Today I'm going to highlight a feature of the upcoming Diamond 0.3 Beta theme for Media Browser - Backdrop switching.

Now I know many of you will be thinking backdrop switching? this hardly counts as a new feature and indeed you are right. Media Browser and Diamond for that matter have been using backdrop switching for years now so what’s the big deal? Well beginning with Diamond 0.3 users can now switch backdrops at the EHS level (Enhanced Home Screen).

Consider the following scenario, you have 4 main folders:

  1. Movies
  2. TV Shows
  3. Sports
  4. Trailers

In order to get this working you simply need to go to your imagesbyname folder and drop your backdrop inside it. A couple caveats:

  1. I strongly suggest you use the …imagesbyname\General folder as the base (you may need to create this folder).
  2. By default the imagesbyname folder is located at C:\ProgramData\MediaBrowser\ImagesByName (again you may need to create this folder). Also note ProgramData is a hidden folder.

dd1

Once you have created the folder structure as shown above, now you can add backdrop images to each folder. Please note that the naming convention used in Media Browser looks for backdrop.jpg.

dd2

Finally, you can now load up the Diamond theme in Media Browser and view your handy work.

dd3

dd4

Again as mentioned this is a preview of the upcoming Diamond theme and hopefully this wets your appetite. I anticipate a full release in 2 weeks time accompanying Media Browser: ThunderBlade where you can try out Diamond for yourself.

Hope this helps.

 

I'm going to highlight an upcoming new feature of Phoenix - tiered backdrops. Tiered backdrops allows users to control exactly which backdrop they wish to display in Media Browser. This feature allows users to do some fancy things that previously weren't supported. For example you can now have your own custom backdrop available in all views. It also allows theme developers to create more engaging backgrounds without the additional overhead of 'would my user base like such a background?' as you will see below.

So lets introduce the new tiers of backdrops.

  • TIER 1 - Media Fan Art
  • TIER 2 - Initial Folder Fan Art (aka StartupFolder backdrop)
  • TIER 3 - Theme Background (defined by theme developers)

tiers

At quick glance you can see it's very similar to the way things worked previously, you have your TIER 1 fan art that you (end user) can control and customize for each individual media item just like in the past. TIER 2 is brand new which sources the custom backdrop from your Initial Folder to be displayed on all screens. Finally TIER 3 is the theme background as defined by theme developers.

Switching gears a bit and lets talk about theme developers. Theme developers can now ship their own engaging background and if the end user doesn't like it no problem user can turn it off! It's all about customizing and I strongly believe there isn't another product that matches Media Browser in that regard.

Another thing to keep in mind is order of precedence, basically the lowest tiers display first. If a tier is missing then the system drops back to the next one and so on.

Example: Tier 1 = OFF, Tier 2 = ON, Tier 3 = ON.

In the above scenario I have turned off Tier 1 (user fan art), which means the system will now look at the next tier to check if it is enabled. In this case Tier 2 (initial folder art) is available and will be displayed over Tier 3 because of precedence.

If none of this article makes sense here is another way of thinking about it. Just like in Photoshop you have layers, now in Media Browser you have layers (tiers) of backdrops with the tier 1 displayed above tier 2 etc. You can disable and enable these layers as you see fit.

Hope this helps.

Jas

After a long wait we are really excited to release Media Browser Beta 2.1.0.0. for Vista Media Center and Windows7 Media Center. For the eager folks you can download Beta 2.1 here, the rest of this blog will highlight some of the new features and enhancements in 2.1. I have a lot to talk about so get comfy.

beta12
New enhanced home screen

CORE CHANGES

As Media Browser grew from release to release we realized that our core engine was not as flexible as we would have liked. A lot of work took place behind the scenes with attention to the engine driving Media Browser, the direct results are quite impressive.

Behind the scenes we’ve implemented many changes to Media Browser’s core including a lot of enhancements to the data logic layer including a complete revamp of the library refresh mechanism, metadata workflow stack, new provider model, item management and merging, plug-in architecture… I can do this all day long but I can sense some eyes starting to glaze over at my geek out – moving on…

Speed

Our core scanning process is now over a complete order of magnitude faster than before. Sam put a lot of hard work and man-hours into this and the results speak for themselves. This increase in speed allows us to potentially issue a full metadata refresh every time you launch the application which is unheard of compared to previous versions of Media Browser. (Ok we don’t really issue a full refresh as we’d probably D.O.S our data partners but I’m just saying we could and not miss a beat ;-) )

speed
Note: Chart is for illustration purposes only.

