question about JRiver media center... user friendly?

That's true. What I do does not keep play counts in synch. I don't really care about counts in iTunes anymore but that may be an issue for others.

 

I'd love to switch from iTunes, but I use play count, specifically if it's zero, to build playlists of albums I haven't listened to yet to put onto my iPod Classic. If JRiver can do that, it's possible for me to look at switching. If not, I'm still stuck.

 

JRiver does keep play counts but not synched to iTunes.

 

Does it sync them with plays on an iPod though. I listen to my iPod 4-8 hours a day during my commute and at work. I need those plays in my library to make play counts work.

 

The play count isn't one of the standard fields that is made available to be written to tags. It should be possible though to write it to a custom tag and have JRMC read it back and keep it updated. The trickier part will be getting iTunes to read that info and keep it updated as well. And have both iTunes and JRMC keep the play count in sync. I'm not sure if that would even be possible.

You can ask over in the JRiver forum if anyone has attempted to get JRMC and iTunes on the Mac to keep play counts in sync. It may be uncharted territory.

 

Ham Sandwich, I've never believed those slanderous stories about you and Mama Cass. You're an alright guy.

Thanks. I've spent what time I can (without my eyes bleeding) flipping through Jriver's Wiki pages and scooping info from wherever I could think -- computeraudiophile forum, head-fi, places I can't remember, random Google searches, that guy who spends all day at the bus stop wearing a colander on his head (why didn't I ask that cute barista? I'm such an idiot). I'll check Jriver's forum and see what I can learn. Something tells me no one is tackling the ability to merge play data and that the closest is that each program can over-write the other's play data. Seems kind'a risky for my wants. Then again, I'm out of my depth and not that technically minded. The more I read, the more personally cloudy it becomes.

The biggest thing that hadn't occurred to me: will my playlists/smart playlists and play list folders translate to Jriver or will I have to rebuild them independently? That's a big issue, but I love what I've read about the greater flexibility of Jriver's smartlists. I'm tempted to just jump in and do the trial, but I could only do it once; my gut tells me to wait until version 20 for Mac is further along and to throw some of these questions into their "feature request" areas.

Of course, if Jriver could handle my podcast subscriptions and iDevice syncing, then I'd probably just move way from iTunes.

I also really like the Jremote app, but there's no trial. Granted, I get a lot of use out of Apple's remote, which for my use case is almost perfect (and is preferable to the iTunes desktop) but it's big Achilles heel for me is that it doesn't consistently follow "Sort Artist" fields. Jremote's ability to stream to the device is also plenty appealing. Plus, Jremote's interface -- like Jriver's -- is a darn sight prettier than Apple's stuff. Even for a luddite like me who's still clinging to iOS 6.

For now, I guess it's iTunes' world and I just have to live in it. For now.

 

You would probably need (like!) to rebuild - since the Smartlist world is a great place to be. I do not think think it would be a wasted effort once you see what MC can do with Smartlists.

All my podcasts and syncing work fine - as long as your iDevice is supported.

IMPORTANT Note: Apple has (had?) a nasty habit of ensuring no other vendor could ever "talk" to the iDevices over a period a firmware updates etc a while back (say MC 17) so - J.River dev finally had to throw in the towel on trying to support every device that came down the pipe. That said - I use a recent 160GB Classic iPod and it works fine. If you are expecting MC to recognize every iDevice out there - you may be disappointed.

JRemote is quite possibly the best 10 bucks you will ever spend - as long as you have a Jriver layout (HTPC or PC) to use it with. I will assume it should work fine with the Mac as well. As far as sorting goes - you have complete control over that since you can specifically set a sort vibe for every view that JRemote picks up. You are not locked into anything. I have a bunch of custom views on mine - sorted my way.

Just some things to think about..

Cheers!

VP

 

I would just move over to JRiver and get it over with, everything will be fine.

 

That's what I did. I abandoned iTunes as soon as I possibly could have. Mind you I am PC so using iTunes was the ultimate exercise in pain.

VP

 

It's not exactly pain free on OSX

 

I completely understand folks saying to just jump in, but that ain't how my brain works.

Well, "be careful what you wish for": I'm still digging through this thread (main post excerpted in the quote below) but it looks like at least a partial solution for Windows, so maybe it'll help others.

Gotta keep hunting for a Mac solution.

This is promising. I won't go into it here since I'd have to play around with it myself to see if it works for me. I subscribe to a LOT of podcasts and they make up the lion's share of my listening these days. The ones I'm most interested in are automatically downloaded and synced to my iPod, listened to and then using smart playlists automatically removed from the device upon resync. Others I just stream through my iPad.

Yeah, read a pretty intense thread there covering that issue. It got so heated, you'd think they were, like, arguing 5.1 vs. mono, Beatles vs. Monkees, ulcers vs. heart attacks. For what it's worth, I'd mostly be using my iPad but I also have an iPod Touch and an Android phone. My phone is a pretty buggy device, so I doubt I'd pay for an app on it, even though it seems Android is better supported than iOS.

I can imagine "losing" lots and lots of hours getting all this set up. It'd be fun, but perhaps disruptive!

