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JetAudio

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Cowon Media Center – JetAudio
Developer(s)Cowon Systems, Inc.
Initial release1997; 27 years ago (1997)[1]
Stable release
8.1.5 (April 24, 2016; 8 years ago (2016-04-24))
PlatformMicrosoft Windows, Android
Available in11 languages
TypeMedia player
LicenseProprietary
Basic: Shareware
Plus VX: Commercial
Websitewww.jetaudio.com
JetAudio on Twitter

JetAudio (stylized as “jetAudio”) is a shareware media player application for Microsoft Windows and Android which offers advanced playback options for a wide range of multimedia file formats.

Initially released in 1997,[2] JetAudio is one of the oldest extant media players for the Windows platform.

Apart from music and video playback, JetAudio offers functions such as metadata editing, CD ripping and burning, data conversion, sound recording and Internet radio broadcasting. It also includes numerous sound effects. The commercial “Plus VX” version of the application includes unlocked BBE sound enhancement algorithms and a wider file format support, as well as the ability to transcode more than 30 seconds of video files.[3]

With over 21 million total downloads, JetAudio Basic is the most downloaded application in the “music management software” category on CNET Download.com.[4]

A copy of JetAudio is supplied on a mini CD with every MP3 player produced by Cowon, the Korean consumer electronics manufacturer responsible for the development of the application.

Interface

The Main Window in JetAudio 8.0.17 wearing the “Default Gunmetal Grey” skin.

JetAudio’s user interface has similarities to that of (earlier versions of) Winamp in that it features separate windows for e.g. playback, playlist and music library. Like Winamp, JetAudio can also be minimized to a toolbar (what Winamp calls “Windowshade Mode”) by pressing the “Toolbar Mode ON/OFF” button in the upper right portion of the Main Window.

The interface centers around a 10-band spectrum visualization which doubles as an equalizer. Different implementations of this spectrum visualization can be found in the Main Window, the Media Center, the Video Window, the Lyrics Viewer and the External Spectrum Viewer.

Windows

The JetAudio interface comprises the following windows:

  • The Main Window
  • The Media Center
  • The Video Window
  • The Lyrics Viewer
  • The External Spectrum Viewer

Skins

JetAudio comes with a number of pre-installed skins: “Default Gunmetal Grey”, “Default Silver”, “Default Silver Mini” and an older version of “Default Silver” with a potentiometer-style volume control. In addition to these, there are four skins that display the Main Window as a bar.

Users are able to create their own skins using the JetAudio Skin Development Kit (SDK) available for download from the JetAudio website.

Some skins apply to every part of the user interface (including the Main Window, Media Center, Video Window, Playlist Window and Lyrics Window), while others (especially older skins) may only affect the Main Window.

JetAudio skins can be downloaded at e.g. deviantART, Customize.org and the JetAudio Forums’ downloads section.

Features

File format support

JetAudio supports all major audio and video file formats, including MP3, AAC, FLAC and Ogg Vorbis for audio, and H.264, MPEG-4, MPEG-2, MPEG-1, WMV and Ogg Theora for video. It also supports several less common “audiophile” formats such as Monkey’s Audio, True Audio, Musepack and WavPack.

Sound effects and enhancements

JetAudio features a wide array of built-in sound effects, including:

Music visualization

Like many other media player applications, JetAudio offers the option of displaying an animated visualization synchronized with the music. JetAudio comes with three visualization plugins pre-installed: PixelTrip, Space and Synesthesia. Additional visualization plugins can be downloaded from e.g. Geisswerks, SoundSpectrum and morphyre.com.

Lyric support

JetAudio has the ability to display both synchronized and unsynchronized lyrics to the music using several different methods. Lyrics are displayed in the dedicated Lyrics Viewer window (accessible by pressing the “Show Lyric” button above the timer module in the Main Window), along with the album art of the file and optionally a spectrum visualization (accessible by clicking the menu button in the top left corner, selecting “Sound/Visualization” and then “Internal Spectrum Viewer ON/OFF”).

Below are listed the different methods to display lyrics in JetAudio 8.0.17:

  • Look up the lyrics in the Leo’s Lyrics or CIX Lyrics databases.

Press the “Load Lyric Files” button at the bottom of the Lyrics Window and select either “Search Lyric from CIX Lyrics” or “Search Lyric from Leo’s LDB”. If a match is found in the database, the lyrics will be downloaded and displayed in the Lyrics Viewer.

It is a known error that JetAudio is unable to connect to Leo’s Lyrics database to download lyrics. As of version 8.0.17, this problem has yet to be solved.

  • Place a text file in the same directory as the music file.

The simplest alternative is to place a text file (*.txt) containing the lyrics in the same directory as the song. The text file needs to have exactly the same file name as the song. The lyrics will then be displayed in the Lyrics Viewer when the song is played.

