Windows Media Center plugins

Media Browser has received a minor update, bringing the popular media management plugin for Windows Media Center to version 2.5.3. The update is focused on bug fixes rather than new features. For instance there is a fix for memory leaks in the Media Browser service and a couple of fixes to ensure that podcasts and TV episodes show up correctly under different circumstances. One neat new feature is the ability to sort by MPAA rating, a feature that I would have really appreciated when my kids were first learning how to run the living room remote control. There are also some changes to how Media Browser plug-ins are stored. As one would expect, the change should occur in the background while transitioning to the new version, but be sure to check out the complete release notes if you get an error.

Version 2.5.3 is now available on the main Download page.

Not much in the way of features in this release but some important bug fixes including:

• Fix for last added lists containing TV outside of the normal file structure
• Podcasts now show in last added lists properly

Media Browser Blog

Version 2.5.2 of Media Browser, codenamed Apollo, has been released. In addition to the usual raft of performance improvements, there are a number of big changes to version 2.5.2 that every Media Browser user should be aware of. First up, this version Media Browser requires Windows 7. Windows Vista is no longer supported. Also, Media Browser is getting its own metadata xml file called movie.xml. According to the release notes, Apollo is still backward compatible with mymovies.xml, but the developers are recommending that users make the change as quickly as possible and have several links to information to assist in making the transition. Finally, the other big addition is that Media Browser is now able to recognize 3D movies so long as they follow proper naming conventions. I know what I will be playing with tonight. Personally, I am looking forward to seeing the improvements to the default theme in action.

Version 2.5.2 (Apollo) is now available for download. This version started out as a quick maintenance release but evolved into a new version that should provide significant performance and feature improvements in several areas.

Please see the changelog for a complete description of the changes and new features.

Media Browser Blog

I had not heard of Shared Guide Potato until just recently, but if you are still pining for the ill-fated Softsled, then this one is for you. Shared Guide Potato pulls double duty as a plugin for both Remote Potato and Windows Media Center. Remote Potato is a favorite around these parts. If you're not familiar with it, Remote Potato provides remote access to your WMC via your browser or mobile app to stream content, browse the EPG, and even schedule and manage your recordings. Shared Guide Potato is a plugin for WMC that adds a shared guide to WMC that talks to Remote Potato running on another machine. This allows you to use Remote Potato through the Media Center interface, scheduling and recording TV on one central computer. It is not a complete Softsled-style solution because you still need a local tuner for live TV, but it might be as close as we ever get.

Shared Guide Potato was recently updated to version 1.1.7 after a flurry of updates from developer Mark Meyer. The most recent updates have added the ability to change the channel on a remote machine through the shared guide and an advanced recording option for scheduling programs before they appear on the EPG.

I have developed a media center addin for remote potato. This allows you to access your guide from a remote pc. The benefit of this is you can have one central recording box and view the guide and scheduled recordings on other pc's. It's a step towards softsled.

TGB

Media Browser will be changing their metadata XML file name to movie.xml with the next release, codenamed Apollo. The change comes in response to a change made by My Movies in their most recent release. I hadn't noticed the change in the My Movies version 4.02 release notes, but the My Movies team has decided to start encrypting their own mymovies.xml metadata file. Encrypting the mymovies.xml file makes sense given that the My Movies metadata service is an increasingly valuable part of the My Movies package, but Media Browser has also used the mymovies.xml file for metadata, which means that folks who use My Movies Collection Management for their metadata backend and Media Browser for their frontend are now out of luck. The XML change in Media Browser won't necessarily fix the problem for those folks, but will establish Media Browser's metadata file as its own entity to avoid future confusion.

 So, for those of you that preferred the Media Browser Media Center front end and the MyMovies metadata managing capabilities on the backend, your days are now officially over if you have upgraded to the version implementing this change.  All your mymovies.xml files are now encrypted and unreadable by Media Browser.

theHTPC.net