question about JRiver media center... user friendly?

I use a Mac, but using JRiver software is a carry over from my PC days. I have used it since about Version 5 and I think they are up to 19 now. I have been using the Mac version since it was released and it is coming along very well. I find Media Center to be more user friendly than iTunes.

The added benefit is the JRiver support forum. You can communicate directly with the folks who develop the software and other users.

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php

 

I am just about to move over to JRiver from iTunes but I have a couple of questions:

Is it easy to alter the tags for albums as I sometimes like to leave bonus tracks off albums, alter Greatest Hits comps, and make live double CD's one album.

Is it also easy to change the album art?

many thanks.

 

I think that creating playlists is a form of an altered album right?

Yes you can change art to whatever you like pretty easy, and retagging is not a biggie.

 

I am interested in the JRiver software, this is what I was trying to accomplish.
My current set up is as follows, I have Mac mini connected to my TV running 10.9 and an external drive storing my entire iTunes library with ALAC audio and M4V video home sharing through an Apple TV to our AV receiver and Television. It works great and is simple for my family to use and want to keep it that way.
I want to connect an Audioquest Dragonfly for DAC and Headphone amp to the same Mac mini running JRiver. I would like JRiver to access a second external hard drive connected to the Mac mini that would have a copy of my ALAC music files and HiRez type files that iTunes will not read without a plugin modification. I guess my main concern is I dont to want to screw up the iTunes experience through the Apple TV.
I dont think this would happen since iTunes is pointed to the 1st drive and JRiver would be pointed towards the 2nd drive but I was not sure. Since the files I would play through JRiver would be on a separate external drive I thought that would work just fine. When I wanted to listen to music through my headphones all I would have to do is boot up JRiver and go from there.
The end goal is to keep the family happy with day to day viewing and listening and giving myself a decent entry level "audiophile" headphone system.

 

I have a similar setup and I'm hoping you can share some of your tech details...

• How is the Mac mini attached to the TV?
  • Is it just for picture or picture and sound?
• Is your Apple TV attached to the AV receiver via HDMI?
  • If so, are you listening to iTunes music through the Apple TV / AV receiver?

Thanks in advance

 

Mac mini video is connected through HDMI from Mac mini to TV, just for picture
Apple TV and Mac mini are connected through optical to receiver, just for sound. Receiver is old without HDMI
The Apple TV is used for casual audio connivence only. It sounds ok though Apple TV like some other products of its type up samples everything to 48Hz
All inputs are switched using a logitec remote this makes it family friendly.
It works really well I have close to 700 cd's and 600 DVD and BluRay rips on this system. Overall connivence is outstanding with only minor quality compromises.
It took almost 15 months to rip all the physical media but to me it was worth it.

 

For some reason I thought there was a configuration parameter that enabled 44.1kHz out the TOSLINK. Perhaps not.

 

I think normally that would be true. But the up sampling to 48 is an Apple thing that overrides that.

 

Just reading about people's experience with JRiver for their media. I'm still ripping my CDs after what seems like three years.

Question is what format do you all rip your DVDs to? Video I am speaking of. That's going to be the next big project once the music is all done.

 

I have had JRiver for Mac since its introduction of v18 and now have v19. Although that has probably been most of a year I have only been deeply involved in using it for about four months. Honestly, I did struggle in understanding how to use it at first and didn't like the Wiki manual. For whatever reason with v19 I jumped in, got some helpful guidance and now see it as more that likely my long term tool for my music library. Though there is much more for me to learn (I still haven't gotten to creating views) everything I wanted to do in iTunes I can do here and then some. The JRemote for my iPad may just be the best part and so much more functional and advanced that the Apple Remote app. The downside for now is lack of support for ripping.

 

Even some of iTunes biggest fans use dBpoweramp as their ripper of choice. It's like the JRiver of rippers. I think it's great the Microsoft nor Apple, nor Sony or Uni control a few of the newer major advancements in audio software and tools.

 

I use "make MKV" to rip DVD and Bluray then encode to an iTunes friendly format with "Handbreak"
The time it takes depends on the machine you use for me the entire process for DVD takes about 2 hours

 

dBpoweramp is coming to OS X. It's in development now. Projected full release in Q3 2014.
With JRiver and dBpoweramp the Mac just might become a viable audiophile platform.

 

I started using it last weekend and I like it. I'm still learning a lot but the main thing is that it sounds better than iTunes on my PC. I'm enjoying it so much that I haven't played any vinyl in a week.

