Mezzmo over Wild Media Server?
I am currently demoing both WMS and Mezzmo. My experience with media servers has thus far been limited to PS3 Media Server. I've read good reviews on Mezzmo, have tried it and like it but am having some issues with some .mkvs not playing, whilst other .mkvs play just fine. Paul has offered a suggestion as to a possible fix but I have not yet utilized that to see if it indeed works. The reason why, is I found out about WMS and am currently trying it out. WMS works perfectly and plays all the files I've thrown at it.
I honestly like Mezzmo and its simplicity of setup (not that WMS was hard), not a lot of confusing options and support looks to be great. I feel if the first suggestion from Paul doesn't solve my issue that they will eventually get it worked out. On the flipside, WMS has an absolute plethora of options and settings. I see that as a good and a bad thing. Good, because I feel it can be setup to handle about anything thrown at it. Bad, because I don't know what 80% of the settings/options are/do.
I really just need some help from you guys. Have any of you here perhaps used WMS or even switched from WMS to Mezzmo? If so, why? I'm just really torn as the price difference isn't much and both look to be fine pieces of software. I just need to figure out which one will suite me best.
Looking forward to your suggestions.
Support! Support! Support!
I'm not one to trash someone but I feel it's important to get the facts out there.
Wild Media Server has more bugs in it then I can possibly count. I've tried discussing these bugs with Eugene (WMS Developer) and I get no where.
1. Genres on Music do not import correctly. It If the Genre contains a period (ie. "01. 2000's Pop") on import. The Genre was garbage. I told Eugene about it and he made a fix (conveniently after my trial) and now the genre imports but the "01." will be removed. What's the point?
2. I wanted to create a transcoder that could use real Shoutcast links (not a server URL) and play SiriusXM. Doing that I found a huge transcoding bug where a transcoding profile with multiple transcoders used on Podcasts don't forward the InputFileName variable correctly. I made Eugene aware of this. I was told to test it. It didn't work. He basically ignored my emails after that. I found a way around the bug with no assistance from Eugene. Eugene has not fixed the bug!
3. M3U/WPL Playlists. Here is my biggest issue. Eugene is obviously blind to the music community. One great feature in Mezzmo is Dynamic Playlists (Thank you Dennis). Wild Media Server supports using M3U and WPL playlists but it does not support updating them. Let me explain. If you import a WPL playlist and you make a change to that playlist, if you rescan the WPL playlist in WMS it should be smart enough to add and/or delete songs based on and changes you made to the original WPL file. WMS doesn't know how to delete songs. It will add them but it will not delete them. A major annoyance when you do make changes to your music playlists. I emailed Eugene about it and his exact response was "I'm not sure, that the files need to be removed." I responded to Eugene explaining that he was incorrect again and he basically ignored my email.
I've tried to reach out to Eugene again with an email telling him how I feel. To be fair to Eugene, I am pasting the email here.
Eugene,
I don't see how you would think the files (songs) wouldnt need to be removed. If someone changes a playlist (M3U, WPL, etc) , a rescan should reflect that. It should'nt keep items in the playlist (in WMS) that were removed from the original file (M3U/WPL/etc). It should remove the songs that removed and add the new songs that were added since the last scan.
How can I get this functionality corrected?
If you are concerned that I have not paid for the software, I purchased the software a couple of weeks ago plus I have (3) more licenses on hold.
I understand you are a software developer, but you should be open to suggestions and bugs. I feel as if it's easier for you to blow it off then fix it.
I emailed you tell you about the Podcast transcoder bug that it's not passing the InputFileName property and you completely blew me off on it. Yes, you told me how to test it, but the test ran file in the editor but not in the real world use. Using some creativity, I used the mpFilePath property instead to achieve the same results. Problem is that your own VLC-FFMPEG transcoder doesn't work with Podcasts cause of the bug.
I'm not giving you a hard time, I'm trying to help you out.
I apologize if I have upset or offended you.
Thank you,
Bill
Eugene has not emailed me back. It shows he does not care about his customers and is basically out for the money. His licensing model and lack of support show he doesn't care.
Now I have found bugs and issues witn Mezzmo and reached to Dennis for support. Dennis and honestly the rest of the Mezzmo staff have been great!! They stand by there product 110%. Dennis and I have spent countless hours working through issues in the past. Thank you Dennis!
I recommend Mezzmo to anyone looking for a product that works and is backed by it's developers!!!!