Replacing iTunes with Jriver for Windows

[guyhayton]

I finally have to make a big decision... to stop using iTunes as my music library manager! I started years ago using iTunes and ripping my music into Apple-Lossless files onto an external drive which has now been replaced with a 3TB NAS box.

iTunes has been getting slower & slower as I've exceeded 5,000 albums and today I have noticed that for some reason it has been duplicating tracks for some albums - eating up disk space and causing problems with my preferred method of reproduction... a RPI running moOde 4.1

I have installed Jriver and it seems very complicated with tons of features. It does way more than I need, I don't want video or anything like that but I can't see how I can turn those unwanted features off like I can in iTunes. I am also trying to understand how the library management works... if I rip a new CD using dbPoweramp to my laptop when I come to add it to the library it just adds links to the files on the laptop, whereas I want it to copy the files to my NAS box as well!

Question to any existing users of Jriver.... Is it worth persevering and paying the £35 for a windows version... are there any quick start guides around as I can't find any from Googling, just adhoc posts in the Jriver knowledge base.

TIA

[struth]

I would rip it with jriver personally. Ive not heard any difference between it, foobar and EAC, rip wise. You can set up JR to rip in any format, and place it anywhere connected to your pc. It can take the library from any place, or multiple places as well.
as for the other features, just ignore them as I do. you might actually be able to remove them but ive not tried.
etup does initially seem daunting but it isnt once you get used to the sections etc. Lots of great features in it for the money imo.
if you get stuck just ask

PS: you can set it to reformat all your music to another format in a bulk job. I recently changed a lot of mine from ape to flac. not the fastest but I did several at a time so not to tie up the pc for too long.

[Gazjam]

In Jriver settings you can turn on and off elements of the user interface you don't want?
Lots of users have been asking for an "audio only" version...its there, just switch off what you don't need. :)

Happy to help out, give me a shout.

[guyhayton]

Thanks... looks like I will make the jump in next couple of days.

Grant - another decision I've got to make is whether I stick with Apple Lossless (ALAC) or move to FLAC for my new CDs, but with the amount of stuff I already have I cannot see myself converting the existing ALAC.

I used to like how I would put a CD into my laptop and iTunes would see it, RIP it and store it on the NAS in the correct folder. I've done a bit more reading up, and see that Jriver has the concept of a media library and the Library (with capital L). The media library in my case will be the NAS box and the Jriver Library is held on my laptop. I've got to see how I can stitch these two together I think, because I want everything all in one place (the NAS box).

Seems a bit scary to commit an unknown app to my whole music collection, so I'll make sure my backups are uptodate first I think.

Thanks again, I think I will be adding more questions to this thread as I start the process
G

[wee tee cee]

I was in the same position as you with i tunes on a PC.

Gary very kindly came over to my place and converted all my files so that it could run on another PC using Foobar-took the computer about 14 hours!!!

This stuff frightens me to death....Im very grateful Gary and others are so willing to help.

[mightymonoped]

I migrated all of my iTunes content to JRiver about 18 months ago pretty much as follows:-


Saved all of my iTunes library to a USB drive (ALAC and MP3)

Attached the USB drive to my 2-bay NAS and copied across the iTunes/iTunes Media/Music folder and all it's contents to the new folder /Share/Music on the NAS

Configured JRiver to use NAS/Share/Music as it's Library

The set defaults for ripping CD's to FLAC format

Any new CD's are automatically ripped to FLAC into the NAS/Share/Music folder structure.

I then pointed Volumio to the NAS/Share/Music as it's source.... hey presto!


I haven't bothered to clean up the JRiver interface yet, as I only use it for ripping new cd's but it is very versatile and can be made to do anything you want. Like anything, it just requires a little investment of time up front and you'll be good to go.

May be worth considering your backup strategy for your library on the NAS/JRiver though? I was using iTunes Match but have now turned this off as I use RAID 0 (mirroring) on the NAS and also back it up to a separate USB drive regularly.

Tony

[guyhayton]

Any new CD's are automatically ripped to FLAC into the NAS/Share/Music folder structure.



This bullet point relates to my current voyage of discovery... when I've tried ripping a CD in Jriver it's gone to my laptop and not actually gone to my NAS/media/Library folder structure. I've found a Jriver KB article about using the Move/Copy options by right clicking on the album; so I need to find the setting within Jriver to configure mine the same as yours Tony.



May be worth considering your backup strategy for your library on the NAS/JRiver though? I was using iTunes Match but have now turned this off as I use RAID 0 (mirroring) on the NAS and also back it up to a separate USB drive regularly.


