Almost a perfect match! (Musicmatch Jukebox)

Member Name: jamiemchale

Product:	Musicmatch Jukebox
Date:	25/03/01 (525 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great CD ripper/Music Database

Disadvantages: May be a little slower than Winamp, not a particularly great interface (tho still perfectly usable)

Mp3 is a digital file format. You can "rip" normal audio CDs to the mp3 format, having small, and high quality music files.

So what does Music Match Jukebox do to them?

- Mp3/CD player
- CD ripper
- Music Database/Playlist organiser
- Music Information
- Burn CDr's

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Mp3/CD Player
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As its most basic feature Music Match can play back your audio CD/Mp3 files. It does this fairly well, the interface is fairly simple to use. However, I prefer the Winamp interface for playing back my files. I feel that Music Match is a little slower than Winamp - Therefore I use Winamp to play my music, and use the other useful features of Music Match that Winamp doesn't support.

One feature of the player, that appears to be quite good, is that if the Mp3 file includes a small cover art picture, Music Match can set the Windows background wallpaper to be that picture. This may slow your computer down when working on something else, however, if you use your computer as a jukebox, in the background, then it can be nice to have a regularly changed, and relevant picture to the music displayed on your screen.

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CD Ripper
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The CD Ripper on this is probably the best feature that Music Match has. When you first load music match you set the default options for encoding Mp3 files:

- Where they will be stored: What directory on your computer, creating sub-directories for artists/album names
- What will the files be called, you can set how the files will be named, e.g. "artists, track number, album name, track name" and you can specify the order and seperator that is used.
- What quality will the files be: Higher quality, larger file size. (I always go for the best anyway).

When ripping CDs Music Match first connects to the CDDB, a database of CD names and track titles - It fills in the information automat
ically so you don't have to type it.

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Music Database/Playlist Organiser
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Music Match comes with the "Music Library" - Which sub-divides up your mp3 files. Winamp doesn't come (or I haven't found) this feature. I find this useful for keeping track of what music I have. The best feature of the music library is that you can edit the IDv2 (and IDv1) tags. This inserts the correct track/artist name (and other details) into the mp3 file, so whatever application you play the file in, it will display the correct details. Unlike most of its competitors Music Match allows you to apply the same tag to multiple tracks at once, updating them in a batch, useful for editing full albums.

The playlist organiser isn't as good as the Winamp one, again, I prefer the Winamp interface for the playlists. One feature which I don't like is when you "shuffle" the playlist it mixes the names up, you can see what's coming next, Winamp just jumps around the playlist - You don't know whats coming next - I like surprises!

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Music Information
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One feature that I have found useful (but I don't use that often) is the music lookup information - Your "Music Guide" and "Now Playing" where the player connects to the music match site, and displays background info on the track that is playing.

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Burn CDr's
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This is a feature that I have only used twice, you can easily burn a writable-CD, either in a data or audio format, it seemed to work with no problems - Simple and easy to use. Basic features - But I don't need anything more.

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Thats about it for music match, it has very useful features, but I prefer Winamp for simple playback. I would download a copy to test it out, you will probably like it for its CD ripping/organisation featur
es.

Jamie

Summary: