with their cash.
Tunetyme
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TT,
I split this off because it seems you're suggesting upgrades to the music features in MC that would have broad appeal to music centric users.
Please suggest a few. We scratch our heads daily about this.
For what it's worth, sales are pretty good right now. It could be a short term thing.
Jim
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Have you ever considered selling pictures and video management as separated plugins?
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I too use MC only for music, primarily since I do little with video or photos so have no need for MC to handle those.
Could I use another product? Likely not, my library is too big for most others to handle.
However, each time I am asked to pay for an upgrade I think "OK, but what are the additional features goung to be?" I am reluctant to upgrade when the focus if on parts of MC that I am unlikely to use (anything not doing with music or music file management) and have been very tempted to skip some recent versions as a result.
How MC's pricing compares with other software is not my concern, but what I am concerned about is what am I getting for my additional money.
Is $50 alot? To some no, to others yes. Depends on what you get in return. Even at the upgrade price sometimes the focus of improvement has not been to my benefit since I only use the Audio end of MC.
Personally I'd love to see MC split as suggested in another post: Basic MC Music player, additional cost add-on moduless for video, images, home theater, Tremote, Library Server, and IR-Blaster.
With the right feature set in MJ12, and enough 'goodies' in an audio-only paid version, the price would not be as steep and more people might be inclined to jump onto the basic paid version. Then modules added (at a cost) as the user saw the need.
This would allow users to tailor the program to their needs, at a cost they choose, perhaps adding modules as they become needed. In the end this could result in more users at the lower tier (audio only) and a higher total price for the "full version" with all the modules.
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The last time we asked, we found that people who use MC for music only are about 40% of the total. Here's the poll:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=42725.0
If you're one of those, it's understandable that you think that video and images are a waste of space. Under Options/General/Advanced/Features, you can uncheck things you don't want to see, but try to remember what you did when you start thinking about whether MC can play a video.
The purpose of this thread, I hope, is to find simple new music features that appeal to mainstream users.
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I think Tunetyme makes some good points. For me I always upgrade to the latest version of MC. So I stepped back and did a little analysis to better understand my own behavior and how this may apply to MC.
Of all the paid software applications on my PC (and I think all of us have many paid applications), I only upgrade 6 packages. For the rest I would only consider a paid upgrade if there were compelling new features in the new version. Of the 6 packages,
Media Management: 2 packages (MC plus a package to rip DVD/Blu-ray)
Backup software: 2 packages
Disc Management: 1 package
Security: 1 package
The pattern suggests I only care enough about products that protect and manage my data to always pay for upgrades. The only exception is the Media Management software which I use every day. If media was not such an important area for me, I would only upgrade 3 packages, all of which are utility in nature:
Backup software: 1 package
Disc Management: 1 package
Security: 1 package
Am I the exception or the rule? My guess is that the typical MC user only upgrades if there are new features that are important to them. Otherwise they stay where they are. If this is true, it suggests strategies for MC to consider.
1) Research the usage pattern for MC. My guess is that it is dominated by audio. A broader poll than this forum would be recommended, maybe to all registered users. While audio is a high % of usage on the polls in this forum, I'm guessing it is even higher if a broader poll was conducted.
2) Identify and develop compelling features that deliver additional value to the current customers to drive them to upgrade. Many good things have already been done, but I'm guessing most of the existing customers are not aware of them.
3) Improve communication of new features to the existing customers. Telling them there are upgrade discounts are not enough. The message should be focused on the incremental value in upgrading, and by the way there is an upgrade discount.
And for me, I will continue to buy all new upgrades from MC as they become available. :)
Randy
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The purpose of this thread, I hope, is to find simple new music features that appeal to mainstream users.
A starter list:
1) Lyrics support in YADB (many of us have a large library of high quality lyrics that could be quickly uploaded)
2) Improved lyrics editing (talk Doof the Mighty out of Lyrics Editor?)
3) Solve the iPhone/iTouch/iPod compatibility problem (talk prod out of MCiS?)
4) UPnP - support theater view
5) UPnP - display cover art
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Lyrics are a difficult area for copyright reasons, though if you have them, MC should handle them.
iPhone -- phooey.
UPnP is dependent on the UPnP software on the device (renderer). We're working on a Synapse (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=49762.0) type solution.
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... I will continue to buy all new upgrades from MC as they become available. :)
Thank you.
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Sorry, not an audio request but... many audio users are starting to do video.
I would bundle all the codecs required to make MC work out of the box. The average user will not download codecs. Otherwise they will see that that MC does not do their video, and other free products do, so they won't use MC for video.
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UPnP is dependent on the UPnP software on the device (renderer).
Would it be possible for the PlayStation 3? There are a ton of them out there and they are dirt cheap to buy.
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Sorry, not an audio request but... many audio users are starting to do video.
I would bundle all the codecs required to make MC work out of the box.
Also an IP issue.
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Would it be possible for the PlayStation 3? There are a ton of them out there and they are dirt cheap to buy.
You could read about UPnP to decide for yourself, but I don't know of any way that we could put our GUI on a UPnP Renderer. I wish we could.
That's one of the reasons that I've decided to use a PC instead of a UPnP box.
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Also an IP issue.
Could be solved with a licensing agreement like you did with the LAME MP3 encoder. If there was an additional fee I would be willing to pay it. Others may expect it to be bundled into the price of the MC license.
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You could read about UPnP to decide for yourself, but I don't know of any way that we could put our GUI on a UPnP Renderer. I wish we could.
That's one of the reasons that I've decided to use a PC instead of a UPnP box.
Or could you have an MC client that could run the the PlayStation 3? It is a computer. I'm guessing this would drive more new licenses and upgrades.
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I think everyone can agree that the core product in MC is music.
That has become less the case with v13. Its outgrowing those boundaries. Audio is still its forte but its trying to catch up in the other areas.
If you cant think of using MC for anything but audio just think of those that would like an app that could do more. There are specialised apps for all three of those media categories but not many (if any) that can handle all three, certainly not beyond the basics.
So they bet there's a lot of interest in being able to do images + video (as well) within the same interface which is why they have been giving these areas more priority.
Don't get me wrong i'm primarily an audio person too but these two areas are where they have got to spend more time on.
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Here's my few cents
I am one of those users that only use MC for music. I think all the other features are nice and at some point I will expand into video as well but the rest is chasing the bleeding edge of technology. The key question is how many people buy MC for those capabilities vs. the core product?
Yes, there are quite a few people who use this software for Music only. Why, I'm asking my self. One obvious answer would be that MC/MJ have started out as a pure music product, and over the years there are really no one who can compete. Is it strange that many use such a program for music only? Don't think so.
What about the other sides of MC? Video, Images and Theater View. If you make a poll on this forum you'll end up with a huge unbalance between what the users use the product for. If I recall the last poll on this topic, I believe there was closer to 100% who used it for music, maybe half of that who used it for Video and even less for Images. And combinations of those. I ask my self again. Why? I'll give you two reasons.
I believe that this forum is filled with a lot of Music maniacs (I'm one of them), and there are those of us who slowly are starting to appreciate the improving sides of video and image support and Theater View in MC. You will not have many Video or Image centric people really digging into this product from the beginning and becoming very active on this forum. Why? Simply because there are better alternatives for those things.
If you look at the average user today, they doesn't only listen to music. Everyone have a many favorite shows they watch. They download them and watch it in WMP, and most people watch TV as well. Everyone have at least one camera in their phone, and many many have a digital camera. Facebook and other social networks are flooded with pictures, and they keep their pictures in lousy directory structures. Almost everyone have either a HTPC or a laptop connected to their TV or PJ this days. So why are not MC used more for Video and Images and Theater View? As I mentioned before, I believe the reason is that there are both free and payable software that does Video and Images just as well, if not better. Another important reason is that MC have a steep learning curve, and the default settings in MC is not often that usable for normal users.
I'm not saying that the Music part is not important. Far from it! It's needed to be keep up to date, and improvements can't stop. Most of our users depend on it. But I really feel that the focus should be shifted towards Video, Images and especially Theater View. Because it's there MC lacks and have so much potential. The common use of a HTPC this days is just so much more than music.
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Apple iPhone discussion split here (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=53699.0).
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Magic_Randy,
You mentioned that cover art doesn't display on your UPnP device. It should. Please start a new thread with details.
Jim
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To begin, I'll try to start off broad to demonstrate WHY I believe this way. Eventually I'll become more specific as to WHAT I want to see MC become:
I guess my main issue is performance of the application. I use it solely for music, and it seems that the large majority of new ffeatures that have been coming out have been geared to the video/photography enthusiast.
The difference is that the need for a library program like MC is because it makes storing, locating, manipulating, and playing files more efficient than Windows Explorer. I have 50,000 audio tracks, and MC allows me to locate an individual song I want to play, followed by another song I want to play, followed by another, so on and so forth, while providing me with a beautiful sleek, powerful interface to do this in.
On the other side of the boat, I have about 500 pictures on my hard drive. I find that MC does not offer much of an upgrade in terms of locating and viewing these files over Explorer. And then when you factor in free alternatives such as Picasa or Windows Live Photo Gallery, MC offers little more than theater mode. If I was simply a photo enthusiast, there would be no reason to purchase MC.
The same could go for video files. Explorer + VLC/MPC/WMP is equal to MC. And those alternatives are all free.
What Windows or other free alternatives do not offer is the ability to store, display, and locate AUDIO files. This is MC's niche. There are no other alternatives--unless you want to spend half a lifetime fiddling with foobar2000, which I'm fairly sure most people in here do not wish to do. Make it (or at least a base install) audio centric. Improve performance for large libraries, eliminate resources necessary for the video/image aspects of the program so it can run on older/specialized/dedicated audio machines: improve the aspects of your niche.
So where does MC14 go from here? It should focus on becoming an audio enthusiasts dream. Replace iTunes, replace WMP, become the de facto standard for college students AND audiophiles.
Improve support with cloud music services.
Reduce the complexity of some operations, add more options for others.
Add the iTunesesque automatic file sorting operations upon import or drag and drop.
Add a plethora of sample display/sorting options.
Increase performance for huge libraries (if you had not reduced the size of Noire for MC14 I may not have switched, but my old box was *just* barely keeping up).
Make theater view BETTER than WMC.
Improve Last.fm, internet radio, podcast, artist info, and lyric support.
Clean the YADB database (including duplicate cover art below 500x500px).
Improve the autotagging engine, based upon FULL albums, not just individual tracks.
Add Picard/Musicbrainz support.
Add MySpace artist links/information.
Let me, at the push of a button, find out where the artist I'm playing is going to be on tour next. Show me pictures of the band. Tell me other artists that I may like. Be Pandora. Be last.FM.
Improve music statistics. Show me graphs of what I like listening to by genre, artist, date, etc...Make autoplaylists based on this data.
This idea is REALLY out there, but it's just to give an example of what possibilities are out there if you wanted to put the time and effort in to make it work: Join forces with the Rockbox team and create custom MC branded firmwares for the iDevices, with incredibly tight MC integration. Be better then Apple! Allow me to add multiple-artist albums to my iPod without creating 16 artist entries with a single song each. Please! Sort my albums by date. Please!
I've got 50,000 tracks in my library, connected to a hi-fi system in the room I am sitting, with the monitor right in front of me. Yet, what am I listening to right now? I'm listening to 128k last.FM radio through the tinny speakers on my laptop using Rythymbox because I'm trying to find new artists that I like. Why can't MC do this but the open source Linux community has no problem with it?
MC is a great product and I've always felt compelled to upgrade. However, I'm afraid that this may solely be because MC is the program I use most frequently on the computer aside from the browser. I've always felt "newer is better," and it has been! However, these newest versions have felt like a step in the wrong direction. If I can look at the free MJ12 and say to myself, "you know, I could live with that, if MC weren't around..." something is awry. You have the opportunity to become a defining software (I believe MC is THAT good) in the audio market. However, as you add the image, video, and file integration MC is beginning to look less like a top-tier media program, and more like, well, like Windows Explorer on 'roids. And that's a fairly pointless and convoluted path to negotiate.
