JRiver Media Center Owner's Thread - Page 9

It's probably possible to do. You could add a tag called "Set", for example, then use Theater View Customization to add it to a view.

Hi guys,

After lurking in this thread for some time now, I figured I would jump in as well. First off, I installed JRMC on my highest performance rig first, my games machine. With an i7-26000k overclocked to 4.5 ghz and using a Radeon HD 6970, RO HQ runs flawlessly, even without LAVCUVID (since I am not using an Nvidia card) and the PQ is great! Unfortunately, that machine is not my HTPC...

My HTPC is running an i3-2500 (edit: oops, that is an i3-2100) using the built in Intel graphics, so I have no separate video card...as yet. Since I understand that in order to achieve the highest quality output and smooth, stutter free playback I should use an Nividia card so that I can use LAVCUVID and hardware acceleration, my question is this:

Which card do you recommend that I buy? I am not looking for the cheapest card that will work, but I also do not want to spend more on a card than I need to for horsepower that is not needed for this type of application. So, what is the "sweet spot" card to buy right now that gives me maximum bang for the buck and will work best in my low end Sandy Bridge machine?

Also, to address some other things I have noticed in this thread, I am also one who will be looking forward to a guide from Green Eyez (and/or anyone else who is willing to put in the time and effort to do the same thing). Green Eyez, when your guide is complete, please start a new thread and reserve a bunch of posts right away for future additions to the guide. PM me when you are ready and I will sticky the thread and close it and then just open it for you when you need to make changes and additions. This thread will remain open and be used for discussion purposes. After reading the same old question over and over again in this thread, please be sure to mention that JRMC works within its own environment and will not mess with other setups/codecs/installations already on your PC as early as possible in the guide...

The first thing I noticed is that JRMC already solved one of my particular problems...subtitle playback and the honoring of the "forced" flag. JRMC plays back subs in both .IDX format (even at resolutions higher than 720X480, something that my Sage HD300 cannot do) and PGS format (something that my current HTPC setup cannot do), AND it honors the "forced" flag (thank God!). So far, for playback of my .MKV formatted remuxed Blu-ray titles, JRMC just works, and works incredibly well, right out of the box, a major breakthrough in my opinion.

As far as media management and display is concerned, one of the posts I read suggested simply using Media Browser and launching JRMC as an external player, much the way we (or at least some of us) do now. Though I haven't tried it as yet, just because my entire theater is down for the moment because of a failed pre/pro... , this seems like a very easy and effective solution for the time being. Like everyone else, I would like to use JRMC as a single solution for all of my needs, including media management, but being the lazy SOB that I am, I would also like to see something that works in a more familiar way to what I am used to, like Media Center Master and Media Browser. Learning yet a whole new way to deal with meta data at my old age is just too much like work...

Regardless, it didn't take me any more than about 1 hour after I installed JRMC to decide that it would be my new player of choice, so as far as I am concerned, $50 is a steal for a player that works as well and sets up as easily as JRMC does. Kudos to Jim and the gang for a program well done!

I have the i3-2100 on one machine and the i5-2500 on a machine. I think the i5 (with 3000HD GPU) is enough to run almost every BD at RO+HQ setting. i did get a a few dropped frames during heavy action scenes. On my i3, I added an nVidia GT440. I have no issues running HQ on that system with LAV CUVID. I also have a Core 2 Duo E8400 system with the nVidia GTS450. I don't think you will ever need more graphics power than that. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130663 Just be sure to get a card with the DDR5 memory.

Bob,
Thanks very much. You made my day.

Jim

Hi Bob - here were some testing results and discussion on various cards
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=65679.0
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=64782.0

Basically, a 450 or 550Ti is the current sweet spot (just don't make a mistake like me with my noisy first purchase!)

I'm looking forward to the guide as well. So far I am pretty impressed with JRMC on the audio end of things, it seems to do that quite well, and numerous options to customize the audio how I like it.

Now as for video.....I have already invested time into setting up WMC, MediaBrowser + Media Center Master and so far is working out great. Has anyone here switched their entire WMC setup to JRMC?

The only thing that may keep me using WMC is the fact that I have the Ceton card installed with my cablecard so I do tend to record my shows on a weekly basis.

I have new parts on order now to build my new server soon so I am thinking I could migrate JRMC to use for my audio collection and will have to ponder on whether it will be worth it to move my video collection over to it as well. I think I read somewhere that DVD quality is pretty good with JRMC.... haven't tested the video features yet (more focused on audio at the moment) but from what I have been reading so far on DVD playback, looks like a winner!

