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[JimH]

A preview release is available now.  See the following message for details.  

A press release is here:

http://www.musicex.com/press/press46.html

[Matt]

Media Jukebox 9.0 Preview is available here:

ftp://ftp.jriver.com/pub/downloads/music/MediaJukebox90051.exe

[ changed from build 9.0.50 posted earlier -- see below for more details ]

IMPORTANT-- This is only a preview -- some things don't work, some things crash, and your data may not be safe.

Don't use this preview with files that can't be replaced. If you don't consider yourself an expert with Media Jukebox, please wait for a later release. Backup your database (and files) before doing anything else.

When you're done playing with version 9, you can uninstall it and erase the version 9 database files (*.jmd in the data folder) to go back to version 8.0 -- your 8.0 files can be moved back from the backup folder or you can import again.

Enjoy, and please feel free to offer any suggestions or advice.

Thanks everyone for your continued support.

-Matt
JRiver, Inc.

[JimH]

If you're going to try the new version with digital photos, you'll need this:

[corrections welcome]

How to import images
It's similar to import of audio or video files. Use Tools/Import Media. Don't forget to check the image file types you want (jpg, bmp, gif, for example).

Viewing images
Select Media Library. In the content view (right window) sort the list by clicking on location, for example. Select the image files you want to see. Hit enter or the play button.

Seeing just image or just audio files
An icon allows you to set MJ to show only images or audio in the library. If this icon is not present, you can right click on the menu bar, choose "customize" and add it.

Toggling between list and thumbnail modes
Choose View on the Menu Bar, then Toggle List Style.

Thumbnail size
You have several options in options/tree & view for how to create and display thumbnails.

How to start a slideshow with music
There are two ways to do this.

The easiest way is to create a playlist and then add both audio and image files to it. Then select it and press the play button in the player window.

The fastest way is to start audio files playing first by selecting them and pressing play. Then select images and hit enter (not play).

The best display for image playback is in full screen and this can be activated automatically by setting this option in Tools/Options/General/Behavior and set "Jump on Play" to "Full screen (if has display".

On the display window, the arrows at the lower left switch among "None, Image, Track Info, and Visualizations". To show images, this must be set to "Image".

Configuration of Image Playback
Start image playback.  Go to Playing Now.  Right click on the display and choose "Configure Image Playback".

Zoom and Pan
If you have a mouse with a wheel, try using it to zoom in.  P for Pan will turn pan off or on.  The left and right square brackets adjust the speed of the pan.

[SBrandsborg aka Mouseman]

Weee.... Nice

[Alban]

I cannot install it, it comes up with

"A required .dll file, OLEACC.DLL was not found"

This may (or may not) be relevant to the 'Cannot Load Plugin Thread' in that I'm using win98 OSR2

[Griff]

Any major diff. between 90049 and 90050 ?

Thanks

[Matt]

Some of the changes in 9.0.50:

1. Fixed: Right click "Play" and "Add to Playing Now" did not work properly.
2. Fixed: DSP Studio did not work.
3. Fixed: WMA plugin did not install properly.
4. Changed: Image display mode saves image list / position.
5. Fixed: Media Jukebox could crash when starting. (especially when upgrading the database on the first run)
6. Fixed: When a skin can't be found, Media Jukebox will revert to unskinned mode.
7. Fixed: Closing Media Jukebox with an empty database would crash.

Changes in 9.0.51

1. NEW: Added automatic detection of external file changes. (press F5 to update a view and check for changes)
2. Fixed: Windowed mode -> internal mode would leave an entry in the task bar.
3. Fixed: Displaying images was slow because the image could get repeatedly loaded in some cases.

Thanks.

-Matt

[Alban]

Found OLEACC.DLL on my win98 CD and it all installed fine.  It also solved the 'Cannot Load Plugin' thread problems.  More details in that thread.

[Matt]

The OLEACC.dll linkage problem was a bug introduced by Microsoft in VS.NET

Luckily there's a workaround, so we'll get it cleaned up soon...

Thanks for your patience.

-Matt

[Polonio]

Just great!

This alpha release solve all my previous problems/suggestions/misunderstandings.

The new "File properties" is just what I wished for my perfect media player. In version 8, it didnt make any sense wait a long time for accessing file properties information.

