Full disclosure: In addition to the RiffPlayer, RiffTrax provided me with a commercial copy of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse DVD and associated RiffTrax MP3 and sync files. But I’ll try to not hold that against them.
RiffTrax recommends that the RiffPlayer be installed on Windows systems running WinXP and above (DirectX is recommended) or Mac systems running Snow Leopard (10.6) and above, and have an Intel CPU. I was able to test the RiffPlayer on a laptop system running WinXP and a desktop system running Windows 7. Sorry, I don’t have a Mac. Let’s not get into that whole Kirk/Picard thing.
Installing the RiffPlayer is a breeze, and playing a DVD is a simple matter. You simply start the RiffPlayer, load the DVD, then use the RiffPlayer to select the associated RiffTrax MP3 file. The RiffPlayer scans the DVD for a few seconds, then you’re off and running.
When you look at the RiffPlayer itself, you might notice immediately that there are two separate volume control sliders; one for the DVD and one for the riffs. This comes in handy. On one of my test systems, the riffs were playing noticeably louder than the DVD. A simple lowering of the riff volume and raising of the DVD volume solved the problem. On my other test system, I experienced the opposite problem. The riff volume was low, and I had to raise it. Once I got the volume levels set, everything was good.
The new RiffPlayer almost entirely eliminates the need to sync up the RiffTrax to the DVD. But during my viewing of Eclipse my laptop experienced a momentary glitch, causing the tracks to be out of sync. At first I didn’t know what to do, but when I looked closer at the RiffPlayer I noticed an icon labelled “Resync.” Sure enough, when I clicked on it the RiffPlayer quickly scanned the DVD again and the two tracks went right back into perfect sync and I never experienced the problem again.
After Eclipse ended, I wondered if the player would work with previously released RiffTrax titles. The answer is yes and no. If the RiffTrax download included a sync file, everything worked great. In tests without the sync file, I received an error saying that the file couldn’t be found. RiffTrax has helpfully created new sync files for many of its older titles, and it has also created a list of DVDs that currently work with the player. You can find more info on the RiffPlayer page.
For those of you who have been daunted in the past by having to manually sync RiffTrax files to DVDs, you can’t do any better than the RiffPlayer. It’s the best way yet to get the full RiffTrax experience at home, short of having Mike, Kevin and Bill standing in your living room to riff the DVD for you.
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I’ve been using the Riffplayer for a while now and I think it’s great. Not entirely perfect but definitely a more pleasant experience than the manual syncing process. For the most part the player syncs very well and like Sampo said, if it slips just hit the resync button and it’s corrected. I have noticed some movies (mainly Spiderman) will be synced fine, but the video is off as in running faster than the audio. This seems to occur especially when you fast forward/rewind or chapter skip. When the resync button doesn’t work, the only way I’ve found to correct this is to exit out of the program and restart. It doesn’t happen often at all, like I said it seems to be when you’re messing with the chapters and stuff. I suppose it could be my computer but it doesn’t happen nearly as much with other movies. Oh, well. Other than that small issue it’s a joy and a breeze to just pop in a movie and it does the work for you. I also think they need to add more compatible titles (which they are, slowly but surely) and Blu-ray capability. All in all, the Riffplayer and a markedly improvement over their Rifftrax player before it. So keep it up, Rifftrax!
Whoops. Sorry bout that, Erhardt authored the original post. Not Sampo. My mistake.
Erhardt, it sounds awesome but any word on a player for iPad?
While I support Rifftrax in their efforts to make the riffing experience better there lies one key issue for the whole download and sync of files to dvd being played. That would be the fact that the sheer number of different computers, progams and operator skill levels. Yes this would be great for most but not for all. I fall in the not catagory. My equipment is junk, I don’t know enough on how it works to use it well. I just got hit with a virus and every document, picture, video, sound file – everything I ever saved got wiped cleaned. Including my rifftrax sound files – gone. So for me, at least for now, it’s only the live in theaters and the public domain films on dvd. I guess I am just a dinosaur who got pushed out of the way to make room for progress.
mst3kinfo.com and you went with Kirk/Picard thing instead of Joel/Mike thing? ;)
Big61al,
Not sure about anything else on your computer, but you can always redownload everything you’ve bought from us at any point in time. Just go to “my files” on the homepage. Sorry about your crash.
I downloaded the player and have tried using it to no avail. Apparently you have to take two of the mp3 files (I’m not much of computer geek you can see) for a trax and put together into a zip file. I can’t figure out how to put two downloads into a zip file (yep, I’m that bad) so no use of rifftrax player yet. It would be nice if you could just download the file, pop in the DVD and go…
losingmydignity,
I’m not really sure what you’re referring to. You don’t need to put any files into a zip file. You just need to unzip the downloaded file (if it’s zipped to begin with) and make sure that the unzipped MP3 and sync files are in the same folder. Then you select the MP3 file using the RiffPlayer to begin watching the DVD.
I’ve gotten pretty good at syncing things up manually using Media Player for the DVD and Winamp for the mp3, but the RiffPlayer player does seem to work fine. I’ve seen the problem Tad mentioned above on maybe two occasions, but on the whole, it seems quite stable. It’s a good idea to shut down anything that uses a lot of CPU.
It would be great if this were a downloadable app for a blu-ray player or game console. :yes:
So, when are they going to start working on how to get Mike, Kevin, and Bill in my living room. I’ll Beta test that!!
GizmonicTemp – offer them beers and bacon. They’ll never leave. :-)
Right Erhardt. I just put it wrong. What I couldn’t do was put them both in the same folder. I’m sure it’s easy but no one has been able to advise.
I don’t know why the whole Rifftrax thing seems so complicated to me, but somehow it always leaves me feeling like Eegah or some other loveable caveperson when I attempt it. When my husband and I watched “Birdemic” it seriously took me 30 mins to get the riff going. It left me cursing loudly and feeling really stupid. That being said, I will continue to attempt to watch and maybe the player will be the thing that clears the technological fog for me. Thanks Erhardt!
The new player is definitely leaps and bounds ahead of the one that came before it. Now, it’s just a matter of having the entire catalog updated with sync files.
UberNeuman #11 – Beer, bacon, and Bill!! (And Mike and Kevin too, just to ruin the alliteration) Speaking of Beta testing, I work for a software company and one of our programs is named (I kid you not) “MASTER.EXE”. My customers and I always get a snicker when I ask them to Beta test a new release of that one. :smirk: