Why MC?

GO TO ADMIN PANEL > ADD-ONS AND INSTALL VERTIFORO SIDEBAR TO SEE FORUMS AND SIDEBAR

duke74

New member
Joined
Mar 8, 2004
Messages
16
Points
0
HI:

I finally got my ipod and have been playing around with different software packages for the ipod. After trying MC for a couple of hours I wonder: why would someone use MC with their ipods? I mean does it have features that I missed or is it completely useless now that itunes is around? Does it have any advantage over itunes whatsoever?
 
Last edited:

dmt1

Dismember
Joined
Apr 23, 2003
Messages
2,544
Points
0
Age
58
Location
Third Rock From The Sun
Website
users.domaindlx.com
At present, I prefer Itunes. But MC9 has it's niche.

You can manage large libraries, or two libraries much easier with MC9/10 than in Itunes. Smartlists are much better, with more options in MC9--despite the fact that you can make more complicated smartlists in MC9, they are actually easier to create than with Itunes. I find tagging easier in MC9, and with regard to features, MC9 has all the bells and whistles, whereas Itunes is relatively stripped down. Itunes is a very basic program (despite that, it's still a cpu hog).

But, MC9 lacks dynamic playlists, and has been relatively buggy for many people. If MC9 gets dynamic playlists (actually MC10), I'd strongly consider going back to it. Overall I think it's a much better media organizer, BUT, Itunes works seemlessly with the ipod, and dynamic playlists are the most important playlist feature for me. Until those things are fixed, I'll stick with Itunes.

MC9/10 however still has it's place, and it really depends on how you use your media player, and what you need from it.
 

Podunk

New member
Joined
May 11, 2003
Messages
847
Points
0
MC9- good in theory. But lots of bugs and every time they fix some, it seems new ones appear. Based on their website, it seems this has been going on for a long time. I tried it and really wanted to like it but was forced to abandon it due to all the bugs.

It has some neat features but I think all the complexity is what causes the problems. But as a tool for music management and iPod transfers, I definately recommned iTunes over MC9.
 

SouthsideIrish

New member
Joined
May 13, 2003
Messages
1,175
Points
0
Location
Palatine, People's Republic of Illinois
First off, I think that Chris would agree with me in saying that MC10 is not for everyone, but for someone like me who needs to manage 10,000+ songs in various formats then this is really the only piece of software that can do it.

OK, you've heard paranoya's comments from the left and Chris's comments from the center, now you will get my comments from the right. BTW I make no bones about the fact that I can't stand iTunes and think it is a piece of cr...minimalist software that really doesn't do anything great, but does most things OK. Below you will find the pros and cons of iTunes vs MC10 and remember this is coming for someone who takes his MC10 quite seriously. So, here is my opinion FWIW.

iTunes

Pros

Dynamic Smartlists
Transfer speed to iPod
Gracenotes DB (for me this is a con).

Cons

Just about everything else vs. MC10
No Lame or FLAC for Windows users.
iTunes for Windows is nowhere near as good as the Mac version.
Music management. What music management?

MC10

Cons

Still can't tag AAC files.
Can't encode AAC files.
No smartlist wizard.
Documentation needs to be updated!!!
And above pros for iTunes.

Pros

Best ripper on the market. Equal of EAC in everyway.
Uses Lame for mp3s.
Ability to rip to lossless.
Can use external encoders
Smartlists are more powerful.
Bulk renamer.
Tagging interface is better.
Ability to create different views to filter music.
Ability to create plugins.
Support. There are actually people listening to what you want.

These are what have easily come to mind, and in fairness if I took some more time I'm sure I could come up with more pros for iTunes and a few more cons for MC10, but frankly I couldn't care less about iTunes, and I'm really not going to try and convert anyone away from iTunes, unless I think that they are in the same boat as me.

BTW I've tried to use iTunes a couple of times, and for me it just doesn't do anything that I need. I do use AAC, but I would never use iTunes to rip, and was totally unsatisfied with the AAC encoder Apple uses, so I switched to Nero. Frankly, I would love to have dynamic smartlists, but not at the expense of losing the music management abilities that I have in MC10, and since I do have lossless files there is really no reason for me to even have iTunes on my computer.

