Thaddeus Smith Posted January 2, 2015 Author Share Posted January 2, 2015 big learning curve, I'd try Volumio first if you're wanting to try something out. It won't be nearly as user friendly and there's very little in the form of a gui. you'll also lose all of the media tagging functionality, since these little things are geared more towards music playback only. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted January 2, 2015 Share Posted January 2, 2015 RPi has it's uses, but a 10 year old PC that might have ended it's life at XP can be had for free. I've a couple I've not thrown out yet. In any event, they can be had for 40 bucks or less. Linux will run just great on them. In most cases, Linux Mint or one of the other "Civilized" distros will install and run without a hitch unless you have some oddball gear. You get the advantages of a full PC, like being able to run anything Linux, and cheap or free as well. As mentioned, there are a wealth of excellent audio and video programs for Linux, and Gimp is as good as Photoshop for most people and FREE. Of course, the are the free office applications as well. Heck, when I retire I'll likely go Linux throughout the house. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joessportster Posted January 2, 2015 Share Posted January 2, 2015 Loss of meta data is a killer for me, I want to be able to access my files by album art...........................The only issue I had with J-River was its rip feature seemed very slow (it was due to its error correction Or at least that is what I read) I am now giving EAC (Exact Audio Copy) a shot at ripping and then add the files to River so far 2 discs ripped using EAC have worked ok , I am pretty happy with my setup and in future I will follow Daves route and get an obsolete PC to use for strict server duties I am so happy there are multiple ways to approach digital playback, Now I just want more Media / Music / Files Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted January 2, 2015 Share Posted January 2, 2015 I've been ripping with EAC for well over a decade and don't even look at another. Outstanding program that can rip CDs that look like they've been sandblasted if you let it hammer away long enough. Of course, no data, no deal, but in the damage isn't catastrophic it's amazing how well EAC can piece it together. When I had little ones I had CDs that went all night before either completing or pulling the plug on them. Dave 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joessportster Posted January 2, 2015 Share Posted January 2, 2015 My patience level is not good, I had a few discs that were taking over 20 minutes with River, Last one was Tracy Chapman New Beginnings and track 11 stopped at 66% held there for over 10 minutes, used EAC and it did not even stutter, My Mark Knopfler Sailing to Philadelphia took about 1 hour on River and I have a skip or 2 on the rip, I am going to give EAC a shot see if it can correct that Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thaddeus Smith Posted January 2, 2015 Author Share Posted January 2, 2015 My patience level is not good that's good self awareness. stick with what you've got for now. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Dude Posted January 2, 2015 Share Posted January 2, 2015 I too have been using EAC, after trying Jriver, and WInamp. EAC was the easiest for me to set up and rip disc. Jriver seemed to have a lot to mess with, I liked Winamp until their metadata quit working. I just need a better way of storing my media then what I am doing, as it is slow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joessportster Posted January 3, 2015 Share Posted January 3, 2015 I too have been using EAC, after trying Jriver, and WInamp. EAC was the easiest for me to set up and rip disc. Jriver seemed to have a lot to mess with, I liked Winamp until their metadata quit working. I just need a better way of storing my media then what I am doing, as it is slow. I like JRivers Library setup, It is much better than itunes or wmp in that regard, it is also pretty good with tagging............SQ seems better than the other 2 also Eac just made the rip process easier / better 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
etc6849 Posted January 3, 2015 Share Posted January 3, 2015 (edited) I use Foobar2000 to rip, and then I hacked windows media player (WMP) to play flac files. This way I use WMP to easily fetch the metadata so Windows Media Center (WMC) can obtain cover art and metadata. I have all of my blu-ray iso's, music, dvd's, tv recordings and even netflix through WMC and like it as an interface. The only thing not through WMC is my home automation interface, but I use remotes, my phone and my watch (via voice control) for that. I also use Flexraid on the same machine to manage 16 4TB drives. Flexraid is software based "quasi" raid. I can pull a drive out and access the files from any computer; this type of versatility is worth a small performance hit in my mind. I also have 2 PPU's (e.g. parity drives) setup, so I'm protected even if two drives fail. If more than two drives fail, I don't lose all my data, just what's on the failed drives. You can also pool drives of different sizes which is neat. Edited January 3, 2015 by etc6849 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Dude Posted January 3, 2015 Share Posted January 3, 2015 it just dawned on my I haven't used Jriver, just foobar2000 which is what I didn't like as it was a paint to configure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
