MM4 review: "From great to terrible?"
Moderator: Gurus
Re: MM4 review: "From great to terrible?"
What I would like to see it a new improved interface that will showcase my music collection. I spent well over a year converting my whole cd collection to flac and tagged every single song properlly and added high res album covers (500x500) to all of them along with lyrics etc...
All Media monkey spits out is a list of songs and 1001 options to organize them. I don't need that. The new art browser is completly useless for anyone with more than 500 albums. Try finding the one you want. It's also slow as heck.
I'm extremelly disapointed with this release of MM. The interface looks terrible but I know that can be changed with a new skin. However, it seems more complicated to use and really bloated. I find it difficult to navigate. I'm not sure why because it looks more or less the same but the new options are a headache. I do like the fact that it plays video since I can now add some music videos to my collection but thats it.
It should also have a built in lyrics display in a dragable window like the art and details window and it could really use a proper coverflow/mediaflow display like itunes ot songbird.
I went back to MM3 for now. I can't even express the disapointment of this release. I don't want it and will not pay for it. I would even prefer songbird ot itunes (yes I said it -iTunes) to this version of MM.
All Media monkey spits out is a list of songs and 1001 options to organize them. I don't need that. The new art browser is completly useless for anyone with more than 500 albums. Try finding the one you want. It's also slow as heck.
I'm extremelly disapointed with this release of MM. The interface looks terrible but I know that can be changed with a new skin. However, it seems more complicated to use and really bloated. I find it difficult to navigate. I'm not sure why because it looks more or less the same but the new options are a headache. I do like the fact that it plays video since I can now add some music videos to my collection but thats it.
It should also have a built in lyrics display in a dragable window like the art and details window and it could really use a proper coverflow/mediaflow display like itunes ot songbird.
I went back to MM3 for now. I can't even express the disapointment of this release. I don't want it and will not pay for it. I would even prefer songbird ot itunes (yes I said it -iTunes) to this version of MM.
Re: MM4 review: "From great to terrible?"
Just a quick update
After a lot of playing around with add-ons, I was able to get the old coverflow add-on working with MM4 and got a cool lyrics addon as well so now my MM4 looks and works just like MM3 used to.
Too bad these things do not come as default options.
After a lot of playing around with add-ons, I was able to get the old coverflow add-on working with MM4 and got a cool lyrics addon as well so now my MM4 looks and works just like MM3 used to.
Too bad these things do not come as default options.
Re: MM4 review: "From great to terrible?"
If you want to look at your music use iTunes. If you want to listen to it then use MediaMonkey.
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Re: MM4 review: "From great to terrible?"
To refute some of the negativity here. I think MM4 is a great improvement. I maintain a library of 200,000 tracks, I use it for DJ work on a DAILY basis as I own a dance studio and also DJ for blues and swing/lindy dance venues and professional competition. The addition of video is a godsend for me in organizing lesson videos. MM4 is more stable than MM3, the playback engine is more snappy, and the sheer range of file formats is the best on the market, that's a fact jack. There are only a few small areas MM4 needs performance improvements (the grid and the art), but I have work around's for any performance issues I've found (for example I know not to populate the grid while doing a scan). Knowledge is power, and I think sometimes peoples frustrations have more to do with that than anything else, also "pickiness". With any packaged software ones workflow must follow the program, its not custom software just for you or me. But with scripts it is customizable beyond anything else on the market, that's a fact too. I have not begun to use the media server yet, but along with video, this is a HUGE effort and improvement, when I get a networkable receiver I will definitely use it too. What other vendor would add so many huge improvements like video and networking and collections all in the same release for such an inexpensive product? Not many. I Tunes is like a ball and chain, you are forever tethered to the mama's milk of Apple, this is fine for many, but for professional work like DJ or running a dance studio, iTunes is a toy, just try playing all the file formats MM4 can play in iTunes. Or try making complex queries in iTunes. Additionally I have used the built in video converter in MM4, this is HUGE, I just found out I dont have to buy converter software and I can work in my known organizxation to do that converting. I recently converted many VOB files from DVD rips I had of lesson videos, I went to MP4 so I could use them easier elsewhere, MM4 did the work fantastically. I could go on and on, but I think people might be bettor off using the "wishlist" forum and starting a constructive conversation about what and why they want something changed or added. The developers of MM4 listen and like motivated creative programmers they actually want to hear and make creative enhancements to this complex but awesome media tool. Many of the complaints I see are because someone thinks their "data" needs to be seen/organized a certain way out of the box, but your view may not be someone elses. The beauty of MM4 is that you have the flexibility to carve up your data any way you want with a little knowledge.
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Visual updates
Is it just me or is MM starting to show it's age visually? I think it could use some updates.. When compared to some other players out there, MM seems very outdated to me including the vast majority of skins out there. Maybe too much time is being invested in adding more features (which is great), but the visual side of things (including this website) have been left behind. I think this also goes for the android player as well. I think eye candy is very important in order to draw in more potential users. Also, speaking of features, MM can seem a little slow and bloated at times; would it be possible to provide the user the ability to disable/not install features he/she doesn't use in order to lighten it up a bit? Or just make a lighter version of MM for download?
