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[KingSparta]

We All Know MC11.1 Is The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread.

What Other Product On the Market Would You Think Can Stand next To JRiver Media Center?

What Part Of That Program Do You Like Best?

What Could You Take From the Program And Would Like Something Like it Included In to Media Center?

[dlone]

Gosh, I don't want anything here included anywhere else - I want it all right here in one program - and it's so close now !

On the included into MC point

1) Doof's lyric editor, expanded into the default editor for all text fields (lyrics/bios/comments, the works)

2) Media player classic's ability to right click on the display and being able to see what directshow filters are being used, so we can correct them if the output is borked

3) Gspots ability to change the priority of the filters used to display videos - very handy when an iffy codec decides that it wants priority

4) Actually i'd love some way of picking how videos are played - media player classic gives such a better picture on large screens that i've set up a send to function and only use that for display
(MC's display is of a much lower quality)

5) Play And Resume
Matt's already mentioned this, but the ability to turn off MC, come back to it the next day and continue from where you were would enhance it's usability

6) The tree view on the left hand side should be sorted in the same order as the right hand panel

7) An option to not jump to recently imported after importing new files

Better error reporting
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=34233.0

9) Better error handleing
Ok, so i've got a video file that's not going to import/play, I can't see the value in MC hanging until windows kills it
So the thread is stuck, i'd rather have the thread stuck and the rest of the program ignore it and continue working

10) Importing new files
Because MC sticks on bad files I've had to add files a few at a time and this means I have to wait for MC to check the library first every time
The larger my library, the longer this is taking
At the moment it's taking four times longer to check the library than to import the new files

And even after all that, this is definately my favourite program 

[Johnny B]

In MC I really miss "Global Hotkeys" as seen in Winamp

[dlone]

Could you elaborate please, I've never used winamp and would like to get a better description

[Johnny B]

Could you elaborate please, I've never used winamp and would like to get a better description

If Winamp is running these hotkeys can be used anywhere anytime (not only within the program itself) to Play, Pause, Stop, Next, Previous, Volume Up / Down, Forward, Rewind etc.

[JimH]

A 5 cent Popsicle or Fudgecicle.  Or a Piper Malibu Mirage.

[KingSparta]

Or a Piper Malibu Mirage

That's Only About $925,000 For A Relatively New One

A 5 cent Popsicle or Fudgecicle

And they are also out of my price range.

Now if i Hit The Lotto (Now That We Have One, As Of Last Month) I Could Buy Both At The Same Time.

[dlone]

A.n. other motorbike - if only my knees weren't shot to pieces

[JimH]

 

Bill Gates announcing his retirement isn't too bad either.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2006/06/15/BUG1RJF0554.DTL&type=business

I can't imagine that he could do it, but he is pretty amazing in a certain way.

[dlone]

@Johnny B

Right, gotcha

Yeah this would be an improvevment 

Especially when your running full screen

[JimH]

If Winamp is running these hotkeys can be used anywhere anytime (not only within the program itself) to Play, Pause, Stop, Next, Previous, Volume Up / Down, Forward, Rewind etc.

Hooking the keyboard to be able to do global hotkeys could be slightly controversial.  We did that around 20 years ago.

[dlone]

Not if it was optional

If you pick it - then it's your choice

[jgreen]

Quoting JimH:

". . .he is pretty amazing in a certain way."

Er, yes, certainly.  We can say that about him. . . .


--The following is NOT a paid endorsement--

Responding to Sparta's original question, I can't think of any other software that comes close to MC for it's comprehensive mastery of its particular niche.  Nothing comes close.  I wish jriver made an operating system and microsoft made knitting needles.

Most days, I think MC is 99% perfect.  On those days that I'm overwhelmed with frustration at jriver's wrongheaded approach to developing their crown jewel (they should take my suggestions and ignore everyone else's), my opinion of MC drops all the way down to somewhere around 98% perfect.  I can't think of anything else that's better than 80% perfect at best.  I think the world would be a much better place if everyone had a copy of MC and maybe 1,000 tracks.  JimH for Pres!  Matt for Sec Def!

[JimH]

jgreen,
I want to beat Matt to this....

"Thanks, Mom."

[lalittle]

7) An option to not jump to recently imported after importing new files

I'd like this as well.  After a rip, I'd like to see ONLY the album I just ripped, or just continue to see the CD.  I simply don't need to see a list of songs that includes CDs that I ripped days or weeks ago.