If you follow the TV Cards And TV thread on JRiver, you find that the Ceton is not supported at this time. http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=62924.0 But I can tell you that the standard Hauppauge TV Tuners work fine. I have two different models in two HTPCs and they work in MC.

I hope the developers focus on fine-tunning the TV stuff now (since the Audio and Video features are working so well). Perhaps someone from JRiver can give us a hint of what their working on, or planning for the future regarding "TV Cards and TV".

I agree. I also wonder why they seem unwilling to discuss support for DVB-S/S2/T2 which we use here in europe..?

Here's your chance to explain, jriver...

Heheh...That was a typo in my post. I meant to say that I have an i3-2100...bottom end SB processor...

Looking at the cards on Newegg, I decided on a Asus GTX550Ti (factory OC'd to 975 mhz) unless anyone knows any reason not to buy that particular card (like it being noisy). I've never bought an Asus video card, but have always been happy with their other products.

Since we are having a small hurricane today here in RI, I plan on playing with the library/tagging functions to see how it works out for me.

We don't have a way to test them (from Chicago or Minneapolis). If anyone knows a way, please say so.

Yeah I read that thread and the primary reason is because of the annoying DRM. So WMC for now will be the only choice for cable TV watching....can use JRMC for everything else. I do however have the Hauppauge 1250 card so may test that sometime soon with MC.





Hope you guys don't get pounded up there on the coast....no evacuations in your area?

I've used some Asus products before (motherboards) and were always regarded as good quality. The card you listed has top reviews so let me know how well that card works should you decide to get it.

I'm looking at that same card, please report back if you get it


I'm so jealous! I seriously forgot what rain feels like. Worst drought it recorded history here, and supposed to be 112* today. and no, I'm NOT in Phoenix; but central TX, I really want some of your rain. My 40' tall Maple (very rare here) is dying from the drought, and water restrictions make it difficult to resolve that legally/easily


I actually just use WMC to record stuff, then JRMC imports it automatically from my recorded TV folder, then I use MC to watch, and tag if necessary.

Sadly, JRMC doesn't read the wtv tags, so I get this to decide if i want to watch a show WMC recorded...

NOVA_KLRUDT_2011_08_19_00_59_00

which isn't as helpful as a show description.

there are ways to get around this, but aren't worth the effort if this can be fixed by J River quickly. I'm sure once J River decides to spend some more time on this, these little things that really kill the experience can be resolved, and i can use it for TV too.

How I parsed out just the show name in a view scheme, so at least they'd group, I haven't resolved the description problem yet...

there are easier ways to do this, but this was done first, and works, so i left it alone

Bob,

I just installed one yesterday in our HTPC and initial observations are wonderful!

At this point I only have used it in Sage - Shortly after installing it it was our movie time to watch Sage Recordings. My first reaction was in seeing the text in Sage - it was sharp! I previously thought things looked good on our 50" Panasonic Plasma but this new card made a big improvement.

I built our HTPC a little less than a year ago. We have been using the onboard graphics from the Gigabyte GA-880GA-UD3H MOBO. CPU is an Athlon II x4 635.

We then watched a movie recorded from HD cable. A big improvement. We finally have what I thought HD should be. Perhaps I didn't have some settings correct with the onboard GPU as I didn't think the new card would make this kind of improvement.

Today I'm going to spend a little time trying to get RO HQ going in JRMC. Should be interesting to see how much better things can get. We have used JRMC for a long time but primarily for audio. It is exceptional. With all the good reports about RO HQ I'm looking forward to using it for video and hopefully TV.

Sorry if this post was a little OT since I used Sage for our initial observations. I just wanted to get the word out that thus far I am very pleased with the card. I'll try to report here later about my results with JRMC. Oh yes, the fan noise thus far is not an issue, but it may change when we get RO HQ going. I chose this 550 card over the Gigabyte one that Jmone uses because we needed a Dsub output for a local monitor besides the DVI.

Rod

That is NO problem. I can setup a new W7 pc over here with both DVB-S2 and DVB-T2 that you can have full access to 24/7 using Radmin or Splashtop remote management.
This is a serious suggestion. Please PM me and we'll set it up.

That's a very generous offer. Thank you. I'll let Yaobing know. He's on vacation for a few days, so it won't be immediately.

Bob, can you tell me how you configured the program to display only forced subs without having to select the subs? I can't seem to make this work properly. I am referring to MKV with subs muxed into the stream and "forced" flag set using MKVMerge.

Thanks.

Subtitle settings are under Tools/Options/Video.

Try both Red October Standard and HQ settings in the same place.

Make sure you have the most recent build. It's at the top of the MC16 board here:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=22.0

Still no joy on forced subs. I must be doing something wrong, but I don't know this software well enough to know what it is.

