Worth it for the sheep alone (Real Jukebox)

Member Name: Stalin

Product:	Real Jukebox
Date:	16/10/01 (1069 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Functional and customisable interface, loads of features, very configurable

Disadvantages: Price, few visualisations and skins

- Intro -

All of my music is tucked safely on my hard drive. No easily scratchable CDs for me, no cassettes that will ware away in a year's time. Oh no, I much prefer my tunes carefully encoded bit by bit into lovely mp3 format. This being the case, I need a suitable way to manage and play said files. Thus, I need a media player.

First on my list of options was Windows Media Player, sitting as it was on my hard drive, just waiting to be fed a tasty morsel of Metallica or a plentiful platter of Pink Floyd. However, being such an ugly beast I just couldn't bear to look at it for extended periods. Next up was Winamp, a real sleek and stylish model. But under the glossy exterior was an empty void in the form of non-existent file management tools.

So, I was led to the product that this op is about ? Real Jukebox Plus. The feature list is impressive: file management, CD ripping, CD recording, 10-band equalizer, crossfading, skinability, 2500 radio stations and support for portable mp3 players. But what is this? A price? Surely you can?t be serious you say? Well, I am serious (and don?t call me Shirley). You will have to fork out $14.99 for this piece of software. If the idea of paying for a media player seems ridiculous, read on and you will see that in this case it is just about justified.

- Download and setup -

Before you can download the software you need to whip out your credit card and fill in the usual info such as name, address and of course card details. The download is pretty heavy ? 8.91 MB. This is mainly due to the fact that Real Player Basic is included in the download, which is required to listen to radio stations. Installation is the usual wizard interface, no real problems there.

Configuring the player is also done through a wizard interface. You are prompted to select where your music is located, recording and ripping formats and miscellaneous visual settings. There are more settings that can b
e adjusted through the program?s preferences panel. One handy feature is the ability of the program to find all the music on your computer and catalogue it for you. This means that within minutes Jukebox is ready to roll.

- Features -

The program sorts your files based on their ID3 tags. Chances are that some of your files will have been tagged and others not. Jukebox provides its own tag editor to remedy this. The only things you really need to put in the tags is the track name, album name, track number and artist. Once you have done that (which can take sometime, although that is not really the fault of Jukebox) you can sort your music however you want ? album, artist whatever. The program also supports other tag elements ? year produced, genre etc. These are not really important, though. You can also create custom playlists with ease.

mp3s sound pretty good with no adjustments to the default play settings. The typical anomalies that plague mp3 are still there however, but there?s not much that can be done about that. These problems mostly affect its clarity ? if you mostly play loud music you probably won?t notice. The equalizer only has a handful of default settings ? many of which sound questionable at best. If you learn how to use the equalizer properly, you can really use it to enhance your music. Basic advice with its use, however, is to enhance both the bass and treble a fair amount, which improves most music. The crossfade feature basically allows you to set tracks to fade in and out at the beginning and end, and to overlap by a set amount of time. In theory this can be used to make tracks seamlessly merge into one. However, it doesn?t really work with tracks that already fade in or out. You also find that sometimes tracks overlap by too much and you end up with a jumbled mess. Best turn this off.

CD ripping is very fast. The program runs a test on your drive before you try to rip a CD, which basically optimises it for s
peed. You can even listen to the CD while it?s ripping, although I have a feeling that this is likely to reduce the quality of the rip. Ripped files have an audio quality comparable to any other software, so if quality were your primary concern I wouldn?t worry. You can rip into mp3 (32-320kbs), wave (i.e. with no compression, 1411kbs) or Real Audio (32-352kbs). Real Audio provides slightly better compression than mp3, but I?m reluctant to use it since it is not a standard format and is not supported by many other programs. A very useful feature when ripping is that if you are connected to the Internet, the program will check your CD, and then retrieve information about it from the CDDB (basically a huge collection of information on nearly every CD in existence). It then uses this information to automatically fill out the files? ID3 tags automatically. This saves a lot of time.

The radio is one of the most impressive parts of the package. Real are most famous for providing streaming media technologies, and it shows. Radio streams have quality very close to traditional radio on a typical 56kbs connection, and on faster connections near-CD quality is achievable. The technology automatically adjusts itself to provide the best quality your connection can handle. In terms of range of stations, there are over 2500 to choose from, covering just about every type of music imaginable. The stations are generally high quality, many having full-time DJs playing the tunes.

Like many similar programs, a number of ?visualizations? are available, which give visible representations of your music. There are not a great number to choose from, although those that are there are excellent. My favourite is ?cosmic?, which has you flying around space. However, special note must be given to Annabelle. Who is Annabelle? A sheep. Yup, that is correct. Not just any sheep, though. This one can dance, and will quite happily dance along to your music. A joy to behold.

U
nfortunately I was unable to test the CD recording feature since I do not posses a CDR drive. However, it apparently allows you to create CDs straight from mp3s which are playable in all CD drives. I am not sure about this, since I know a number of other programs that claim the same thing and fall short. I was also unable to test the ability of the program to interact with portable devices, since again I do not own one.

- Interface -

The interface is on the bland and functional side, which I personally prefer. A central window dominates the display, showing file lists, CD track lists, radio stations or whatever is relevant to what you are doing. These file lists work just like those in explorer. You can drag and drop files around, sort by a particular column etc. Above this window are the play controls (play, stop, pause, next, previous, shuffle and repeat). Also present are the standard volume controls, panning bar and handy quick links to the equalizer and crossfade tools. On top of this basic interface you have the option of adding additional features. A tool bar can be added that gives you one click access to the main parts of the program. A window can also be added that shows your files in a tree-like structure for easy navigation. Less useful options include a built in web pane that is used to display information about the song that is currently playing, which is retrieved from Real?s site. More often, however, this pane just displays general information about the band, which after viewing for the seventeenth time begins to get boring. It also hogs your bandwidth, so you would be well advised to turn this off.

The point is that the interface is highly customisable. If you like lots of bloated features you can have them. If, however, you want a streamlined application you can have that too. As a side note there is not one ad throughout the entire program, even in the web-based parts, which makes a refreshing change. Although, having p
aid good money for it I suppose it should be expected.

But what if you don?t like the fairly bog-standard, dull, Windows-like interface provided? Well, there are small adjustments that can be made to brighten it up, such as different colours and background images. If you want more then you can apply a skin, which changes the interface completely. There are a fair number to choose from on Real?s site, although nothing compared to the thousands available for Winamp. Those available are fairly varied, however, from the functional to the ludicrous. They are all well produced, since all skins must be approved by Real before they are published.

- Final thoughts -

Although I have been mostly singing the praises of this program, I must come back to the price issue. OK, so $14.99 is not a lot, but when you consider the power that some free programs provide, it isn?t so good. Take MusicMatch Jukebox. That provides very similar features for nothing. It doesn?t have quite the refinement of Real?s effort, but they can still stand shoulder to shoulder. The way Microsoft is pushing its media player may also scare people away from Real. This is becoming more of an issue in the soon to be released Windows XP which integrates Media Player into the OS. It?s the browser wars all over again, and just like Netscape, Real may fall by the wayside.

If these things don?t bother you, well great. If you go ahead and buy it you won?t be disappointed. I have used it for several weeks now and have never looked back. It is just so easy to use and yet so powerful. It provides all your music functions in one place and it doesn?t encroach on you the way Media Player does. If you don?t want to pay, then as I have already mentioned MusicMatch Jukebox may be for you. But whatever you do, promise me you will stay away from Windows Media Player!

Summary: