Registered: Feb 2003
Location: Salem,MA
Posts: 28

Since there seems to be a vocal number of people both for and against the J River Media Center software and company I figured a poll would be a good way to give a better view of this and try to come to a concensus on this alternative to tivo desktop.

Chris M

Edit: For the record I voted Great Product - Great Support and I do not in any way shape of form work for this company.

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Registered: Mar 2002
Location:
Posts: 69

I didn't like Media Center at all.
It tries to do too much and it ends up doing nothing well at all.

The TiVo Desktop does all that I need it to do...

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Registered: Feb 2003
Location: Illinois / St Louis Metro East
Posts: 471

The product is interesting and has potential but, like pin87a said, it tries to do too many things and does very few of them very well. The one thing I wanted it to do was to display the artist AND trackname for each entry in a folder on Tivo. Even Tivo Server can do this if files are named "artist - trackname.mp3". Media Server insists on only displaying the trackname ID3 tag. I have many folders that contain mp3's from various artists. When using Media Server to browse a folder like this, I'm presented with a list of song titles with no way of seeing who the artist is (unless you play the song or go into the info screen). I was told by JimH that this ability was added in a later build but, unless I just can't find it, it wasn't. Nothing I've tried will display the files like Tivo Server. I have no interest in separating each MP3 into a specific "artist" subdirectory as this would result in hundreds of artist directories that have only 1 or 2 MP3's each. The only time I use an artist\album\trackname hierarchy is for full CD's I've ripped.

I really wanted it to work for me but, as some of you may recall from a past thread, I had such a problem with their tech support and customer service that I gave up. I experienced the worst treatment I have ever received from a company from these people. Even if they came out with a version that addressed every problem and was "perfect", I would still not buy this product strictly based on the horrendous treatment I received from them.

I'm sure there are those out there that feel the folks at JRiver are great and that Media Center is the best thing to come around since Tivo. Regarding the product...each person has to make their own decision as it's a subjective thing. However, regarding their support...well...search through some of the older threads and judge for yourself.

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2 Phillips DVR704's - stock
TiVo Series 2 - 80 Hour - Lifetime - HMO
TiVo Series 2 - 80 Hour - Monthly - HMO

"To err is human. To moo...bovine"

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Registered: Jul 2001
Location: Kansas City, MO
Posts: 7870

I messed with it a bit as an alternative to ephpod.

I remain unconvinced.

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Walk down to the railroad track and ride a rusty train
With a million other faces I shoot through the city veins
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye old friend
You wanted to be free
And somewhere beyond the bitter end is where I wanna be

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Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Nashville, TN
Posts: 1700

Neat product but I have seen some pretty poor support responses on this and other forums, the guys at J River would have been better of to just stay quiet than to have such a poor attitude with their customers.

Paraphrasing but basically responses like - no nothing wrong with the software, your tags are messed up and others where the support missed the point of the question and they seemed to belittle the user telling them how to do something when the support guy was the one that needed to be belittled for missing the point.

You won't find these type of responses in their forum as they keep it clean of any negative response- yes I have seen many posts before they got deleted and most weren't really all that bad until the person started getting angry about their posts being deleted. This is something I don't think is appropriate as the forum gives the impression of an open forum like this one yet is full of mostly positive remarks.

My personal experience is that I tested out the beta and had a number of issues that were not satisfactory so I uninstalled it and waited for the final product. When the final product came out I installed it and it said 30 day trial was up. Support response was sorry, try another computer...

They don't have to offer a 30 day try before you buy so I can't really complain much, but since there were so many things I had problems with I don't expect I am going to buy unless I can try it out again.

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Registered: Apr 2002
Location:
Posts: 77

You missed out this option. "Awesome product, awesome support."

I've found J.River VERY receptive to input on feature suggestions and bugs. Maybe the most receptive that I've ever seen in software development including when I was a product manager.

I use it for ripping CDs, playing MP3's on my PC as well as loading them to my iPod. I can't speak to HMO as in my case my home setup works better without it.

-=Tim=-

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Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Nashville, TN
Posts: 1700

quote:

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Originally posted by Timber
I've found J.River VERY receptive to input on feature suggestions and bugs. Maybe the most receptive that I've ever seen in software development including when I was a product manager.

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