What I would like to know is what exactly are the developers long-term goals for MC? At this point it seems like a lot of running in different directions in the hope that something will present itself.
Thanks.
Bryanhoop
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I'll put audio ideas that might be possible in bold. One so far.
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Improve support with cloud music services.
That's a lot of ground to cover, but Performer, our streaming store will be in an MC build soon.
Reduce the complexity of some operations, add more options for others.
Need specifics.
Add the iTunesesque automatic file sorting operations upon import or drag and drop.
I don't know what this is.
Add a plethora of sample display/sorting options.
Increase performance for huge libraries (if you had not reduced the size of Noire for MC14 I may not have switched, but my old box was *just* barely keeping up).
It's probably about as optimized as it will get.
Make theater view BETTER than WMC.
How? Specifics? Probably best in a new thread.
Improve Last.fm, internet radio, podcast, artist info, and lyric support.
Clean the YADB database (including duplicate cover art below 500x500px).
The new cover art system is about two years old now, so it's still filling up. Also, a small image may be the best. I think the current system is pretty good.
Improve the autotagging engine, based upon FULL albums, not just individual tracks.
YADB does do albums.
Add Picard/Musicbrainz support.
Add MySpace artist links/information.
Let me, at the push of a button, find out where the artist I'm playing is going to be on tour next. Show me pictures of the band. Tell me other artists that I may like. Be Pandora. Be last.FM.
The Wiki link is useful for finding the artist's site. The Images link does show band pictures.
Improve music statistics. Show me graphs of what I like listening to by genre, artist, date, etc...Make autoplaylists based on this data.
That's more or less what Player/Play Radio does.
Join forces with the Rockbox team and create custom MC branded firmwares for the iDevices...
We'd like to do that.
Allow me to add multiple-artist albums to my iPod without creating 16 artist entries with a single song each.
I believe you can do that if you use the option in MC. Album Artist Auto?
I've got 50,000 tracks in my library, connected to a hi-fi system in the room I am sitting, with the monitor right in front of me. Yet, what am I listening to right now? I'm listening to 128k last.FM radio through the tinny speakers on my laptop using Rythymbox because I'm trying to find new artists that I like. Why can't MC do this but the open source Linux community has no problem with it?
That's possible in the Performer store.
Thanks for the nice details. Best job so far.
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What I would like to know is what exactly are the developers long-term goals for MC? At this point it seems like a lot of running in different directions in the hope that something will present itself.
I'm sorry you don't appreciate the recent work. The goal is any media, anytime, anywhere.
We've spent a lot of time in the last year in several areas:
Theater View
Television
Remotes
Servers
The benefit of these may not be apparent to you. But both Matt and I use these intensively at home. In a sense, we're trying to make our own home systems perfect. What you would do if you were in my shoes would be different.
You might take a look at the thread called "Netbook as Remote aka Tremote (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=52261.0)" to get an example of a feature that, though not a music feature per se, is going to be incredibly useful to music users when the hardware arrives.
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- Putting in support for streaming to the XBox 360 might a good mainstream move. I think I'm right in saying that MC can't do this today because the XBox isn't UPnP - but for example TVersity can do it, so it is possible. But the one time I tried TVersity it really sucked, it would have been great to be able to broadcast my MC library to my 360.
- Also better visualisations. I still miss Milkdrop,a Winamp plugin, which was by far the best visualisations I ever saw. I did pay for some visualisation plugin for MC - can't remember hte name now - but it was never a patch on Milkdrop. Actually, if it were possible for MC to simply support Winamp plugins then you could use Milkdrop - maybe you could get the author to bundle it with MC :) With Milkdrop or something as good, you can show MC as an awesome party tool; better visualiations than the XBox 360 for example (which many mainstream users will be familiar with.)
- How about more image control features - I know that MC14 improved on this, but I'm thinking stuff like the ability to upload to Flickr, more image manipulation tools - like cropping, distortions, merging two images together, lightening/darkening. The basic sort of tasks that people might want to be able to perform on their photographs.
- Can you script image slideshows at the moment? You can obviously create a playlist of a defined image order then run a slideshow on it, but can you queue up set music for it? Individuall control transitions between images etc? That might be a popular feature - a slideshow editor/scripter.
All of the above are features I would consider to be mainstream popular, and easy sells.
The features that I would personally want are more niche and geeky, such as the ability to maniuplate library fields using regular expressions. It would be great if regex was added to the Fill Properties From Filename, and also to Search/Replace. It should support backreferences, so you can reference chosen parts of the search pattern in the replace. I'd think this would be easy to add using a third party library. Not mainstream at all but very useful, and would add a feature present in Foobar2000 for example, which might help you sell to a few more geeks :)
Examples of regex usage: I just imported a few hundred files from M:\Video, and they're all currently untagged. For Video, I use Album to indicate the show - like Friends, Six Feet Under, etc. My file path format is M:\Video\[Album]\... - then sometimes there's another directory, sometimes not. Example it could be M:\Video\Friends\Season 1\01-The One Where..avi or it could be M:\Video\Planet Earth\01-blah.avi. So I use Fill Properties From Filenames, and I specify M:\Video\[Album]\ - but this only works if the part I want in [Album] is the last directory. In my first example above it would put "Season 1" into the Album field, not Friends. If Regexes were available, then I could specify a regex along the lines of: ^M:\Video([^\]+).*$ - then the UI would need to let me specify that backreference 1 should be mapped into [Album]. Other examples that come up often are where I have a bunch of filenames which contain the necessary info I want to tag, but separated by slightly different text, e.g. if I want to pull Series and Episode data out by grabbing numbers separated by text, but where the text varies slightly in each file: ^M:\Video\.*([0-9]+)[^0-9]+([0-9]+).*$ mapping backref 1 to Series, backref 2 to Episode. (Regex means: M:\Video\ followed by anything, then one or more number in sequence which is captured into Series , then one or more non-numeric characters, then one or more number in sequence which is captured into Episode, then anything until the end of the filename.)
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I'm sorry you don't appreciate the recent work. The goal is any media, anytime, anywhere.
We've spent a lot of time in the last year in several areas:
Theater View
Television
Remotes
Servers
Which was kind of my point about having it priced for different parts as plugins.
Most of the work has gone in these areas and for day to day users who were asked what features they used in this poll:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=42725.0
they were asked about just media (photo, video, images).
There have been some changes in these areas but alot as you said has gone into the above area.
For those of us that just use the 3 core media types and dont use the things you listed above it makes the upgrade price seem high.
For those that use the above features and mix it with a high end, multi room setup, obviously the price is cheap. For those that just want it as a media manager that can play back their files, the price is high.
Sure if you want to, you can price it high and say its designed for the multi-room users with the high end audio equipment and expensive amplifiers etc but my suggestion was to simply offer a cut down version for those of us that want it just for media management / playback.
I've bought MC back from v7 but I just dont think with my relatively light use of it I can justify the actual value for money I am getting with upgrades any more. MC13 I got on blind faith and I dont feel like I got many improvements to those basic use areas over MC12. The changes from MC13-MC14 again are there, but aren't overwhelming. What I would gain from MC12-MC14 is quite big but thats two upgrade costs along.
I'm sure all the guys here who are loaded and use it to control their whole home with thousand dollar systems will chew me out and say how cheap it is compared to their $440000 amplifier but for us light users its not really.
Anyway, I'm gonna drop it now, just my two cents.
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Which was kind of my point about having it priced for different parts as plugins.
Your suggestion a tiered pricing structure be used is fine—except it may not work. And your argument about why some users are not getting sufficient value for the price demonstrates why. We all rationalize whether or not we receive sufficient value for we're paying for. As you've pointed out, some find the current price too high while others think it's a bargain. Obviously there's a correlation between the number of features used and the intensity of use, and the degree of price satisfaction. But I bet that relationship varies dramatically. So tiered pricing is likely to fragment the question and give people more reasons to rationalize why they're unhappy. Think of the possibilities... "I'm happy with the lower tier 1 price, but I'm pissed because one feature I need is in tier 2." "I was happy to pay the tier 2 price, but now you're asking me to pay the tier 2 upgrade price when there have been no improvements to the tier 2 features." "I'm happy with the price, but I'm unhappy you forced me to think about all those tiers." ...they're endless.
I don't buy the argument someone who only uses a few of the available "areas" of the application is a "light" user. If you're using only a few of those and aren't interested in the depth of features available in those areas, then this is clearly not the product for you. If you are using this product because of the depth of it's features in the areas you are interested in, then that is what you're paying for. The fact development goes on in other areas doesn't mean you're not getting value for your price. I believe the opposite is true. I know I'm getting the features I want because there are other users who are just as fussy as me, and they want the same thing. But most of those people need or want other things I don't. If they weren't getting them, they wouldn't be here to support me in what I want.
So it would be a mistake to adopt a pricing model that encourages users to care only about the areas and features of the program used by them. An all-inclusive price, on the other hand, is consistent with the strategy suggested by "The goal is any media, anytime, anywhere." More important than that, however, is JRiver is such a small player in the market, it can't afford to fragment it's user group into different "camps." If it's going to succeed, I think it needs to convince it's existing users MC is ONE product with ONE price.
Now, to demonstrate I haven't wandered completely off topic... What is a "tangible improvement to the core product"? Well, the core of the product must be that which makes it a media manager of "any media, anytime, anywhere." Obviously music is a very important part of that, but it does not constitute the core. So the most "tangible" improvements may very well be those involving other media, or have only to do with the "anytime" or "anywhere." Even those who are only interested in music must see their physical media collections are rapidly headed for obsolescence. The development taking place in these other areas is going to help them evolve and adapt to whatever the future holds. For me, there's more value in that—than in some mundane features for managing media that probably won't even exist in a few years.
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TT,
I split this off because it seems you're suggesting upgrades to the music features in MC that would have broad appeal to music centric users.
1. Create the best seamless integration of a remote music service with the local library...with some different options how to do it:
a) Just stream song/album without adding it to the library
b) Just stream song/album but add a reference to the library
c) Always cache a played song/album locally and add it to the library
d) Option to manually download the song/album locally and add it to the library
2. More and better options for third parties to create remote gui's on devices like the iphone. Something like rivermote on the iphone is cool but to be a real alternative as a full gui it needs to be able to show view schemes fast and sync them with mc. Just look at how squeezecenter does it for iphone apps like ipeng and squeemote...they are very impressive in terms of response to user actions.
peter
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I too would like to see a more seamless integration with services like last.fm and spotify.
A more album-centric view on music files would also be very nice, with support for tags such as Album Rating and Album Last Played. In other words, some method of applying a change to not only the selected file but also to its album siblings.
It's difficult to understand from my (humble) position what might be perceived as parochial and what might be a more globally sought-for feature - I guess that's why I'm not in this business, and you are.
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I too am one of the people who have been disappointed in the direction MC has taken in concentrating heavily on theatre view etc. There are lots of improvements that could be made to MC on the audio side.
Tagging - more sources for getting cover art.
Tagging - ability to tag files from text files (useful for downloaded bootlegs)
Tagging - support for tagging files with info from other online databases freedb etc
Internet Links / Info related to music playing - to get an idea of what MC could do here look at firefox plug in foxy tunes. from it you can choose very specifically what you want to look up/search on the internet ie artist name, artist and/or album, songtitle etc. with mc all we get is the artist name looked up.
Playing Now track info - this is barely worth using these days.
But you are the creative guys. Where are your ideas for developing the music side? As a software user its great when the developer comes up with innovations that we didn't even think about, but which we love to use.