Now 3 questions:

1.- I lost the "artist album" information. Can I restore a v8 database using alpha v9.0.50? Can I save "album artist" in a WMA tag (I mean, the phisical file)?

2.- What about licensing? If I buy MJ v8, could I update free to v9?

3.- And most important, when a final version?


Keep good work.

Regards,

Polonio

[Matt]

1.- I lost the "artist album" information. Can I restore a v8 database using alpha v9.0.50? Can I save "album artist" in a WMA tag (I mean, the phisical file)?

We're trying to push the new auto-album analyzer in version 9 that can automatically detect Mix / Regular albums and Complete / Incomplete albums.  However, if people end up wanting the old system back, we'll compromise. (and there are still some tagging glitches that we'll shake out with time)

2.- What about licensing? If I buy MJ v8, could I update free to v9?
3.- And most important, when a final version?

It's too early to know the answer to either of these.  All I can say is that we'll do our best to be fair about the licensing.

Thanks.

-Matt

[sekim]

Without question, the biggest addition to 9 is the file properties handling. This is very fast and exactly what MJ needed. I can honestly say that this was one of the features that I hoped MJ 9 would incorporate.  WELL DONE !!

The select image, track info.., etc. bug is gone.

I still think for the file properties slider bar, there should be a way to make it more obvious. Highlighted somehow...

[RemyJ]

Assuming you'd like to get at least V8 functionality working again...

An 051 media server client seems to work fine with an 8.0.360 server but with a 051 server, the file locations are left referencing the server's local file system instead of being translated to the 'm01p' url.  The client tries to play them and of course can't find them.

A 360 client get's the "database too new" message when trying to connect to a 051 server.  Not a bug, just an observation.

Importing mp3 files written with V8, the replay gain values are totally hosed.  They're importing with values like "1073741824 db".

If you upgrade a V8 library and "Ignore ID3V2 Tags during analysis" in the mp3 input plugin is NOT checked (which is the default I htink), the replay gain values in the library will be overwritten with the garbage values as soon as you display tracks in the right pane.  If you check the "Ignore" box, the gain values are OK, but then when you import subsequent tracks, you don't get track numbers or any replay gain values at all.

Overall, still looking very good.  Not much to fix for me to use this version full time.  I haven't started playing with the image support too much but it doesn't seem to quite "fit" yet.  Just a gut feel at this early stage.

Remy

[JaredH]

you guys closed the other thread so i figure ill post this bug on this one

im not sure how the tagging works with the custom fields but im guessing that it is the one i have that falls under the blank tag field. well when i set up the media library the way i had it in 8 (Genre/Custom/Artist/) when it expands to the custom field, all the custom fields contain every file from that genre in it, basically completely bypassing the custom field, even though its still there in the tag.

Otherwise a great release, a few graphical clipping errors but nothing that isnt expected in an alpha release. Unfortunately I cant use it until that organizing bug is fixed.

[JimH]

Jared,
Sounds like you're using the previous version, so let us know if you think there is a problem in this one.
Jim

[sekim]

There is some volume flucuations when playing. Checked several different files and formats. Could be the replay gain tags Remy mentioned. I just checked, mine are funky too.

Also selecting an artist, or even the Media Library is usually very fast, now it's like a slow track at a time thing.

[Matt]

Also selecting an artist, or even the Media Library is usually very fast, now it's like a slow track at a time thing.

Bet you have 9.0.50 instead of 9.0.51.  A quick upgrade should fix it.

-Matt

[sekim]

Media Jukebox PLUS 9.0.51
Install Path: D:\Program Files\J River\Media Jukebox\

CPU: Intel Pentium II 336 MHz MMX
Memory: Total - 130 MB, Free - 36 MB
OS: Microsoft Windows XP  Workstation 5.1  (Build 2600)

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2600.0000
ComCtl32.dll: 6.00.2600.0000
Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2600.0000
Shell32.dll: 6.00.2600.0000
wnaspi32.dll: 4.71 (0001) , ASPI for Win32 (95/NT) DLL, Copyright © 1989-2002 Adaptec, Inc.
Aspi32.sys: 4.71 (0001)


Next Guess...

[RemyJ]

>>Also selecting an artist, or even the Media Library is usually very fast, now it's like a slow track at a time thing.
>>>>Bet you have 9.0.50 instead of 9.0.51. A quick upgrade should fix
it.

