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Media Browser 3.0.5366 Released

Luke

Entry posted by Luke

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A new server release is available which features significant improvements to our transcoder in terms of performance, reliability and features. Without much further ado, here are the highlights:

  • Improved reliability and quality of video transcoding
  • A new transcoding throttling feature which can dramatically reduce cpu usage in certain situations
  • Improved support for Advanced SubStation Alpha and SRT subtitles
  • Improved DLNA reliability
  • Added DLNA special folders
  • Added resume progress bars with DLNA images
  • Support webp image output for faster browsing
  • Support for additional photo metadata
  • Support for album disc sub-folders
  • Display mirror setting now remembered
  • Added an option to save metadata and images as hidden files
  • Added an option to control when chapter images are extracted

New Transcoding Features

 

Our transcoding has improved significantly. Not only is it faster and more reliable than ever, but it will also throttle itself when it gets far enough ahead of the player. Let's take a look at how that works. Simply start playing something and monitor the cpu usage from ffmpeg:

 

540b5a5f601d1_Untitled.png

 

As you can see it starts out pretty high, but depending on the content being played the transcoder may be able to move at a faster rate than you're actually watching. Let's monitor that from the server dashboard:

 

540b5ad144b56_Untitled.png

 

As you can see the transcoder position (in red), is a few minutes ahead of your current position. Media Browser Server is able to identify this and throttle the transcoder in order to reduce cpu usage:

 

540b5b29c851f_Untitled.png

 

The throttling is smart and will speed up and slow down as needed in order to maintain smooth playback. Now the reduced load on your server will allow more devices to stream simultaneously without putting too much pressure on your system.

 

But these are not the only transcoding improvements. Our handling of SRT and Advanced SubStation Alpha subtitles has improved and is now more efficient and reliable than ever.

 

 

Improved DLNA Support

 

This release also brings a number of DLNA enhancements. For starters, device compatibility has increased significantly thanks to pull requests submitted by 7Illusions.

 

In addition, we now display special folders throughout your library. Click into your TV, Movie, or Music sections and you'll see some nice categories like Resume, Next Up, Latest, Favorites, etc.

 

540b5dbe6999c_Untitled.png

 

 

In addition, you'll now see progress bars for titles that can be resumed, just like you're accustomed to with our other apps:

 

540b5df0dfc8d_Untitled.png

 

 

WebP Image Output Support

 

This is a technology feature for the developers. WebP is an open source image format designed by Google that achieves as much as a 34% reduction in file size from JPG/PNG at the same level of quality. This is going to allow faster browsing with apps that are capable of supporting them.

 

Look for WebP support soon in the following apps:

  • Web Client with Chrome and Chrome Android browsers
  • All Android apps
  • Chromecast

New Photo Metadata Support

 

With this release we are now capturing more robust photo metadata, with stats such as Aperture, Shutter Speed, Latitude, Longitude, and a long list of others. This is only the beginning of our photo revamp and you can expect robust filtering as well as slideshows and galleries in future updates.

 

 

Album Disc Sub-Folder Support

 

A long requested feature, we now support numbered disc sub-folders. Please see the music section of the knowledge base for details:

 

http://mediabrowser.tv/community/index.php?/topic/674-media-files-folders-structure/?p=21480

 

 

Join the Media Browser Team

 

As always, we're looking to grow the team with new developers, testers, designers, or any skill set you bring that you feel can help us. In particular we are looking for more Android and iOS developers to help bring us onto new devices and form factors that are rapidly becoming popular, such as living room set top boxes and wearables. Drop us a line!

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6 Comments

Recommended Comments

flexage

Great work guys! Even on my pretty fast server the transcoding improvements are much appreciated! And WebP support sounds awesome! Keep up the great work!

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gcoupe

Good to see that support for photo metadata is improving. However, where can I find details of what is being supported, and the standards used? I would hope that MBS will support/expose at least the IPTC Core standards. Having support for People Tags using the MWG standard (which Picasa also now uses) would be also good.

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denethor

Good job with the transcoder.

And addition to that it is really nice to see that someone started to working on photo metadata. I mean competition wise ;)

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somy

Great work! Does this version have improved support for sutitles encoded in other charset?

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jwill

It has happened several times now where there is a release, then maybe a day later another release (bug fix, presumably), but the second release is "stealth". There is no documentation here about what the second release changed, even though it would be good to know what changed in the second release.

 

It could easily be documented at the top of this page by adding a couple lines, listing the version of the second release, and a line item or two about what changed in the second release.

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scottfree1

Thanks for your hard work, unfortunately one of your recent additions has turned you very slick, smooth and linear navigation into (for me and my setup at least) into 10 miles of rough road. The insistence on adding the cast & crew virtual folder everywhere, and with as far as I can find having no way to  disable it (other than using the metadata manager and deleting what in my case is 10,000+ entries by hand) is a huge step backward for the navigation interface..

 

1st it breaks Next/Back transforming one click into

Back

     Back

        Arrow

            Enter

                 Select

                       Play

 

Second browsing your library w/descriptions

Old way

 

Arrow Key

Arrow Key

Arrow Key

 
3 clicks 3 descriptions viewed
 

New way

Arrow Key

    Enter

         Read Description

    Back 

Arrow key

    Enter

       Read Description

   Back

Arrow key

    Enter

       Read Description

   Back

Arrow Key

 

I understand you guys put a lot a work into this, and it comes down to opinion if it adds enough additional value for the clicks, But the thing is you've added into to folders view also. Making it inescapable, and sorry a "folder view" shows your file structure as is, not some random un-deletable invisible non-folder calling itself a "folder" so if you just took it out of their that would give back the options of the old nav.  /end rant

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