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Internet Links / Info related to music playing - to get an idea of what MC could do here look at firefox plug in foxy tunes. from it you can choose very specifically what you want to look up/search on the internet ie artist name, artist and/or album, songtitle etc. with mc all we get is the artist name looked up.
MC's links are fully configurable using Manage Links. You can add links to search whatever/wherever you want.
Playing Now track info - this is barely worth using these days.
Agreed. It seems these things are meant to be created by the user community, but obviously that's not happening. It would be wonderful if the functionality of the Theater View File Info Panel were available to configure track information. Now wouldn't it be ironic if that happened because of the development team's misguided efforts to satisfy the needs of video media users. ;)
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Please add the ability to apply replaygain values to the actual mp3 on the fly as it is sync'd to a portable device. Not everyone has an ipod or a device that does replaygain on its own. For example all my music in my car is played off a usb flash drive plugged into my Kenwood car stereo. Without replaygain it's a pain because of level differences between many tracks. So currently I use MC to sync the tracks I want to a folder on the harddrive, then use foobar to apply the trackgain to the actual file, then use another program to keep that folder in sync with the flash drive. So it's a 3 step process, which works but could all be done at once in MC. As far as I know applying replaygain to the actual file is only possible with mp3 but that's the most hardware compatible format and probably what most people with portables of some kind use. I am one of those that only use MC for music and I find it hard to justify upgrading when 99% of the new features aren't music based.
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Oh and I agree that MC should be made a modular type product. Either have audio as the core base product then offer other plugins adding additional features or keep it all as one package but offer different licenses that enable different features in the software.
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MC's links are fully configurable using Manage Links. You can add links to search whatever/wherever you want.
Are there any instructions on how to do this? Couldn't find anything in the wiki. Say, for example, if i wanted the google link to search for artist and album title.
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In no real particular order, here are some things that I'd like to see:
- Add album-centric data. (like mentioned above, album ratings, album last played, etc)
- Replace playlists with 'virtual albums'.
- Improve the play-as-radio feature. I get the idea, but it just doesn't cut it for me most of the time. I've seen plenty of discussion on ideas for this, that went to no end, so I'll leave it at this unless some JR folks express some interest in doing something here.
- Add integration of Pandora, last.fm, et al. in a similar fashion to what was done with Hulu and YouTube.
- I love the Rockbox co-op idea.
- Add some configurable options to Party Mode. Things like being able to lock to a single view scheme or view scheme folder, or lock to Theater View. Options to prevent duplicates from being added to the Now Playing list (or duplicates in the 'remaining' portion). Locking down editing is good, but it would also be useful to not even see these options. Basically, MC is too confusing for many of the drunkards that I have over so the simpler I can make the setup/interface the less I have to think about it while I'm having fun.
- Unlock the Media Sub-Type field. I don't want to make my own custom field since this field is auto-filled for podcasts, but there isn't even a "Music" option available to me.
- Keep on improving the client/server streaming setup. I don't use this too often currently due to lack of appropriate hardware, but having these features there and well done will be awesome (for music playing, and beyond...) once I've got a decent hardware setup.
- Add a Select-All/Select-None option to the CD ripping interface.
- MusicBrainz interface would be amazing, though I'd guess there are IP/licensing issues at play here. Alternatively, adding more in depth data coverage to YADB would yield pretty massive results in a fairly short period of time. Things like Musicians, Instruments, Composer, Lyricist, Producer, etc. Many MC users are metadata gurus, why not harvest and share?
That's what I've got at the top of my head. I make no claims that any of these have any value to potential customers, but I'd sure love them all so they must be worth considering!!
-JB
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I must say that I didn't expect this kind of response to my post.
I am going to break my responses into several posts to address the different issues raised here.
I am glad to hear that sales are good right now. Could they be better?
I certainly agree with your product objective of "The goal is any media, anytime, anywhere."
The key question is how do you get good intelligence on the market demand and understand how to capitalize on that knowledge. I would suggest that your poll is invalid. You have less than 200 responses.
Polling or doing surveys is an art and I would suggest that you invest in a professional surveyor to help you fashion the questions and help you interpret the results. One company I am familiar with is Websurveyor. http://www.aboutus.org/WebSurveyor.com. Check them out. There are many others as well.
For your poll to be accurate you need to reach out to the people who do not actively sign on to the forum. Those of us who get involved in the forum are the exception. Most of the people who have responded to this post are 5 star rated. There are 2 one star, 2 two star and 2 four star respondents that tells me that the majority of users have not weighed in. You need to reach out to them and draw then into the discussion by first understanding how they use MC and then focus on how they would like to use MC.
I’ve spent over 30 years managing technology companies and one of my most important lessons was to get out and talk to the worker bees and the customers. You’ll get the straight scoop from them. Senior managers put a positive spin on everything and you need to get to people who will give you real tangible information about where you are and what you need to do to improve sales and your product. They will not take the initiative to talk to you.
As for your regular posters (4 & 5 stars) they can provide vision and insight into your product and will certainly help refine it. But I would suggest that all of this group replied to you poll and have skewed the results.
Jim, it is very challenging to be on the cutting edge but you need to constantly keep in tune with where your customer base is and where they are looking to go. The forum is a great place for suggestions but you need to go out to the entire user base to find what your customers want.
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For your poll to be accurate you need to reach out to the people who do not actively sign on to the forum. Those of us who get involved in the forum are the exception. Most of the people who have responded to this post are 5 star rated. There are 2 one star, 2 two star and 2 four star respondents that tells me that the majority of users have not weighed in. You need to reach out to them and draw then into the discussion by first understanding how they use MC and then focus on how they would like to use MC.
Exactly. I believe that most users here are very Music oriented, but the majority, or at least the possible users of MC, would appreciate to use MC as a hub for all their media. Not just music. It's a Media Center guys. It says that right in the name. Other sides of MC needs to be improved to be able to compete with other Media Centers out there. Fancy music players is nice, but let's face it; most people out there can live with iTunes. We need more to grab users with different media needs.
I'm not saying we have to ditch the music part of MC. It's important to improve it and keep it up to date.But we need to keep the focus on the Theater View, Video, image as well as making MC more intuitive to use for normal users. This will make MC14 the superior Media Center out there, and the possible users would expand rapidly.
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one of the things i miss in 'the core product' ;)
it would be nice if you could set up different dsp profiles. lately the headphone was introduced in dsp studio. nice feature. but when i want to switch to headphone listening i have to open dsp studio, disable some and enable other effects. have to stop playback to get the new choices to work and start playback again. or i have to send the audio to an other zone especiall for headphone playback (that is what i do now). imo it would be nice if it would be possible to easy switch between dsp profiles, and that it works without playback interuption. and now im on it, changable with remote?
:)
gab
ps. i just canceled my newspaper subscription. i did not want to pay for all the parts i did not read like economy and sports.
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Exactly. I believe that most users here are very Music oriented, but the majority, or at least the possible users of MC, would appreciate to use MC as a hub for all their media. Not just music. It's a Media Center guys. It says that right in the name. Other sides of MC needs to be improved to be able to compete with other Media Centers out there. Fancy music players is nice, but let's face it; most people out there can live with iTunes. We need more to grab users with different media needs.
I get where you're coming from, but I used to use MC for everything, but have switched to audio only* because there is software/hardware that specifically services those (i.e. me) with image and video requirements better. I've no desire to have everything organised in the same app at the moment because I didn't see the benefit when I did. MC is best for audio, no contest.
* I categorise music videos as audio. So actually I do use MC for video. Or do I? :-\ ?
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Exactly. I believe that most users here are very Music oriented, but the majority, or at least the possible users of MC, would appreciate to use MC as a hub for all their media. Not just music. It's a Media Center guys. It says that right in the name. Other sides of MC needs to be improved to be able to compete with other Media Centers out there. Fancy music players is nice, but let's face it; most people out there can live with iTunes. We need more to grab users with different media needs.
Lets face it, everyone uses MC differently. We all use certian features but not others. I am not disputing the objective "any media, any time, any where. This discussion is about the core products. In this thread, it is about music. I agree that video is a core product but my question is how many people buy MC for the the video management alone? I don't use the video management because I decided several years ago that I would wait until I can start buying videos in an HD 1080p format. It is so significantly better why waste the money now and buy again. I've certianly done that over the years with music.
As for a fancy player. I look at this a little differently. I live in Northern Virginia. Approximately 75% of the entire states revenue is generated from Northern Virginia. Maybe, we see 20% flow back to this area. I really don't have a problem with that, as long as, we get the services and roads etc. that we need. The same is true for MC. MC was built on music. That is the dominant use by virtually everyone. We need to manage tens of thousands of music files. How many movies do you manage, a few hundred or a few thousand? This is not a dispute about being "Media Center" software. It is about the fact that there has been little to no development in the core music feature of MC. The other point is, it is about providing JRiver with good intelligence about the market and market demands. The business needs a strong cash flow to continue developing all the various products. Music is providing the bulk of that funding. It is about how do you get all the others to upgrade to 14? How do you get the ones who are using media jukebox to convert?
I get where you're coming from, but I used to use MC for everything, but have switched to audio only* because there is software/hardware that specifically services those (i.e. me) with image and video requirements better. I've no desire to have everything organised in the same app at the moment because I didn't see the benefit when I did. MC is best for audio, no contest.
MrHaugen, please listen to what others are saying. Frankly, your statement "but the majority... would appreciate to use MC as a hub for all their media" is unsubstantiated. Personnally, I think you are blowing smoke. If you are going to post on this thread let's keep it focused on music. You can start another thread on video and iTunes. Let's strive to keep this as a business discussion focused on providing JRiver with good market intelligence.
Tunetyme
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my question is how many people buy MC for the the video management alone?
my question is how many people buy MC today for the the video management alone? --TRUE
and
my question is how many people will buy MC tomorrow for the the video management alone? ---?
WMC & XBMC are better today for video than MC. But will that be the case tomorrow ?
I bet ppl today have more digital images than they do everything else. Is MC upto the job ?
How do you get the ones who are using media jukebox to convert?
Hooking them to the interface, as that's the main selling point. That interface got honed with audio. And suggesting it might be possible to do the same with video & images if they wish. Then giving them a reason to buy when they see the features for video & images are worth making the plunge.
You can already get the audio bit for free, its in effect cannabalising their core product. The moment they made the decison to make jukebox free it was time to start building reasons to go with a more comprehensive media center.
THe other point is media convergence, images, music, video and why you cant handle it all in the same space.
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Responding to Jim's request for audio improvement suggestions...
1) A re-rip function to allow people, like myself, who chose the wrong bitrate and/or format when ripping their cd collection to re-rip without having to re-enter all the tags. I have avoided re-ripping my cds because of the huge effort required to re-enter the tags (or to trick MC by replacing the files). It appears to me that 99% of the functionality is already in place because the Convert function does a beautiful job of maintaining all tags.
2) We need a convenient way to display detailed information about an album or audiobook. I currently store info in text files co-located with the audio files and tagged with the same Artist/Album. This works but it is not great because the document files mess up views that are much cleaner when audio only. One way to accomplish this would be to tweak the Links feature such that it could point to locally stored document files. This way we could stay in audio only views but still be able to access the document file when we want more information.
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rjm
I've had to re-rip files also. If you use the same directory then I think MC will see all the info. If not you could try ripping the file into the same directory. Then change the extension from MP3 to APE or FLAC in MC (under filename which has the entire path to the file) whichever you use then update tags from MC. You could give it a try. If you are staying with MP3 then it should just overwrite the file and again update tags from the library should take care of it. I'll give it a try tomorrow and post the results.
I think your suggestion is a good one. We all have some kind of work arounds to do what we want. I have dbPowerAMp as a alternative to dump info about my files. I can't get the html output from MC to inport into anything but Notepad then it will identify an illegal character in a particular line and when I go to that line I can't find the problem. I also use the dbPoweramp to generate CD covers as well, as I haven't been able to use the MC print function to print the covers in the format I am looking for. It's a pain.