Thanks!
Thanks!
Last edited by Lowlander on Wed Sep 24, 2014 10:54 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Merged with existing post
Reason: Merged with existing post
Re: MM4 review: "From great to terrible?"
FYI, these concerns will be addressed in MM5, which is in development and some prerelease versions should be available in few months. There are _huge_ changes coming, not just some minor tweaks...
Jiri
Jiri
Re: MM4 review: "From great to terrible?"
What a great cliff hangerjiri wrote:FYI, these concerns will be addressed in MM5, which is in development and some prerelease versions should be available in few months. There are _huge_ changes coming, not just some minor tweaks... ;-)Jiri
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DTSig
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DTSig
Re: MM4 review: "From great to terrible?"
I'm so happy to read this. I'm on the verge of switching to Apple but I like MM so much that I'm considering upgrading to a smaller windows machine solely to be able to manage my music using MediaMonkey.
Re: MM4 review: "From great to terrible?"
Here we are nearly a year later and still nothing...jiri wrote:FYI, these concerns will be addressed in MM5, which is in development and some prerelease versions should be available in few months. There are _huge_ changes coming, not just some minor tweaks...
Re: MM4 review: "From great to terrible?"
A year is not long in a development cycle. I just spent 9 months on a single major feature.
Where's the db and ini stored
Reporting Bugs
Where tags are stored
Not affiliated with MediaMonkey ... just a RABID user/lover
DTSig
Reporting Bugs
Where tags are stored
Not affiliated with MediaMonkey ... just a RABID user/lover
DTSig
Re: MM4 review: "From great to terrible?"
Mediamonkey is far from terrible ..... it is a mature fantastic product. Nothing even close to compares it you actually have a large collection of music you actually want to tag and play.
Unfortunately the devs have gone astray lately to cater to the Apple and Android crowd. IMO they wasted a huge amount of thankless effort bending over backwards for Apple and its uses. I shudder to think of the effort required to get PC mediamonkey to sync with Apple and Android, especially when Apple keeps changing the playing field.
Syncing is dead ..... nobody with more than basic hardware would do it unless they don't know any better. It is a nightmare. It is dead simple to drop a 128K card into an Android phone and copy your entire music collection to it. No sync, no WiFi, no data ... with Android local music is cataloged so I can search immediately and play any track any time. If your music collection is bigger than 128K you could compress it, and if it still doesn't fit your collection is probably too big to listen to anyway. Mine is 56Gb and that is just barely manageable and listenable.
We are a long way from universal WiFi that actually works. In Canada I usually have to wait, connect, sign an agreement, suffer 2 minutes of ads, just for spotty slow Wifi.
The dev needs to refocus and provide an Android experience comparable to MediaMonkey for Windows. Apple doesn't care about you .... Apple only cares about Apple and you are just not in the fold. Android also doesn't care, but at least their model is carelessly inclusive/exclusive. Apples screws you as part of its business model to protect IP and markets. Android screws you over because it it reckless and doesn't have a clear plan.
Unfortunately the devs have gone astray lately to cater to the Apple and Android crowd. IMO they wasted a huge amount of thankless effort bending over backwards for Apple and its uses. I shudder to think of the effort required to get PC mediamonkey to sync with Apple and Android, especially when Apple keeps changing the playing field.
Syncing is dead ..... nobody with more than basic hardware would do it unless they don't know any better. It is a nightmare. It is dead simple to drop a 128K card into an Android phone and copy your entire music collection to it. No sync, no WiFi, no data ... with Android local music is cataloged so I can search immediately and play any track any time. If your music collection is bigger than 128K you could compress it, and if it still doesn't fit your collection is probably too big to listen to anyway. Mine is 56Gb and that is just barely manageable and listenable.
We are a long way from universal WiFi that actually works. In Canada I usually have to wait, connect, sign an agreement, suffer 2 minutes of ads, just for spotty slow Wifi.
The dev needs to refocus and provide an Android experience comparable to MediaMonkey for Windows. Apple doesn't care about you .... Apple only cares about Apple and you are just not in the fold. Android also doesn't care, but at least their model is carelessly inclusive/exclusive. Apples screws you as part of its business model to protect IP and markets. Android screws you over because it it reckless and doesn't have a clear plan.
Peace through music
Re: MM4 review: "From great to terrible?"
It is when they say a pre-release version will be ready in a few months.dtsig wrote:A year is not long in a development cycle.
Re: MM4 review: "From great to terrible?"
I doubt that syncing is dead. I for one am very glad it's possible with MediaMonkey (and other Apps I use).
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Lowlander (MediaMonkey user since 2003)
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Lowlander (MediaMonkey user since 2003)
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Re: MM4 review: "From great to terrible?"
Except he didn't say there "will" be one in a few months. It was stated there "should" be one, which isn't definite.cncb wrote:It is when they say a pre-release version will be ready in a few months.dtsig wrote:A year is not long in a development cycle.