I just started Media Browser today and got the download of Beta 8. All I can say is AWESOME! Check out the Jas Manghera’s blog for deeper details on what this release does.
Lets take a look at what is new and so awesome!
Views, Views, Views
Lets get the biggie out of the way first, Coverflow! Ian blogged last week about cover flow coming and it has and it looks great.
Coverflow is a really neat feature and it looks visually stunning. Who would ever have thought we’d have seen this in Media Center? I’d like to see a little more from the feature though. Great as it is, and it will be brilliant to show friends, I can’t help but think it’s going to take me forever to find a film like Zulu! That said I can easily just press “9” on the remote to skip right through to it. I wonder if a two level Coverflow would work? Still I love the visual style and I’ll be leaving it turned on for my movie folder view for a while.
The next new addition is the Thumb Strip view. The screen is divided into 3, a thumb strip giving a preview of each video, a synopsis and art work. I love this view and I’ll be changing all my TV shows over to it. It’s a very intuitive view and really pretty.
The talent
The actors view is super too, now it’s possible currently with a little fiddling that you can read about in Jas’ blog to get images up for each actor in a film. Great feature and it looks good. I really like this new tabbed approach to looking at films, lots more potential with this view too.
Back to black
There is a new black theme available through settings too. It’s nice, very nice actually. I’m gonna stick to blue though since it makes the whole experience hag together in my opinion.
My thoughts
Media Browser is up in my Top 2 list of add-ins. This new update means it’s actually vying for the top spot with TunerFree MCE (it’s not number 1 because TunerFree MCE gives me more, it saves my life when something doesn’t record). Media browser has however in increased my GAF (won’t have a W till next year!) since D can find things much more easily and so can watch Lipstick Jungle when I’m not there…ok I watch it too.
If you don’t have the update (it’s 2.0.8.0) then go into Media Browser > Settings and turn on Beta Updates or get it from the Media Browser forums.
To the Media Browser team. Great, AWESOME, work. Looking forward to more.
Posted by Simon May, follow me on Twitter or if you like email me
9 thoughts on “Media Browser – The AWESOME continues!”
I haven’t tried 2.0.8 yet, but I have been trying out the alternative verision which is available on the Mediabrowser forum…..and I would say, just by looking at the image grabs you have, it’s better than 2.0.8.
I suggest you try it out and compare the two – you won’t be dissapointed :o)
This is probably a stupid question, when I am in Media Browser and press info on the remote I see two options Internet Security and Settings, if I select Settings it takes me to the Media Center settings. How do I get in to the options /. settings for Media Browser ?
There’s a spanner icon on the first page in Media Browser that does the trick. It’s hardly noticable actually! I think that info menu could do with an improve.
The Info menu is the standard one you’ll see with all MCE plugins. MCE doesn’t allow plugins to modify the menu for security reasons. There have been manu complaints on the developer forums regarding this…
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I haven’t tried 2.0.8 yet, but I have been trying out the alternative verision which is available on the Mediabrowser forum…..and I would say, just by looking at the image grabs you have, it’s better than 2.0.8.
I suggest you try it out and compare the two – you won’t be dissapointed :o)
I am getting the Media Browser guys on to the podcast soon
Do have a link to this alternative version ? I’ve just updated to 2.0.8 and the cover flow is very nice !
This is probably a stupid question, when I am in Media Browser and press info on the remote I see two options Internet Security and Settings, if I select Settings it takes me to the Media Center settings. How do I get in to the options /. settings for Media Browser ?
Cheers
This might be worth a read for more quickly getting hold of actor images:
http://www.mediabrowser.tv/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=688
I’ve not tried it yet but might later!
There’s a spanner icon on the first page in Media Browser that does the trick. It’s hardly noticable actually! I think that info menu could do with an improve.
http://www.mediabrowser.tv/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=465&start=300
here is the thread and a link to the msi is in one of the postings
The Info menu is the standard one you’ll see with all MCE plugins. MCE doesn’t allow plugins to modify the menu for security reasons. There have been manu complaints on the developer forums regarding this…
Alternative download:
http://rapidshare.com/files/195566606/Throgmorton_r591_Vista32.msi
Make sure that you uninstall the original Movie Browser first.
Pressing shift and * gets you to the settings menu.
Duncs