  • Place a lyric file in the same directory as the music file.

This will yield lyrics that are synchronized to the music, as most lyric files contain timecodes in addition to the lyric text.

  • Add a lyric tag to the music file.

To add a lyric tag to your music file, press F4 to open the Tag Editor and select the “Lyrics” tab. In the Media Center, the Tag Editor is accessible by right-clicking a track, selecting “Edit” and then “Edit Tag”.

JetAudio uses Cowon’s proprietary lyric tag format rather than the standard Lyrics3v2. As such, files tagged with the Lyrics3 format are not compatible with the lyric viewing function of JetAudio, and conversely, applications supporting Lyrics3 tags will not be able to display lyrics for files tagged with JetAudio.

Use the “Lyric Maker” utility that comes bundled with JetAudio to write timecoded lyric data to your files. Alternatively, you can use the iAUDIO LDB Manager application intended for use with Cowon’s portable media players.

Plugins

JetAudio supports most Winamp plug-ins.

Other features

JetAudio offers several unique features such as bookmarking the current position in a song, looping a section of a song, a dropdown on-screen display with configurable content (much like the one found in AIMP3) and a configurable “sleep timer” for shutting down the computer after a set period of playback (among other options).

JetAudio for Android

The JetAudio for Android icon.

On May 24, 2012 (2012-05-24), the highly anticipated[citation needed] mobile version of JetAudio, “JetAudio for Android,” was released.[5]

Initially, the app included the same BBE sound effects found in the desktop version of JetAudio, but these were quietly removed with the June 8, 2012 (2012-06-08) release of version 1.0.2, likely due to licensing issues.[6] Cowon has made no official statement on the matter.

The app has been praised for its user interface, with one reviewer citing it as “arguably one of the best and most user-friendly that we’ve seen on an Android device”.[7]

Like its desktop counterpart, JetAudio for Android is available as a free, “Basic” version and a paid “Plus” version. Apart from removing the advertising banners present in the Basic version, the Plus version doubles the number of bands available in the built-in equalizer, as well as adds the ability to display unsynchronized lyrics to the music.[8]

History

JetAudio was first released in July, 1997.[9]

JetAudio 4

JetAudio version 4.81 EX

JetAudio 4’s graphical user interface was designed to look like a high-powered stereo rack and installed with an on-screen equalizer and remote control.

JetAudio 5

JetAudio 5, released in 2002, saw a major overhaul of the entire user interface and added support for skins.

JetAudio 6

JetAudio 6 was released in 2004.

JetAudio 7

JetAudio 7 (now also known as Cowon Media Center) was the first version of JetAudio to include BBE sound enhancement algorithms. The Consumers' Institute of New Zealand evaluated the Basic version and remarked that it “doesn’t have a plug-in for Firefox compatibility”, but judged the range of video and audio file formats supported as “good”.

JetAudio 8

JetAudio 8 is the first version of JetAudio to be fully compatible with Windows 7. Some of the new features in JetAudio 8 are:

  • Conversion support for FLV & MKV files
  • Enhanced skins
  • DXVA subtitle support
  • New file association method for Windows Vista and Windows 7
  • PAL/NTSC option for video conversion

JetAudio 8.1 Preview

The JetAudio 8.1 Preview was released for download on the JetAudio Forums on November 16, 2011 (2011-11-16). New features introduced in the Preview include:[10]

  • Menus of MC/Playlist were changed
  • Playcount column added in MC
  • Convert Path : change path of files in media library/playlist (useful when move files to different drive/computer)
  • Convert ID3 tag : change ID3 tag charset to unicode
  • Modify file path when export to PLS/M3U
  • List with Thumbnail mode for MC/Playlist
  • Pause while converting audio

JetAudio for Android

The Android version of JetAudio was released on May 24, 2012 (2012-05-24).[11]

JetVideo

On May 2, 2011 (2011-05-02), Cowon announced the release of JetVideo,[12] a media player program with features which partially overlap with those of JetAudio. Like JetAudio, it relies on external codecs (such as those included in the K-Lite Codec Pack) for some of its data decoding.

See also

References

  1. ^ http://eng.cowon.net/about/about_1_4.php
  2. ^ http://eng.cowon.net/about/about_1_4.php
  3. ^ Comparison chart between JetAudio Basic and JetAudio Plus VX features
  4. ^ JetAudio on Download.com
  5. ^ JetAudio news story
  6. ^ Anything But iPod news story
  7. ^ AddictiveTips review of JetAudio for Android
  8. ^ JetAudio for Android on Google Play
  9. ^ http://eng.cowon.net/about/about_1_4.php
  10. ^ http://forums.jetaudio.com/project.php?issueid=64
  11. ^ JetAudio for Android on Google Play
  12. ^ http://www.jetaudio.com/news/details_197.html
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