Matt, I've got 51 and it's still slow.  If the physical file doesn't exist it's lightning fast.

[drosoph]

OUCH! Build 51 is creating file lists (refresh) EXTREMELY SLOWLY ...
Using a page-down while in COVER ART view is WAY slow ... and if you click page down five times .. you actually have to wait for it to do its page down 5 slow times before you can go anywhere else ...

[Matt]

OK... automatic file change detection must be too slow on some systems.  We'll figure it out for the next preview.

-Matt

[drosoph]

Just an FYI .. Im running that on an Athlon 1100|PLS| w/ 512M RAM ATA 133 ... it shouldnt be slow .. Maybe you could make it a background process that only works when the system is idled or near idle ?

One MAJOR problem Im having with the latest build ... "Failed to save tag information for WHATEVER' ... It cant save the NUMBER_PLAYS after each file is through .. I've tried tricking with the security permissions to see if something got messed up there and you were using guest priveledges, what Ive found is that I have to open up the files to "EVERYONE" ... Administrators, Owners, Users, and user accounts arent working .. I have to open up the FULL RIGHTS to the EVERYONE group for it to work ... now, that cant be right !!!

[Polonio]

Using a page-down while in COVER ART view

Cover Art View? What are you talking about? How can I view that?

Using 9.0.51

[drosoph]

Nevermind, It tricked me .. it was showing the PLAYED NUMs incrementing ... but it wasnt saving the tags until after i changed to another view (ie, move from Playing Now to Playlists) ... then it errored again !!!

Anyone else ??

[drosoph]

Cover Art View ... Ctrl-U

[JGourd]

Are we going to see multi channel OGG support in V9?

[Polonio]

Cover Art View ... Ctrl-U

Well, I would not call that "Cover Art View" (because it shows duplicate images for same album).

Actually, it works weird to me. I see the image just for some files and only sometimes. Really wierd. I am not sure what was supposed to do.

And, yes, it is slow refreshing lists.

Using XP Home, MJ 9.0.51. Good machine (PIII and so on).

[drosoph]

Cover Art View (or whatever its called) .. I agree with you ... I would MUCH prefer it actually just show ONE icon representing all songs for that album and show the album artist/title below the Pic .... Then when you are selecting the pic, you are selecting all of the songs in that album to play ..

Of course, if the columns were slectable for each VIEW (playlist, library view, etc) .. You could just select whether you wanted SONG NAME -OR- ARTIST/ALBUM shown under the Pic ... That would be SWEET !!!

That might even deserve a beer to the programmers in my books.

[Doof]

One bug I noticed earlier today (I haven't downloaded 9.051 yet) with the automatic Album Artist thing is that it lumped every file I had that didn't have an Album assigned to it into the (Assorted) category.

I see that as an easy fix. If the Album field isn't blank, then do it automatically. But what happens if I have two artists who just happened to put out albums with the same name? Like "Greatist Hits" or something. How will MJ know not to lump Aerosmith's "Greatest Hits" in with Devo's "Greatest Hits", etc?

And even THEN, it still doesn't give me the ability to have a Various Artists album seperate from a Soundtrack CD. It'll all get lumped into (Assorted).

Don't get me wrong. I think this can be done, but it's going to have to be more intelligent than it is now.

How about : IF the album name is NOT blank AND the two (or more) tracks have the same album name AND the two (or more) tracks reside in the same folder, then and only then, they are assumed to actually be members of the same album and treated as such by having their Mixed flag set. And then allow the Album Artist field to be modified so that I can have "Various Artists" or "Soundtrack" instead of "(Various)".

Unless (like I said before), I'm just really unclear about how this will all work.

[Matt]

Are we going to see multi channel OGG support in V9?

ASIO output opens some cool multi-channel possibilities for folks with high-end cards.  I've wanted 2-channel to 5.1 up-mixing (with customizable cross-overs and mix points) forever.  Stay tuned...

I would MUCH prefer it actually just show ONE icon representing all songs for that album and show the album artist/title below the Pic

It's on the white board... just give us some time.

Doof's Album Artist stuff...

