Reviews

Anandtech

"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

Computeraudiophile

"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 February, 2012