etc6849 Posted January 3, 2015 Share Posted January 3, 2015 It is a pain to configure. It converts stuff to any format you can think of and supports SACD iso's, DVDA iso's, etc... If I had to use Foobar2000 all the time to play stuff instead of WMC, I wouldn't use it. I think jriver does all the same stuff, but I haven't used it. You'll probably want blu-ray iso support in your theater. For that I use AnyDVD HD + My Movies + WMC + Arcsoft Total Media Theater. Power DVD also has a media center plugin, but I like TMT as it lets me do scaling on the fly while I'm watching a movie and supports more hotkeys for automation purposes. My Movies is an awesome program for getting blu-ray and DVD metadata, and it includes a nice WMC interface. it just dawned on my I haven't used Jriver, just foobar2000 which is what I didn't like as it was a paint to configure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khornbred Posted January 3, 2015 Share Posted January 3, 2015 (edited) Man the J river loss sucks, What do you use as your music player, (i am sure you mentioned it but im lazy) you can still use Jriver, you cannot control/access it from the Rpi, and you have to have some kind of computer on a local network with Jriver. i have jriver media server running in the background on a desktop pc, the basic controls are available via tablet or phone using the Gizmo or Jriver Remote apps. you can still use all of the features of Jriver, the DSP suite, etc. via a desktop or laptop pc. I suspect we'll be seeing a linux friendly version of Jriver in the future, considering the growing popularity of the genre of small cheap linux based computers. if having to use a laptop on occasion for EQ adjustments is the worst inconvenience i have to suffer, i'll get along fine. Edited January 3, 2015 by khornbred Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thaddeus Smith Posted January 3, 2015 Author Share Posted January 3, 2015 Man the J river loss sucks, What do you use as your music player, (i am sure you mentioned it but im lazy) you can still use Jriver, you cannot control/access it from the Rpi, and you have to have some kind of computer on a local network with Jriver. i have jriver media server running in the background on a desktop pc, the basic controls are available via tablet or phone using the Gizmo or Jriver Remote apps. you can still use all of the features of Jriver, the DSP suite, etc. via a desktop or laptop pc. I suspect we'll be seeing a linux friendly version of Jriver in the future, considering the growing popularity of the genre of small cheap linux based computers. if having to use a laptop on occasion for EQ adjustments is the worst inconvenience i have to suffer, i'll get along fine. My logic: If I've got to use my laptop to run jriver as a DLNA controller, then I'll just use it for playback. My goal was to remove all reliance on my laptop for music playback. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joessportster Posted January 3, 2015 Share Posted January 3, 2015 Man the J river loss sucks, What do you use as your music player, (i am sure you mentioned it but im lazy) you can still use Jriver, you cannot control/access it from the Rpi, and you have to have some kind of computer on a local network with Jriver. i have jriver media server running in the background on a desktop pc, the basic controls are available via tablet or phone using the Gizmo or Jriver Remote apps. you can still use all of the features of Jriver, the DSP suite, etc. via a desktop or laptop pc. I suspect we'll be seeing a linux friendly version of Jriver in the future, considering the growing popularity of the genre of small cheap linux based computers. if having to use a laptop on occasion for EQ adjustments is the worst inconvenience i have to suffer, i'll get along fine. My logic: If I've got to use my laptop to run jriver as a DLNA controller, then I'll just use it for playback. My goal was to remove all reliance on my laptop for music playback. Thanks but I have to agree with Thad on this one, If I still need a pc in the loop whats the point of adding more $$ and another link in the playback chain, In all my audio adventures it has always been the shortest chain offers the best SQ I see no reason that would not be true with digital file based playback Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schu Posted January 3, 2015 Share Posted January 3, 2015 pc/dac/amp/speaker... what could be simpler? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tromprof Posted January 3, 2015 Share Posted January 3, 2015 Raspberry Pi sounds like it would be fun to tinker with for the so minded, but there are so many old computers out there that do the task beautifully and cost nothing. I just resurrected a 12 year old Dell for my son to stream music from our NAS (using JRiver), and keep itunes on. The only cost was a cheap DAC. His friends did give him a hard time about the old computer, but he has the last laugh. A kick butt system of his own. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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