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[razumik]

I currently use Rhapsody as a means to discover new music.  I typically add several new releases to a playlist each week and listen through the songs a few times to determine which albums I would like to purchase.  For those that I do decide to purchase, I generally buy them from Amazon (CD or MP3) or eMusic.  All purchased albums get imported into Media Center where the majority of my listening is done.  This method works ok for me, but is far from perfect.  With the introduction of Performer MC, I am hoping that I can start using only one program for everything.  The following is my wish list for Performer MC that would make the switch a forgone conclusion:

1.   Better recommendation system.  As far as I can see, there are currently only two recommendation methods, the first is using the similar artists button and also by listening to several of the stock playlists.  The problem with both of these is that they are static and somewhat limited.  For example, when you click on radio there is a playlist called “Hot Indie Rock” with a description of “Fresh new tracks from some of the noteworthy indie rock release of the month”.  Unfortunately, all of the releases are from 2007, when I am assuming the playlist was created.  Playlists like these are a great idea, but only when they are current.  The problem is that I am assuming that J River does not have an employee that creates playlists of new music all day long  so the two options you have is to allow for user created playlists to be shared, or to tie-in with a service like last.fm to recommend new music.  Both of these options would be nice, especially the last.fm tie-in.  The combination of davjand’s LastFMDJ and Performer MC would be AWESOME because you would be pulling your recommendations from many programs (iTunes, Rhapsody, WinAmp, etc.) instead of just from the Performer MC data.

The LastFMDJ also gets around the issue of the similar artists being static (which is a problem with Rhapsody as well).  Instead of a strict similar artist it becomes a people who listen to this artist, also listen to….

2.   It would be great to have a personalized start page (similar to Rhapsody) where you could enter in Genres, Artists, etc. that you like so that the recommended albums are more in line with your tastes.  It could calculate your favorite artists based upon playcounts (both from the MC libarary and streamed).  It could also tie in with other users to create neighbors/friends similar to last.fm.  So if someone had similar listening tastes to mine I could see their top artists and albums to get ideas for new music.  Since this would be done in Performer MC it would be easy to listen to the music immediately.
3.   I realize that this is a watered-down version of MC13 so all features will not be available at first (which makes the plug-in version of Performer MC all the more attractive, but there are several features not available that I really miss (especially for regular library manipulation).  Examples are Cover Art search; Move, Copy….; Skin Effects (as well as the stock skins.  I was able to manipulate the .xml to get the regular skins, but I feel they should be included anyway.); Plug-ins (the only two I use are Playing Now and LastFMDJ…but I miss them both very much).

Keep up the good work with what is available now.  I look forward to any additions that you guys make.  It will be pretty exciting to see where it heads.

Dan

[JimH]

Thanks for the nice feedback.  More in-line below.

I currently use Rhapsody as a means to discover new music.  I typically add several new releases to a playlist each week and listen through the songs a few times to determine which albums I would like to purchase.  For those that I do decide to purchase, I generally buy them from Amazon (CD or MP3) or eMusic. 

I do something similar.  Lately I've been buying used CD's via Amazon.  It works fine.

1.   Better recommendation system.

We're working on it.

  As far as I can see, there are currently only two recommendation methods, the first is using the similar artists button and also by listening to several of the stock playlists. 

There is also an Artist Radio button on each Artist Page.  It's a text link under the artist photo.

Unfortunately, all of the releases are from 2007, when I am assuming the playlist was created.  Playlists like these are a great idea, but only when they are current.  The problem is that I am assuming that J River does not have an employee that creates playlists of new music all day long  so the two options you have is to allow for user created playlists to be shared, or to tie-in with a service like last.fm to recommend new music.  Both of these options would be nice, especially the last.fm tie-in.  The combination of davjand’s LastFMDJ and Performer MC would be AWESOME because you would be pulling your recommendations from many programs (iTunes, Rhapsody, WinAmp, etc.) instead of just from the Performer MC data.

Thanks for the suggestion.

2.   It would be great to have a personalized start page (similar to Rhapsody) where you could enter in Genres, Artists, etc. that you like so that the recommended albums are more in line with your tastes. 

We're working on something similar.

3.   I realize that this is a watered-down version of MC13 so all features will not be available at first (which makes the plug-in version of Performer MC all the more attractive, but there are several features not available that I really miss (especially for regular library manipulation).  Examples are Cover Art search; Move, Copy….; Skin Effects (as well as the stock skins.  I was able to manipulate the .xml to get the regular skins, but I feel they should be included anyway.); Plug-ins (the only two I use are Playing Now and LastFMDJ…but I miss them both very much).

Keep up the good work with what is available now.  I look forward to any additions that you guys make.  It will be pretty exciting to see where it heads.

Thanks again for the ideas.  For now, we want to be certain that what we've done is bulletproof.  Then we'll start adding refinements.

[razumik]

There is also an Artist Radio button on each Artist Page.  It's a text link under the artist photo.

