JRiver Media Center Discussion

A central thread for all JRMC stuff.

JRMC 27 has just been released, and one of the new features is the ability to load VST3 plugins. I did some playing around, and sure enough it works. However I noticed terrible sluggishness in the UI and traced it back to the VST3 plugins taking forever to load. This is actually not a JRMC issue, but this is likely the place folks will get caught by it.

I used Blue Cat Patchwork's standalone host to test load times of a relatively heavy config that has DSP for 5 different transducers in it, each with 4 plugins. If I use VST3 plugins, the config takes 37 odd seconds to load. If I switch them all to standard VST, it loads in 3.2 seconds. If I reduce it to just a single config for one transducer I get 0.8 seconds.

This is the difference between JRMC being basically unusable and being responsive.

 

Jriver has been focusing on movie and TV (?!?) playback for years. Apparently the 3 people left in the world watching TV on their computers are more important to focus on than the entire audio market. Also, the only way to contact them is to join their e-cult/forum, where they will typically take your carefully made bug reports and do steps 1 and 4 of 6 and then declare the bug non-reproducible.

The instant a decent alternative appears I'll be switching.

 

Agree. Since I started using Roon I still use JRiver on my PC. Roon SQ is great from a decent endpoint but not on the same box as a Roon server. But I did not buy v27 and one of the reasons is the email I got today: eliminate your cable bill with JRiver TV. Are they really getting so confused? Anyone who wanted to eliminate the cable bill did it years ago, If they do not have anything interesting tell me about audio then it's time for something else.

 

Hah, yeah I think they really are that confused. I wish they would look at Roon and get a clue. It would be awesome if Jriver had the option to use the same oversampling filters, or at least had an option to hook into HQplayer or similar algorithms. But then, you can't expect much from people who cannot understand the concept of a preamp in a digital audio pipeline. They actually have a resampler that clips at the very start of the Jriver pipeline and no way to put a preamp before it, so there's unavoidable clipping. I even tried to explain this to them but it was like trying to explain calculus to a sack of potatoes.

 

How's the stability of the program as a whole these days? I started way back around 12 and I'm still on 22, but every time I read about the new ones it seems like things aren't really much better.

 

I do not see any major issues stability with v26 on Windows 10. But since ve 23 I see nothing exciting about audio either
Look at the highlighted changes/"enhancements" in 26, 80% has shit to do with audio. And e-books and comics are the "best". I am not paying a penny more for JRiver. @b0dhi is right, they decided that audio is not important anymore.


NEW in MC26
« on: November 25, 2019, 03:09:53 pm »

NEW: Cloudplay on Remotes

NEW: TitanTV Guide Support

NEW: DLNA Audio Path display and DSP changes in Audio Path.

NEW: HEIF/HEIC Image support

NEW: E-Books

NEW: Comics

NEW: Playlist Ratings

NEW: Cloudplay on Remotes

NEW: Radio JRiver on Remotes

NEW: Showtime -- Theater View video enhancements to add pre-movie videos.

NEW: Adobe Photoshop compatibility

 

I've been using it for a year, audio only mode. I like it, used foobar for decade before. I just listen to lossless files, don't EQ don't use plugins. Wasapi/Unison and done. I like the internal volume adjustment, I use it to lower down to -6db for hot recordings and high gain amps like liquid platinum. Soon I'll build and try PI2AES since everyone can't stop telling me how much better it is.

 

I'm on v25 and haven't seen any stability issues, though I've seen plenty of other types of bugs.

 

I'm on V27, no issues with stability on Win10. Again an upgrade recently to allow VST3 is audio related and pretty cool in my book - but the loading performance is debilitating. Just to be clear this is NOT a JRMC issue, I see this with Blue Cat's standalone loader as well, so it could be just VST3 as a whole, or Blue Cat. So to say there is no focus on audio is not entirely fair.

 

There have been more improvements in the audio processing than what you list.
One example is HDCD detecting and decoding. The latest versions of JRMC can detect files with HDCD and decode it on playback.
There have been other improvements in the audio processing as well. And improvements in stability and Windows 10 support and general bug fixes. I don't keep a list because the specific improvements aren't the reasons that I upgrade to the latest version every year. I upgrade to support the company so that I can continue to have this software into the future. The upgrades are only like $20 per year. Which is a trivial expense in my audio gear and music purchase budget. So I just do it every year.