Larry

[Doof]

I've had my eye on one of these for years now...

It would be totally badass if I could incorporate it's submersibility into MC, but other than that, I'm not sure what would apply.

http://doof.monadnockdesign.com/Interact/Screenshots/2003model01.jpg

[hit_ny]

7) An option to not jump to recently imported after importing new files

Why ? i think its quite important to know that an import was correct.

To get back to where you were Alt+<-

I simply don't need to see a list of songs that includes CDs that I ripped days or weeks ago.

Options->General->Advanced->Clear 'Recently Imported' playlist on exit

[benn600]

Dreamy Lyric Idea:

I think it would be really neat if there was an online database containing high quality versions of lyrics for songs which could then be pulled into music libraries.  The lyric sites should include information such as song length, title, artist, album, and general statistics about the song's contents to help make sure it is a correct match.  I can only imagine how AMAZING it would be if you could search the lyrics in songs!  Just think about a situation where you would hear someone talking about something--or lyrics from a song on the radio and you want to see if you have it?!?!  Or even better, include CUE information at the start of each sentence so you could instantly jump to the point where that word was said!

This is a dream situation and don't know how long it could take, but I'm rooting for it!

[Mr ChriZ]

If Winamp is running these hotkeys can be used anywhere anytime (not only within the program itself) to Play, Pause, Stop, Next, Previous, Volume Up / Down, Forward, Rewind etc.

A descent multimedia keyboard does the job so much easier =)

I'd be well up for Doofs idea of making MC submersible, but I don't want the
licence to go over $45

[lalittle]

7) An option to not jump to recently imported after importing new files

Why ? i think its quite important to know that an import was correct.

We're not really talking about the same thing here.  When you display ALL the "recently imported" files after a rip, you see a list of songs that includes the last SEVERAL albums, and the most recent album doesn't even show up on the page without scrolling down the list.  This means that in order to check the current rip, you have to scroll down the list and specifically look for where the songs from the new album start.  I would MUCH rather have ONLY the "current" rips show up -- this would make "checking" it much easier.  I would understand having multiple albums listed if you're ripping multiple albums at the same time, but at the moment, you see a long list of songs even after ripping a SINGLE album.

That aside, if you want to know that the import was "correct," a better method is to use "Secure" ripping method, and check the "Create log" option.  This displays a log of how many re-reads (if any) were necessary, and how accurate the read was.

Larry

[GHammer]

A feature I like from a competitor that is not available in MC is a script that uses last.fm to add tracks to Now Playing.
It uses the artist you are listening to to get related artists. Then it gets the most played tracks for those artists. Finally it finds one of the tracks in your library and adds it to play next.

Sounded like an odd idea, but I'm a sucker for bad ideas so I tried it.

I like it a lot, there are some surprising relations out there if you have a diverse library.

[hit_ny]

This means that in order to check the current rip, you have to scroll down the list and specifically look for where the songs from the new album start.  I would MUCH rather have ONLY the "current" rips show up -- this would make "checking" it much easier.  I would understand having multiple albums listed if you're ripping multiple albums at the same time, but at the moment, you see a long list of songs even after ripping a SINGLE album.

This is fine, if you are referring to improving the display of recently imported after a rip & import rather than doing away with it. Does not sound like it would be too hard to do.

That aside, if you want to know that the import was "correct," a better method is to use "Secure" ripping method, and check the "Create log" option.  This displays a log of how many re-reads (if any) were necessary, and how accurate the read was.

No, i'm talking about the import into MC, not the rip. I don't usually rip & import in a go, rather rip stuff in a go, then it stays in a folder till it gets AA'd and the results saved to MPL. Much later when i get around to listening/rating will i do the import.

At this stage i'm more concerned whether the import went right, since i use a lot of cue albums and find the automatic switch to recently imported quite intuitive and helpful and it's cleared the next time i restart MC.

[dlone]

At this stage i'm more concerned whether the import went right, since i use a lot of cue albums and find the automatic switch to recently imported quite intuitive and helpful and it's cleared the next time i restart MC.

