J Rivers Media Jukebox

The MetroX for the J.River Media Center and Jukebox (v1.6.1)-This skin includes four different themes. The absolute best J. River MC skin in the world. This is such a clean, good looking skin! In my opinion, JRiver should make this one the default skin for the player. Very nice and nicely done! Media Monkey and other players compared to J River Media Center. Media Monkey is one that I had tried earlier this year. But they don’t seem to have a stable system for 64 bit operating systems. My installation of Media Monkey crashed enough times within 2 months of using it that I just decided to look for something else. River MEDIA JUKEBOX - 12: This multi-talented music software is for playing MP3, WMA and iTunes files, and ripping, burning and organizing a digital music collection. It is packed with features to help you enjoy your music to the max. Encodes to MP3, WMA, OGG and APE.

Need a good media player? JRiver Media Center review was one of the easiest reviews I’ve had the pleasure of conducting… J River turned out to be the right player for our media playback usesbecause it does about anything you could possibly need to get high quality audio from the PC. Its easy to use too. So what’s the problem with the old Windows Media Center and why did we switch to J River?

Why we don’t like Windows Media Center

Reviewing JRiver Media Center was necessary because…

1. Any audio processed (by Windows) gets reprocessed by the Windows Kernel streaming mixer.
This unnecessarily reconverts the digital signal depending on what you are playing back. If playing a 44.1Khz signal, that signal will be digitized into a 48Khz signal.

If you use a PC or Windows based computer you may have found the Windows Media player doesn’t quite deliver what you were hoping for.

Some of the problems with Windows media player are issues that any audiophile would consider ‘unacceptable’ for high performance playback.

2. There are no provisions on Windows Media Player for using ASIO which is the best way to get clean audio out of your computer and audio file home system theater.
These two reasons alone would be enough to justify looking at a software solution that should take care of these problems. There are a lot of possible programs on the net.

Learn how to use a Droid phone for a remote with JRiver Media Center.

Media Monkey and other players compared to J River Media Center

Media Monkey is one that I had tried earlier this year. But they don’t seem to have a stable system for 64 bit operating systems.

My installation of Media Monkey crashed enough times within 2 months of using it that I just decided to look for something else. I am sure Media Monkey will figure out their issues and get them resolved. But I didn’t have time or the patience to wait for it. I needed a music and movie playback program now.

I found the JRiver Media Center review was recommended on some of the forums I frequent. I downloaded the free ware trial and started working with it.

Dual Interface on JRiver

One thing I loved was that it could play back not just movies but music as well. I realize that Windows can do this, but not the same way…

The J River-Media-center can output the signal to two or more different outputs. And it can output in different ways too.

Let me explain…

I wanted to use ASIO to output of music. Plus, I wanted to be able to use up-sampling which the J River media center also included.

So, I can output music from 44.1 up sampled to 88.2 or 176.4Khz instead.

But if watching a movie, I need it to output the standard signal at 48Khz.

JRiver allows you to output the signal differently for movie playback or music playback. I sent the signal to the soundcard which worked the best for my system. In my case, music was output by digital coax cable. Movies were output by way of fiber optic cable (toslink) through SPDIF. Find the best CPU for your PC.

The Sound card interface

The digital signal sent from the JRiver Media Center to the ESI Julia Soundcard (ESI Juli@)which I had recently picked up. I love the ESI Juli@ sound card by the way.

For movies, I had to do things a little bit different. I used the digital output (toslink) on the motherboard because for some reason, the player liked this setting better.

I can use either but I’m still working on figuring out why my PC liked to output movie (DVD) audio in this way.

This JRiver Media center review showed me that the ‘player’ has many other functions that make it better (in my opinion) than iTunes or other well-known media players too…

You can use CTRL+ and function keys to get from one player interface to the next. I like to use ctrl+1 for the main music playing interface and ctrl+4 to get into the Media player interface.

When I’m playing music during a party or when guests are at the house the ‘Media Player’ tab will play a continuous loop of pictures that it finds on the web about your current album that is playing.

This is a really nice feature.

I’m not sure if other players do this or not but in my experience the J River makes it so easy to use, turn on and find that I something has to be said for the user experience.

Ease of use with JRiver Media Center

J River makes all of this bit perfect playback effortless. And there are almost limitless tweaking options available for the enthusiasts such as you and myself. I really like it. So, long story short… I bought the player before my trial ever got close to running out. Which is how these things are intended to work I think. You download J River Media center, use it for a bit, and if the software is excellent, you buy it. I doubt JRiver has many customers that don’t buy the software. I think it’s a bargain. I can’t believe how long I lived without it. Here’s the link to J River’s site so you can try it out for free. Enter the J-River Media Center site.