This is the purpose of this thread to provide JRiver insights into things that could be improved based on how users actually use the program or want to.
Thanks.
Tunetyme
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This is the process I used to re-rip albums while preserving the library info.
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=49951.0
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Thanks to both of you.
Magic_Randy, I am aware of your process for re-ripping. It's still too much effort to re-rip my cds. Hoping that some day JRiver will simplify this.
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I am aware of your process for re-ripping. It's still too much effort to re-rip my cds. Hoping that some day JRiver will simplify this.
I agree it is too many steps. But my process proves it can be done in MC. A small enhancement in MC would eliminate all of the non-value added steps.
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I would still like to see more strides toward a house-wide media system. A more ultra-controlled system that runs directly from a connection to a server box, where all the settings and configuration modes are set. Kind of like a media-controller (domain-controller). When I consider the typical HTPC, it is apt to get destroyed from users reconfiguring things or a software update/OS reinstall ultimately destroying this perfect configuration. Sure, saving and restoring settings is great, but why not have a server setup.
It could even go as far as registering each HTPC with the server and then setting its settings (on the server) and saying use global value or custom. Then, without any effort, all the settings would be locked in--or changeable in specific cases if needed.
Also, as the number of home users increases, why not have the server take care of actual television recording while the clients are not bothered? Then, each htpc can sleep as needed and the server (already running 24/7) can easily save out dozens of TV streams (lol). As I return to setting up TV again, I keep thinking about recording a show: do I set it up to record on my desktop or should I set it up on the HTPC? When a recording is scheduled, the server should track it so the other MC systems -- including separate user accounts -- would all see the updates in real time. If they were looking at the schedule, a record symbol should pop up on the item.
Lastly, the TV interface should be greatly revamped to go for the DVR/satellite box view. A major grid like display. Something more pleasing and easy to view / quickly control.
starting new thread based on request
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MrHaugen, please listen to what others are saying. Frankly, your statement "but the majority... would appreciate to use MC as a hub for all their media" is unsubstantiated. Personnally, I think you are blowing smoke. If you are going to post on this thread let's keep it focused on music. You can start another thread on video and iTunes. Let's strive to keep this as a business discussion focused on providing JRiver with good market intelligence.
Why would not most people like to have all the music, video and image functionality in one application?? I can understand that this is the situation TODAY for some of us. But do not tell me that you would not like to have everything conveniently in on app if the support for Video and Images was just as good as for Music (and if you had videos of course). There are also some functionality you'll be missing if you don't have it all in MC as well. I'm not blowing smoke at all. It's you who focus only on Music and can't see the need for improving other sides of MC, and attracting a lot of potential users, instead of just a few music maniacs like us :)
More and more people get a HTPC for their TV or PJ today, and this is where MC really have a potential. Sure, there are people who use MC as a music player only at their workstation, and the problem switching to different apps to see images or play wide is not a problem then. But when you have a remote control with no mouse functionality it IS a problem not to have everything in one app.
You can start another thread on video and iTunes. Let's strive to keep this as a business discussion focused on providing JRiver with good market intelligence.
For me the core product is Music, Video and Images, and I'm trying to contribute to the discussion as well. When everyone is expressing their concerns about the direction MC takes (focusing less on Music), I'm here trying to get you to see that MC have so much potential to the average media user if it was improved in video, images and theater view and easy usability. J Rivers revenues could increase greatly if they keep the focus on the things that are not so good today, and still keeping the music part up to date.
my question is how many people buy MC today for the the video management alone? --TRUE
and
my question is how many people will buy MC tomorrow for the the video management alone? ---?
WMC & XBMC are better today for video than MC. But will that be the case tomorrow ?
I bet ppl today have more digital images than they do everything else. Is MC upto the job ?
Correct. If the video, images and Theater View is continually improved we also get those users that's more into Video and images and who looks at it from the couch.
I use the music part of MC a lot, and I don't disagree that some improvements is in place. I would be happy if there was some cool improvements or new features to the Music part of MC soon, but I'm also trying to figure out what can make this Media Center exceptional. To stand out from the crowd, in all fields. There's a few of us that have extreme needs for a music management, but most can live fine with iTunes (except those with huge libraries and Audiophiles). We need a product that's good on all fronts, so people don't choose separate apps to do the job. Even if there are not many using MC for video or images today, this might not be true at ALL if those sides of MC is improved.
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TT,
I split this off because it seems you're suggesting upgrades to the music features in MC that would have broad appeal to music centric users.
Please suggest a few. We scratch our heads daily about this.
Jim
MrHaugen:
You missed the point from the beginning. This thread is about music features not video not an integrated hub. If you have some ideas about how the music portion of MC can be approved then please post it. When you try to change the subject of the thread, muddy the waters, and making unsubstantiated statements, Yes, that is blowing smoke becuase there is no substance.
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Sure. I'll stop getting all OT here. Had to explain my previous conclusions.
I'm just a bit concerned that a forum with so much music centric users end up pushing the development toward what is best for a small usergroup, rather than aiming at a app that the masses would love. That's all.
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I would like to suggest that we break this down in 4 categories. Improvements to the:
The Player
Database
Music Analysis or Advanced tools
Generating Playlists
The Player
In this first of four posts, I want to suggest that there would be some benefit to increase compatibility with various third party plugins.
I think iZotope plugin could also become a revenue stream JRiver for those who want to take your music up to the next level. http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/media/ozone.html
I understand that I could make it work with some effort but it would be nice if it could be a seamless install. Last I looked QCD had 368,121 downloads on that one plugin. They charge “For a limited time, get iZotope's Ozone plug-in for only $19. When purchasing, use the promotion code OZMP-DF45.” iZotope charges $29 direct. Go and read users comments on this product.
Hardware connectivity: Here is a link for some of the Flac (lossless) hardware that will play Flac files: http://flac.sourceforge.net/links.html
This is an option for those who do not want to set up an HTPC. By working with the vendors as the “Player of choice” you could boost sales as well. I think there was a post by Jim about a European review of MC associated with the hardware being offered. Great PR cost $0. I am sure JRiver will get some sales from that review. Working on compatibility with all the hardware devices and maybe offer to be bundled with their hardware. Either way that will boost sales as well.
Tunetyme
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benn600 The topic here is the core music product. I think your idea has merit, prehaps it would best be served by starting a new thread.
Tunetyme
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The Database
In this second of four posts, I want to suggest that there would be some benefit to some features of the database.
I don’t want to start the annual discussion on a relational database here.
Exporting the database. It would be nice to be able to export selected fields (and their sequence) into a flat file (comma separated). That will enable me to import it into any app I want. Html is ok for some, but it is flaky when handling foreign characters (illegal characters). I haven’t been able to use it.
Work around and printing covers. My work around is dbPoweramp’s database. It is easy to use and export into a flat file or html just by selecting which option I want. I can sequence and format the output. I use this to print CD covers as I can get it formatted in a columnar format and adjust to fit, if needed.
Importing music is quick and straight forward.
Backups. I really appreciate the regular backups. It would be nice if playlists could be backed up in an M3U format as added protection. I do it manually now.
Drive letter. Is there an easy way to change the drive letter that the database is looking at? I am looking at adding Icydock’s tray-less hard drive kit. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817994062
As I insert various drives it would be a great asset to be able to redefine the drive letter.
Using command line expressions. There may be a wiki on this but I haven’t seen it yet, if there is then ignore this. I admit that I haven’t looked very hard either. It would be great to know how and when to use this capability.
Please chime in with any additional thoughts on improvements for the database.
Tunetyme
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... why not have the server take care of actual television recording while the clients are not bothered? Then, each htpc can sleep as needed and the server (already running 24/7) can easily save out dozens of TV streams (lol).
MC can do this now. It can record as many shows as you have tuners and horsepower for. Same for serving. Library Server lets you share recorded TV.
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Music Analysis or Advanced tools
The third of four posts.
BPM
Improve BPM analysis. I’ve already posted a comparison of MC, Mixmeister BPM analyzer, and Mixshares Rapid Evolution. Here is that post:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=51551.100
There are several good ideas in the DJ thread. One of the suggestions is to add the ability of Harmonic mixing. Two sites you can learn about it is:
http://community.mixedinkey.com/Participate.aspx?ID=1
http://www.mixshare.com/
Both sites provide a good overview of mixing in key. While these sites are DJ oriented this opens the door to building playlists that flow together perfectly. The mixshare product is particularly interesting. They highlight different songs that will blend harmonically with the previous one. The database has much to be desired and it takes a painstakingly long time to analyze songs. On recent independent comparisons they are the most accurate.
If MC decides to take a closer look at creating a DJ interface this would open up a new market. It would be great to use this kind of interface at parties where people could play DJ. More on this in the next post on building playlists.
Tunetyme
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Jim, if you sort your member database by posts you will find that 80 to 90% of all posts are by the people on the first page, by page 33 you are at 0 posts. So the majority of your members haven’t posted a single time. You have a total of 20278 members and there are approximately 300 members per page. Frankly, the 300 on the first page are not enough to support a company. Yet, it is this group that shapes your views, your product and direction. The best advice anyone could give you is you need to find out what the bulk of your users want and need. It is not just about having the latest and greatest gee whiz crap. Get a professional pollster and reach out to your entire base of users and find out what they want. I have suggested one. I have known the CEO for twenty+ years and if you want to email me I will be glad to introduce you to him. After 30+ years in senior management and an IPO under my belt, I can tell you one thing is certain. When you lose touch with your customers you are done.
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Jim, if you sort your member database by posts you will find that 80 to 90% of all posts are by the people on the first page, by page 33 you are at 0 posts. So the majority of your members haven’t posted a single time. You have a total of 20278 members and there are approximately 300 members per page. Frankly, the 300 on the first page are not enough to support a company. Yet, it is this group that shapes your views, your product and direction.
I would say that they help shape the product. I'd give our users a weight of about 40%, with the rest made up of what we think, what our corporate customers want, and the market -- Win7 comes out and suddenly touch is more important. Or Apple decides to shut down access.
The best advice anyone could give you is you need to find out what the bulk of your users want and need. It is not just about having the latest and greatest gee whiz crap. Get a professional pollster and reach out to your entire base of users and find out what they want.
I'm sure that's good advice, but it's also important to win the hearts and minds of people who aren't our customers.
I have suggested one. I have known the CEO for twenty+ years and if you want to email me I will be glad to introduce you to him. After 30+ years in senior management and an IPO under my belt, I can tell you one thing is certain. When you lose touch with your customers you are done.
OK. Thanks.
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Marketing 101
Just remember it costs 10 times more to get a new customer than to retain your existing ones. When you decide to offer tangible improvements in the core music product I'll consider upgrading until then you lost me as a customer and an advocate for your product. Even if you can map out development plans for the next few years that addresses user concerns it would have been worthwhile to upgrade to support that effort. MC is going in directions that offer no benefit to me as a consumer and I don't want to pay for their development without a corresponding benefit.
I wish you the best of luck.
Tuentyme
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This is interesting. I was just about to post a reply 3 times in this thread but I haven't. However as tunetyme brought it down to a nice closing I'll speak from my angle, which might reveal a bigger problem. Which is how would JRiver make both you and me happy. Because I would argue from the exact opposite angle, argue whether audio is core, blast any argument about core audio development to pieces, and ask about integration of media, which in my opinion is the future, and not making a Media Center app a tool for DJs around the world.
Pretty interesting dilemma.
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Daydream it is about being the best product in each area you move into. I have not advocated that this become entirely a DJ tool. But the music community is by far the largest and it is vital to keep that community on board or you lose your primary revenue base. It may very well be that video will become the dominant media that is managed by MC in the future. Right now, the music community is primarily funding the new development and we are not getting any value for our investment in the music portion of the product. All that is being asked is that some of the development dollars go back into the core music product. Is that an unreasonable request?