Stability

As we progress with each release the stability of Media Browser keeps improving. So much so that this is perhaps the most stable release of Media Browser.

PLUG-IN FRAMEWORK

We now support an open plug-in model where anyone can contribute and extend Media Browser so you don’t even have to be on the Media Browser team to write a plug-in. Media Browser looks for plug-ins under the C:\ProgramData\MediaBrowser\Plugins\ folder. If you don’t want to use a particular plug-in for whatever reason you can use the configurator to add or remove plug-ins as you like, or if all else fails simply remove it from the plug-in folder and voila.

plugin_folderPlugins Folder

We will be providing more technical information on the plug-in framework very soon, ultimately this framework allows developers to extend our object model, entities, define new media types, and even append items to the root menu. To validate the new plug-in architecture there are a number of plug-ins available with this release of Media Browser.

Apple HD Trailers Plug-in

Prior versions of Media Browser were in essence very limited to the type of content it could handle, going forward you can begin enjoying digital media outside of your home network. It begins with online trailers we are shipping a plug-in for Apple HD Trailers that allows you to consume the vast amount of great trailers in high quality. The downside of Apple trailers is of course the codec format being .mov which is not playable on extenders.

Film Trailer Plug-in

For those of you who may have problems with Apple Trailers we have a second online trailer source available.

trailers
Obligatory screenshot

We are sourcing trailer content from filmtrailers.co.uk in .wmv format, however, the trailers are encoded using Microsoft MPEG-4 Video Codec V2 (MP42) why is this significant? Unfortunately we found out the hard way the Xbox 360 doesn’t support playback of certain flavours of wmv, and yes you guessed it MP42 is one of the unplayable formats. I can’t comment on the Linksys or other extenders as I don’t have them available to test on (although I should point out I am more than willing to accept extender donations ;-) ).

DVR-MS Support

The DVR-MS plug-in with the ability to decode your recorded TV files and extract metadata so you get the same rich experience with dvr-ms files inside Media Browser.

dvr-ms DVR-MS Plug-in In Action

Movie Thumbnailer

Another frame grabber has been added based on the Movie Thumbnailer project here. This frame grabber has greater support for working with different media formats to generate a preview thumbnail. Some of the codecs supported are:

  • divx / xvid
  • mpeg1 / mpeg2
  • mp4
  • vc1
  • vmv
  • VODCAST – ONLINE MEDIA!

    How would you like to view online videos within media browser? We have taken steps to begin aggregating online content starting with vodcasts. Using the configurator we have made it super easy to add a video RSS feed to Media Browser, it’s literally a 2 step process.

    First you within the configuration utility navigate to the podcasts tab, and press the add button. The second step is enter the video podcast feed into the input box, and press OK.

    vodcasts
    Configuration Utility: built-in vodcast support

    The Config utility creates .vodcast files by default in the c:\programdata\mediabrowser\Podcasts\ so you can add streaming video rss feeds into Media Browser. Before you start adding any old video RSS feed in my experience RSS feeds with video attachments are more stable and less error-prone.

    TIP: You can add a custom folder image for podcasts by placing a folder.jpg or folder.png file in c:\programdata\mediabrowser\Podcasts\ location.

    Just to get you started here are a few of my favourite video podcasts (.wmv friendly of course for extenders):

      Channel 9
    Scobleizer
    Tekzilla
    Scam School
    http://channel9.msdn.com/Feeds/RSS/
    http://feeds2.feedburner.com/fastcompany-tv/scobleizer-tv
    http://revision3.com/tekzilla/feed/wmv-large/
    http://revision3.com/scamschool/feed/WMV-Large

    NOTE: If you have a slow internet connection be aware that adding high-bandwidth video podcasts can result in a bad end user experience.