 

I've been playing with JRiver for a couple of days - yes it has stuff I don't need, but it is fairly easy to figure out how to use and I was surprised to see that you could rip files in DSD. I was a bit wary what difference it would make ripping a normal CD in DSD, but I've been very surprised (and happy) with the sound quality. Only downside is it takes a long time to rip, but I think it is worth it.

 

Lack of support for ripping? In J.River Media Center? What exactly is it that you lacking?

VP

 

I started using it this past weekend - tagging my SACD rips. I was a bit overwhelmed by the choices (and often could not readily find what I wanted), and I found the Wiki close to useless. (Maybe it's me.) The support forum is very responsive.

Initially my thought was to use it primarily for tagging and conversion for use with my Squeezeboxes, but I think I will be using it as an alternative player as well.

Ted_B has a couple of videos that offer some introductory guidance. They helped me, especially his introduction to expressions (i,e, functions) for efficient tagging.

http://www.screencast.com/t/52KgBYF34vSD

 

J.River rips are secure rips and by design will take longer. Upside is you get a perfect accurate rip. Downside is time (sometimes). For me - since I want to create the very best rip - the first time (and only time) - secure rip is where its at.

I do not find JRMC rips to be that big of a deal...if it's take 4 or 5 minutes vs 1 minute - I am okay with that. I would rather have a perfect rip rather than a revisit.

If you are used to having some other program rip a disc in 30 seconds - there's a problem with the actual quality. Most likely your "former" software is doing "burst mode" which is very fast but not very accurate. Your call I suppose.

VP

 

Thanks, I will check out the video. I agree about the Wiki.

 

Good question. So far, I've been keeping the same format that the film was in on the DVD/VHS/Laserdisc/BR, and MPEG 2 for all except BR. But maybe you want to deinterlace for computer play on a monitor in Progressive. I keep PAL as PAL and NTSC as NTSC. Really when playing from a computer media player such as JRiver, it makes no sense to care which format it's in. As far as the codec, might as well stay the same. When transferring analog to digital, you have choices, for years I've used MPEG 2.

On another note I'm really glad to have Jriver for ripping my Hi Res DVD audio tracks from the video and maintain the same specs. Fantastic program with almost everything you need.

 

It does not support ripping in the Mac version

 

How many DVDs do you have? How much space on your hard drives do you have to store them? If space is not a problem, you can rip them to a DVD folder (.VOB files) using software like AnyDVD (which handles any and all copy protection schemes) or one of a variety of free programs.

You can also rip them to .MKV files using a program like MakeMKV (Windows only), which gives you the option to not copy the extras, audio commentary tracks, additional languages, and various subtitles. This gives you one file per title if all you want is the main movie.

If space is a concern, you'll want to transcode your DVDs to MPEG4, which uses half the space of MPEG2. This takes time, sometimes as much as 45 minutes per DVD for really good quality. The most popular free program is Handbrake, which is cross-platform. It's a bit difficult to use, because transcoding is a complicated process with lots of options. Most commercial programs don't give you as many options, so are easier to use. For Windows, there's Nero Recode, Arcsoft MediaConverter, Cyberlink MediaEspresso, and a handful of lesser-known programs. Most of these programs offer GPU hardware encoding using NVIDIA CUDA or Intel QuickSync, which is much faster but creates lower-quality videos (great if you want to quickly put something on your phone, though). All these programs can put your MPEG4 video in an Apple-friendly container file (.mp4 or .m4v) or the more universal .mkv (Matroska) container.

Personally, I keep DVDs in a DVD folder if I want to keep the menus, commentary, or extras. If I just want the main movie, I use Handbrake to create an MKV file using settings I've determined by trial and error work best for me (there's a ton of information about transcoding on avsforum.com and doom9.org). For Blu-rays, I do the same thing except that I use MakeMKV if I just want the movie. I don't transcode, because I want full Blu-ray quality without further compression.

By the way, JRiver is an excellent choice for your video collection. It'll get cover thumbnails and movie metadata for you, and has excellent video playback capability. It can't play Blu-ray discs or rips, though--you'll need other software that is licensed for all the BD copy-protection schemes, although if you're using AnyDVDHD JRiver can play the main movie from a rip.

 

What is necessary to get Blu-ray to play in JRiver? Is ripping the Blu-ray with MakeMKV enough or do you need more?

 

Ah - I see now. Yes - the Windows version has all the bells and whistles from 19 versions...the Mac version has had just one version thus far. It will come in time.

VP