Doof, we actually do look at the path and number of tracks already.  It works pretty slick with my library. (and King Sparta's 120,000 file library which I always test with)  

I agree that it's a little lousy to have "Assorted" lumped with "Soundtrack", but I don't think it's a big enough deal to warrant an "Album Artist" field.  Think you could live that, assuming the logic was really good for deciding if it's a mix album or not?

Thanks everyone.

-Matt

[Doof]

Once you said "We actually do look at..." I realized that my music library at work (a much abbreviated version of my home library) is all lumped into one folder, so I guess that solves that mystery. There's still one minor problem there (for me at least). At home, for files that aren't part of a complete album, I have them broken up into seperate folders A, B, C, etc. What's going to stop MJ from lumping all of the A's together into one Mixed album, all the B's, etc.?

Is it true that the database is going to be such that I can create my own custom fields (as many as I want) and create View Schemes based on those fields? If so, what would stop me from just creating my own Album Artist field, and entering in "Soundtrack" or whathaveyou, and then just mimicking the current Album Artist?

If I can do that, then I'm all set. If not, I'll either have to put on my arguing cap, or find some way to adjust to the new method. It really won't be THAT big of a deal. I just really liked how MJ8 was handling this. It seemed very simple to me.

[Matt]

Once you said "We actually do look at..." I realized that my music library at work (a much abbreviated version of my home library) is all lumped into one folder, so I guess that solves that mystery. There's still one minor problem there (for me at least). At home, for files that aren't part of a complete album, I have them broken up into seperate folders A, B, C, etc. What's going to stop MJ from lumping all of the A's together into one Mixed album, all the B's, etc.?

Well, it also looks at the album and artist in the tag.  So, as long as the files in the "A" directory don't all have the same album, there's no problem.  If they do, then, well -- you gotta' clean that mess up

Is it true that the database is going to be such that I can create my own custom fields (as many as I want) and create View Schemes based on those fields? If so, what would stop me from just creating my own Album Artist field, and entering in "Soundtrack" or whathaveyou, and then just mimicking the current Album Artist?

Yes.  The only difference is that MJ 8.0 has some special handling where it uses "Artist" when the "Album Artist" is empty.  That won't happen with fields you make yourself.

If I can do that, then I'm all set. If not, I'll either have to put on my arguing cap, or find some way to adjust to the new method. It really won't be THAT big of a deal. I just really liked how MJ8 was handling this. It seemed very simple to me.

Although MJ 8.0 could accomplish what I wanted with "Album Artist", it confused the be-jebus out of me.  That's not really saying much though...

[Doof]

I just wanted to add that I have faith in you guys to get this automatic Mixed album thing working well. Whatever you do, I'll adjust.

Just so long as the target bar doesn't disappear. That's probably the most useful feature for me when it comes time to create a playlist.

[phatrabt]

OK, so I'm at work and haven't had a chance to check on this for v9, but is there an option now to delete the Replay Gain values for tracks?  Just a thought after the issues I had when I messed with it last time...

[Doof]

Well, it also looks at the album and artist in the tag. So, as long as the files in the "A" directory don't all have the same album, there's no problem. If they do, then, well -- you gotta' clean that mess up

Ok, so what about the case where all of my 'A' files don't have any album associated with them? Will that be an exception? I don't want my misc. files all lumped into a mixed album just because I don't have an album tag filled out.  That's what happened to me today. I had all of my files thrown into "My Music" and almost none of them have an album associated with them. I tend not to worry about the album name unless I have a complete album. And MJ lumped all of these into (Assorted).

[Polonio]

Ok, so what about the case where all of my 'A' files don't have any album associated with them? Will that be an exception? I don't want my misc. files all lumped into a mixed album just because I don't have an album tag filled out.  That's what happened to me today. I had all of my files thrown into "My Music" and almost none of them have an album associated with them. I tend not to worry about the album name unless I have a complete album. And MJ lumped all of these into (Assorted).


Before using MJ, my music collection was somthing like yours (a mess :-)). What I manually did was to create a "ficticial" album for every artist with enought songs. For instance, if I had 15 individual songs from Queen (without Album information, or from an obviously incomplete album), then I created an album named "Others songs from Queen".

I spent two afternoons doing that. But it was worth it to me.

