JRMC, Winamp, .mp3s, playlists and the new media repo

[wolverines]

This seems to be brought in various threads here and there, but I'm hoping someone can address it again. I understand the new media repository and what it's advantages and limitations are, and especially its usefullness for installers.

But why don't we have a plug-in for winamp or JRMC? I've seen in a few places Dean mention that winamp is on the list to be done. I haven't seen anything on JRMC but I do recall seeing something in the old forums about how difficult it can be because JRMC is constantly changing its builds.

It would seem to me that many of the issues that keep being brought up could possibly be solved with a robust driver for either of these players. They both support numerous lossless formats. They can handle individual tracks (.mp3s, etc.) - important as fewer and fewer people buy CDs and instead download songs. They can also support playlists and random play.

Am I missing something in this picture? I wish I knew something about all the codes so I could build them myself, but that's well beyond my expertise.

[robertmee]

While I understand your point, I think relying on Plug-ins with 3rd party software that is beyond your control is fraught with peril and a support nightmare. As you mentioned, everytime there is a build change or some minor tweak by other software manufs, it has the potential of causing unknown havoc on an existing CQC installed base, many of which may not be on DIYs systems that have the patience to wait for a 'tweak' to the plugin to fix the new 'feature'. I would rather the time be spent by Dean upgrading the media repository to handle single tracks, random playlists, multiple formats, etc. That's the approach that XBMC for xbox has taken by imbedding their own codecs and renderers into their product and it has been wildly successful and stable. Granted their media player is based on mplayer an open source renderer but a well known one and very stable.

While short term functionality would certainly be gained with plugins for JRMC, Winamp, WMP, etc. the effort and ongoing support would be better served by CQC IMHO by including their own renderer and codecs.

[dman000000]

I would like to echo wolverine's comments. From what I've seen on the forum, there seems to be a fairly large contigent of homeowner DIYers like me and wolverine that are looking for additional features that are currently handled very well by JRMC, WinAmp, and probably others. While the new repository seems exceptionally well setup to handle DVDs, it just does not at all reflect the way that I (and seemingly others as well) own and listen to music. I can't remember the last time I've listened to a whole album straight through. Individual track selection, shuffle and playlist features are absolutely critical - I don't think there's a single mp3 player out there without these features.

With such a motivated DIY community, I'm really surprised that noone has pursued the path of writing a driver for either JRMC or Winamp to enable the missing features. While the longterm best solution for CQC might be updating the repository, a JRMC driver would be helpful to many folks now and might also take a little pressure off of Dean to get the repository system rebuilt with these features ASAP.

I really have zero knowledge of what it takes to build a driver or any of the language behind it, but I am seriously thinking about trying. Maybe I'm naive, but the issues around build versions doesn't seem that relevant to me. If minor upgrades would result in screwing up the current CQC driver then I could see myself leaving the current version installed on my server until the next major build release. This way the driver technically never needs to be updated but could with a major JRMC version change if a new set of compelling features is offered.

I'm willing to give it a shot but I have a feeling it wouldn't be ready until CQC version 4.5! But I am more than willing to help as much I can if anyone else wants to team up on it. As an aside, I am also interested to see if there is a way to leverage the JRMC photo organizer as part of a driver to enable some of digital photo viewer as well.

Derrick

[robertmee]

From what I've seen on the forum, there seems to be a fairly large contigent of homeowner DIYers like me and wolverine that are looking for additional features that are currently handled very well by JRMC, WinAmp, and probably others.

And while that may be true, CQC's target audience is not the DIYers like you and me, but the custom integrator with repeat revenues. CQC will not survive on the one and done purchases of DIYers. The customer base of DIY home automation people willing to spend $800 on CQC just isn't there. I don't believe that CQCs model of operation wants to depend on custom integrators having to use JRMC or Winamp to render music/videos. It's why Homeseer while hugely popular with the DIY crowd with its abundance of plugins and 3rd party support has never been a blip on the custom integration scene.

[dman000000]

And while that may be true, CQC's target audience is not the DIYers like you and me, but the custom integrator with repeat revenues. CQC will not survive on the one and done purchases of DIYers. The customer base of DIY home automation people willing to spend $800 on CQC just isn't there. I don't believe that CQCs model of operation wants to depend on custom integrators having to use JRMC or Winamp to render music/videos. It's why Homeseer while hugely popular with the DIY crowd with its abundance of plugins and 3rd party support has never been a blip on the custom integration scene.

I agree completely which is why i am not asking that Dean focus his efforts here. A driver for JRMC is something that I see as a huge benefit for the DIY crowd - so it should therefore be created by the DIY crowd...

[ellisr63]

I believe Dean is going to allow importing JR into CQC in a future drop.

[penngray]

Im surprised no one has done one actually but then again it might be extremely difficult. I dont know if a plug in make sense but what make sense is that we have greater functionality for our mp3s furthermore we should simply be able to keep them in the mp3 format.

[Dean Roddey]

I can't remember the last time I've listened to a whole album straight through. Individual track selection, shuffle and playlist features are absolutely critical - I don't think there's a single mp3 player out there without these features.

You can now do individual track selection, whether you use our repository or the JR repository. Playlists we support via our own repository. We cannot do that for JR unless you build them in JR and they are exported out to us.

The reason we don't support JR as a player is that it would require UPnP, which would be a huge amount of work to provide. WinAmp would be more likely as another renderer option.

[penngray]

wants to depend on custom integrators having to use JRMC or Winamp to render music/videos.

I think then need something better then the solution of re-ripping. Future homes that want custom installs do already have 10,000 mp3s and possibly 100s of ripped movies because its simply the way of the future. CIs will need someway to simply integrate those formats into a custom install.

I do have a question though, how else will CQC render music or video? Zoomplayer and TheaterTek are already the choice for Music or video stored on a network. I dont see the benefit of CQC replacing these since they have so much functionality already. I could be missing the point though.

The biggest functionality I see still missing is that people that listen to lots of mp3s and have parties need dynamic playlist functionality.....hehe that has never been said before

[Dean Roddey]

Most custom installers provide a ripping service for their customers. When they sell these types of systems, paying the CI another $1K or whatever to rip all their CDs is probably well worth the cost for them. And we don't require that you re-rip, it's just that the converter hasn't been completed yet to allow you to pull in your JR repository data into our repository.

We will definitely look into allowing you not to need external tools where that's reasonable. For instance, we could build in a simple audio player device driver, possibly multi-zone, based around the internals of WMP. It doesn't need to be super-flexible since none of that flexibility is usually exposed via the automation interface anyway, nor used for simple multi-zone audio playback.

Dynamic playlists are now available.