    A NEW INTIAL EXPERIENCE

    I have personally have been working very hard on this exciting new addition to Media Browser. There are so many customization combinations available for Media Browser that it can get a bit hard for the novice user to setup initially. We were looking for a way to decrease the complexity for new users while also providing a common interface that we as a team can control and predict. It is hoped that with the Media Browser team controlling this default intro screen we can begin providing even more services to our users, something that would have been very difficult to do with the dozens of customization options otherwise.

    new_intial_screen
    Enhanced home screen (with black color scheme, and custom backdrop)

    Initially this view was not intended to be enabled by default, however, though the course of alpha testing and other feedback the enhanced home screen (EHS) is now on by default. If you prefer the old default screen you can disable the EHS in a couple ways: either in the configuration page of the application, or the configuration utility.

    weather_config config_root
    Configuring the Enhanced Home Screen

    Recent Items

    One of the most common scenarios after living with any media aggregator is how well it handles your growing media collection on a day to day basis. With the introduction of the home screen we have taken significant steps to enhance this experience. The last 5 recent videos for each selected folder are automatically displayed on the initial screen allowing you to select and play that file immediately without having to navigate into your collection.

    recentlyadded
    Recently Added List

    Weather Forecast

    We’ve also implemented weather support using Yahoo! Weather Data Services. For those of you living in the US you can simply enter your zip code, the rest of the world can visit Yahoo’s weather website and retrieve the unique location ID here. Typical location Ids look like this “UKXX0065” “CSXX0032” etc. Once you have your location ID users can leverage the configurator to set this information in the display tab under the Enhanced Home Screen section.

    weather_config2

    The weather service is refreshed every 3 hours and viewable only on the new home screen. When highlighted the weather control also displays a forecast for the next day.

    weather

    CONFIGURATION UTILITY

    You seen some of the enhancements to the config utility already, with this release we have added even more customization options keeping with our long term goal of making changes to Media Browser as fast as possible.

    Enhancements

    We’ve added a new folder browser dialog system, a lot of users were complaining about not being able to add network locations through the configuration utility. So I overhauled the whole folder browsing mechanism while making it just as simple and easy to use. Network traversal really works this time I promise.

    Display Tab

    This tab provides more configuration of Media Browser’s display. It allows for quick and easy setup of your theme and a whole host of other options.

    External Players Tab

    About a month or so back a Media Browser user J.Brown emailed me to donate some code for the config utility. Thanks to JB users can now add external players for selected media types very easily through the configuration utility. Thank you JB!!

    OTHER STUFF

    Multi-Backdrop Support

    The default movie screen now has multi-backdrop support, with a nice cross-fade when switching between the different backdrops. If you want to have your own custom backdrop fades all you need to do is name them accordingly, starting from backdrop.jpg to backdrop1.jpg and so on.

    backdrops

    Director Links

    Directors are now selectable links and work just like the existing actors capability allowing you to view all movies in your collection for a particular director.

    Global Indexing

    Global indexing is fantastic, now it is possible to have your collection separated into several sub folders and if you perform a search for a genre filter say “Action”, we now index and return your entire collection that has the genre tag “Action” not just the current folder as in the past.

    Another example, previously if you had split your movie collection into say Hollywood and Foreign films the search would only be performed on the folder you were in. Now we correctly search through your entire collection even online content for that actor. This is really awesome if you have a favourite actor combined with online trailers you can know in advance what their next project/movie is!

    Folder Play Menu

    It’s been a long time coming but now you can play all files within a folder with a simple key press. You can choose to play all sequentially or random. This is a great feature for the kids as you simply point to the “kids cartoons” folder and press the PLAY button on the remote (CTRL + P on the keyboard) which brings up the folder play menu and select random play – job done!

    popup

    NOTE: Right now videos played under this mode do not toggle the unwatched/watched flag.

    Synchronized Views

    It’s kind of amazing when you realize one of the most requested feature is finally in but it takes this long just to talk about it. We have implemented sync views for TV shows, specifically season and episode layouts respectively. So if you set the episode listing to say the detail view, Media Browser will cascade that to all other episode layouts for your other TV shows.

    Startup Folder

    I have been warning users on the forum since the launch of the configurator application to migrate to the new start up folder. In this release we have moved one step closer to that by setting the default starting folder to C:\programdata\mediabrowser\startupfolder\ .