 

HDCD is not exactly a major feature. VST3 is also a fairly minor enhancement and even that they messed up. I read every changelist up to v27 and there were no significant improvements to audio.

If you want there to be audio improvements the last thing you should be doing is rewarding them by paying them for doing diddly squat.

 

I consider HDCD detection and decoding to be a very nice feature. HDCD titles and other recordings done using the Pacific Microsonics AD converter have multibit magic. They're very nice recordings with the Schiit multibits. They have the multibit magic. I own over 250 CDs that have HDCD and some high-res that was done using the Pacific Microsoincs. If you have a Schiit multibit the HDCD detection and decoding is especially nice. Even with a lesser DAC the HDCD decoding is a very useful and handy added feature. The fact that JRMC can now scan your entire library and find recordings that have HDCD is very nice.

Video improvements in JRMC do get more visibility because video in general is more visible. Plus video standards and such change more rapidly than audio. So the video related changes are going to be more visible in the changelogs. JRiver has two developers who specialize in the video related stuff. There is one developer doing audio stuff and other stuff. And a couple other developers who work on the rest and a mix of stuff (like the mobile apps and the server related stuff). With two developers doing the video stuff there is going to be more changes there, but video is also something that needs that amount of work to keep up.

I've worked as a software developer. The reason I can afford the audio toys I have is because people paid for the software I worked on. I return the favor to other developers. I know how much work it takes to develop software. I am willing to pay others for what I know they are doing. If nobody pays for JRMC the software won't stay around and the developers will be out of work. So I pay. I also pay for free software that I use and find useful. Because if nobody does that software may go away. Developers need to eat and buy toys.

Since I've been a software developer I look at the changelogs JRiver posts and can understand the work that actually is necessary to implement and maintain those changes. The developers at JRiver aren't just sitting back and playing around. There is a lot of work going on in the background to maintain and develop the software that doesn't show up in the changelogs.

 

I'm a software and systems engineer. Most of the things you just said are rubbish. "Video improvements in JRMC do get more visibility because video in general is more visible", this is hilariously bad reasoning. Also, evidently you don't understand the concept that if you continue rewarding a developer for doing things you don't like (by paying them to do so), you incentivise them to continue doing so. By the sounds of it you're one of the cultists on their e-cult/forum - I hope the other people reading this can now get a sense of why that forum is such a toxic shithole.

 

I'm not a JRiver cultist. I'm also not a dick. If you're having problems on their forum that's on you.
I've been using JRiver software since the days of Jukebox version 8 (circa 2004). The software works for what I need it to do and want it to do. It was one of the first players to do proper gapless playback. It is not perfect. The UI is dated. The UI is like a blast from the 90s back when FoxPro applications were a thing. I'd like to see some improvements to the UI to bring it up to date and more modern standards. But I can deal. The trend now is to mobile app to control. So I expect that is what they're going to focus on for UI improvements. For UI I prefer MusicBee. But for everything else I prefer JRiver.

 

You, my friend, are not the sole business value case for JRiver. Being a software engineer is also very far from running a business, let alone a successful one. I hope there's enough oxygen up on that high horsie of yours.

 

Another Jriver cultist, how sad. Not a single brain between the lot of you.

 

One of the skills that is necessary in software QA and dev is how to report bugs and suggestions to devs and project managers in ways that will get those issues accepted and acted on. I've been able to report bugs and suggestions to JRiver on their forum and not had any conflict. And some of those bugs and suggestions have been implemented. I wonder why?

 

Because your overlords at the Jriver e-cult/forum reward your pathetic serfdom by giving you a crumb of gratification from time to time.

 

I do not want free software from JMRC, I was upgrading for years and would be happy to continue. But I see no reason to pay for new version of the software that increasingly includes plenty of features I do not need or want.
I am already paying for Roon, Qobuz etc.. I like JRiver for SQ on desktop but v26 will last me long time.
You said it yourself, video is important to them, it is more visible: two developers on video, one on audio. I hope they will do well but they have to sell it to someone else.