INTERACT FORUM
Windows => Third Party Plug-ins, Programs, and Skins => Topic started by: chapelno on August 25, 2013, 02:35:53 pm
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I'm currently using Logitech's Media Server and the iPeng app on the iPhone to serve up my music to a variety of devices. The basic functionality that I need is there: 1) handles cue sheets with .flac 2) scrobbles to last.fm 3) streams over the cell networks to my iPhone 4) lets me use my iPhone as a player, etc. But Logitech's software is kind of kludgy (for instance it doesn't pick up new music very well without me forcing a rescan) and sometimes buggy. And the iPeng app is great, but also kind of kludgy and chock full of a lot of options I don't need and which get in the way. And it would be nice if there were some extras like automatic downloads of album art, etc.
Wondering if anyone's gone from this setup to using JRiver and one of the apps like JRemote, or has used both and can compare them. Is it worth the $60 for the new server and app or am I just bored on a Sunday afternoon?
I've downloaded the demo version of JRiver and it seems pretty good, but holding off on the $10 app purchase until I get some advice from those in the know.
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I use two methods of controlling our SBs, depending upon circumstances:
1. Squeezepad
2. JRemote + Whitebear + SBS + MC
I use (1) when I'm in some room and I just want to queue up some music quickly for my wife, and she can take over from her Squeezepad / iPad or the SBs remote.
I use (2) when I want to use my Desktop system or JRemote to control playback to various SBs, and I'll be in control. With Whitebear (instead of LMS' DLNA plugin), gapless works.
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I have both LMS + SB Touch + iPeng on an iPad and iTouch, and JRiver + JRemote + Whitebear. I thought LMS/iPeng was great, but JRiver/JRemote is much better for my needs, because I can much more easily configure views to suit my music and the way I want to browse it. So imo JRiver/JRemote is worth every penny, and then some! Still use LMS/iPeng to get Spotify and BBC listen again. Don't really know what scrobbling is, haven't used last.fm or cue sheets, so no insights there. Use dBpoweramp for my ripping (had it way before I had JRiver) - does a good job with cover art, but JRiver seems fine too. JRiver is superb for editing and creating tags.
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Like MrC I use JRemote + Whitebear + SBS + MC. It works great since I stripped LMS from all plugins and its own library - LMS is now only used as a transport to get the music to the Squeezeboxes. Now I only use iPeng on an old iPad in a stand to display large cover art when playing. iPeng is much nicer for this than JRemote, but in every other aspect JRemote is in my opinion much better and more flexile than iPeng.
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I too have both setups. One advantage of the Squeeze Server/iPeng setup is that you can pull in tracks from Spotify and insert them into your current queue. I would love to be able to do this with MC/JRemote, maybe someday? Another perk with the Squeeze Server/iPeng setup is that there is a free "party" version of iPeng. This is great, as when you have people over, they can download the free app to their iPhone and then see what's playing, browse the collection (and Spotify) and add tracks to the playlist from anywhere in the house (and yard). Did I mention it's free? Maybe JRemote can offer a similar "stripped down" party version for free.
For my typical daily audio use, I find that I favor JRemote as it does a better job of working with and displaying track ratings, this is a key element for me.
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I've never played with the Spotify/iPeng connection. I've only used the Spotify app and the few times I've made playlists for parties went through the process of converting my ripped songs into .mp3s and importing them into Spotify. Sounds like there's an easier way.