Is the subtitle setting, perhaps, supposed to be set to display subs with the splitter setting set to display only forced? That's about the only thing I can think of that I haven't tried.

Maybe a guide on proper configuration of the various settings would be helpful.

Try another file/disk....

I have this card installed with MadVR and LAVcuvid...and MPHC
which from what I gather is similar to Red October under JRiver.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125367

I chose this one cause it uses a LARGER than
normal Fan...ie 10cm... Versus 8cm
which runs very quiet...
and it uses high grade components..
and has 3year warranty
(although most seem to have this ..in this class of Vcard).

Only warning ...is the card uses MINI HDMI
so you will need a cable with this end connector.

They do provide a HDMI to Mini HDMI convertor...in the package
but my PC case..had issues with that
as it had a ridge right up against the Mini HDMI input...

So I had to provide a new HDMI to Mini HDMI cable
...and thus the Mini HDMI end was less wide
and fitted perfectly on my case

You can also use a DVI -> HDMI Adapter, worked like a charm for me. For some reason the Mini-HDMI didn't work properly.

From my understanding mc16 doesnt respect lav splitter subtitle settings, just its own settings. When i play a video and try to change Lav splitter settings it reverts back to default settings. In any case you could try this:

1) change particular forced subtitle language in mkvmergui header editor to any language other than english.

2) In mc16 change preferred subitle language to language you just chose.

3)Then in mc16 subtitle mode select "show subtitle in select language if available"

Most of my files are mkv so it works, but I don't know if this adversely affects original forced subtitles in dvd, bluray isos etc.

I don't know about using MKV with forced subs, but I can tell you that ripping BDs with Clown_BD to m2ts format works well. So far I have not seen any of my rips that have had an issue displaying the forced subtitles. I just watched the The Tourist last night - which is loaded with forced subs. I don't do anything extra or change the default settings in either program. I don't know if it works because of good programming in Clown_BD or MC16, or the combination of the two, but it works.

This doesn't help you much if you have a lot of MKVs already ripped that don't work right, but perhaps going forward you may want to consider ripping to m2ts or Blu-ray folder structure and see if either would be a better choice than the mkv format.

What I find hard to understand is why this can be done properly on a cheap Sigma SOC in a media streamer (Popcorn Hour) yet is so difficult to do with far more elaborate software based programs.

BTW, just so we are talking on the same page, "proper" forced subtitle behavior I define as when subtitles are turned off in the setup of the system, the "forced" flag will still generate the appropriate subtitles on the screen. The current Popcorn Hour does this flawlessly with MKV files containing muxed in subtitles with the forced flag set using MKVMerge.

We got something fun going yesterday. If you have ripped DVD's or Blu-rays on a server, you can use our Gizmo app to watch them on Android. Looks great on something like a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.

You'll need the latest build (168 or higher) available at the top of the MC16 board
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=22.0

and the latest Gizmo from the Android market. More about Gizmo here:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Gizmo

Ok, I have a question to see if I can get some input on. I just finished building my new unRAID server yesterday and so far its running great!! Its in the testing stages right now just to see how everything works, so I was wondering if I will be able to use JRMC on my HTPC to interface with the server to stream my music? I may copy over a few music files to test it out, and I believe that I can use the Media network in JRMC to access it, no?

You can store your media on one PC and stream it to another.

In MC Options, turn on Media Network. This will generate a key you can use at another PC.
Media Network is a term we use for all MC networking features:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Media_Network

You will actually use our Library Server:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Library_Server
It can convert if necessary, for slower connections. This is set on the client side.

This page helps explain our servers:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Servers

I use unRAID and J. River together. The key is to define user shares on the unRAID server and assign them disk letters in your Windows machine. MC16 will see the user shares as local disks and treat them accordingly.

My "movies" share, disk letter M for example, is seen as 2119 files in 11 TB by MC16. This is treated like a HUGE single disk. My TV shows share is probably close to double that size.

You don't stream your music form the server; you simply play it in MC16 and it will access the data from your unRAID server as if it were a local disk. I think a lot of MC16 users are missing out on the siimplicity and capabilities of unRAID with their WHS systems, which admittedly offer some other advantages.

Gonna give the demo a shot tonight. I wish I knew it had DLNA capabilities as I just bought Mezzmo the other day. Anyone know if they are going to offer bluray support in the future?

I'm not sure what your setup is, but Bob Sorel seemed to think it was working fine in MC. Have you confirmed the same mkv doesn't work in MC16, but does on a Sigma SOC device?
I'll try to test this myself, but I believe all was working fine unless a recent build broke this. Have you configured this in Options>Video>Subtitles and Language?

Can you give me an example of a movie that has forced subs so I can test it?