Media Browser 2.2.1 Released (Firestorm)
A few days late, but here you have it, time to push Firestorm out the door. Special thanks to ebr and all the testers for giving this release a huge amount of testing.
An annoucementMedia Browser, as is, will remain free. We are still looking for ways to monetize, be it bundling of a plugin, an app store, affiliates or a value added product. But, the plain old Media Browser you are using today is remaining free. I will shortly be adding a donation page if anyone feels like helping out the project with a few dollars.
We need your helpRecently I posted about a bit of free advertising we got. If you are a designer and can design a better ad (targeted at developers) PLEASE post a pic, if you are a developer follow the links.
This release contains a massive amount of bug fixes and completed feature request, I would like to highlight a few:
- Performance: Firestorm is faster, much faster. Startup is faster, navigating around the home screen is faster, threading is much more constrained and we even ship with experimental sqlite support which is really fast.
- Stability: Firestorm is generally more stable, we fixed issues around video playback in windows 7 and quite a few other areas. We also made it much easier to set up security for extenders.
- Extensibility: With the Firestorm release, thanks to ebrs hard work, we now support UI plugins. This means themes can ship as plugins, in fact Vanilla is no longer shipped with the base Media Browser installer, instead you download it from throgs site. This allow UI plugin developers to ship upgrades to their plugins without having to update the core media browser product. We also support extensible “Item Actions” which means a developer can add additional behavior that can be applied to items in the collection. An example is ebrs find similar movies plugin.
- Fixed external playback.
- Fixed playback for ripped tv episodes in ISO or VOB format.
- New Images By Name supports common sub folders
- Fixed Error message – “We can not maximise the window for some reason! object…”
- Fixed Extensible Config Page doesn’t work
- New Extensible Item Menu
- Fixed Media Browser Hangs in Full Screen when the clock is enabled
- New display media info icon for 4:3 movies
- Fixed View by Year – Years are not in correct order
- In order to speed up the startup process I rewrote the way we handle configuration files, your current config files for MB are no longer valid, after the upgrade it will be backed up and a fresh one will pop up.
- All the plugins you have need to be upgraded, go to the configuration tool and click the upgrade button.
- Vanilla new home is http://www.throgsoft.com/, there are detailed installation instructions there.
- The images by name folder has been split in to something more rational. To migrate your old images use our migration tool. Or just use this as an excuse to update your images by name files http://www.thehtpc.net/archives/1345
A full list of fixed items in firestorm is available here: http://community.mediabrowser.tv/topics?tag=firestorm
As always a copy of the binary is available at: http://code.google.com/p/videobrowser/downloads/list?saved=1&ts=1261603233
Posted by sam on December 23, 2009
10 comments
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December 23, 2009
Good work all round! Straight away I can see the difference in the initial focus issues and it’s fixing those kinda things that makes the user experience a more pleasant one.
Some dicking (and digging) around to be done tomorrow I feel… :D
December 24, 2009
Best Christmas ever! tx guys.
December 24, 2009
Great move keeping Media Browser free and looking towards alternatives. An app store sounds great. I will be donating once you get the Donate button up, and hopefully everyone else who is using Media Browser will do the same.
Cheers Damian
December 24, 2009
The very best thing about Firestorm for me is the addition of multiple entry points – but it doesn’t get a mention.
It’s taken me about half an hour to figure out that the new entry points just appear in media centre studio without any additional configuration.
It truly is a fantastic addition & I think you should be really shouting about it!
Well done all involved!
December 25, 2009
Very nice release and a nice xmas present. I can’t wait to try it out however there are 2 things getting in my way of doing so and I am sure this will be effecting allot of people.
The download link to the new imagebyname file is returning a 404 error from dropbox.
A mirror would be appreciated. I bet bandwith was exceeded.
The migration tool for updating the imagebyname folder is not working for me under window7 x64.
Dunoo if its a oversight or if its because I am on the RC1
Help would be appreciated as this has me stopped in my tracks :(
December 25, 2009
To the above, all of the links here seem to be working for me http://www.mediabrowser.tv/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=4501
There seems to be a problem with the migration tool, ebr has posted a few new versions on the forum to try and fix it, have a go with one of those if you haven’t already.
December 25, 2009
Thanks and yes all the links of the link you posted work.
And thanks for the info on the new tool guess ill track that down next.
December 25, 2009
Thanks to the developers team. The new version of MediaBrowser (Firestorm) is fantastic. New Vanilla theme is beautiful. Mediaplayer Classic as external player is working perfectly. ISO mounting with Daemon Tools is working perfectly.
And the above all, CoreCodec 2.0 is released; working with x64 OS is now enabled Hardware Acceleration in Windows Media Player and Media Centre too, no need to use MPC Homecinema as an external player….
So now, Windows Media Centre + Media Browser (Firestorm) + CoreCodec 2.0 is a perfect combination for HTPC setup…volia…
Enjoy
December 26, 2009
Thank you :) Great Work!!!!
December 28, 2009
Great work guys. You developers have created a masterpiece All the ingredients are there for even further beauties
The plugin structure SQLite
Christmas was a blast with Firestorm
And i see Thunderblade already in the planning stages As soon as I can donate you will receive mine
Media Browser and the new CoreAVC 2.0 is a sure winner.
Thank you all
It was a great 2009 and 2010 will be even better
Virtual_Nobody