I think it's a difference in mindset
Personally I find it a  nuisance that i'm forced to jump from what I was doing (eg editing tags on other files)
Can't stand programs trying to out guess me 

[Jaguu]

My personal wishlist:

1) Customizable picture framing (put a a selectable frame around a picture)
2) Customizable caption in slide shows (size, font, color, position, effects)
3) Customizable slideshow templates (similar to track info in audio)
4) Ability to create screensaver slideshows from image/audio playlists, burn image/audio slideshows to autostart cd's/dvd's with some kind of menu selection
5) Improved separation audio/images/video specific features and field names
6) Improved document management
7) Improved multiple screen management. ( example: attaching 2-3 beamers to display images on different walls creating some kind of magic shows.

[dcwebman]

Options->General->Advanced->Clear 'Recently Imported' playlist on exit

Who exits MC? 

[lalittle]

I think it's a difference in mindset
Personally I find it a  nuisance that i'm forced to jump from what I was doing (eg editing tags on other files)

That's my feeling.  The automatic jump to a large "recently imported" list containing the last several rips only serves distract me.

Regarding the "clear on exit," as dcwebman noted, I just don't exit MC that often -- I keep it running for days or weeks at a time on my main system, and even when I DO "exit" it, I have Media Server running, so it is not actually "exited."

Note that we're not asking for it to be "eliminated."  We're simply asking for the OPTION to change it's behavior.

Larry

[gappie]

i bought jrivers because because i was tired of windows mediaplayer. no way to change anything, like were to store the database and stuff. not to speak about itunes which i just crap. so i dont know any alternatives, but i also did not look any further. im happy.

but lookin to other not mediaplayer type of programms.
i think it would be great if it was possible to share more librarys at the same time via the library server. that would make so much more sense in a multiuser environment. that combined with the ability to say who or from were or if those users can change the database info/tags, from the client machine. with those two it would be nearly perfect for me.

some other small things.
more separation between zones. for instance in what info you have in playing now, and if playing now should be cleared or not. i use one zone for watching pictures only, the other for music. i dont care how oft i saw one picture. but i do care about people and events and some custom fields that dont make sence for my music.

better handling of pictures. and shorter routes to change basic stuff like rotating.

maybe the way outlook 2003 looks at the tree side. with the ability to see your favorites there only.or all the maps

and a last one. it would be nice if theater view has just a bit of the flexability you have in standard view.

edit: i forgot one thing. i had a few times that after importing some files i got the message some records were deleted or what ever (cant remember exactly the words). those messages make me sweat especially because it is unclear what he is deleting. it would be nice if you can see wich ones he will be deleting, and even better, that you can stop that and repair it. (dont know if this point is clear)

[geekbeats2]

Finally allow browsing via Artist image (through Folder.jpg, found in artist directory) like in Meedio and Media Portal!!

Like this:  http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=32249.0

[gpvillamil]

Basic stuff that would make me happier:

An interface for editing smartlists that looks like the one in iTunes, ie. use the entire screen to show all the rules on separate lines, rather than the ridiculous "keyhole surgery" system used now.

Same deal for file properties - set it up so that when editing file properties you can do it on a dialog that fills the screen, not just the action window jammed over on the left. The natural width for editing titles, etc is much larger than the width of the tree...

Rationalize the action window into something that makes sense, and label it the "Action Window" rather than the "ACTION WINDOW".

In general I find that MC11 does not dedicate screen space to tasks in the right proportion. When doing modal stuff (ie editing smartlists, file properties, looking at cover images) you're not doing anything else, it's OK for a dialog to take over more of the screen and give you room to maneuver. Instead a lot of these activities are jammed into a space more appropriate for a background task, like a progress bar.

[gpvillamil]

In order to differentiate and not be another iTunes, here's some things MC11 could add:

1) Innovative music navigation by clusters - something like http://www.liveplasma.com/

2) Really tactile user interface - check the demo reel here: http://mrl.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/

3) Live remix/mashup capabilities - ie. make a playlist containing scenes from movies, photos, etc with a completely user defined soundtrack. (I do this a lot: playback a DVD but with my own choice of music.)

4) Semi-automatic generation of "moods", using systems like MoodLogic, MusicBrainz, last.fm but including video clips & photos as well. Maybe even automatic lighting control using DMX or Color Kinetics!

