Foobar vs JRiver?

OK - I know everyone LOVES Foobar 2000...generally, I like it as well. But, there are some little details that are driving me batty. On my laptop, I have a ton of CD's I ripped and Foobar seems to handle those super easy. They all show up in Foobar Library (which means I can easily locate stuff) and additionally, the album art is displayed for all.

But - all the music I have purchased from Acoustic Sounds also shows up in Foobar...only not always with artwork. That makes me crazy...why does it have to be so complicated?? Is there an easy fix? If it's complicated, I'm not so interested. Easy....

Now - does the J-River program handle such things easier? Anyone know? I am not the kind of guy who enjoys "fiddling" around with settings...I just want it to work seamlessly.

Comments QQ'ers??

Well, oddly enough - I think I found a fix for my missing artwork. It may take some time, but it works for now. If anyone needs me to explain, I can try.....

But I still am curious about JRiver in comparison...

I like JRiver thus far for everything. But I have not reached the point of outputting 5.1 DSD over HDMI, or videos from ISO files from JRiver which I hear is 100% possible.

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GOS said:

But I still am curious about JRiver in comparison...

Click to expand...

I've been using JRiver for video for years, mainly because it's the only solution I've found that seems to just work on my system, with proper color balance etc. and essentially zero stuttering, without constantly jacking around with it.

I still use Foobar for audio though, because I really hate the interface in JRiver - waay too fancy for me. I just want the damn software to play the damn music, no matter which format, and that's what Foobar does. Plus, I can configure it every which way. Which in my case means the most mundane, function-over-style, ugly-ass interface imaginable. (I haven't got my artwork figured out at all.)

-- Jim

What kind of video files are on your system? I'm ripping to Video_TS folders from DVDs in anticipation of being able to do video from the music server. Like when I get there and am ready, I want an decadent amount of rock video, docs, and unique films all set and ready to play with the click of a button.

I'm told ISO files are more involved to have played back in server environment.

quicksrt said:

What kind of video files are on your system? I'm ripping to Video_TS folders from DVDs in anticipation of being able to do video from the music server. Like when I get there and an ready, I want an decadent amout of rick video, docs, and unique films all set and ready to play with the click of a button.

I'm told ISO files are more involved to have played back in server environment.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I haven't bothered with ISO in JRiver either; I just use Video_TS folders for DVDs, and for BDs it's either the original folder structure (via AnyDVD HD), or ripped to .mkv using MakeMKV. Last time I checked, JRiver required setting up a virtual drive letter (daemon?) for ISOs. I tried that for awhile and it did work, but I stopped using it for some reason I can't even remember anymore.

It does seem kind of odd that JRiver still can't just open an ISO directly. It seems to do really well with all the various formats otherwise; I just don't like the choices they've made with their interface.

-- Jim

I have a very nice collection of DVDs I made from VHS and laser discs, material not out on DVD, much of it still not out nor coming out. Over the years I've looked at some if it and thought it might have been a waste of tine - since I still have all the original source materials on hand. With JRiver coming to dominate my stereo listening as well as video playback, those video captures make a lot of sense right about now and I'm excited about them once again. In fact I'm going to do a few more, and encode with no concern about final file size fitting onto disc, since there will be no disc, only playback folders.

I

GOS said:

OK - I know everyone LOVES Foobar 2000...generally, I like it as well. But, there are some little details that are driving me batty. On my laptop, I have a ton of CD's I ripped and Foobar seems to handle those super easy. They all show up in Foobar Library (which means I can easily locate stuff) and additionally, the album art is displayed for all.

But - all the music I have purchased from Acoustic Sounds also shows up in Foobar...only not always with artwork. That makes me crazy...why does it have to be so complicated?? Is there an easy fix? If it's complicated, I'm not so interested. Easy....

Now - does the J-River program handle such things easier? Anyone know? I am not the kind of guy who enjoys "fiddling" around with settings...I just want it to work seamlessly.

Comments QQ'ers??

Click to expand...

I used Google Search. Search on Artist Album title. Go to the images tab (Internet Explorer). Choose something that is high res and looks good. Right-click, save image as 'folder.jpg' in my album folder. Foobar and Kodi just use that 'folder.jpg' file as the album art. You don't need to embed the art.

