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[ErikN]

After a decade of 24/7 use of Windows Media Center I was forced by its pending retirement to find a new media core. I (and wife/kids) were happy and probably would never have looked elsewhere had MS not discontinued it. As my introductory post I wanted to give a brief overview of my path to using JRiver MC -- my previous use of MS MCE, what I tried out before selecting JRiver, and why I am glad MS forced me to switch.

I decided to go media center only (to my wife's dismay) when I came across WMC on an MSDN disk of mine back in 2005. After picking up a few parts at a local electronics store, I put together a media PC, and replaced our only TV with a big PC-connected monitor. There was a bit of evil-eye coming from my wife but after working out the big kinks (noise, heat, disk space, more tuners, more disk space, noise, repeat) we never looked back. For the most part we archived anything good we recorded and ripped all of our media. WMC did have it's limitations and annoyances (not being able to keep the live buffer stream, organize the library, or do much parental control, etc.) but for all of it's limitations it did what it was supposed to without much fuss.

Then comes Windows 10 … so I bit the bullet. I popped in a new drive, installed windows 10, and spent my evenings evaluating WMC replacements. Of course I had to boot back to WMC during daylight hours or else meet my family's rath. I tried out Kodi, NextPVR, Kodi + NextPVR, MediaPortal, Kodi + MediaPortal, and then JRiver.

Why did I try JRiver last? It was NOT because it was paid software. The primary reason was a lack of good overviews of what it can do -- with theater view screen shots. I absolutely would have tried it first had I seen :
   - Live TV support (screen shots of guide, to be recorded, playback of live, and example of EPG download)
   - Music (screen shots of album/artist view, picture slide show with music)
   - Pictures (screen shot by-date organization)
   - Movies (screen shot of grid/art view, details view, playback)
   - Shows (screen shot of genre or series view)
Think of it like staging a home for sale. Show one good, comprehensive setup to make people feel at home. Why didn't I like the others. Kodi was the best of the bunch but didn't have native live tv support. The guide/recording features/responsiveness/stability of live TV in NextPVR/MediaPortal was abysimal. I found them frustrating to use which makes them a non-starter for the rest of my family. Live TV aside, even Kodi had its problems but I went on to JRiver before deciding if I could live with Kodi's limitations.

Getting and EPG for MC20 was initially an annoyance but I quickly realized MC21 was available -- I highly recommend putting MC21 front and center for Windows media center converts.

I was initially dismayed by the auto-import of our collection. Then I realized MC was tag driven. I think many of you have used MC for so long you don't think to advertise this. In the screen-shot based overview above, you should sell this hard. Say "Here's how other people have organized their librarys" and have pages overviewing real user's setups (with pictures and some basic how-to).

Of course I have hit some bugs here and there. I will try to report on these as I am able. Also, there wasn't much about integrating Netflix. I did something simple for now but suspect there are better ways.

Kudos on a great product so far. We have now been MC21 24/7 for a little over a week and are not looking back.

[rudyrednose]

This is a great first post Erik.
I agree that it is not so obvious to newcomers that the whole setup is tag driven, and to make things worse the same "tag" word covers both MC database fields AND embedded file tags (or xml sidecar).

MC is so powerful that some people use it for things never intended by the development team.  A few years ago I remember seeing a detailed post by someone using it for his comic book collection !

Cheers.

edit: actually, syndromeofadown documented very well his usage of MC19 for eBooks and eComics there : http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=87545.0

[DocLotus]

Hi Erik;

Also, there wasn't much about integrating Netflix.

Sorry, no Netflix...
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=99285.0

[JimH]

Thanks for your post Erik and welcome to the forum.

[DeaneG]

Erik, I am in the same boat, three WMC boxes in our house running well for years, now (gulp) onto win 10 and jriver 21. I'm really starting to prefer it to WMC, and stability is not bad for a version in progress. Two of three PCs are already migrated, saving the big theater PC for last - looking forward seeing how MC 21 blu-ray support compares to Emby launching PDVD 15.

Just one missing thing so far: it would be nice to have a resizable theater mode (simple) window for use in the corner of the office PC monitor while doing other tasks. Maybe it's there and I haven't found it yet?

Oh, and as others have mentioned, a new default skin of contemporary design would be a selling point. If I were talented, I'd borrow from my phone's "Material Design" and build it myself  .

[ErikN]

In regard to unexpected uses, I have been digitizing all of my records into OCR'd pdfs. I was considering trying out MC for more flexible organizing. However, to be truly powerful for documents I'd want auto-tagging based on the content of the pdf.

[ErikN]

Just one missing thing so far: it would be nice to have a resizable theater mode (simple) window for use in the corner of the office PC monitor while doing other tasks. Maybe it's there and I haven't found it yet?

I do the same thing all the time. You can go to 'Display' view in MC. Initially it's full-screen but you can resize it.

If you don't want the big controls, hit 'ctrl 6' and you will end up in 'Standard' view with a small detached display that can be resized (and no controls).
 

[Arindelle]

hey and welcome Eric

In regard to unexpected uses, I have been digitizing all of my records into OCR'd pdfs. I was considering trying out MC for more flexible organizing. However, to be truly powerful for documents I'd want auto-tagging based on the content of the pdf.

lots of flac downloads come with pdf too and I like to access them when I'm listening to the album -- two things you might not have come across

using the fill properties from file name tool (F12) you can semi-automatically tag album artist album etc very easily (especially if you have a standard filepath set-up AlbumArtist/Album ... other wise from the file name itself -- hit F12 and play around creating a mask (automatic won't work well with data) and see what the suggestions are. In the tag windows choose to show fields that aren't showing, probably albumartist and album?, after selecting the pdfs. Hit F12 and enter and they all fill in. OK its not automatic, but euh its fast and once set up easy to do.

With JRemote (Ios at least, I think android too) ... you can browse the pdfs on your tablet or phone directly from the playing now (under assets  -- from there you can browse the pdf and any other file like a backcover, pdf booklet even a libretto for an opera - the latter not the greatest on a phone but pretty cool on an ipad ).

To incorporate views using multiple media types like pdfs and jpg and audio files at once .. that too can be done ... but baby steps right

(Data has to be on in options and autoimport first, but seems like you found that already)

ps - of course I wouldn't want to have jriver handle ALL non-media stuff if that s what you are on about, thats something else again