J. River, Media Jukebox 6.0
Don't let the clunky interface put you off: J River's Media Jukebox 6.0 is a powerful media player. It can play more than 20 audio-file formats and encode to four different formats, and it supports Nullsoft Winamp plug-ins. You can even use it to view DVDs and television broadcasts.
At first glance, Media Jukebox 6.0 from J. River isn't that impressive. The interface is cluttered with a row of 23 buttons and relies too much on lists and scroll bars for navigation. Plus, while the layout is extremely functional, it isn't likely to win any design awards. Once you dig deeper into the program and its features, however, you'll find a powerful and logically structured media player. Like a Swiss Army knife, it provides a lot of utility, even if it is a bit unwieldy.
The program is billed as "the one that plays it all," and that's not far from the truth. Media Jukebox currently supports more than 20 media-file formats, including MP3, Windows Media, RealAudio, QuickTime, and LiquidAudio. It can rip audio CDs and encode to MP3, Windows Media (WMA), OGG (Ogg Vorbis), and AGE (Monkey's Audio). You can even watch DVDs with the program if you have a DVD-ROM drive or view broadcast and cable television if you have an ATI TV tuner card.
Media Jukebox also supports a variety of portable players including the Creative Labs Nomad and Sonicblue Rio product lines, Mplayer3, and Windows CE-based devices. The Media Search feature lets you choose which audio file formats to search for on your hard drive and conveniently sorts them by artist, category, and the date that they were imported. A conversion tool lets you convert between file formats (such as MP3 and WMA) and between bit rates (such as 128Kbps to 96Kbps).
Media Jukebox uses its plug-in architecture for a wide range of functions including visualizations, input-file formats, encoders, support for specific portable players, and DSP engines for audio processing. The plug-in architecture is compatible with Nullsoft Winamp, so you can use the hundreds of visualizations and audio manipulation plug-ins that have made Winamp extremely popular. Installing plug-ins is easy: A built-in browser window helps you make your choice, and the download and installation is handled from within the application.
Until version 6.0, Media Jukebox was entirely free. Now when you download the program, you have access to all the features for 30 days. After that, you lose some features including use of the software-based DSP for audio manipulations; a Media Scheduler that lets you automate playback and recording sessions; a Media View for browsing audio files by artist, type, album, genre, year, or your own criteria; and the ability to encode at up to 320Kbps. To get those features back permanently, you'll need to ante up US$24.95. But at least J. River's approach lets you try all of Media Jukebox 6.0 before you buy the upgrade.
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