JRiver Media Center, or "Media Center" is a multimedia application that allows the user to play and organize various types of media on a computer running Windows or OSX.
Media Center is a "jukebox"-style media player, like iTunes, which usually uses most of the screen to display a potentially very large library of files.
Regular (usually daily beta) builds are posted on the Media Center Interact forum implementing requested features and fixing reported bugs. The forum has an active user community, with more than 25,000 users as of 2011.
Also available for Media Center are an Audioscrobbler plugin, and G-Force, a popular visualisation.
It can also rip and burn CDs. MediaCenter also supports static and dynamic playlists.
Media Center is a "jukebox"-style media player, like iTunes, which usually uses most of the screen to display a potentially very large library of files.
Regular (usually daily beta) builds are posted on the Media Center Interact forum implementing requested features and fixing reported bugs. The forum has an active user community, with more than 25,000 users as of 2011.
Also available for Media Center are an Audioscrobbler plugin, and G-Force, a popular visualisation.
It can also rip and burn CDs. MediaCenter also supports static and dynamic playlists.
Library system
Media Center organizes files using Media Libraries, these are effective databases. Media Center can support multiple libraries.
Information relating to media is imported into the library including meta data for media files and the path to the media files. The media files themselves are not contained in the database, but cataloged within the libraries.
Version 12 of Media Center added support for auto-importing of media, whereby Media Center continually watches designated directories for changes in media. If a new file is dropped into the directory, Media Center will add the file to its library. Each library can contain any type of media, video, audio, images etc.
View schemes
View Schemes are the main way to browse through files in Media Center. Views can be created which help users see different parts of their library; these are effectively the same as database views. They are based on using metadata as criterion for creating a filtered list of files.
The view system is very powerful and fully customizable. For example, a view could be made which shows only audio files in MP3 format which are longer than 3 minutes, or images taken in Africa in the year 2006.
For ease of use, several default views exist which show files of a specified type only, including: audio, images, or video.
Various View Items, or panes, can be moved to the top, left, right, or in dropdown menus, that can be used to further filter results. For example, one of the default views, artist/album, allows selecting a specific artist or album, or both, and shows files from that album or artist only.
Once a view is created, it is automatically saved in the library and can be opened in the various user interfaces, and searched using a real-time search box. The searches are very customizable, possible on any field or tag in the library.
Playlists
Media Center allows the creation of playlists. It also can export playlists as M3U or ASX,
Smartlists
SmartLists are similar to playlists except that rather than selecting a list of songs, the list is governed by a set of rules. For example, a smartlist might take every video file which was produced in 1994. Smartlists can be based on Playlists. They are defined using an expression language. Media Center provides a wizard style dialogue box to simplify creating these.
An added benefit of a smartlist over a standard playlist is that a smartlist is dynamic; it will update itself whenenever new files that meet its criteria are added to the library. For example, one could create a smartlist to show all tracks with the genre tagged as Indie Rock. If a new album were added to Media Center's library that had the Indie Rock genre tag, Media Center would automatically add those files to the smartlist.
Media Center organizes files using Media Libraries, these are effective databases. Media Center can support multiple libraries.
Information relating to media is imported into the library including meta data for media files and the path to the media files. The media files themselves are not contained in the database, but cataloged within the libraries.
Version 12 of Media Center added support for auto-importing of media, whereby Media Center continually watches designated directories for changes in media. If a new file is dropped into the directory, Media Center will add the file to its library. Each library can contain any type of media, video, audio, images etc.
View schemes
View Schemes are the main way to browse through files in Media Center. Views can be created which help users see different parts of their library; these are effectively the same as database views. They are based on using metadata as criterion for creating a filtered list of files.
The view system is very powerful and fully customizable. For example, a view could be made which shows only audio files in MP3 format which are longer than 3 minutes, or images taken in Africa in the year 2006.
For ease of use, several default views exist which show files of a specified type only, including: audio, images, or video.
Various View Items, or panes, can be moved to the top, left, right, or in dropdown menus, that can be used to further filter results. For example, one of the default views, artist/album, allows selecting a specific artist or album, or both, and shows files from that album or artist only.
Once a view is created, it is automatically saved in the library and can be opened in the various user interfaces, and searched using a real-time search box. The searches are very customizable, possible on any field or tag in the library.
Playlists
Media Center allows the creation of playlists. It also can export playlists as M3U or ASX,
Smartlists
SmartLists are similar to playlists except that rather than selecting a list of songs, the list is governed by a set of rules. For example, a smartlist might take every video file which was produced in 1994. Smartlists can be based on Playlists. They are defined using an expression language. Media Center provides a wizard style dialogue box to simplify creating these.
An added benefit of a smartlist over a standard playlist is that a smartlist is dynamic; it will update itself whenenever new files that meet its criteria are added to the library. For example, one could create a smartlist to show all tracks with the genre tagged as Indie Rock. If a new album were added to Media Center's library that had the Indie Rock genre tag, Media Center would automatically add those files to the smartlist.
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