One last comment. Yes, MC10 is buggy, but if you can't take bugs then you shouldn't use beta software, and stick with the last none stable version. It would be nice if new buyers could use MC9, since even the last none stable version of MC10 has bugs.

And remember that this is a comment from a MC10 zealot, so take it FWIW.

Bill
 
Last edited:

dmt1

Dismember
Joined
Apr 23, 2003
Messages
2,544
Points
0
Age
58
Location
Third Rock From The Sun
Website
users.domaindlx.com
Wow, three different points of view, and no flaming!!

That's why I still check out the MC9/10 threads; although traffic has gone down in here considerably, it's still IMHO the most polite and intelligent part of the lounge (although not the most entertaining).

One other big con about MC9/10 that I forgot: Cost. I think this turns off a lot of people, when they can get Itunes for free. Not that MC9/10 isn't worth the price; it is, in my estimation, but many people simply don't need all the features. On the flip side, MC9/10 is a heckuva lot more fun to use, if you enjoy managing and micro managing your tunes, which many people (myself included), do. However, the majority of people just want to get their songs on their ipod quickly and easily, and Itunes does this very well.

I personally don't have any issues with Itunes AAC encoder, but I agree with Bill that the mp3 encoder is mediocre. I use EAC/LAME to rip/encode instead. MC9/10's ripper/encoder set up for mp3 is virtually the same quality as EAC/LAME; that's a major plus for MC9. And Jriver's support is awesome, compared to Apple and it's support for Itunes. On the flip side, it would be really nice for MC9 to have an AAC encoder plug in, but, just like Itunes mp3 encoder can be worked around, so can this.

The AAC issue is huge for me--the tagging issues and what not. That should get fixed, and hopefully, the dynamic playlists will find their way to MC9/10 too. At which point it may be time to switch back (Especially if my wife decides she wants an ipod too, which she keeps threatening me with.).

Sorry about this post, it just kind of rambles, but I'm too lazy to fix it...:D
 

duke74

New member
Joined
Mar 8, 2004
Messages
16
Points
0
I'm giving it a new try and guess what, I just found a really useful feature of MC, it analyzes the BPM info in the mp3's and write it to the tags! This will help me a lot to make some cool playlists.
 

SouthsideIrish

New member
Joined
May 13, 2003
Messages
1,175
Points
0
Location
Palatine, People's Republic of Illinois
Oh, oh, forgot about that one.

I just love the iTunes is free comment. I should have added that to the cons as well. You get what you pay for and I think that MC10 is worth it to me, and iTunes isn't worth anything more than nothing. But I have way too much music lying around.

Anyway, no flames from me, since I'm just trying to stay out of this debate, unless a question like this comes up.

Bill McNair
 

JimH

J. River Media Center
Joined
Jul 28, 2003
Messages
34
Points
0
Website
www.jrmediacenter.com
Nice discussion.

Bill, MC10 Help is being updated right now and should be in a build in about 10 days.

Recent versions of MC10 are _much_ cleaner than those from even two weeks ago. We're just now finishing a formal QA process that resulted in a lot of fixes. We found some Win98/WinMe problems that we hadn't heard about before.

I would add to the list of MC positives that it handles images and video as well.
 

SouthsideIrish

New member
Joined
May 13, 2003
Messages
1,175
Points
0
Location
Palatine, People's Republic of Illinois
See, this is why I keep giving JRiver my money. We ask and they deliver. There only a few things that someone has asked for that were impossible for them to do, for whatever reason, but they usually do put in all of the good ideas that come there way. You truly do get what you pay for in this world.

Bill
 

duke74

New member
Joined
Mar 8, 2004
Messages
16
Points
0
No Sync

I can't sync my ipod with MC 10 beta, even though I initialized the pod for use with MC. Tried everything. Now, talking about the features I would like MC to have, it would be nice to be able to sync ratings with itunes library items. Finally, and I know this is not likely to happen: to be able to store music in the ipod HD in an organized way (artist/album/*.mp3). For now, and for ipod synchronization needs and compatibility, I will have to keep the undoubtly simplistic but effective itunes.
 

dmt1

Dismember
Joined
Apr 23, 2003
Messages
2,544
Points
0
Age
58
Location
Third Rock From The Sun
Website
users.domaindlx.com
A thought just occurred to me as I was going through this thread (it doesn't happen very often, so when it does happen, I have to run with it).