Computer Speakers and Computer Audio

Other articles from J River media Center review:

ESI Julia Soundcard (ESI Juli@)
crossover network using the PC
home theater PC
computer surround sound speaker
computer speakers
audiophile computer speakers
AMD vs Intel CPU
best computer speakers
best CPU fan
best CPU
AMD vs Intel CPU
how to upgrade CPU
HTPC build
HTPC
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media center PC
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what does CPU stand for
Room EQ wizard
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Samsung product support

Return to;

JRiver Media Center
Developer(s)JRiver
Initial release1998; 22 years ago
Stable release25.0.18 (April 3, 2019; 20 months ago[1]) [±]
Written inC++
Operating systemWindows, Linux, and OS X
Available in
TypeMedia player
LicenseProprietary
Websitewww.jriver.com

JRiver Media Center is a multimedia application that allows the user to play and organize various types of media on a computer running Windows, macOS, or Linuxoperating systems.

JRiver Media Center is a 'jukebox'-style media player, like iTunes, which usually uses most of the screen to display a potentially very large library of files.

Regular (usually daily beta) builds are posted on the Media Center Interact forum implementing requested features and fixing reported bugs. The forum has an active user community, with more than 25,000 users as of 2011.

Also available for JRiver Media Center are an Audioscrobbler plugin, and G-Force, a popular visualisation.

It can also rip and burn CDs. Media Center also supports static and dynamic playlists.

The system also allows users of intelligent powered loudspeakers to use paired devices in stereo configuration, previously only possible without Jriver.

Library system[edit]

JRiver Media Center organizes files using Media Libraries; these are effective databases. Media Center can support multiple libraries.

Information relating to media is imported into the library, including meta data for media files and the path to the media files. The media files themselves are not contained in the database, but cataloged within the libraries.

Version 12 of JRiver Media Center added support for auto-importing of media, whereby JRiver Media Center continually watches designated directories for changes in media. If a new file is dropped into the directory, JRiver Media Center will add the file to its library. Each library can contain any type of media, video, audio, images etc.

View schemes[edit]

View Schemes are the main way to browse through files in Media Center. Views can be created which help users see different parts of their library; these are effectively the same as database views. They are based on using metadata as criterion for creating a filtered list of files.

The view system is very powerful and fully customizable. For example, a view could be made which shows only audio files in MP3 format which are longer than 3 minutes, or images taken in Africa in the year 2006.

For ease of use, several default views exist which show files of a specified type only, including: audio, images, or video.

Various view items, or panes, can be aligned to the top, left, right, or moved in drop-down menus, that can be used to further filter results. For example, one of the default views, artist/album, allows selecting a specific artist or album, or both, and shows files from that album or artist only.

Once a view is created, it is automatically saved in the library and can be opened in the various user interfaces and searched using a real-time search box. The searches are customizable and possible on any field or tag in the library.

Playlists[edit]

JRiver Media Center allows the creation of playlists. It also can export playlists as M3U, M3U8, ASX, MPL, CSV.

Smartlists[edit]

Smartlists are similar to playlists except that rather than selecting a list of songs, the list is governed by a set of rules. For example, a smartlist might take every video file which was produced in 1994. Smartlists can be based on Playlists. They are defined using an expression language. Media Center provides a wizard style dialogue box to simplify creating these.

An added benefit of a smartlist over a basic playlist is that a smartlist is dynamic; it will update itself whenever new files that meet its criteria are added to the library. For example, one could create a smartlist to show all tracks with the genre tagged Indie Rock. If a new album were added to Media Center's library that had the Indie Rock genre tag, Media Center would automatically add those files to the smartlist.

User interfaces[edit]

JRiver Media Center provides four different user interfaces for use in different situations. Each user interface is skinnable.

Standard view[edit]

Standard view combined with a third-party skin
J river media jukebox

Media Jukebox 12 Free Download

Through the default Media Center UI for desktop environment the user is exposed to all of the core multimedia features, such as:

  • Accessing portable players
  • Creating/editing playlists, smartlists, and views
  • Setting up TV stations
  • Accessing web media

Standard view occupies a large amount of screen space, can be viewed in either full screen or as a window mode, and it consists of the following components:

  • Tree: allow for hierarchical navigation between different views of the Media Library
  • Action Window: provides quick access to common tasks, such as ripping/burning
  • Header: presents the playback controls and options for selected track
  • Playing Now: displays current playlist items
  • Panes/Thumbnails: aid in simple point and click media browsing
  • Tagging panes: allows tagging media files

Theater view[edit]

Theater view in Media Center

While the Standard and Mini views are designed to be used in front of a desktop or laptop computers, Media Center includes an additional 10-foot user interface called the 'Theater view'.

This is made to work on a large screen, such as a television, projector or large computer screen. The interface is made to work in a 10-foot mode, i.e. from a living room sofa using remote controls, rather than the conventional mouse and keyboard.