I have tried this, but it only chooses songs from the similar artists page.  So, if there are only 3-4 similar artists, you hear the same songs over and over again.  I am not sure where the similar artists come from or what criteria it is based upon, but I am assuming that it won't change much.  That is what is nice about services like last.fm, instead of a subjective criteria for similarity, they use users listening preferences to generate their lists. 

Which reminds me, it would also be nice to be able to customize the link bar like in MC13.  One that I use all of the time is:

http:////www.last.fm//music//Replace([artist],/ ,+)//+similar

which pulls up the similar artists page on last.fm.

Another thing regarding playlists, all of the other services have celebrity playlists of songs that celebrities like.  While this does not interest me all that much, it would be pretty cool if the J River crew could make some playlists to share.  I would definitely be interested to see what everyone listens to while they create music software.

Dan

[)p(]

I have tried this, but it only chooses songs from the similar artists page.  So, if there are only 3-4 similar artists, you hear the same songs over and over again.  I am not sure where the similar artists come from or what criteria it is based upon, but I am assuming that it won't change much.  That is what is nice about services like last.fm, instead of a subjective criteria for similarity, they use users listening preferences to generate their lists. 
 

Looks like they are pulled from amg. I just tried some and they are very limited indeed for most artists. A quick fix could be to add the similar artists from the similar artits etc...with some weighting. Also to be really useful as a background station it would be great if new songs kept being added to the "station".


Peter

[JimH]

A quick fix could be to add the similar artists from the similar artists etc...

We tried that first.  It had too much variation. 

I'd like to build a database of how our users see "similar", maybe mine playlist data (with permission).

[razumik]

Would it be possible for users to be able to rate artists, or at least add to a list of their favorite artists, and then use these lists/ratings to determine similar artists.  So if a lot of people with artist A in their list also had artist B, it would then artist B would be put on the similar artists page for A and used for the artist radio?  The good thing about using lists (assuming people would add to them) is that it would not require a lot of play statistics for the similar artist page to be meaningful. 

[JimH]

We're working on Favorites.  Maybe this week.

[)p(]

I'd like to build a database of how our users see "similar", maybe mine playlist data (with permission).

Yeah a last.fm like scrobbling function would make a great addition. If you add it also to mc and enough people enable it in mc you should be able to get enough data very fast to mine something useful from it. Maybe even teamup with last.fm To be honest their similar artists radios are also not perfect either...they tend to play just a small selection of songs from every similar artist.

peter

[zxsix]

Since the topic is wishlist, I'll just echo my request for flac or ape support.
I absolutely will not spend even a nickel on something with DRM.
As soon as one of those lossless formats becomes available for download, I'm all in.

[JimH]

Since the topic is wishlist, I'll just echo my request for flac or ape support.
I absolutely will not spend even a nickel on something with DRM.
As soon as one of those lossless formats becomes available for download, I'm all in.

The downloads are without DRM.  MP3 320Kbps.

I doubt that you will see a significant APE or FLAC store anywhere for a long time.

[stanger89]

I doubt that you will see a significant APE or FLAC store anywhere for a long time.

Jim, that's something I've been wondering about for a long time, what's the aversion to lossless downloads?  DRM-free downloads are quite appealing to me, but I just can't see spending money lossy-compressed music.  Is it really the extra size/bandwidth that makes it unprofitable or is it more of a political thing about not liking lossless media on computers?

[JimH]

Jim, that's something I've been wondering about for a long time, what's the aversion to lossless downloads?  DRM-free downloads are quite appealing to me, but I just can't see spending money lossy-compressed music.  Is it really the extra size/bandwidth that makes it unprofitable or is it more of a political thing about not liking lossless media on computers?

Bandwidth cost may be a minor issue, but I think the major one is record label reluctance.  Believe it or not, I think the culture is still trying to protect CD sales.

In our new Performer player, we link to Amazon so, once you find something you like, you can buy a CD.  I've been buying used lately.  Works pretty well.

I believe that MusicGiants is beginning to sell lossless, but it may only be for independent labels.  We should be able to add these MusicGiants links to Performer sometime in the next few months.

Thanks for your support on AVSForum.

[LynelleV]

I see many people here asking for a recommend service based on LastFM.  I actually think Pandora's model recommends music more accurately and more interestingly when given a seed song or band.  They might be open to embedding some version of their recommend service - I don't know.  Something to think about anyway.

[chirpp]

I looked and couldn't find anything on this so I thought I would jump on this wish list.

Today I was creating a small play list of songs that I wanted to purchase.  Multiple artists. When I went into the play list when it was complete, there was no option to click Buy Button or Download Button. I added that into my view, but the buttons would not work. So it appeared to me I would have to go to each individual artist via Performer Store and download the 1 track from each on their own. Icky! I ended up using Rhapsody to download all in my play list. (Except 2 songs that were not available for download via Rhapsody but were available in PC!.)

Was I missing something?
Pete   ?

[ThoBar]

Will PMC be getting TV functionality? ..or conversely, will MC13 be getting subscription functionality?