    I strongly advise users to utilize the configurator application for setup of your media collection and try to migrate to the new startupfolder location. We cannot guarantee we will support custom initial locations in the future.

    Enhanced Item Shortcuts

    We have added a number of shortcuts available for both the remote and keyboard, here they are listed below:

    Name Description Remote Shortcut Keyboard Shortcut
    Refresh Metadata Performs a manual refresh at the item or folder level. [REC] Button CTRL + R
    Folder Play Popup Play all or play random on folder level. [PLAY] Button CTRL + P
    Watched Indicator Toggles watched / unwatched indicator. This command also works recursively. [CLEAR] Button CTRL + W
    Layout Switch Toggles the UI layout (not available on the enhanced home screen). [STAR] Button *
    Config Screen Brings up the on screen configuration menu in the vanilla theme. [HASH] Button #

    DIAMONDS ARE A GIRLS BEST FRIEND…

    There is a special treat for long-time users in the form of a brand new theme for Media Browser titled Diamond. Here is a little teaser, I won’t spoil it so it’s up to you to explore the rest of theme for yourself.

    d2

    I’m very certain there are items I haven’t talked about (e.g. Log Viewer app) hopefully I’ll cover that in another post. As always comments or questions are welcome in the forum, if you found this useful and want me to continue this sort of thing in the future drop me a line here.

    Hope this helps.

    - Jas

    LINKS
    Download Link: Media Browser Beta 2.1
    Forum Link: Media Browser Forums

    Just a heads up, Sam Saffron and myself on behalf of the Media Browser team are on the Digital Lifestyle Podcast hosted by Ian Dixon. We'd like to thank Ian for having us on the show, I think we were a bit nervous at the start but settled in after that.

    This is the first time I’ve personally done something like this and really enjoyed the experience; hopefully I’ll have many more opportunities in the future. Let us know what you thought of the podcast either here or in the forums.

    Links



    *Updated podcast link.*

    The Media Browser two-week clock has ticked (or is that tocked?) and along with that comes another release of Media Browser, welcome Beta10 officially Media Browser 2.0.10.0 (Vanilla). Please click here to download Beta10. You can read the full release notes here.

     

    .Net 3.5 Now Mandatory

    Let’s jump right into it the second biggest news of the day first (no that’s not a typo). The Media Browser project going forward now requires Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5. Those of you have been putting off the .Net 3.5 update can download the framework here.

    Users who already have .Net 3.5 installed (standard on Windows 7) can leverage the beta updates to automatically update to the latest version.

     

    Vanilla Theme

    Ok back to the major news, Beta10 welcomes a new theme - the Vanilla theme has been integrated in the application. With the addition of this popular theme users will notice a few refinements to the Media Browser theme selection:

    b10_1     

    • Visual Theme: Allow you to select 1 of 3 standard themes (Classic / Default / Vanilla).
    • Color Scheme: Default (natural MCE Blue) and Black colors.
    • Font Size: Small and default.

     
    I think Robert has done a great job finding a balance between visually stunning while still retaining ease of use – which is always a tricky balance to strike. Those of you who have been following along in the forums will no doubt have seen this before; however, for those that haven't here are a few screen grabs of the new theme.

    b10_5

    b10_2

    b10_3

    b10_4

     

    Stability and Performance

    There have been a lot of changes taking place behind the scenes on Media Browser. Beta10 includes a number of enhancements to stability and performance, as well as general bug squashing from previous betas.

    (Just wanted to comment the feedback on the forums has been excellent, and I’d like to thank many of our users who take the time to provide feedback good or bad)

     

    Other Thoughts

    A lot of new ideas, feature discussion, road mapping have been taking place recently and personally speaking I feel this renewed passion is very encouraging for Media Browser’s future. I’m not at liberty to go into further details at this time but rest assured we have some cool features in the pipeline - I believe our track record speaks for itself.

    As always feedback is appreciated, the team plans to monitor feedback carefully over the next few weeks.

    Hope this helps.

    JM

    Download Link: Media Browser beta10

    Forum Link: www.mediabrowser.tv

    Wiki Link: Quick Start Guide

    Microsoft .Net 3.5 Link: .Net 3.5 Framework