As of JRiver Media Center 12, Theatre view relies on Microsoft's DirectX graphics engine. With this, Media Center uses 3D and 2D Animation to create a more visually appealing interface, which more nearly resembles that of a digital recording box, or DVD player.

The Theater view doesn't provide the editing interfaces of Standard view, but instead provides much more accessible access to the different views of the library. All the buttons in Theater view are large, and tend to move to different pages to display different information.

Theater view also provides access to the weather, news websites and RSS feeds.

Mini view[edit]

Mini view is similar to that of Winamp. It's designed to take up minimal screen space while still providing access to basic controls. Mini view skins are different from the other UI skins seen in Media Center in that they can employ JavaScript to make them more dynamic. Mini views are far more flexible than the other types of skins, allowing Media Center to take various shapes and forms using transparency effects.

Networking[edit]

JRiver Media Center provides network access to its libraries using different server plugins.

Library server
Library server allows JRiver Media Center to share its active library with up to five client machines. This is designed for situations where a server machine with large resources is set up in one area, and clients such as laptops with smaller resources can access media elsewhere.
TiVo server
JRiver Media Center supports TiVo's Home Media option, allowing TiVo to stream video and audio.
Review
UPnP and DLNA servers

Web services integration[edit]

  • Netflix (deprecated; no longer available)

Plugins[edit]

JRiver Media Center uses COM support to provide access to its SDK library. This allows plugins to be written in a wide variety of languages including:

  • Object Pascal (Delphi)

A variety of plugins can be developed for specific components and purposes:

  • Theater view plugins: allows creating extensions to Theater view
  • Interface plugins: provide interface extensions for Standard view
  • DSP plugins: allows directly manipulating sound processing
  • Display plugins: allow creation of different visualizations
  • Input plugins: can be used to add new formats to Media Center, which are not supported naively

It is also possible to create 'Track Info' visualizations that are created in HTML to display information about the currently playing Media. These can be extended further using the various web languages around such as JavaScript.

A full list of available plugins can be found in the Accessories section on the official website.[2]

J River Media Jukebox 12

Media formats[edit]

JRiver Media Center supports a wide range file formats among audio files, video files, photos and documents. A full lists of supported formats can be found on the JRiver Media Center wiki; (supported audio formats, supported video formats, and supported image formats). DirectShow is supported, allowing the playing of any video or audio format for which a DirectShow Filter is available, and installed.

Supported hardware[edit]

  • Amazon Echo powered intelligent loudspeakers.
  • Android-based devices
  • iOS-based: iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch
  • Universal Plug and Play (UPnP)
  • Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA)

Scheduler[edit]

JRiver Media Center provides a scheduling tool which allows playing/recording of media at certain times.

Media Jukebox[edit]

JRiver Media Center's predecessor was named JRiver Media Jukebox, until the rebranding to JRiver Media Center for version 9. In November 2007, J. River released Media Jukebox 12, a stripped-down version of JRiver Media Center 12, which is available to download for free, compared to JRiver Media Center's price of $49.98. JRiver Media Jukebox includes most of the audio features of Media Center; the image and video functions are removed. The last version of JRiver Media Jukebox was version 14.0.166. However, the version 14 removed several features previously available for free (specifically CD and cover art lookup) and now only available in the Media Center product. As such many still use the older free version of JRiver Media Jukebox 12.0.534.

Version history[edit]