I use Paint to resize the images if too big (usually 500 X 500 although I originally was saving to 350 X 350 as I thought there was a limit to size) or to convert PNG images to JPG.

This doesn't take too long with the advantage that you get to find good quality album art.

BTW: I have used Tagscanner (free tag editing) on my FLACS to embed the art, edit tags and auto rename files etc. But Foobar does a very good job of automating tagging from online music databases with its tagging options. You need to register on the Database site to get access (free) - Tagscanner has similar options for tags and album art but I haven't used it for album art.

I like the program "Tag and Rename" for tag and image editing of meta. It's one of the well liked easier to learn options. It's pretty intuitive. I grasped it quickly.

quicksrt said:

What kind of video files are on your system? I'm ripping to Video_TS folders from DVDs in anticipation of being able to do video from the music server. Like when I get there and am ready, I want an decadent amount of rock video, docs, and unique films all set and ready to play with the click of a button.

I'm told ISO files are more involved to have played back in server environment.

Click to expand...

I don't use ISOs. I've ripped all my music video DVDs and Blurays to individual MKV files named after the song title. Each disc has its own folder (e.g. Porcupine Tree - Arriving Somewhere) with all the song files: 01. First Song Name.mkv, 02. Second Song.mkv etc (prefixed to keep correct sequence in folder). MKV files can contain original video and audio including High res DTS, DD and LPCM - i.e. Lossless video and audio)

Makes it easy to navigate to exact song/file AND to create playlists of favourite video music (I use Kodi). I've also edited out some talking and other bollocks so each file is the song only. In a few cases I've also made a single MKV file of the entire concert if it's something I want to watch in its entirety.

Damn - I'm impressed all you guys have:

1. Knowledge to do all this stuff
2. The patience to do all this stuff.

I'm a pretty patient guy - but I find much of this way too cumbersome. But when it all works in the end, I gotta say, it can be impressive.

HomerJAU said:

I
I used Google Search. Search on Artist Album title. Go to the images tab (Internet Explorer). Choose something that is high res and looks good. Right-click, save image as 'folder.jpg' in my album folder. Foobar and Kodi just use that 'folder.jpg' file as the album art. You don't need to embed the art.

Click to expand...

This, except I first try albumartexchange.com, where there's often very high-quality scans.

ssully said:

This, except I first try albumartexchange.com, where there's often very high-quality scans.

Click to expand...

This is a great site... been using it for years! I like the 1000 x 1000 scans... look really nice on a large screen hi-def TV!

GOS said:

I'm a pretty patient guy - but I find much of this way too cumbersome. But when it all works in the end, I gotta say, it can be impressive.

Click to expand...

"Cumbersome" can be relative...in my case, I have such an absurdly large collection of CDs that simply physically getting to them had become cumbersome. I just don't have the ability to store them in a manner that allows equally convenient access to all of them, so parts of the collection had become...work.

It was a long, drawn-out process getting them all into FLAC, but now everything is equally accessible and more convenient than ever before.

For CDDA, Dolby Digital and DTS I bypass using a "real" computer with Foobar or JRiver and instead use ultra-cheap Raspberry Pis configured as Logitech Squeezebox emulators. I still use a Windows box for lossless multichannel, though.

atrocity said:

"Cumbersome" can be relative...in my case, I have such an absurdly large collection of CDs that simply physically getting to them had become cumbersome. I just don't have the ability to store them in a manner that allows equally convenient access to all of them, so parts of the collection had become...work.

It was a long, drawn-out process getting them all into FLAC, but now everything is equally accessible and more convenient than ever before.

For CDDA, Dolby Digital and DTS I bypass using a "real" computer with Foobar or JRiver and instead use ultra-cheap Raspberry Pis configured as Logitech Squeezebox emulators. I still use a Windows box for lossless multichannel, though.

Click to expand...

Now you've proven my point.....I'm impressed how you guys know this stuff. I guess what I'm saying is... HUH??

GOS said:

Now you've proven my point.....I'm impressed how you guys know this stuff. I guess what I'm saying is... HUH??

Click to expand...

