Anyone tried this one?

[odde]

I found this software www.zenpoint.org/

it has a great interface, but is it the best jukeboxsoftware? Anyone better?

[drventure]

For that much money, I'd definitely want to see some tagging support in there, somewhere. But none of the screenshots on the  site allude to any support like that.

It does look very nice though.

Personally, I like JRiver Media Center. And it's about the same price.

[spandy]

First time I heard about the ZenPoint Digital Center was half a year ago in another thread here on arcadecontrols.com

It is by far the best jukebox program I've seen, and me and my whole family use it almost everyday.

I use the DigitalCenter on an HP TouchSmart and it works great with the touch features, I can really recommend this program.

You can't compare JRiver with ZenPoint DigitalCenter, JRiver is a mediacenter and looks a lot like a windows program, while the DigitalCenter has a really great interface and cool effects and even people with no windows expertise can use it right a way and I think the usability is really great.

Spandy

[drventure]

You can't compare JRiver with ZenPoint DigitalCenter, JRiver is a mediacenter and looks a lot like a windows program, while the DigitalCenter has a really great interface and cool effects and even people with no windows expertise can use it right a way and I think the usability is really great.

Does it have good tagging and library management features? If so, I may just have to check it out myself.
BTW, MediaCenter has what they call a Home Theater mode. You can force it to auto run in that mode and it looks pretty decent running on a big screen. No idea about how that works with a touchscreen though although using a mouse it works quite intuitively. and it definitely doesn't look like windows.

You can check out some shots here
http://www.pix01.com/gallery/8D12431D-7EA0-495D-9EA2-775091458CB9/Theater_View_13.0.140/

Still, that Zenpoint does look good....

[nipsmg]

- no library/tag management features
- Doesn't work with Win7 X64 (as far as I can tell)

Besides that I'm pretty impressed with the interface.  I wanted to try it out and give a better review, but I can't get it started on Win7 X64.  I'm kind of disappointed to be honest, I thought it might be a good stopgap until I'm done with my software, but no such luck.  Plus it is a bit pricey for a jukebox being that besides the normal jukebox functionality (Playlists, Party mode, Play tracks, etc) it doesn't do much else. 

E-Touch has a ton more funcitonality, and while not as visually polished as ZenPoint seems to give more bang for the buck.

[Fordman]

I tried this a few months ago and while the main screen looks fantastic, you must rely on the internet to do anything other than listen to MP3's. It wouldnt take much for a couple of the E-Touch regular skin makers to duplicate the skin, but they have real lives and work, so they make the skins in their spare time.

For the price for jukebox software, You can buy E-touch twice and get 100 times the support from the E-touch forums!

as for the JRiver program, that isnt anything other than WMP in a different package!

 

Fordman

[Barry Barcrest]

I really like the interface but apart from that it's a bit lacking feature wise. Like i said though the interface is really nice.

[nipsmg]

Ok, so I installed it on my jukebox for my new years party. (it does run in windows 7, 32 bit only however).
Pros:

• Attractive Interface
• Ease of use (If you have good metadata, it does a beautiful job of scanning, finding, and setting up your music)
• Built in internet radio feature
• Nice picture/photo album functionality

Cons:

• Expensive
• Overuse of 3d effects gets annoying
• No way to lock down next/previous/play NOW features, which sucks for a party, especially when everyone wants to hear THEIR music NOW!!
• WYSIWYG, i.e. very little ability to configure settings, it pretty much does the same thing no matter what options you pick
  

All in all, if this is just for you, you don't have parties frequently, don't care about other functionality like Video, Format support, and Karaoke support, buy it.  The interface is very impressive.  I actually got offers from people impressed by it who want me to install a similar system in their basements.  It is pretty.   However, it's limited compared to some of the other less expensive options out there, feature wise.  And being that those options are skinnable (e-touch, etc) there's no reason why the interfaces can't be pretty closely replicated on those software packages.

[Space Fractal]

I think you should ask them to add the lock or just password these features around player features? Any Party or Kiosk mode should never been able to change something with the music.

Rest is some taste in mind, I think I downtorned these effect in my software.

[spandy]

Hi Nipsmg

I'm running the DigitalCenter on a Windows 7 64 bit with no problem.

PARTYMODE
To lock the next, previous, play now you just have to set the "Partymode ON" inside your Administration. When you are in partymode your guests can't do anything beside add songs to the end of the playlist, you can even tell the playlist how many songs your playlist is allowed to be added.

I've used it for many parties and I think it's great, if you know how to use it's features ;-)

I've a LOT of songs, and this was the only software which didn't crashed when the songs was imported.