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I use MC mostly for music and I have seen constant improvement over the years. The UI (especially the views), player engine, database, format support, compatibility with other programs and server functions have improved considerably in each version.
Perhaps the JRiver development model makes the improvements seem less tangible because the program has improved steadily. J River has developed well over one thousand Media Center builds during the last few years and at least several hundreds of them have been released publicly.
The version number breaks are not as significant as when the features do not change during the lifetime of each individual version.
The development of MC14 continues and I guess the last build of MC14 will be quite different from the current build. The active users have always been able to influence the direction of the development.
I see the yearly (or so) upgrade purchases a bit like a voluntary subscription system for this constantly developed product.
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... the music community is primarily funding the new development and we are not getting any value for our investment in the music portion of the product. All that is being asked is that some of the development dollars go back into the core music product.
OK, Tunetyme. Gloves off now. The Marketing 101 remark was condescending. JRiver will be 30 years old in two years. I started the company in 1981. I'm happy that your experience is superior to mine, but I'm ok with mine too.
Your opinion that "the music community is primarily funding the new development..." is not based in fact.
Time will tell whether our strategy of going after an integrated, comprehensive approach to media is the right one.
In the meantime, I hope you will reconsider your opinion of our business practices.
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I suppose this would be a bad time to ask about my stamp collection...
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Sounds like it is getting a little tense in here......
I understand both view points here. I happen to fall into the category of user that only uses the audio portion of the program. It can be argued all day who and what is the core of MC. It seems difficult to focus on one without alienating the other and since a vast majority of MC owners never post anything on this forum it is hard to know what to focus on. Which is why I think you modify your licensing scheme. Sell a license for audio only that disables video and pictures or a license that's only video or video and audio. This seems like the best way to know what your users really want. If 75% of sales are for audio only license.... then you know who your core is. Myself I don't see a compelling reason to upgrade to 14 as I only use the audio.
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I'm afraid I'm another customer who would prefer that MC become the best music program in the world rather than splitting off into other areas. I have a dedicated PVR program (BeyondTV), I have several photo organizing programs (ACDSee, Adobe Bridge, etc.) and these programs are focused on one thing and do their jobs extremely well. I doubt very much that an all-in-one program will ever match their capabilities. What I very much would like is a high end music organizing program that would work along side of them.
Here are some ideas on the audio side that would get me to upgrade from MC12.
1. I most often listen to music on a computer in the office connecting MC to a MC server in the basement. A feature I would very much like would be the ability to make changes on the client (to tags, for instance, or smartlists) and have them reflected in the main database on the server. Right now I have to make notes and remember to do the changes when I VNC into the machine.
2. Sync'ing music to my Windows Mobile device has never worked reliably. Most often it would either fail to copy without explaining why or attempt to reload all the music on the device. I would like to be able to connect and get a list of what's on there and drag and drop music on and off without having to doublecheck it. (I've resorted to dragging folders through Explorer.)
3. I would like to be able to use MC as my default music player when clicking on an audio link on a web page. Each time I do this and then want to play my own music I have to shut down MC and restart it. Often it will hang when I try to close it and I'll have to kill it in task manager. I've switched to Media Player for this purpose ... see how desperate I am??
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Matt or Jim will have to confirm this but if I understand correctly the MC14 Library server is now read-write so your first point should now be possible.
I have never had any problems with syncing to my wife's or my Sansa clip with MC14- the one issue I had was on a previous version using an RCA Lyra with a corroded memory stick (my wife accidentally got tea with milk in it).
I have never had problems with playing internet radio then switching to my music library with MC14 (or earlier versions).
All this to say that, although I very rarely buy software, I have bought MC since version 11- even though I don't come close to using it to it's full potential for music and rarely use it for anything else.
I have seen significant improvements in a variety of areas, many of which I don't use (but I might someday) and most surprisingly, developers showing a refreshing responsiveness to user requests.
What I would really like to see is MC be able to do my taxes for me- having to pay for a new version of tax software every year and still having to pay in is far worse than the upgrade cost for the next version of MC ;D
Seriously, I would like to have an easy way for MC to record audio without auto levelling and turning on/off when no sound is present. I hadn't read enough or paid enough attention when doing sound check to realize this was happening before trying to record a handbell concert in my church with unfortunate results.
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I'll add that I'm primarily an MC14 "audio only' guy too. It's unlikely I'll abandon Adobe Lightroom & Photoshop any time soon, especially given my investment there (time & $).
That said, I agree with
I see the yearly (or so) upgrade purchases a bit like a voluntary subscription system for this constantly developed product.
and I have faith that some of the improvements I wish for (like Album-centric data entry! :)) will in fact materialize one day.
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You can't argue with the fact that most users on this forum is music centric. That would be foolish. So, the improvements in music sides of MC can't stop. You would risk loosing much of the regular users. The question is, would many of this users also use this app for Video, Theater View and Images as well, IF MC was better at it. In many cases I believe the answer is yes.
I also believe that it could open up MC sales for a whole new user group that uses Windows MC, XBMC and iTV (or whatever) today or tomorrow. I don't think MC have to be the best in Theater View, Video or Images either. It's to hard to accomplish with limited recourses, over companies that develops for only one media type. If the most important functions is in place, most people would prefer one app to control all their media instead of different applications for music, video and images.
Where do the Media trend go? The general media trend go towards music, video and images anytime and anywhere, HTPC's with Media Centers for all media playback and big media systems for houses or apartments, media players in cars, planes etc.
As other users say here, there are improvements on the audio side for every single version. It can't be called small either.
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Jim:
As you say its’ time to take the gloves off. I will speak to you man to man. This isn’t personal its pure business.
You say I was condescending with my marketing 101 comment. It was intended to be. What about your comment: “I would say that they help shape the product. I'd give our users a weight of about 40%, with the rest made up of what we think, what our corporate customers want, and the market.” That tells me you make your decisions in a smoke filled room looking into your crystal ball trying to figure out the market direction without the benefit of objective information. We regular members don’t have any tangible input and there isn’t any independent market research being done.
If you go back over my posts in this thread you will see that I am in total agreement with your vision of any media anytime anywhere. I think you should be in video and any other media that the market demand is for. What I am trying to get across to you is that you need to invest in some good independent market research that gives you an objective view of what the market demand is. I’ve tried to help you with this by referring one company that could help you do just that.
The second point is I’ve shown you one plugin (iZotope) that has generated over 300,000 downloads. Could you use 300,000 more customers? Who can’t? I’ll tell you what, make iZotope a product offering and send me the commissions for selling iZotope and you keep the license fees and upgrade fees. If I had that kind of info, I would be on the plane today to cut a deal with iZotope.
Jim, you need to get rid of the NIH (Not Invented Here) Syndrome. Look around at the other competing products and see what they are offering that you are not. You have the opportunity to build MC into a mainstream product by working with hardware vendors too. (See previous posts.) My input is for your benefit and my own. I like MC, it does most of what I want to do and it provides me with features that I am not using now but I will expand into over time. I want to see you still around in a couple of years so you can celebrate your 30th anniversary and the 40th too. You are in a very small club of successful entrepreneurs who survive more than 5 years. I would love to see you become wildly successful. I have been building companies for over 30 years and it really irks me when they don’t take the next step to understand market direction and demand. It’s your company do what you want.
There is an old saying, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. I’ve given you $25,000 worth of advice, use it. It’s on me.
It’s good to see more people posting their thoughts on this subject I hope more will post their thoughts too.
Tunetyme
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Matt and I had a talk about this thread earlier today. Here's where the discussion led.
We do what we do because we love it. It's that simple.
Other people might see that as foolish. I don't. I am so proud of the product we've made and of our team. It is a privilege to have been able to devote my life to something I love and that brings pleasure to so many people.
Our customers continually amaze me with their intelligence and creativity, and there is a spirit of generosity and civility on this forum that is inspiring. So many individuals have given so much. This is a global community with all kinds of backgrounds and viewpoints, but we all love the world that our media represents to us. For me, Media Center is this world.
Mary Poppins
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FWIW, one more customer who uses MC strictly for music. I've never even tried using it for anyting else, nor do I expect to. A stripped down, music-only version would suit me just fine.
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I am not going to comment the business related part of this discussion now.
However, IMHO, in order to accomplish some useful improvements to the audio part a couple of mentioned things could be discussed more and actually implemented.
Re-rip
- often requested and currently too complex for most users.
As said many times before, a wizard that would automate the process would be most welcomed. It would also be easy to advertise and something that the other programs don't offer yet. The needed steps that would need to be automated are quite well described in the thread that was already linked earlier: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=49951.
iZotope Ozone
- is for adding various DSP adjustments to the audio signal. I guess most users are happy with MC's built-in adjustments. However, there is one thing that I noticed about the OzoneMP version. It can store file specific settings when it is used with certain players.
For the EQ part this was possible in MC with scthom's EQdb plugin before MC's plugin interface changed during the MC13 development cycle. Here is one of the EQdb threads: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=40270.0
I used it with many albums that are mastered with EQ settings that differ considerably of what can be considered as "normal flat EQ" and for storing file specific volume adjustments (by using the Pre-amp slider in the EQ panel).
It would be great if MC would provide a simple one-click method for storing the current file specific DSP settings that would be automatically set on playback when a corresponding player option is enabled. In addition to the EQ settings it would be nice if it could store also some other DSP settings for further adjusting the audio output.
Actually, it could have a separate "file DSP" window so that, for example, it would be possible to use file specific EQ settings in addition to the global EQ settings that are set to correct the speakers or room acoustics.
During playback MC would then automatically combine the stored file specific values with the possibly set global values and use the combined DSP settings.
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Matt and I had a talk about this thread earlier today. Here's where the discussion led.
We do what we do because we love it. It's that simple.
Other people might see that as foolish. I don't. I am so proud of the product we've made and of our team. It is a privilege to have been able to devote my life to something I love and that brings pleasure to so many people.
Jim, I do not think you and Matt are foolish. You have a very good product and people provide input to try to help you make it even better. You have good reasons to be proud of this product. It begs the question that if you had two or three times the revenue wouldn't that give you the resources to make it a truly world class product?
Tunetyme
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Alex B
Why not become the fourth player authorized to sell iZotope? It would easier to implement and generate new revenue and customers at the same time.
Tunetyme
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I didn't bother absolutely wading through every single post in this thread... However, I just wanted to take a second to voice an alternate opinion.
The repeated "assumption" above is that most people use MC mostly for Music. Perhaps, but perhaps not. Previous polling on this issue does NOT support that conclusion. It is difficult to gauge user opinion, though. Even if you did a more broadly based poll in the application itself, many users would only self-select and respond to the poll if they have strong opinions about the poll subject matter (and the rest would click the "Stop bothering me" checkbox).
Either way... I'm a perfect counter-example to your assumption. I would not purchase MC for music organization alone. Period. While I wouldn't be happy with my other choices, I would use something free if it were a music-only application, rather than pay for MC. To be crystal clear... The only way you're going to pry $50 out of my hands is to handle all of my media, but especially to offer powerful video organization features. Everything else can be handled by a free alternative (not nearly as well, but passably).
I use MC for many media types, but I'd rank them roughly in this order of importance for my everyday use:
1. Video
2. Music
3. Images
4. Misc (Documents and other file types)
I suspect that there are a ton of other users just like me. So, I'd dispute totally the presumption that the "core product" of MC is music organization. I'd say the "core product" is MEDIA organization. The beauty of MC is that it treats all media types equally. If it did not, I'd take my business elsewhere.
My only point here is that you should check your assumptions. Just because it used to be so, does not mean it still is. In the "music organizer" space, MC is now competing with a bunch of FREE products, so they need to tread lightly and carry a bunch of other added value.
We do what we do because we love it. It's that simple.
