Jriver MediaPlayer. The Holy Grail?

I've been using WMP with my M6 to manage my music uploads into my unit. I've also been using iTunes to download my podcasts, and Playlist Creator 3 to create .m3u files in the M6's SYSTEM folder.

I stumbled open Jriver's Mediaplayer 12. I downloaded the 30 day trial (the software is NOT free, more on that in a minute). I'm impressed. The software is very versatile managing music. It's similar to iTunes as to the way it places music, but it goes beyond iTunes in various ways. First the software also manages Pictures and Video (I haven't tried these features out). It has an integrated RSS/Podcast receiver with versatile rules (Automatically download podcasts, clean functions, etc.), the smart playlist feature is way more versatile than either WMP or iTunes. I won't go into much details here on music management, as the program has similar features to iTunes/WMP.

It works quite well with the M6. The way I set it up to work is to sync a smart playlist with a maximum size of 1.8GB, my podcasts and done. It has the option of automatically syncing the device upon connection, sync specific playlists, etc.

So,you ask, what does this software does that other free alternatives don't? Well, the software costs $40. That's the down side. The up side is that it manages everything you would want to put on a device, not just the M6. I haven't tried transferring video, yet. There's also something that the software doesn't do; you tell the software where the device's playlist location is (System) and it doesn't create a .m3u file. I can't access the company's tech support page now at work. But I will check it later on. If it does, and if I can transfer/convert videos through the software, I won't mind shelling out $40 for this software.

Check it out. Google 'J.River Media Center'. Sorry for not putting up the URL. I cleared FF's cache and the company's web filters won't allow me through the web site.

I can confirm it ... the software is quite good. I have used it for two years.
There are some features you will not see with other software ... for instance a remote server mode.

Hmm. Can you confirm if the software is able to create the .m3u files? I have the trial software, so I can understand if the feature is disabled. But if the software is capable of this I'll purchase the license today!

Sorry ... I can't remember your requested feature. As far as I know there are no restrictions for the trial.
You should ask in their interact forum. I always got quick response.
I changed to another program because they charge a lot of money for their updates and I don't like programs that promise that they can do all (but in all parts they are not really perfect).
In my opinion there are three vital drawbacks:
1. They destroy your entry track#/total tracks
2. They use a private instead the normal frame for "part of a set" (CD#/total CDs)
3. They don't support CDDB but are using their own database for lookup.

Interesting. May I inquire as to what software are you using?

I'm using a plugin for Winamp -> www.mexp.dk
Without this program I would get lost in my music collection.

Do you synchronize to a handheld device at all?

*sigh*. Back to WMP. For some reason when I synced today my M6 with the application, it screwed with it. I mean I've been using the M6 for a couple of weeks, but I kind of know it's quirks. When I transferred some podcasts and tried playing them the display went nuts (chinese characters, weird characters). This didn't happen with WMP. So, back to WMP and iTunes.

*sigh*

maybe you should have a look at Songbird. it is an open source software, based on mozilla, like firefox

What do you mean with synchronizing?
What I do is maintaining the music on my MEIZU.
The first database of MEXP reflects the whole music the miniplayer has saved.
The other databases are for the music I have saved to the computer's harddrives.
Within MEXP I can copy the tracks I want to transfer to the miniplayer with ONE click and MEXP even creates the folder-structure I want (for instance artist/album).
Creating a playlist for the miniplayer works like a charm.
Nothing to complain. No other program can do it in this easy way.

Precisely. I might download Winamp again and try this plugin. Creating playlist from Winamp to the M6 didn't work for me the first time around, though.

Good luck. When there are some questions left using MEXP with Miniplayer please post them to the MEXP-forum ... I shall help you

Downloaded Songbird. Looks good, but I can't try syncing with my M6 as I left both my music library and my USB cable back at my hotel. I'll certainly give it a shot later tonight.

One thing: I know this is beta, but I can't see a RSS Aggregator in the software. I'm guessing that as the software progresses someone will develop an extension for this.