Thanks for the lot to think about. This puzzle is a welcome, if frustrating, escape from other, less "first world problems" matters clanging in my head.

 

I just bought an Android tablet and installed the JRiver Gizmo app, works like a charm! I'm operating 'headless' now. Jump on JRiver, it's worth the money.

 

Still learning my new J River software. Sounds great on my system but lots to learn, especially tagging. For instance, can you change data on an album directly through the software? It seems it points you toward changing and adding from the file itself.

Example: It's important to me where an album was recorded. I believe studios and rooms have theit own "sound" and would like to include it with other album information. I've found a way to add it a category but have yet to find where and how to add it and have it displayed when playing the file. The 'tag' action only brings up limited information in the action window. Any ideas out there what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks.

 

Nope. iTunes is superior for iPods using Smart Playlisting. You can even customEQ each track.

JRiver MC 20's 24Bit Audio execution is very solid. No bugs.

 

Yes, you can tag files from directly within the program. A couple of ways.

On the left make sure the panel that displays the Audio tree, Video tree, etc. is displayed
At the bottom of that panel is a place called Action Window
Click on "Tag" in the Action Window
The "Tag" area will display the tags for any file or files selected.
You can make edits in the Action Window area

Another way is to display the track in a detail view where you can see each track and info like track length for each track.
Click on a field to select. Pause briefly. Click again. You'll now be able to edit that field directly in the detail view.
Or instead of doing the click, pause, click thing do a click to select and then hit F2.

And remember, ctrl-z is your friend. If you make a mistake while editing tags you can hit ctrl-z to undo the change. Or go to the Edit menu and select "Undo".

 

I downloaded this tonight. It's importing now. I figure sometime tomorrow it'll finish. I'm wondering how well it'll monitor the NAS with my files. Foobar does a horrible job. It never finds anything new without a rescan.

 

And in the Action Window tagging area there is a Tools button (looks four lines as an indented paragraph) in the upper left.
Click the Tools button.
It will display options for which tags it will show.
Along with an "Also Show" option where you can checkmark any of your custom tag fields that you want to also show.

 

JR MC 20: Recommended metadata sources that can assist with reducing the labor of love? Software?

With so many metadata and tag fields, I feel compelled to fill them all, if it enhances my music depth and discovery.

Thanks!

 

Sounds as if you need to define a new field (a Tag.) Use the Tools/Options/Libraries & Folder dialog to create a new custom field. Click on "Manage library fields" and then on "Add new field". You will probably want to the values to be stored in the music files as well as in the JRiver database so check the "save in the file tags" checkbox.

Now you can enter data for this new field using the Tag window. First you make your new field visible in the Tag window. By default, JRiver displays a default set of Tags but there are several other choices. Click on the small gear icon at the left end of the top of the Tag window (1 in the screenshot)



I use the "Show Tag in the Current view" setting. The tags shown as columns in the file list to the right will be listed in the Tag window. The left to right order in the file list will be translated to a top to bottom order in the Tag window.

To add a column for your new custom field, right-click on a Tag name above the file list. A list of fields in alphabetical order will pop-up. Click on your new field's name.

You may have to toggle the Show Tags ... setting to get JRiver to show your new tag in the tag window.

Th JRiver forum has a number of knowledgeable users and JRiver staff who can help you when you are stuck. Just don't go there with an attitude that the world is at fault for your being stuck.

 

Illustrate, the company that makes dBpoweramp, also sells a program called PerfectTunes. You can use it to scan your entire music library--it goes online and retrieves tags and album art automatically. It's not perfect, and requires some manual intervention when it can't locate something, but it's a huge time saver. I think it's $30, but when you figure what your time is worth it's a bargain. I have a huge library, and it correctly tagged all my rock, jazz, and classical albums with a dozen or so exceptions that I had to do manually.

 

I've already found a show stopper for me. No shuffle by album. The work arounds are nuts. If I want to shuffle a playlist, I would have to create another smart playlist with all track 1s, shuffle that, then create another smart playlist that contains all of those albums in the shuffled order.

 

I've never done a shuffle by album. So haven't actually tried this myself. But will the suggestions in this post work?
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=86333.msg590766#msg590766

Version 20 is in feature adding mode right now. If shuffle by album is important and you want it added to JRMC put in a suggestion in their forum. Now is the time to make those sorts of suggestions.

 

Go to Audio>Albums. Search for your album title. Select Shuffle>Play. That plays a single album in shuffle mode if that's what you are wanting.

 

I just tried the method mentioned in this thread:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=86333.msg590766#msg590766

It works. Took a little modification to make it work on my setup due because I don't have a media subtype set.
I created a smartlist with the following code:
[Media Type]=[Audio] [Complete Album]=1 [Genre]=[Hard Rock],[Rock] ~n=10 ~a
Which creates a playlist of 10 random albums that have a genre of Hard Rock or Rock.
Every time I refresh the playlist it generates 10 new random albums.
The tracks for each album are together and in the correct order.

I'm using JRMC version 19. I haven't upgraded to version 20 yet.

 

You ask a question before going to bed and wake up to several great answers.

Is this place great, or what?