# J River Media Center better than Windows MC?



## sbdman (Dec 21, 2008)

So, I've got my Windows Media Center all tweaked out, and between watching recorded over the air TV without commercials, and having tons of DVD's available on network storage, I'm thinking about trying out J River MediaCenter because it has some nice audio DSP tools.

The biggest problem with WMC7, is not having the ability to watch a Blu-Ray disc. I have to launch Power DVD, and then loose most of my remote control capabilities (only pause and stop seem active), as well as the "10 foot interface" that makes WMC7 so easy to control. To back up, I have to get out my mini-keyboard with the trackball to grab the timeline and drag it back, or try to see from across the room where the FR or FF buttons which are difficult to click at a distance.

So is another $50 worth it to see if having some easier control of viewing, equalizing - it's got Linkwitz-Transform for the sub, too? I don't see giving up WMC with tools like "Showanalyzer" to mark commercials for automatic skipping; "Media Center Master" for adding synopsis, backdrops, actor, rating, and a bunch of other information into my DVD-BD folders; "Media Center Studio" to streamline the WMC7 interface, and make it's theme more presentable and simpler to navigate; "Media Browser Configurator" to add themes to your libraries that present all the files in your folders, and all the info from MCM in a professional presentation. Not to mention the tweaks to add MKV, flac, and other codecs to Windows. 

I don't think J River has that kind of flexibility or extensibility, yet? Anyone have experience with it, and won't go back to WMC?


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## Jasonpctech (Apr 20, 2010)

Well, you and I both have the same idea. Yes you can keep all the pluses you have now. visit Jriver's forums look for MCPlayClose then I use MyMovies to choose default associations use JRMC to play all video media except recorded TV. I love the DSP sound in JRMC and video quality is unmatched even with bluray. The only issue I have is transitioning out of JRMC requires closing JRMC twice. Weird but manageable. I can't yet just use JRMC like you I would miss my legacy WMC options. Also if my AVR ever died I would just hook amps directly to my PC seeing JRiver handles audio so well.


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## sbdman (Dec 21, 2008)

So, if I understand this, WMC7 is the front end, MCPlayClose would be Media Browser Configurator's "external player" tab and whatever filetypes I wanted WMC7 to send to JRMC would be added (except for wtv files)?

What about actual DVD or BD structures - is the filetype for those video_ts.ifo or index.bdmv?

EDITED BY ADMIN: Link removed because of Malware warning from URL.


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