What I suggested then, and I remember now, was the creation of news fields:

Album Artist (auto) - It's done
Album (auto) - For mixing "very incomplete" albums and untagged songs
Artist (auto) - This field should label as "Other artist" any artist with "few" songs.

"few" songs, and "incomplete" albums should be customizable. Minimun duration? Minimun numbers of tracks?...

I belive that any song collection could be easyly organized using these 3 auto-tags.

Just wondering.

[ChicoSelfs]

BUG: the output to the disk writter do not save, and the final output the track's are not split like Track1, Track2 it's save in one single file.

[deandob]

Hi, trying to get ASIO to work, and all I get is an error saying that the bit depth or settings are incorrect in the output setting. I can switch over to Winamp and play fine with an ASIO plugin so ASIO/soundcard is OK. The bitrate setting in MJ is greyed out when ASIO is selected.

Also, is it possible to shift ASIO channels so that output can select different channels for multi-channel sound cards like the M-Audio Delta 410?

One last question - is it possible to run multiple instances of MJ concurrently so that I can have multiple channels playing through the different outputs of the Delta 410? I can do this in Winamp :-) but MJ would be preferred if it supports multiple instances.

Thanks.
Dean

[ChicoSelfs]

Sorry for the question but what is ASIO?

[Matt]

If this preview of Media Jukebox 9.0 is running slowly, it's probably because you're using a version 9.0 database from build 9.0.50 or before. (it changed in 9.0.51)

To remedy the problem, erase the *.jmd files in your Media Jukebox\Data directory and reimport.  Note that this clears your library and erases all playlists.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

-Matt
JRiver, Inc.

[RemyJ]

>>If this preview of Media Jukebox 9.0 is running slowly, it's probably because you're using a version 9.0 database from build 9.0.50 or before. (it changed in 9.0.51)

I'll double check later today but I either had a fresh 51 database or a V8 database that I copied from my production machine and let 51 upgrade.  I can always export and reimport playlists but replay gain is corrupted when importing tracks.

Remy

[RemyJ]

Just verified...

51 running on a fresh 51 database:  performance great
51 running on a 50 database:  performance bad
51 running on a converted V8 database: performance bad

Maybe the 51 database converter just wasn't updated to write the new format?

[Doof]

See, I don't consider my library as being a mess at all. It's all very logical to me. I have three folders.

Complete Albums - Stores just that, complete albums.

Incomplete Albums - Stores files from albums that I don't have every song from yet. Once the album is complete it gets moved into Complete Albums.

Individual Tracks - Underneath this folder are folders for A, B, C, etc. These store files that I have no intention at all of collecting the entire album. For instance, I have Eminem - The Real Slim Shady.mp3 is in there. It's there because I am by no means an Eminem fan. I just happen to like that one song. And so I have no intention of collecting every song from that album. And as such, I have no interest in what album it was even on. Thus, the album tag is left blank.

It's all very nice and tidy. And it works great for me in MJ. Provided MJ doesn't decide to lump all of the A's and B's into some imaginary albums. And of course that can be avoided if MJ just does nothing with files that have no album tag.

But that still doesn't fix the problem of what happens if I then were to have two tracks that were both in the B folder, and both just happened to have the album tag of "Greatist Hits". Now MJ is going to automatically lump those two together as a Mixed Album, and they really wouldn't be. All in the name of automation.

It just so happens that I don't have any files that will fall into that particular trap. I'm just arguing a What If here. In all liklihood, it'll never happen. I'm just advocating some caution here in developing the logic for this thing.

[ChicoSelfs]

it's possible with this new version aplicate a minime skin that look's whit MJ7.2 with the spectrum, equalizer and player side by side?

[roving cowboy]

I am not on my normal computer i am on one i have been trying to fix.
so i cant beta test this but i am a trusting soul and will wait for the final version 9 to come out.  

I Know It is going to be GREAT.  the other versions all have been so far. well but the one that took out the eq...

[ChicoSelfs]

I need a version only for me like MJ7.2 but with the functions of MJ 9 were can i find that? hehehe

[agent99]

"Don't use this preview with files that can't be replaced. If you don't consider yourself an expert with Media Jukebox, please wait for a later release. Backup your database (and files) before doing anything else."

I assume the danger you are speaking of is to the database file for MJ, not to the MP3s themselves???

[JimH]

That's not a safe assumption.