Reviews

allhomerobotics

"I was rather impressed by the extensive documentation as well. The Wiki alone is loaded with tons of useful information, guides, and tutorials that will answer just about any question you can throw at it. Also, there’s a forum as well that can be used in two ways.

Firstly, the forum is chock full of information, especially in the troubleshooting department, that can be used as a research resource. And secondly, obviously, you can always use the forum to ask questions and generate feedback from the community."

https://www.allhomerobotics.com/the-5-best-plex-alternatives/

toptenreviews.com

"This is a terrific option for audiophiles who also love to tweak code and scripts, no matter your operating system. It also has extensive media integration and features, and it plays well without much CPU consumption."

https://www.toptenreviews.com/software/multimedia/best-dvd-player-software/jriver-media-center-review/

Tape Op

"Media Center is a pro-level application disguised as an audiophile player."

http://tapeop.com/reviews/gear/101/media-center/

Extremetech Top 5 Media Centers

"JRiver MC is a mature media player that has a long history. Like the others, it can play and organize all kinds of media formats. It distinguishes itself in a few ways from others. MC has very extensive tweaking capability for audio, and is prized by audiophiles for the ability to extract the best sound quality from music on Windows, usually feeding an external DAC or a high-end sound card. It is paid software, but does have a free trial period. Unlike some others, JRiver has a normal full desktop Windows interface along with a 10foot interface that works with WMC remotes. On the video side, they have also curated the codecs to make it easy to play just about any combination of stereo and surround audio with movies. It also supports TV tuners and DVR capability."

Article

David Robinson's Brutus Award for 2012

David Robinson is Editor-in-Chief at Positive Feedback Online.

"The good news is that Media Center 18 made the configuration of DSD/Double DSD a pretty simple and straightforward procedure, and the results have been exceptional. With Media Center 18, users have an extremely powerful system for music playback in both DSD/Double DSD, as well as PCM at all resolutions."

http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue65/brutus2.htm

Positive Feedback: Writers' Choice Awards for 2012

JRiver Media Center was chosen for the "Writers' Choice Awards for 2012" by Positive Feedback Online. It's not quite half way down this list: http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue64/awards.htm

Best of 2012

One of about 20 products selected by HomeTheaterReview.com

Home Theater Review

"Truthfully, if you're looking to compile a Sooloos or K-Scape-like system on a budget, either by building a PC from scratch or via an existing PC already in your home, you can't go wrong with JRiver. It's about as well-rounded a product from start to finish as I have encountered, and among the best values in all of consumer electronics."

A very nice review of JRiver Media Center by Andrew Robinson of Home Theater Review magazine.

http://hometheaterreview.com/jriver-media-center-software-reviewed/

Positive-Feedback

"Taking the time just to brush the surface of JRiver Media Center has been a truly rewarding experience for me, and compared to the other lackluster music player choices out there for us PC users, it's truly worth every penny."

Tom Gibbs

positive-feedback.com

The Digital Lifestyle

"I found myself turning off my receiver's Bass Management and using JRMC’s instead as it is far more precise. In fact JRMC can do virtually anything a good receiver can do, so if you had a good Power-Amp your PC could become your Receiver and Pre-Amp."

"All in all I’m hugely impressed with J River Media Center ..."

Garry Whittaker

thedigitallifestyle.com

A couple weeks later, Garry interviewed Matt Ashland, CTO, and Jim Hillegass, CEO. Here's a page about the interview: http://thedigitallifestyle.com/w/index.php/2012/08/14/the-digital-lifestyle-show-366-jriver/ The interview is available as an MP3 on that page.

Anandtech Review

"For those wanting things to work out of the box, JRiver Media Center 17 is highly recommended. I usually only recommend free open source software for HTPC users (except for Blu-ray playback, where there is no alternative but to pony up for one of the software Blu-ray players). However, a majority of HTPC owners don't have time to play around with different codecs and their merits and other settings. Codec packs were designed to solve this problem, but they have a tendency to mess up the system even more. JRiver Media Center 17 is a $50 player with self-contained filters (which can be further configured, if necessary). It also has a mode in which it can use system filters, but that is not of interest to us in this section. JRiver's Red October initiative enables users to enjoy LAV Filters and the madVR renderer out of the box."

Ganesh T S, Author

Anandtech Review May 7, 2012

"... all of my media is streamed off a NAS and I have a Smart TV. My requirements from a HTPC would just be a low power front-end to play files off my NAS using XBMC, JRiver Media Center 17, or some other similar software."

Ganesh T S, Author

Another mention June 5, 2012

Computeraudiophile Review

"JRiver Media Center version 17 is no doubt my favorite playback application for the Windows operating system. JRMC's plethora of playback options, output modes, user interface, format support, and customization capabilities are a few reasons why it's my go-to playback application on Windows 7. As a company JRiver Inc. has been around for over 30 years. Granted the Media Center application hasn't been around that long but the longevity of the company suggests the people at JRiver Inc. are doing some things right. A cursory look at the JRiver Interact forum shows evidence the company is very responsive to its customers and leading the way when it comes to full featured playback applications. Compare JRiver Inc.'s responsiveness to that of Microsoft (Windows Media Player) or Apple (iTunes) when a customer requests a new feature or posts a possible issue on the user forums of the respective companies. Receiving a personal response from a company representative from Microsoft or Apple would be an extremely rare occurrence. Not so with JRiver. It's very common to see forum posts from both the CEO Jim Hillegass and CTO Matt Ashland on a daily basis."

Chris Connaker, Founder and Editor

Computer Audiophile Review February, 2012