[hit_ny]

edit: i forgot one thing. i had a few times that after importing some files i got the message some records were deleted or what ever (cant remember exactly the words). those messages make me sweat especially because it is unclear what he is deleting. it would be nice if you can see wich ones he will be deleting, and even better, that you can stop that and repair it. (dont know if this point is clear)

Are you talking about import removing previously imported stuff or about failures during an import ?

If you uncheck Fix broken links (in the import dialog), it won't delete anything. I don't think there is log of what was removed otherwise. in fact do that and use this smartlist instead.

Code: [Select]

[=IsMissing([Filename])]=1 ~sort=[Album Artist(auto)]
Will give you a list of what is broken without removing anything.

[gappie]

yes, broken links.
thanks hit-ny

[Johnny B]

Hooking the keyboard to be able to do global hotkeys could be slightly controversial.  We did that around 20 years ago.

?? Why is it controversial? I've been using Winamp for years and believe me - Global Keys are really great. Example - phone is ringing; anywhere I am (program), anything I do (action in that program) - I only need to press CTRL-ALT-Home and the playback is paused. Phone conversation is over and I only need to press this combination again and the playback continues. It's not necessary to open the program at all = VERY handy...

[Johnny B]

A descent multimedia keyboard does the job so much easier =)

Come on - for example how about (not new) notebooks?? Should a decent multimedia notebook be bought instead? 

[dcwebman]

My 2 things that have been asked for many times but have never made it yet.

• Allow Action Window option for it to be minimized and stay minimized the next time you start the program.
• Handle aliases for songs. That is, if I have a greatest hits album and another one of the artist's albums that have some of those songs, I don't want to have duplicates on my hard drive. But allow me to see that one song in in both albums without needing to create a playlist.

[Johnny B]

Handle aliases for songs. That is, if I have a greatest hits album and another one of the artist's albums that have some of those songs, I don't want to have duplicates on my hard drive. But allow me to see that one song in in both albums without needing to create a playlist
[/list]

Duplicates? Hardly. Mostly the versions included in "Greatest Hits" compilations are different to album versions (edited, remastered etc.). I do not sugest this approach - I want all my albums to be complete.

[Johnny B]

In MC I also miss the possibility of "fade out / fade in" when the playback is paused / unpaused (as seen in Winamp)

And I also miss the function "stop the playback after current track" (as seen in Winamp)

[Alex B]

Handle aliases for songs. That is, if I have a greatest hits album and another one of the artist's albums that have some of those songs, I don't want to have duplicates on my hard drive. But allow me to see that one song in in both albums without needing to create a playlist.

Duplicates? Hardly. Mostly the versions included in "Greatest Hits" compilations are different to album versions (edited, remastered etc.). I do not sugest this approach - I want all my albums to be complete.

It would be useful in situations like these because it would allow alternative tagging:

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=29082.msg201123#msg201123
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=33953.msg231763#msg231763

[LonWar]

-Better Mini skins.... If MC could do the things winamp's Modern skins could do... Or better yet if Winamp modern could work with MC.
-Be able to open a file and have a Very lite player start playing it without loading the library.
-CDDB

That's it.

[Marty3d]

Better video handling over a network. It's a pity that one has to use WMP instead

[hit_ny]

Duplicates? Hardly. Mostly the versions included in "Greatest Hits" compilations are different to album versions (edited, remastered etc.). I do not sugest this approach - I want all my albums to be complete.

i tired alises for a while with cue tracks but it's a maintenance nightmare and not all that easy to create in the first place. I've also settled on full albums so i promptly replaced the 3(!) albums i made with virtual tracks.

What i would like aliases for is to create my own playlists that have independent playstats to the tracks in albums. This also implies it has independent tags as well.

THink about an artist that has 10+ albums and you would like to create your own best of, currently you can add those tracks to a playlist but you can't modify any of the album tags or the original Album tags will themselves be modified.

I want to be able to view these playlists in a viewscheme and the illusion should be no different than if they were real albums themselves. As has been pointed out many times the backend is already in place for this, whats missing is the user friendly front-end.

[dlone]

Better video handling over a network. It's a pity that one has to use WMP instead

Better video handling overall would be nice

I use the send to function to play them in media player classic because (at least on my 1280*1024 display) MC's display looks hideous, pauses and skips

The video thumbnails are next to useless on about half my files (a black square isn't the best thumbnail) and making your own thumbnails is a pain after 200 or so
Being able to pick how far through the video it picks a thumbnail from can not be such a hard job to implement