Jriver's Media Center is going to be the UI for a new online music store. The ipod is currently the number one selling HD based mp3 player, and with the mini out, it's unlikely that Apple's dominance is going to end anytime soon. So, if I were Jriver, I'd want my music store accessible by ipod owners, and the music from the store compatible and easily transferable to an ipod. And if the UI for the music store was fully integrated into a media organizer that supports the ipod, such as the Itunes-Itunes music store combination, and the music store was outstanding (perhaps offering better quality than Itune's 128 AAC; could be mp3 with APS, for example), and the media organizer offered full ipod support--including AAC tagging, dynamic playlists, etc., in addition to a more robust program with regard to music management, there would be definite possibilities.

In fact, you could have a "free" stripped down media organizer, similar to Itunes, that could bridge the junction between the music store and the ipod, and offer an upgrade to full MC10 capabilities for a price. This all depends on having an outstanding online music store though--it would have to be better than Itunes to draw people in. If it were priced lower than Itunes, had a better selection, or better quality, or all three, it could work. And that could be the vehicle that gets MC10 onto a lot of people's HD's. It wouldn't replace Itunes, probably wouldn't even come close to dominating it, but I could see it carving out a substantial niche, much larger than what MC10 has now.

Just conjecture on my part. But Jim, if this is what you're going to do, let me know when you're IPO is going to be...:D
 

SouthsideIrish

New member
Joined
May 13, 2003
Messages
1,175
Points
0
Location
Palatine, People's Republic of Illinois
Re: No Sync

duke74 said:
Finally, and I know this is not likely to happen: to be able to store music in the ipod HD in an organized way (artist/album/*.mp3). For now, and for ipod synchronization needs and compatibility, I will have to keep the undoubtly simplistic but effective itunes.
duke,

What you have to realize, and what Apple, with iTunes has taken to an extreme is that it really doesn't matter where you files are stored, since for the most part you never deal with them through My Computer. The iPod just isn't a directory based mp3 player, thank god, and never will be, in fact, a directory based mp3 player is like having a file cabinet, while the iPod is more like a computer. I am anal about how my files are named, and since most are the songs are Japanese and have files names that are in kanji and hiragana I have avoided iTunes because of Quicktimes file limitation, but most people can just put all of there songs in the My Music directory and never look at them again.

BTW, I really never open up My Computer anymore, and do all of my music management within MC10 and if I have to move something it is done within it.

Bill
 

duke74

New member
Joined
Mar 8, 2004
Messages
16
Points
0
Re: Re: No Sync

SouthsideIrish said:
duke,

What you have to realize, and what Apple, with iTunes has taken to an extreme is that it really doesn't matter where you files are stored, since for the most part you never deal with them through My Computer. The iPod just isn't a directory based mp3 player, thank god, and never will be, in fact, a directory based mp3 player is like having a file cabinet, while the iPod is more like a computer. I am anal about how my files are named, and since most are the songs are Japanese and have files names that are in kanji and hiragana I have avoided iTunes because of Quicktimes file limitation, but most people can just put all of there songs in the My Music directory and never look at them again.

BTW, I really never open up My Computer anymore, and do all of my music management within MC10 and if I have to move something it is done within it.

Bill

Bill,
agreed, you don't need a directory based set of files when you access them only through pieces of software that are able to organize them in different ways. But for me such an organization has its advantages, what if you want to access those files theourgh a shell? And what if your hd crashes and you need to make a recover? It would be way easier to recover files stored in a directory based HD. BTW I had a RCA Jukebox before and my files where stored there as an exact copy of a directory in my computer, and synchronization was way better with it. (I exchanged it with an ipod because the RCA Jukebox has an outrageos size)
 

ashawley

New member
Joined
Aug 29, 2002
Messages
7,686
Points
0
Age
59
Location
Napa, California
Website
www.
Just to jump in here, because the meta data of the tags is actually stored in the mp3 files, you don't need to worry about things crashing/databases going bad. Just re-add the tunes and they are re-organized again....

Adam
 
Top