Other people might see that as foolish. I don't. I am so proud of the product we've made and of our team. It is a privilege to have been able to devote my life to something I love and that brings pleasure to so many people.
And it shows, Jim and Matt. Thank you all.
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TT,
I split this off because it seems you're suggesting upgrades to the music features in MC that would have broad appeal to music centric users.
Please suggest a few. We scratch our heads daily about this.
Glynor:
It might benefit you to read through this whole thread. When you look at 13 & 14 their have not been any substantial improvements in the music portion of the program.
As for paying 40 or 50 bucks for MC over a free player, I did and so did a lot of others who have posted here. All we are trying to do is bring it to Jim and Matt's attention that there are a number of improvements that can be made to the music portion of MC. Some of those suggestions are directed to help them expand their market share as well.
I expect to expand into other areas of MC in time. Right now I am focused on my music. Those who are primarily music users have no apparent incentive to upgrade at this time. How does that benefit JRiver?
Not everybody who has posted here share your view that an integrated product is the only way to get people to part with their cash. Right now I have 4 music programs to do what I need. Some are because requests have been made to make some changes in MC but they have fallen on deaf ears.
Everyone agrees that MC is a very good product. We want to be better. Don't you?
Tunetyme
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When you look at 13 & 14 their have not been any substantial improvements in the music portion of the program.
I remember spending numerous hours with testing the new audio related features during the MC13 and MC14 (still ongoing) development.
I think MC13 and MC14 are in many ways better audio programs than MC12. Personally I kind of skipped MC12. I maintained my big main library with MC11.1 during the complete MC12 development cycle despite the fact that I installed and tested about 500 MC12 builds. There was always something small that I didn't quite like and I postponed the move.
Only in MC13 all those things were finally fixed (at the same time).
I moved the main library to MC14 very early because of the better audio file tagging and format compatibilty and because this time the implemented changes seem to work fine without causing any regression or problems in other parts of the program.
I think the audio related feature set is quite complete now and in my opinion the best thing to do would be to fine tune the UI usability, file and tag format support and compatibility with other programs and devices.
Regarding my "mostly music" usage the audio part has the highest priority because of the big amount of music files and music metadata. I have a fully tagged library of 74,000+ audio files with lots of custom fields. It also contains statistics starting from the year 2002.
I have only a few hundred imported video files and probably I could as well just use Windows Explorer for handling them. However, naturally I prefer to use MC's familiar database for video and other media types too.
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When you look at 13 & 14 their have not been any substantial improvements in the music portion of the program.
ofcource, i agree. and you know what. the 'music portion' of mc 12 is free available. its called mj 12. and it is a real nice program for audio organizing and playback. its not a payable module, its free.
but then again, thv has improved a lot, does that belong to the music portion, and the remote part, and the library server, the recent changes to dsp studio?
for me the music part is by far the most important part, and the reason why i started to use mc. that the database also can do my images and video is just a great extra. im not rich or ceo, but my music is so important to me that i would love to pay 50$ a year just to know that some guys are keeping an eye on this techie stuff so my database and files are still useable in the next decenium and at a high level. that in the mean time they are also working on better image and video handling is a bargain.
oh well.. and i like the bussiness model.
:)
gab
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Personally, as an audio-only user, I'm happy to see that the MC folks are indeed amenable to feedback when people ask for it specifically. In the last few months, VST support was added - that's a HUGE step forward. The ability to have multiple Now Playing views open from different zones - HUGE. Cue in-out points - heck, that was a nice one even though I haven't been able to upgrade to MC14 yet to take advantage of it.
I think a lot of it has to do with the squeaky wheel principle, and whether the requests relate to something the product is doing or whether it's something another product is doing.
Wasn't WASAPI added recently, too? (I haven't even looked at it, so I have no idea what it is or what it does.)
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Why would not most people like to have all the music, video and image functionality in one application??
Invariably the split-headed beasts have to make compromises that make some (or all) of the features less useful (slower, less feature rich, etc.) than standalone products.
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Everyone:
I hope you will consider the business discussion as an unfortunate sidebar.
The purpose of this thread is to discuss improvements to the music portion of the software. It might be beneficial if someone knowledgable about video could start another thread with that as its' topic and any other portion of the software that users may have suggestions for improvements.
The objective here is to provide quality input that Jim & Matt can put their hands around. For example, many of us have tried different music software and if there is some feature that you find particularly good, then share it with the rest of us. There may be other things that could benefit from a little tweaking, share that as well. We all want to help build this software into the best there is.
Thank-you for all your input.
Tunetyme
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Thank you.
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No thanks needed.
I really want this thread to stay on task and provide meaningful input.
With that said, here is an interesting article on the ufture of music and some of the reason I would like to see iZotope as a plugin.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/the-future-of-music
Tunetyme
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I’ve given you $25,000 worth of advice, use it. It’s on me.
An example of hyper-inflation! Just yesterday that advice won't have been worth 2 cents.
Commenting on your experience as a user is valid and so is describing what you want to see as an individual customer. Giving condescending sermons on marketing is not useful to anybody.
Bill
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When you look at 13 & 14 their have not been any substantial improvements in the music portion of the program.
I don't agree at all. There have been substantial music-related changes since MC12.
Either way, I don't see why pitting one "goal" against another is relevant or helpful. As Jim said... Say what specifically you want added or changed that is music-related. I won't really complain if they spend a bit of development time on music-related enhancements, if you have something specific you need/want and that makes sense.
In the end, all I was doing was breaking up the "echo chamber" a bit. I do not agree with either basic premise of this thread:
1. That the "music" portion of MC is fundamental above and beyond other media types. I think all media types should be treated equally.
2. That "most" users value music over all other functions of MC. This may be true for a cadre of users, yes, but I do not think they are the majority. Either way, there has been no evidence one way or the other, and no effective way to find out (short of hiring a polling firm that knows how to do it).
I skimmed enough of the thread that I understood that these were the underlying arguments. At least those that I felt it was relevant and necessary to comment on. Take it or leave it, but that's what I think.
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Let me try to provide an example of one feature that I would find beneficial. I keep a copy of dbPoweramp for some of their database features. In particular exporting data. I can format the output in any field sequence. It will do it in html or a flat file or a comma separated flat file. All the options are right there.
With MC, if I dump my database in an html format, I can’t read it because of “illegal characters” in Excel and Word. Note pad will open the file but when I try to find the illegal characters they are not at the line number specified. I have no way to identify where the problem lies.
The advantage of being able import the information into Excel or Access is that there are a lot of tools that I can use to analyze the data. I can merge it with other information such as “Key” information from other sources. I can track song pairings (songs that work well together based on beat, key, mood sometimes referred to as the color of a song and instrumentation.) These are some of the things I use to build my playlists.
AlexB, perhaps you will add some of your thoughts on the information you track on your music database.
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The advantage of being able import the information into Excel or Access
You can copy and paste from Media Center to Excel.
You can export any list or the whole library as XML or a text delimited file.
Text delimited export allows field selection and ordering.
It seems like a pretty complete set of options to me, but if there are specific enhancements or formats you need, please start a thread. Our goal has always been to make it easy to get data in and out of the program.
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That's great. The only option I have been able to find is under file, library, export to xml. What am I missing?
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That's great. The only option I have been able to find is under file, library, export to xml. What am I missing?
Menu > File > Export Playlist...
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That's great. I would never have looked there. I will play with it this afternoon.
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Our goal has always been to make it easy to get data in and out of the program.
Does this mean that we can expect support for multiple tags/comments in flac files as per the Vorbis comments standard any time soon?
I am a new user that bought MC 14 after having tested other available music management software. I found the UI and the speed and adaptability of the database in MC 14 to suit me the best. The ability to import custom fields from the tags was also very important for my decision (and I only later found out that MC has "occupied" quite a lot of tag names in a manner that prevents me from importing custom tags with the same name). I currently only use MC as a database for the information in my music files and as a tagging tool (and for occasional playback for mostly tagging purposes). For ripping (dbPoweramp), replay gain (Foobar or dbPoweramp), advanced tagging (MP3Tag) and playback on my Squeezeboxes (muso or Moose) I currently use other software.
Personally I do not want or need one multimedia software for all types of media. What I would like is instead one (1) software that is best for all music management tasks, but I have not yet found the ideal software or a company I trust that has that vision/goal. From the answers from company representatives in this thread I deduct that JRiver unfortunately does not have such ambitions. Too bad, since I find that MC already, for my needs, is the best music management software on the market.
The single most important enhancement, or, in my view, bug fix, would for me be the ability to read/write multiple tags/comments in flac files. A music management software that cannot handle all information about, for instance, artists and composers in correctly tagged music files is in my opinion crippled. And the freeware Foobar can do that as can at least one competing commercial music management software.
Other welcome enhancements (or bug fixes) would for me be:
1. Unlocking the occupied database field names so that any tag can be imported into any field and letting the user have more control over into which tag altered/entered data from the database fields are written for different file formats. There should also be an option to have the database always synced with the actual tags (i.e. have the command "Update from tags" also delete fields/data in the database which are not present in the tags). Better support for list type fields and custom field delimiters.
2. Support (calculation and) writing of replay gain - track and album - into the the tags as per today's de facto standard. Most other competing software can do that.
3. Native support for, at least, sending music to Squeezebox players and preferably even better integration with SqueezeCenter (syncing different players, adding music to a playlist in different manners, showing the song playing on the Squeezeboxes etc.). Collect automatically and show in MC in MC additional information about the song now playing, i.a. artist biography/photos, album review, tour schedule, lyrics etc. Charge extra for this, if necessary. Compare for a sketch the muso album browser for SqueezeCenter.
4. Add support for AccurateRip and tagging from AllMusic Guide (for an additional payment if necessary) like dbPoweramp has. If you do that, and what is said about replay gain in 2 above, I would use MC also for ripping.
5. Introduce macros, that the user can save and easily reuse, for common tagging operations. The freeware MP3Tag has that ability.
6. The ability to show and handle in MC the char-set used for the music file.
(Sorry if some of the features requested already exist in MC. In that case please tell me where they are.)
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vagskal:
I think we all agree that MC is the best music management software available. The purpose of this thread is identify additional features that may be beneficial to users. I can't help you with your technical questions but I am curious as to what additional info you store. Are your files flac, mp3 or both?
Tunetyme
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5. Introduce macros, that the user can save and easily reuse, for common tagging operations. The freeware MP3Tag has that ability.
confishy introduced macro/auto tagging a while ago
dave, with confishy's autotagger (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?PHPSESSID=49c87198613d9b2f7878fce88360ee01&topic=51193.0) superduper plugin you can accomplish this with a mouseclick :)
and you also have "Mr excellent" aka MC1x.exe to simplify your tasks http://wiki.jrmediacenter.com/index.php/Media_Center_Core_Commands (http://wiki.jrmediacenter.com/index.php/Media_Center_Core_Commands)
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vagskal:
I think we all agree that MC is the best music management software available. The purpose of this thread is identify additional features that may be beneficial to users. I can't help you with your technical questions but I am curious as to what additional info you store. Are your files flac, mp3 or both?
Tunetyme
I have only flac and mp3 files. I do not have that much extra information stored in the tags. My main concern is instead that I cannot in an easy way get pretty standard Vorbis comments into the appropriate field in MC, the field where the corresponding data for mp3 files is stored. A couple of examples are the Vorbis comments ALBUMARTIST and DISCNUMBER as written nowadays by dbPoweramp upon ripping. I cannot get the data in those comments into the database fields Album Artist and Disc#, where the album artist and disc number information from mp3 files are stored. Hence I must use some kind of workaround to merge the standard field with a custom field to show in MC, for instance, album artist information for all my files. Furthermore, for the standard fields MC will not let me choose which tag to write in the file. The data in the Album Artist field will for instance be written to both the TPE2 tag and a TXXX tag AlbumArtist in mp3 files. (Sorry, if this went further OT than my original posting, but you did ask what additional information I store.)