Major versionLatest versionInitial ReleaseSignificant changes
9.0[3]May 5, 2003
  • Initial Media Center Release. Was Media Jukebox previously.
10.0Apr 9, 2004
  • Improved Action Window
  • ThunderStorm skin
  • Media Mode Buttons
  • Streamlined Tree
  • 3D Visualizations[4]
11.0[5]Jul 18, 2005
  • Split Views
  • Faster database
  • Theater View enhancements
  • New Image Editor
  • Audible integration
  • UPnP support
  • Video CD playback
  • Multi-channel support (5.1, 7.1, etc.) for WAV and WMA files
12.0.151[6]12.0.534Jan 23, 2007
  • New 'Display View'
  • Search & Sort speedups
  • New tag system
  • Background (auto) import and folder watching
  • DirectShow controls
  • Display Action Window
  • New look[7]
13.0.113[6]13.0.172Jan 28, 2009
  • New Theater View
  • Skin
  • TV Recording was rebuilt
  • Cover art auto lookup
  • See reference for detailed list[8]
14.0.46[6]14.0.161Aug 7, 2009
  • Native support of DirectShow
  • Headphone DSP
  • Improved tagging
  • Surround Sound output
  • Room Correction
  • Photoshop(psd) support
  • Video tagging
  • Hulu integration
  • general speedups[9]
15.0.35[6]15.0.174May 5, 2010
  • WebRemote
  • Portable Settings
  • Kernel Streaming
  • Cover View[10][11]
16.0.75[6]16.0.176Apr 28, 2011
  • Netflix integration
  • Play Doctor
  • Intelligent Search
  • Set Top Box support
  • Play From Play To
  • Relational DB Fields
  • madVR Video Renderer[12][13]
17.0.22[6]17.0.189Apr 10, 2012
  • Super Audio CD ISO playback
  • Gapless iTunes encoded MP3 playback
  • Resample by sample rate
  • Red October Improvements
  • Commercial skipping[14]
18.0.78[6]18.0.212Nov 27, 2012
  • Video to Audio conversion
  • ZoneSwitch
  • Multi-drive ripping for BD and DVD
  • AIFF and ALAC encoding
  • Desktop background slideshow
  • Red October HQ
  • Windows 8 support[15]
19.0.32[6]19.0.163Aug 30, 2013
  • Native CD Art Display
  • TV EPG download scheduling
  • User accounts
  • RAW image support
  • Real-time DSD output and improved volume leveling[16]
20.0.1020.0.132Aug 28, 2014
  • DSP over DLNA
  • WDM Driver
  • Linked Tracks (always play together)[17]
21.0.521.0.90Sep 11, 2015
  • 4K improvements for high DPI displays
  • Shared Views - backup / share views
  • DSP Presets can be saved / loaded
  • DSP per file
  • 4x DSD delivered as DoP
  • 3D Blu-ray and MKV 3D support
  • Volume Leveling uses additional headroom
  • Touch screen support for images
  • JRemote Android App is now available[18]
22.0.1522.0.97Aug 5, 2016
  • Single Frame Video Playback
  • Open Subtitles Lookup
  • Listening Test
  • Theater view for Mac/Linux
  • Theater View Lighting - Control lighting
  • View Extras
  • Sox Resampler
  • Panel—a web app remote[19]
23.0.723.0.102Summer 2017
  • Panel—a web app remote
  • JRiver's WDM driver works with Tidal and WASAPI Exclusive Mode
  • Auto-fill Car Radio Buttons
  • PowerPlay
  • Radio KISS
  • HTTPS/SSL—Secure Connections
  • WavPack DSD
  • Support for Artwork.zip[20]
24.0.?May 2018
  • Blu-ray Menus
  • UHD Blu-ray Title Playback
  • ZoneSync
  • Zone Groups—similar to Playlist Groups
  • TV Post-Process Command[21]

See also[edit]

J River Media Jukebox 14 Free

References[edit]

Jriver Media Center Windows 10

  1. ^'Release Notes MC24'. Retrieved December 9, 2018.
  2. ^Pixtudio. 'JRiver - Media Center'. Accessories.jriver.com. Retrieved November 1, 2017.
  3. ^'JRiver Media Center 9 Released'. Hydrogenaud.io. Retrieved November 1, 2017.
  4. ^'J.River Media Center 10.0 Released'. Hydrogenaud.io. Retrieved November 1, 2017.
  5. ^'J Rivers Media Center Version 11 Released - What's New?'. Cocoontech.com. Retrieved November 1, 2017.
  6. ^ abcdefgh'J. River Media Center'. Digital-digest.com. Retrieved November 1, 2017.
  7. ^'J. River Media Center 12 Released - AVS Forum - Home Theater Discussions And Reviews'. Avsforum.com. Retrieved November 1, 2017.
  8. ^'Some of the New Features in MC13'. Yabb.jriver.com. Retrieved November 1, 2017.
  9. ^'MC14 Features - JRiverWiki'. Wiki.jrmediacenter.com. Retrieved November 1, 2017.
  10. ^'Archived copy'. Archived from the original on October 14, 2015. Retrieved July 3, 2013.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  11. ^'New MC15 Features and How to Upgrade'. Yabb.jriver.com. Retrieved November 1, 2017.
  12. ^'New MC16 Features and How to Upgrade'. yabb.jriver.com.
  13. ^'Media Center 16'. Yabb.jriver.com. Retrieved November 1, 2017.
  14. ^'New Features in MC17'. Yabb.jriver.com. Retrieved November 1, 2017.
  15. ^'New Features in MC18'. Yabb.jriver.com. Retrieved November 1, 2017.
  16. ^'New Features in MC19'. Yabb.jriver.com. Retrieved November 1, 2017.
  17. ^'New Features in MC20'. yabb.jriver.com. Retrieved March 3, 2018.
  18. ^'New Features in MC21'. yabb.jriver.com. Retrieved March 3, 2018.
  19. ^'New Features in MC22'. yabb.jriver.com. Retrieved March 3, 2018.
  20. ^'New in JRiver MC23'. yabb.jriver.com. Retrieved March 3, 2018.
  21. ^'New Features in MC24'. yabb.jriver.com. Retrieved March 3, 2018.

External links[edit]

  • Official website

J River Media Jukebox 15

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