Spandy

[nipsmg]

Spandy,

I'm running 3.4, and with partymode ON, the only thing it seems to do for me is make it so I have to type in a pin number/password when clicking the "home" button. (Maybe I'm wrong and I only checked "home" and assumed the others were enabled, but were password protected?  I'll check again).

I do like the software, don't get me wrong.  I think it's the most polished software available so far, interface wise, and I agree, I had NO issues importing my library and it's a rather large library.  However, feature wise I think it's a bit too expensive for what you get.   The fact that they give you a 7 day free trial is REALLY nice and may have convinced me to buy it as a stopgap.

[spandy]

Nipsmg,

Inside the administration you have to tell each playlist how to act when it is in party mode. You have to turn off "Users has full control" on your playlist, and now nobody without a password can do anything besides add to the playlist. If you have added some songs to the playlist before turning partymode on, theese songs will play randomly when nothing else is added by your guests, and there will be no awkward silence for your party.

Regards the 3D effects, you have the opportunity to change it to an effect that suits you.

As you can tell, I am a big fan of this program:)

Spandy

[odde]

Hi guys Happy new year


Thanks for all the replies


I just bought the Zenpoint digital center today for $25, not expensive for a jukebox software like this.

Now I have been running the trial version for the last 7 days, and I was also using it for my new year party and all
the guests was very impressed.

My kids loves the movie center part, it's very easy and now they can choose a cartoon without me getting up from the chair

I'm running the Zenpoint digital center on my Asus EeeTop PC ET2203T with Windows 7 X64 and it’s running very smooth.

I have also tried E-Touch, and yes there are more settings, but the usability and interface of the digitalcenter is really great
and I love the animation effects.

When you search in E-touch you have to choose between tracks, albums, songs. In Zenpoint digitalcenter you can search all
things at once and it has auto completions which is nice when you don’t know the entire title, album or artist.

Is there any other jukebox programs where you can lock the program with a password for a parties, I've tried a lot of jukebox programs now and I can only find these two?



Odde

[Space Fractal]

DWJukebox, UncleT Jukebox, SilverJuke, Arcade Music Box, MultiJuke (MultiFE now), Nowtro Jukebox and also SK-Jukebox should have this feature as least.... I gonna make sure more software exists as well.

I guess this important feature should been added to the http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Jukebox_Software?

[nipsmg]

I have also tried E-Touch, and yes there are more settings, but the usability and interface of the digitalcenter is really great
and I love the animation effects.

I'm the exact opposite.   I HATE the animation effects.  For me, especially when I'm trying to queue up some songs to play, I want to be able to jump through the interface as quickly as possible.  It takes damn near a full second for those efffects to play out, and that really is a lot of time when you're talking about attempting to add 40-50 songs to a queue.

It really, really is a "to each his own" type of thing I guess! I just wish there was a "none" selection for transition effects.

[Barry Barcrest]

Anyone who likes 3D animated jukebox software might want to check this out.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/coverjuke/files/

It's free with source code. I couldn't see how to get a queue running on it but I liked the different skins and it was fun to play with for 10 minutes.

[HanoiBoi]

Is there any other jukebox programs where you can lock the program with a password for a parties, I've tried a lot of jukebox programs now and I can only find these two?

Album Player has a 'Party Mode', which allows for a password.

[Barry Barcrest]

Playing around with some software some more and I have one problem that keeps cropping up. Software is listed as being touchscreen friendly when it appears that the dev doesn't actually own a touchscreen. The reason I say this is due to the amount of small buttons and standard windows sized scrollbars I keep seeing. Coverjuke for instance that I posted a link too would be great on a touchscreen but the buttons are too small.

[Chris]

For DWJukebox, you can "lock down" any feature by simply not mapping a control to it.

The only animation in DWJukebox is the page change; that animation can be sped up or disabled entirely.

[nipsmg]

Note:  ZenPoint has been updated and now allows disabling of the navigation effects!  (YAY!) With that and the ability to keep normal users from controlling playback, we may have a winner!

[odde]

Hi,

I found this top 10 reviews on jukebox software 


Link:
http://jukebox-software-review.toptenreviews.com/


Odde

[BobA]

Interesting review of commercial juke software but missed most of the best programs available here as per the wikki. 

[Fordman]

As I have read the reviews, they did indeed missed out on E-Touch because E-Touch is basically PC-Jukebox. I dont know how they reviewed PC-Jukebox but ignored E-Touch. Also 8 of 10 reviewed were basically jazzed up versions of Windows Media Player.

But thats just my  'biased' opinion!

Fordman

[Barry Barcrest]

Hmm stange set of apps to review there as a few of them are not really what we would consider jukebox apps, they are just winamp/media player variations. Also PC Jukebox and VMJ have not been worked on in a long while, still was a nice read.