And I did suggest at least a couple of additional audio related features with references to other software (items 3-5).
Lasse_Lus: Thanks for the hints.
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I have no idea if this will work, but if you created a new field in the MC database with the exact same field name in your tag and selected update library from tags it might work. I've never tried but that is what comes to mind.
Like you I have been using dbPoweramp for some things as well. I've learned how to use a feature in MC (listed above) that may eliminate my need to use it anymore. That will be one less thing for me to maintain.
I agree that working with some of the hardware vendors would be beneficial for them and MC. Compatibility or seamless integration benefits all of us. I've looked at squeezebox and some of the other wireless boxes but I haven't pulled the trigger. I noticed that both MacIntosh and Pioneer have receivers that will play flac files. It may be another year before the technology matures.
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I have no idea if this will work, but if you created a new field in the MC database with the exact same field name in your tag and selected update library from tags it might work. I've never tried but that is what comes to mind.
For the example with ALBUMARTIST and DISCNUMBER this will result in database fields with those names. Then I have regarding album artists one database field for the flac files (Albumartist, not connected to the calculated Album Artist (auto) field) and for the mp3 files another database field (Album Artist, connected to the calculated Album Artist (auto) field). I would still have to apply a workaround if I want to have a column or pane with all album artists (flac + mp3), which of course is a basic feature for a music management software. I would also have to remember which field to enter data in or edit for the different file formats. Furthermore, the useful Album Artist (auto) field would not be populated with information from the flac files, but often show Various Artists as the album artist although an album artist is actually set for the album. This means I will have to apply yet another workaround to have a column or pane with just the genuine VA albums.
In other cases the proposed method does not work at all because there is already a standard database field with the same name as the tag (where the field is not mapped to your tag but a tag with some other name). An example is the TXXX Mood tag in mp3 files, which is written when tagging from AMG using dbPoweramp. Since there already is a standard database field named Mood which is not mapped to that tag, there is simply no way to import the information in that tag into MC since you cannot create a second database field with the name Mood. (I have made an enhancement request regarding this and some other issues: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=53022.msg361273#msg361273).
Edit: Now I noticed that you have added a couple of paragraphs to your reply. As regards the comments on Squeezeboxes: The software controlling the hardware Squeezeboxes (called SqueezCenter) is open source so there is really no need to strike a deal or even co-operate with the SqueezeBox company (now Logitech). SqueezeBoxes can play flac files over a wireless connection and sync several players. I consider the currently available range of SqueezeBoxes to be mature products.
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I think I am joining this thread a little late but I am another registered user who uses MC for audio only. I take a lot of photographs but use other software for managing my library of 30,000 or so images.
I have upgraded MC now for several versions but wonder why, for example, it is still impossible to upload ipod play stats to Last FM? As a music lover I link in to Last FM partly for the chance to share with other music lovers, and also to discover new music. It is frustrating that with all the new development in 'other' areas of MC it still does not 'link in' with Last FM in this way. There is other software I know that could do this but that really would defeat my objective of having all my music functionality in one place. For that reason I still look at other Music Management options.
Don't get me wrong, I love the look and feel of MC - but is isn't perfect yet. I don't watch internet TV, and rarely play video on my PC... I just want it to be better in the audio area. (which of course is just my own view - other people will differ).
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I'd like to pitch in and agree that I believe success is from focus, focus, focus on the core product which is audio. That is what I purchase MC for. I'd like to turn off the Images, Video and Documents options in the main Panes view (and I'm sure it is possible).
I'd love to see better harmonic analysis type functionality as voiced by the OP, and music management functions in general. How great would it be to auto-generate a playlist which flows from one song to another in a natural way. Also, seamless client-server and mobile-server transparency are key. I have a single master set of music but like to play it elsewhere and sync tag changes. For mobile, I copy it to an external USB drive but would like to see ratings, etc changes synced back transparently.
Off Topic: With finite resources working on the problem, it's sure easier to create the best audio player in the world than a really good audio/pictures/video player. It might also be easier to open new sales channels into the existing audio space than gaining new customers in pictures and video spaces. "Line extension" is the marketing term for creating new functionality in order to address new market spaces (without any hint of trying to sound condescending), and it is the first thing warned against in marketing. Defending and growing the core market is much more likely to lead to real success in the marketplace. Sorry for the diversion but just wanted to add my vote to the core competency argument. At least segmenting into audio-only and audio+media would give you some free customer feedback based on dollars actually spent.
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For the example with ALBUMARTIST and DISCNUMBER this will result in database fields with those names. Then I have regarding album artists one database field for the flac files (Albumartist, not connected to the calculated Album Artist (auto) field) and for the mp3 files another database field (Album Artist, connected to the calculated Album Artist (auto) field). I would still have to apply a workaround if I want to have a column or pane with all album artists (flac + mp3), which of course is a basic feature for a music management software. I would also have to remember which field to enter data in or edit for the different file formats. Furthermore, the useful Album Artist (auto) field would not be populated with information from the flac files, but often show Various Artists as the album artist although an album artist is actually set for the album. This means I will have to apply yet another workaround to have a column or pane with just the genuine VA albums.
In other cases the proposed method does not work at all because there is already a standard database field with the same name as the tag (where the field is not mapped to your tag but a tag with some other name). An example is the TXXX Mood tag in mp3 files, which is written when tagging from AMG using dbPoweramp. Since there already is a standard database field named Mood which is not mapped to that tag, there is simply no way to import the information in that tag into MC since you cannot create a second database field with the name Mood. (I have made an enhancement request regarding this and some other issues: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=53022.msg361273#msg361273).
The tagging issues are difficult because of the lack of commonly accepted standards. ID3v2 tries to do that, but since it doesn't have defined tags for fields like Album Artist, Mood or Replay Gain values different programs may use different tags. The Vorbis comments are perhaps even more varied because only a few basic fields are recommended by xiph.org.
My opinion has been that generally speaking only the basic fields that are included in usual on-line CD databases like FreeDB and JRiver's YADB must be universally compatible from a program to another, however naturally it would be better if more tags were compatible across various programs.
Since MC is a database based program the highest priority has been in the library metadata that can be used with any media format regardless of the possibly existing file tagging support. The individual audio input plugins have been developed to support reading and storing tags when possible, but as you have noticed the system is not perfect for everyone and probably will never be because of the varied user expectations.
Regarding to the ALBUMARTIST vs Album Artist issue as well you could ask why the other programs don't use use the latter or allow to select what to use. Two other popular programs that support FLAC natively, Winamp and Foobar, use Album Artist similarly like MC.
I agree that it would be nice if MC would allow to freely link any library field with any file tag, but the system and user interface would probably be very complex. Each library field would need to have a configuration panel that supports the four different tagging formats that are used in the seven different input plugins (MP3, FLAC, APE, WMA, Ogg Vorbis, Musepack).
EDIT
...and WavPack (was missing from input plugin list).
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I'm all for Audio improvements. But video is also important for me, and I hope it continues to improve. My HTPC is my sole source for both audio and video - I use it for DVD playback, but even more often I use it for video files in various formats including XVID and MKV.
I guess I can see the point behind the modular idea, because I use audio and video, but not TV or images. But I think $50 is great value for a program that does audio + video so well, and it's good to know the other features are there if I want them later. In fact I've spent well over $150 myself, having first bought MC 9 and upgraded to every release to date, and I think it's been money very well spent.
One of the great things about MC is that it does so many things well. There are already other specialist programs out there in various niches and it's much better to have a single program managing everything. I remember a while ago investigating Girder for remote contrl, and some other program I can't remember the name of which was a Theater View equivalent, with designable screens etc. It was all good, but the effort of getting it all working together was just more than I could ever be bothered with. With MC now having its own remote control, and Theater View being greatly enhanced, I can have a single piece of software for everything. In fact apart from codecs, MC is basically the only software installed on my HTPC.
i do agree that MC should try to tackle some niche features. But features in all areas. There's time enough to add plenty more great features in future releases, and I think MC is doing a good job of catering to all. So for example there's been a lot of work on TV playback in 13 and 14 which doesn't interest me greatly, but both releases have still been great for me, adding lots of things I really wanted. Jim says that sales are good, so J River have the resources to continue improving and expanding the software in all aspects, and there's really no need to limit it.
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A common thread here seems to be that many people who use MC primarily for audio actually require photo/video/tv functionality too, but use other software which better meets their needs in that area.
I too use other photo and video software and still think MC lags behind in these areas. I get the impression that it might never catch up in these areas. As for music management MC is very strong, but other music software is improving and its frustrating that MC improvements in this area are relatively minor.
Whilst there is quite a lot of innovation in other music management software going on right now, I get the feeling that MC guys have run out of inspiration/ideas here. Jim said as much in a post of his where he said they scratched their heads everyday looking for ways to improve the music side.
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The one major thing that MC could develop which would meet my needs as a user is too offer more and better ways of getting metadata for all media. At the moment we have to use other software to get access to that metadata. Its not a good solution.
I keep hearing about copyright issues and such, but other shareware and freeware seems to have access to a much wider range of data sources. Why not MC. Maybe it will cost them something, but hey so does working on all these TV recording etc developments which don't appear to be widely used by users.
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I am very happy to see all the comments coming in from a wide range of viewpoints as well as a larger number of members who are not mega posters. From what I am reading this should be good feedback to Jim & Matt. I hope more people will add their thoughts as well. Its' all about how to make MC better and more successful. Welcome Beth UK, it is never too late to add your thoughts to this thread. The objective is to have a broader audience comment on what they would like to see in MC. We all benefit from every-one's recommendations.
Edit: Now I noticed that you have added a couple of paragraphs to your reply. As regards the comments on Squeezeboxes: The software controlling the hardware Squeezeboxes (called SqueezCenter) is open source so there is really no need to strike a deal or even co-operate with the SqueezeBox company (now Logitech). SqueezeBoxes can play flac files over a wireless connection and sync several players. I consider the currently available range of SqueezeBoxes to be mature products.
I've been looking at Squeezebox and Transporter since I first read their review in Sterophile. At 2k a pop for Transporter it seemed a little steep. I have been working on a house design and part of the questions have been how to wire the house or go completely wireless. One Transporter is less than the cost to wire the whole house but f I need 3 o 4 Transporters then that may be a different matter. The multi zone capability of MC was one of my criteria for buying it. While the cost for mass storage keeps dropping, will it ever be economical to store thousands of 1080p movies? I saw another thread about building a petabyte server (as I recall with 67GB per unit for about 8K per unit. You would need 15 units and I am not sure that I want to take on the kind maintenance that would be required to keep up with it. I can see it now, hiring 4 or 5 techs just to maintain it 24/7 vs. a library of bluray discs. A couple of bookcases looks pretty attractive and they can operate on sneaker net. Very reliable on delivery but not on return.
Tunetyme
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Jim,
Please don't think that any of this this is criticism, it's not :)
MC is one of the two indespensable bits of software on my PC, and everything I say is intended to make it better.
First thing, I believe you *really* need to hire someone to work for a week or two on the Wiki, and some aspects of your websites. The OneRemote is an extremely good idea (Even though I was sceptical of the initial proposal), but I think that the website could do with some more 'shinyness'- A little flash intro and some graphics would make the whole page more appealing. Similarly, there are huge amounts of things that are present already within MC, but which simply aren't documented.
Paying someone to work through everything, adding a selection of screenshots and videos to demonstrate points would make a massive difference.
Second, all over the place there are things that need a little polish. You've constantly adding new features, which is one of the best attractions of MC, but there are often little things that get left undone, or don't quite work right. Fixing these so that everything feels natural will in my opinion help attract the audiophile subset.
Final point, there are some things that are being almost forced upon us (I apologise for the blunt wording of this, but it's the only way I can think of to get this point across).
