JRiver Media Center 25.0.88

Overview

JRiver Media Center is not a common media player, but your ultimate and most modern solution regarding multimedia playback and managing. Its set of features consists of high quality audio and video playback, a Media Network that you can take advantage of to access your media wherever you are, integration with many popular online video services such as Netflix, Hulu and Last.fm, remote control via your iPad, iPhone, Android etc. and many, many other stuff that you will be surprised to see in a media player.

Installation

Launching the installer will start the extraction process of the core files, and right afterwards the installation procedure will begin. In one of the steps you will be asked if you want to perform Express or Custom installation. Express installation has all default settings and most common features included, whilst in Custom you get to choose file associations and installation directory. If you pick Custom, you will also be prompted to choose between Portable installation and Normal installation. Regardless of what you pick, the setup will finish very quickly.

The supported operating systems are Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows Home Server and Windows 8.

Interface

The interface is very modern, and the program is equipped with many skins for you to choose from. On the left side of the program is a pane with all the available features: Playing Now, Audio, Images, Videos, Performer Store, Podcasts, Playlists, Drives & Devices and Services & Plug-ins. At the bottom of the pane is the Action Window, with the following choices: Burn Disc, Rip Disc, Sync Handheld, Camera, Build Playlist and Tag.

The playback buttons are at the top of the window, next to the information bar of the currently open file. In the same bar is the search box located too. The contents of the window are shown in the main area, which has support for multiple tabs.

Pros

Many video and audio file formats are supported: avi, divx, ifo, vob, evo, flv, jts, mkv, ogm, mp2, mpeg, mpg, m1v, mpv, mpe, m2v, m2t, tp, ts, m2ts, mov, qt, mp4, m4v, rv, rmvb, swf, tivo, wmv, wvx, m3u, pls, xpl, xvid, m4a, m4p, m4b, aac, ac3, aif, aifc, aiff, au, snd, aa, cda, dts, flac, mka, mid, midi, rim, rmid, ape, apl, mac, mpc, mp+, mp3, mpa, mpga, jmx, ogg, ram, ra, wav, raw, wv, wma and wax. Media Center is undoubtedly a program that can open files that very few others can.

The Red October system is an innovating method for video playback. With it, the appropriate DirectShow filters are downloaded and configured automatically.

Another interesting feature is its integration with streaming video services like Youtube, Netflix and Hulu. You can watch their videos conveniently from within this program.

Media Center is highly configurable. The options menu consists of many different categories, with loads of settings for each one.

Cons

For new users it might be troubling to figure out some advanced features of the program, like the remote playback in Theater View. Nevertheless, this is not an actual con since the functionality of the program isn’t faulty or extremely complicated either.

Alternatives

Some good alternatives are MythTV (free), Moovida (free) and Rhapsody (paid). All of them have many features, but Rhapsody seems to be the best one among them. However, JRiver Media Center is pretty much the best of all of those.

Conclusion

To sum up, this is one of the best media players out there. If you prefer an innovative interface and complete control over your media files, then you shouldn’t think about it much. Just go ahead and check it out yourself.