Jukecade,
It's always great to see people attempt to locate a program with specific needs in mind, maybe not find exactly what they want, then just go develop it themselves. Wow - my hats off to you.
I do plan to download and play with Jukecade. I am building a MAME cabinet and wanted to add a jukebox (under Maximus Arcade FE) to organize and play my mp3s.
After some research, it seems that dw-jukebox is a good fit. I know I'm asking a "biased" person this question, but what, in your opinion, differentiates your program from dw-jukebox? I'm not looking for slams or negative feedback on another utility (and developer) and I'm not looking to start a pissing match...just curious as to how you see the differences. To me, anyone who develops their own program deserves quite a bit of respect from those of us who have NOT attempted it.
I realize I could download both and "play", but sometimes it takes awhile to understand the true benefits of every capability because they are "hidden" or my basic understanding just isn't enough. If you go to the "developer", you get more detailed and enthusiastic responses.
I am using the basic 2-player CP with 7 buttons per joystick, spinner, trackball and a few admin buttons.
Also, my MAME pc is networked to a drive in another room that contains my mp3s (in iTunes library - I realize they are mp4 files). I am looking for a juke that can possibly play the mp4 files (which would require iTunes native on the MAME pc) via the network. I could, though, without much effort, convert 200-250+ songs to mp3 and store them on the MAME local drive (not as elegant, but doable). I realize your product uses WMP as the player - any plans to use iTunes or is it possible to use iTunes as the player and pull the songs off a networked drive?
Thanks so much for any help you can provide...
Hi there, jukecade here
I am a big fan of DWJukebox, in fact I used to have it installed but I always felt I could write something more suitable to my needs. (I can also recommend Uncle-T Jukebox (Touchscreen) or e-touch jukebox (touchscreen).)
Cons (for me)
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- To use it DW properly it would required additional buttons to be added to your cab (0-9, < >, Coin, etc) or a touch screen to work it nicely. You can use a joystick and buttons seeing what is selected was hard to see.
- The Album display didn't seem to work for me very well. I suspect it as something to do with the MP3 information.
- Only had one category - so You could only have Music. Jukecade has 3 (Music, video and Radio/Karaoke) and can play Karaoke with the right codec.
Pros
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- Skinable so you design a look for it. (lots of skins available)
- Nice "record scratch" noise as track is played
- DOS and Windows version available
- Been round for a while so most bugs should be sorted
- Easy to use
Regarding Network - I dont have one setup so cant tell you if either does work on a network but as long as you can "Map" a drive letter to your network media location you should be fine for both.
Regarding MP4, WMP will happily play this file format with the codec installed. www. cccp-project .net (remove spaces) have a codec pack which allows WMP to play almost everything so you dont need ITunes installed.
Conclusion
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Its really down to how you feel about your software of choice. I love my Jukecade because it was written for me by me to suite my needs and of my cabinet. I just released it for general download for others to share but it wasn't actually written with others in mind (some people may find it too basic because it doesn't offer lots extras) . If people like it and enjoy using it on their cabinet then that is great. If they don't like it and decide to use something else then that's great too. The others I mentioned above are really good jukeboxes but I didn't want to have to add lots of extra buttons or install a touch screen or have something with features that I would never need or use. Please try them out as you may find they are for you.
Hope this helps you decide..