The latest Raspberry Pi is a tiny quad-core board with a gig of RAM that Amazon sells for about $40. For $35 or so you can get your choice of attachable cards to provide either high-quality analog out or optical/coaxial digital (just one or the other, though--you have to decide what you want and buy the right card). Another $10 or so gets you a power supply and next to nothing gets you a MicroSD card that runs the operating system and other hardware. If you want to put it all in a nice little case, that's another few bucks. So for about $100 you have a box capable of up to 24/192.

piCorePlayer is free software that configures the box to be nothing but a player. Max2Play is free(ish) software that can configure the box as a player or as a server or as a server and player. It's very simple to have one box working as server+player and multiple other boxes working only as players. That gives you the ability to serve up different music to different rooms or sync any number of players to a single stream.

Storage can be in the form of USB drives directly connected to the server or one or more NASes. The NAS route is probably preferable if for no other reason than the 32 bit operating system of the Pi limits you to 2 terabyte attached drives. That limitation does not apply to network attached storage.

It takes about 20 minutes to set the whole thing up:

1. Assemble the pieces (no tools necessary).
2. Write the software to the MicroSD card.
3. Configure the server so it knows where to find the music
4. Configure the player

You can also run the server software on a full-sized Windows, Mac or Linux computer and just use the Pi as a player. It's functionally the same--you select the albums or individual songs you want to play using either a web browser or a phartsmone app.

If you're running the server on a full-sized computer, it can also convert DSD to PCM. Though it can't to multichannel for either, unless you're talking about Dolby Digital or DTS, which work great.

I have well over 90,000 tracks at this point and find that the system Just Works. A playlist can mix and match my own content with internet radio or tracks from Tidal. It allegedly works with Spotify as well, but I have no personal experience.

I'm looking forward to seeing more animated covers as Kodi will support that in its next release:

Click link to view animation as QQ doesn't support:
http://giphy.com/gifs/alcrego-loop-eternal-TlK63EwfkCKFlTAitRC

OK, I'm now seeing a bottleneck of sorts on the album art thing. So, I have a LOT of music in different folders on my laptop. Regardless of where they are, Foobar seems to at least show them in library and I can play them.

BUT...

It seems any of the music files that are sitting as part of my iTunes are the ones that won't let me attach album art manually. I mean, it lets me do it...and it goes through the motions as if it's working...but NADA. Still non album art visible. Anyone know a work around that isn't painful??

Furthermore - when I open the same songs (files) in tag&rename program, I can see the album art displayed. What the hell is going on? something isn't liking something....

GOS said:

OK - I know everyone LOVES Foobar 2000...generally, I like it as well. But, there are some little details that are driving me batty. On my laptop, I have a ton of CD's I ripped and Foobar seems to handle those super easy. They all show up in Foobar Library (which means I can easily locate stuff) and additionally, the album art is displayed for all.

But - all the music I have purchased from Acoustic Sounds also shows up in Foobar...only not always with artwork. That makes me crazy...why does it have to be so complicated?? Is there an easy fix? If it's complicated, I'm not so interested. Easy....

Now - does the J-River program handle such things easier? Anyone know? I am not the kind of guy who enjoys "fiddling" around with settings...I just want it to work seamlessly.

Comments QQ'ers??

Click to expand...

I don't get the love for that Foobar app... I mean, it works...

I've been using Songbird. The GUI looks more or less like iTunes but it plays modern formats.

I like that I can just set my system to 5.1 and every file format I play comes out the correct speakers. (2.0, 4.0, 4.1, 5.1, whatever.whatever - mix and match formats in a playlist and it just works).

I use FLAC as well. Lossless, takes half the drive space, built-in checksums, supports tags.

I just use the Finder (Explorer for Windows users) to browse the library on my hard drives. Drag and drop whatever I want to listen to into a playlist in Songbird (or hit shuffle on the whole library when I don't know what I want to hear.) Any 'library managing' features in a media player app are superfluous to me - that's what the Finder/Explorer is for! It lets you look at your files and sort by name/date/etc and you already know how to use it.

I don't like iTunes. They're in a format war with FLAC and stubbornly don't include the codec. Like how MTV used to play music but not anymore, iTunes used to be a media player but now it's obsolete and just a file transfer utility for an iPhone. Hilariously, it also doesn't play surround files even in Apple lossless format (which other media players do actually support).

I don't see any reason to spend money on a media player app.
Save your money for buying music.
And one of the $50 apps like MakeMKV that gives you ongoing updates for the copy protection codes on bluray discs. Sony wants their after purchase cut and this is how they get it.