Whilst my NAS box isn't internally mirrored, I have two external USB hard drives that I periodically copy my music library onto... the reason I have two is that I keep one at home and one in work. I rotate them as I update, so that if something awful happens at home I at least have 98.9% of my music collection held on an external drive 10miles away in my desk at work!

I could always buy new hifi equipment, but replacing all of my music collection would be impossible.

[struth]

tools/ options/ file location/ audio cd rips

[mightymonoped]

This bullet point relates to my current voyage of discovery... when I've tried ripping a CD in Jriver it's gone to my laptop and not actually gone to my NAS/media/Library folder structure. I've found a Jriver KB article about using the Move/Copy options by right clicking on the album; so I need to find the setting within Jriver to configure mine the same as yours Tony.



Whilst my NAS box isn't internally mirrored, I have two external USB hard drives that I periodically copy my music library onto... the reason I have two is that I keep one at home and one in work. I rotate them as I update, so that if something awful happens at home I at least have 98.9% of my music collection held on an external drive 10miles away in my desk at work!

I could always buy new hifi equipment, but replacing all of my music collection would be impossible.

Always a good move, if it isnt in more than one location, it isnt backed up! [emoji106]


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[struth]

Always a good move, if it isnt in more than one location, it isnt backed up! [emoji106]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

ive got six copies of mine... not all bang up to date but close enough... peace of mind as i once had 2 drives go in a week...that was a dodgy week till i got new drives..lol

[mightymonoped]

ive got six copies of mine... not all bang up to date but close enough... peace of mind as i once had 2 drives go in a week...that was a dodgy week till i got new drives..lol

[emoji106] Same here, not backed up religiously but enough to minimise the pain. A lot is sitting on my iMac in work (backed up to a NAS and a USB drive).

As well as the usual wear and tear on HDDs, I’ve seen quite a few SSD’s and USB drive failures over the last couple of years.


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[guyhayton]

Hmmmm.... I think I will order another 3TB external drive I think. £74 on Amazon delivered Monday. Small price to pay in comparison to the 5,200+ albums that will be put on this and the two other drives!!!

[guyhayton]

PROGRESS REPORT

Okay been playing around with Jriver for a few days (on and off over past couple of weeks as busy in work)

Finally, getting to grips with it and the plethora of settings. So yesterday I uninstalled Jriver, installed the Windows 10 April 2018 update and this morning reinstalled Jriver. Then been leaving it importing my music into the Library and its now at the stage of generating "thumbnails". Going to play about with the "auto-import" feature now to see if Jriver picks up me placing a ripped album onto my NAS drive from another laptop.

Found the audio only option under the View menu - so that has helped greatly.

Question:

Has anyone been able to get Airplay working on Jriver installed on Windows?

I have Airplay enabled on Moode (RPI2) but cannot see how to connect Jriver to it. I used to use iTunes to airplay music to Moode for non-serious(background) listening because as a visual person I used to prefer navigating my collection by album cover.

TIA

[struth]

windows pcs dont do airplay natively. there is a server in jriver which allows you to push music etc. it can then play other libraries or send music etc and you can use the remote..the ios remote is best and works great on my ipad or iphone.

[guyhayton]

Cheers Grant... I wasn't looking at the server related aspects of Jriver. Is your laptop connected directly to a DAC?

I might investigate the DLNA Renderer option of Moode

[struth]

it is at moment via a 10 metre usb cable. it should go to a rpi that way.. it sends it wirlessly to my oppo that has a dlna server

[guyhayton]

I went into moOde configuration and switched on the UPnP renderer. I remembered that Naim use UPnP for their streamers and I always associate DLNA with video not audio.

Anyway i I had to switch on Media Networking in Jriver also which seemed a bit of overkill as I don't need all the server functionality on the laptop. Anyways, I now have a Play (Moode) option available to me, and if I change zone in Jriver to Moode I can now play music from the laptop onto my hi-fi.

Jobs a good-un. Still seems to be loads of options and features in Jriver that I haven't touched.

[struth]

That's good. It's got lots in it

[guyhayton]

After a dodgy attempt at trying to use the Rename, Move, Copy function I finally decided - you know what this software is worth £38
So purchased a licence. Thanks to everyone for their support and suggestions. Although I still need to find a good consistent method to get media files onto my NAS drive and then indexed into the Jriver library.

My next main task is trying to see if I can configure a user, view and startup zone for everyday use. Looking at the options I should be able to configure a "play on hifi" mode for day-to-day use, where I can't delete stuff by accident and also have it start up connected to the Moode zone by default.

[struth]

Good. The tag system is very powerful too and it can import cover art etc. Lots of fun tweaking the audio too.

Ps I got it playing through moode too