J. River for PC. ? and MAC

[iamimdoc]

I am using a CAPS 1 Server which is a bit sluggish performance wise with J. River. Controlled with IPAD via VNC. Not horrible but could be better.

 

All of my music is on a USB drives, hooked to a PC on the network. Works well without stutters, hiccups et cetera.

 

Tried moving music to a USB drive plugged directly into my CAPS device; this did not really improve performance.

 

The J. River performance stats suggests that the CAPS is at the low end of the performance scale.

 

Thus I believe the CAPS machine is the issue. Sounds okay though. Works okay and reliably - just a bit sluggish/laggardly when trying to search and sort.

 

So

 

I have an extra MAC book that seems bored and I thought it might be re-purposed as a J. River for Mac machine. (alpha release)

 

I placed the following issues on the J. River bulletin board and have not gotten much response but seek opinions regarding:

 

1) As all the drives are (3TB + of music) NTFS drives, it seems to me I will have issues when I use the Mac machine if any data is to be stored in the FLAC files. I would presume that the J. River PC version and J. River Mac version use different databases and accordingly, I have concerns I will be having to maintain things twice. Ratings, tags that are repaired, album art downloaded, etc

 

Comments as to true or not, solutions, other things to be aware of before jumping from acceptable performance (where I am now) into likely better performance (when the J. River for Mac becomes a released version. I understand tat the Mac version is still a work in progress).

 

Thanks

[Paul R]

That's a great use for a Macbook. Also, you would probably be able to Bootcamp that MacBook and use Windows 7 / JRMC 18 on it until the Mac version catches up with the PC version, if you so desire.

 

Two things: the Music being on NTFS drives is not a problem at all if you continue to share them from a Windows PC. If you want to connect them directly to the Mac, if you are running Windows, they will of course work perfectly. If you are running MacOS, then they are essentially "read only" using NTFS.

 

My suggestion would be that it is best to copy the files to a MacOS formatted disk in this situation, as it avoids speed and other problems. But you can move forward with no issues at all using the shared disks from your PC.

 

I am using a CAPS 1 Server which is a bit sluggish performance wise with J. River. Controlled with IPAD via VNC. Not horrible but could be better.

 

All of my music is on a USB drives, hooked to a PC on the network. Works well without stutters, hiccups et cetera.

 

Tried moving music to a USB drive plugged directly into my CAPS device; this did not really improve performance.

 

The J. River performance stats suggests that the CAPS is at the low end of the performance scale.

 

Thus I believe the CAPS machine is the issue. Sounds okay though. Works okay and reliably - just a bit sluggish/laggardly when trying to search and sort.

 

So

 

I have an extra MAC book that seems bored and I thought it might be re-purposed as a J. River for Mac machine. (alpha release)

 

I placed the following issues on the J. River bulletin board and have not gotten much response but seek opinions regarding:

 

1) As all the drives are (3TB + of music) NTFS drives, it seems to me I will have issues when I use the Mac machine if any data is to be stored in the FLAC files. I would presume that the J. River PC version and J. River Mac version use different databases and accordingly, I have concerns I will be having to maintain things twice. Ratings, tags that are repaired, album art downloaded, etc

 

Comments as to true or not, solutions, other things to be aware of before jumping from acceptable performance (where I am now) into likely better performance (when the J. River for Mac becomes a released version. I understand tat the Mac version is still a work in progress).

 

Thanks

[MikeJazz]

Tried moving music to a USB drive plugged directly into my CAPS device; this did not really improve performance.

 

The J. River performance stats suggests that the CAPS is at the low end of the performance scale.

 

Thus I believe the CAPS machine is the issue. Sounds okay though. Works okay and reliably - just a bit sluggish/laggardly when trying to search and sort.

 

If you have a local storage, then it's no longer a genuine CAPS design, I believe...

The principle is to have a light player, with not much electrical activity going on.

The connection using USB should also make the USB output to DAC less reliable/efficient, because of sharing the USB BUS....

 

It would be interesting if you measure the latency using storage in network vs USB...

 

Maybe a alternative approach would be to use memory play with JRIver, since you load memory and then the disc access should be no longer necessary. But I also had issues with this, as the system plays some seconds of music (due to pre-buffering I believe) before completing the song in memory, then plays fine.

One question by the way, I guess that JRiver loads one music at a time, in memory, and not the full playlist...

So, after playing one song, loads next in memory, then plays, and so on..

[iamimdoc]

Sounds like I am maintaining 2 different systems to me.....

 

1) I am still unclear: isn't a fair amount of data stored in FLAC files - and hence the MAC version could not save data here?

 

2) Also, my "NAS technology equivalent" is a PC on the network with multiple USB drives (NTFS) - hooked to this PC and Shared. Works well for me - streams music and movies without issues.

 

Thus, if I created a USB drive, formatted in an acceptable MAC format (need at least 3 TB), would I be able to physcially connect it to the PC and then access the data via the MAC, on the network. I realize the PC's on the network would not be able to use it. I prefer not to have the noise of USB drive in my music room.

 

Thanks

[Paul R]

Sounds like I am maintaining 2 different systems to me.....

 

1) I am still unclear: isn't a fair amount of data stored in FLAC files - and hence the MAC version could not save data here?

[/Quote]

 

The Mac version of JRMC and many Mac Audiophile players can play FLAC files just fine. There are some issues involved if you use iTunes as the music manager, as iTunes doesn't deal with FLAC files, but if you don't use iTunes, no problem. JRMC does not use iTunes, and other players, like Fidelia, A+, and other players have various schemes to play FLAC files.

 

2) Also, my "NAS technology equivalent" is a PC on the network with multiple USB drives (NTFS) - hooked to this PC and Shared. Works well for me - streams music and movies without issues.

[/Quote]

 

Nothing wrong with this, it works. The Mac can access the same shares as a PC can, with read/write access, over the network.

 

Thus, if I created a USB drive, formatted in an acceptable MAC format (need at least 3 TB), would I be able to physcially connect it to the PC and then access the data via the MAC, on the network. I realize the PC's on the network would not be able to use it. I prefer not to have the noise of USB drive in my music room.

 

Thanks

 

If you format the disk as a Mac disk, you would need to connect the disk to the Mac and share it over the network to your PCs. The PC's would then have read/write access to the disk the same way they do now.

 

If you format it as NTFS, and attach it to the Mac, the Mac can view it in a Read-Only mode, and use the files without any issues.

 

If you leave the disk attached to your PC and share it, the Mac can access it read/write like any other PC.

 

Does that help?

 

In short, you have a lot of options.

 

-Paul

[Lizard_King]

Use the Mac an place your music on a Oyen Digital Mini pro external HD, Use the firewire interface to connect the HD.