The prime example here I'd point to is the non-roller theatre view skins- There are those of us who want to keep the buttons, and I'm dissapointed that MC is moving towards the single option of rollers. Perhaps the best aspect of MC is it's customisability, and I'd hate to see use loose this in favour of something that doesn't have universal support. I appreciate how much of a pain it is to maintain multiple separate systems, but TBQH in the end of things it'll attract more customers, as the choice is there.
-Leezer-
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I don't disagree—choice is always good—but isn't there a conflict here? It seems to me the same new user/potential customer who would be impressed by "polish" is likely to ask, "Buttons, rollers... why can't you make up your mind?!" Choice is easy to value if the alternative is to lose what you're used to, or if you just like having the option to change. But I'm sure most new users, while perhaps still valuing choice and flexibility, also appreciate not having to make a choice. When learning and adjusting to software as comprehensive and complex as this, it's nice to be able to look at some aspects of it and think, "Wow, this is perfect. I never would have thought of this. I can't imagine it any other way." If they're anything like rest of us, they'll eventually imagine lots of better ways. But it's still important to be able to feel this way in the early days. For me, it's what makes me commit to an application, and drive myself to learn the rest of it so I can make the choices I really need to make.
Besides, since Theater View is the core product, this is the one place where there should be no choice. ;D
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Besides, since Theater View is the core product, this is the one place where there should be no choice. ;D
As far as I'm concerned, standard view is the core of the product. I use MC for audio mostly and I don't view the UI on a TV.
Bill
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I started out as a user of the music functionality of Media Center with HEAVY relieance on Theater View. Like most people, I originated from the MCE2005 camp. At the time, MC was in it's 11 or 12th revision, still unusable for my purposes. MCE2005 was BY FAR the smoothest GUI and succeeded in being the jack of all trades. It's ability to handle TV Tuner (playback/recording/TV Guide), Music, DVD Playback/Rip, Videos... basically all my needs through the comfort of my IR Remote as unparallel. While Music is what I use my HTPC 85% of the time, without the other features, it would be a dealbreaker. The simple reason is that, as a HTPC user, a media center that IS NOT all-in-one / universal means that in order to play another media type outside the scope of the current media center requires the user to switch to Mouse and Keyboard controls to manually access the Windows Interface to switch to another Media Center. This is an UNACCEPTABLE characteristic for an HTPC. Medio, Media Portal, Linux MCE and many others that came and went on my HTPC, each had various deal breaking issues, ranging from bugginess, missing features, poor usabilty (ie: 3 feet Remote Interface), poor configurability. MC12 was certainly the best in the music management, but the deal breaker for me was subpar 3 feet Remote Control interface, namely MC's Theater View, and buggy TV Tuner and limited tuning features working in Theater View
While it showed promise, I decided to keep it in the HTPC Internet BookMarks but stayed with MCE2003 because it was the only one that could meet my minimal requirements (albeit not exactly acing with flying colors)
With the arrival of MC13, there finally came a true alternative to MCE2005 and Vista MCE. Its 3feet Remote Control Interface, the Theater View was no longer just a marketing gimmick, but a full feature Interface, in many respects better than Microsoft's MCEs. The theater view front end finally closely paralleled the playback of all features of the actually JRiver Media Center backend. I was delighted to find superb configurability of the Theater View. While the activation of the TV XML Info wasn't seamless, the TV Tuner finally works properly for me. With these new features, I finally switched to JRiver MC (jMC).
After Months of enjoying satisfying Music management experience with MC13, I finally decide to experiment with the Video feature of jMC. I have a 4TBs of Video files and have always been a long time user of the plain old mplayer, but these videos were always off limits to my family members who were a little less computer savvy. After experimenting with MC13's video management, I was satisfied. My family members found the ability to access our movies based on fields like Genre, Series, and Type from their Remote Control via Theater View, much to their liking. In parties or get together, the Theater View full of properly organized Movie poster titles is always a delight to show off to friends and family. Gone are the days of endless embarrassing browsing from a folder to folder of cryptic names containing movie files. Movies are now attractively accessible to everyone including computer dummies.
One thing that I believe prevents people from taking complete advantage of jMC's features is that, jMC isn't quite user friendly enough for people to comfortably explore beyond their perceived safety boundaries. (jRC’s interface friendliness is certainly no iPod/iTunes) I had a hard time configuring the Video Management to the way I want. There are still a few things I want, but don't know how to do. Once there is a basic step by step Wizard encouraging people to do more with less effort, I believe people will start taking advantage of the extra features available in jMC. For example, WMP practically automates everything for you, even without your command. All of a sudden you see your images and videos organized there in WMP Library and in MCE, and you can't help but click on them to see what happens. This kind of automation and user friendliness is what leads people to seamlessly and naturally take advantage of new features without even noticing it. This is but just a small example of the kind of seamless integration possible as jMC grows into the future. So far jMC while powerful, as still very manual, especially in its Video Management. Additionally, much of the requests about separating jMCs Videos and Music features; I believe stems from the lack of integration between its components, ie: Videos, Images and Music. Currently, these features are designed with little dependencies and interaction between each other. It is almost as if they are acting as separate programs. If there could be some integration between these features people would see the value and synergy possible only from an all-in-one package, for example,
1.) the ability to identify the names of soundtracks, artists in each movie, with options to rip the sound segment to the music library from the video and/or buy the sound track.
2.) the ability to associate photo albums with music albums during slide playback
3.) the ability to identify the movies that is associated with each song, and vice versa (this one is probably next to impossble to do)
4.) the ability to provide the option to download images, sound effects, and soundtracks relevant to each movie in the movie library
5.) a search box that searches across all media, movies, music, images
Above are just some example for better integration I whipped up, off the top of my head, surely there are many better ones to be thought of given the will and effort.
Given the ever increasing storage capacity of HTPCs, I believe we will be hard pressed to manage anything manually by ourselves in the near future. Music will hardly be the only thing we require our media centers to manage. Local media centers of tomorrow will hold everything from our commercial entertainment to our most precious digitized moments; an external memory storage for the brain. At least until cloud computing becomes available and next to free.
With improvements along these lines, people will be much more welcoming of jMC's expansion efforts since they will actually be able to effortlessly take advantage of it.
Other Features I would to see (in no particular order):
-fix the currently broken CUE file conversion to separate music files when exporting to a handheld device
-automatic TV XML Info based on location, no more need to go to 3rd party site to download something
-Much Improved Help Documentation, both in content and in navigation.
-rip media on HTPC LAN Clients connected to a jMC Server (and have the data sent over the LAN to be stored on the server location obviously)
-rip media from Theater View
-import of Video details from IMDB
-Continuous improvements Theater View features and GUI user friendliness (very important) (the 'feel' is still far from that of MCE, like unpolished Windows Mobile 6 VS iPhone GUI)
-Ability to work properly in all MC functions (ie: rip, convert) CUE files
-Video: Better handling of Filter functions, ie subtitles
-TV Recordings: ability save in a more portable format, instead of a bunch of jriver proprietary files
;D
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TT,
I split this off because it seems you're suggesting upgrades to the music features in MC that would have broad appeal to music centric users.
Please suggest a few. We scratch our heads daily about this.
I admit that I now use MC for video podcasts as much as for audio files. But I have several options for video, while MC is my primary audio player. What would really, really, really make audio playback more convenient is a better file navigation system. I still sort my tunes (all 30,000+ of them) logically, by directory, so that I can find things even when the tags go haywire. I would like the ability to more easily navigate my file system without having to search and pray that something comes up. I remember when MJ put the directory tree on the left-hand pane so that you could pick the directory to display. This was many versions ago, but I miss it. Merge the Audio, Images, and Video buttons into the left-hand pane instead of their current nonintuitive location and make a full data directory tree available, too. That would make MC a better product.
Another interface issue is just annoying, but is annoying enough to mention: When clicking on an item in the left-hand pane, whatever was open automatically closes. Maybe I just hate having things automatically close, but this constantly bugs me. If I had wanted it closed, I would have clicked on the little arrow to make it so. OK, so this probably wouldn't make MC any better, but it would make at least one person less annoyed. That's something.
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OK, so this probably wouldn't make MC any better, but it would make at least one person less annoyed.
Try turning off Auto expand.
I really think the main feature MC lacks is Feature Search. ;D
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Jim:
A growing number of members are taking the time to provide you with some valuable insight on how your product is being used. I have gotten a few ideas on how I can expand my use of MC. One thought came to mind where I would start using photo management is if I could start putting together slide shows with music. Since my children are grown it would be nice to be able to export a slide show to Powerpoint and be able to send it to them.
I hope you will comment on some of the suggestions being made. I especially like the feature search and or a significantly improved wiki.
Tunetyme
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I agree that it would be nice if MC would allow to freely link any library field with any file tag, but the system and user interface would probably be very complex. Each library field would need to have a configuration panel that supports the four different tagging formats that are used in the seven different input plugins (MP3, FLAC, APE, WMA, Ogg Vorbis, Musepack).
That is exactly what I would like to see! It could very well be a hidden feature or an advanced feature with appropriate warnings.
I am not arguing that this possibility should replace the intelligence now provided by MC for the less experienced, or caring, user that would like to have the software "just work". The lack of tagging standards you mentioned makes it hard to come up with intelligent ways of handling different tags. If there for one file format is two or more common tags for the same information, let us say disc number, then the "intelligence" must make decisions on which tag to import into the database and what tag or tags to write back to the file. The more experienced user who know and care about his/her tags will always find something to complain about regarding the way the intelligence work, especially when the intelligence, as is the case today, to a large extent is undocumented and may come as a surprise to the experienced user. Hence the need for the experienced user to create his/her own "intelligence" and still have the benefit of the handy UI provided by MC.
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What would really, really, really make audio playback more convenient is a better file navigation system. I still sort my tunes (all 30,000+ of them) logically, by directory, so that I can find things even when the tags go haywire. I would like the ability to more easily navigate my file system without having to search and pray that something comes up. I remember when MJ put the directory tree on the left-hand pane so that you could pick the directory to display. This was many versions ago, but I miss it.
Yes - I agree with this too - I used to have more time to keep tags updated and pristine but these days (when I get in from work) I just want to find my files quickly and easily based on the file location. I know this can be done by changing the layout and adding root folder etc etc.... but time, time, time...
I cannot rely on tags alone because in many cases the tags are wrong/misleading (especially when purchasing from online stores where 'Reggae' or 'Rock' is so often put as the default genre (why DO they do this?!?!)...
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One thought came to mind where I would start using photo management is if I could start putting together slide shows with music.
A mixed playlist of music and photos will give you a slideshow when you play it.
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A mixed playlist of music and photos will give you a slideshow when you play it.
Thanks, I give it a try.
I asked a question earlier about exporting data and Matt provided me with a solution. I wondered if I had missed something in the wiki about this and I couldn't find any reference. It may be worth considering the suggestion of working on a more robust wiki.
Tunetyme
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Thanks, I give it a try.
I asked a question earlier about exporting data and Matt provided me with a solution. I wondered if I had missed something in the wiki about this and I couldn't find any reference. It may be worth considering the suggestion of working on a more robust wiki.
Tunetyme
A wiki is open to editing by anyone.
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A wiki is open to editing by anyone.
mmm, but you can't expect users to do all the work for you here. If its not there, surely you should be filling the gaps. MC is very powerful and needs a detailed help file to take advantage of all its power.
The wiki is good in some areas but needs work in others.
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mmm, but you can't expect users to do all the work for you here.
You're not doing it all. Take a look at the Recent Changes (http://wiki.jrmediacenter.com/index.php/Special:Recentchanges) on the wiki.
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If this has been asked before, sorry:
...is it possible to download a pdf or txt file of the wiki?
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No. It isn't. Sorry.
I'm going to lock this thread now since it's wandering all over.