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Android development has been a busy place these last few months. Behind the scenes a lot of work has been done to provide some great features. I'm going to do a series of blog posts showing off some of the progress leading up to the final availability this summer. So without further ado, here's some of the good stuff that's coming. Android in the living room The Android client will provide the mobile layout that everyone is used to. Users will be able to enable a new UI that is meant for TV's. The focus on this new UI is to make navigation as easy as possible using a remote control, rather than a touch-navigation-first design. In each view, you can press the menu button on your remote to display a list of relevant options for the current view. With a living room UI, the client will also be available for the FireTV and Ouya. Support for Live-TV A lot of people have asked for this one and I'm happy to oblige. If your Media Browser Server is configured to support live-tv, then you'll be able to enjoy a full-featured Live-TV experience. Watch last nights episode of Falling Skies, record a program, browse TV stations. All possible. Media Browser Channels Browsing and watching content from channels is now possible from your android device. Just add a channel to the Server and enjoy it on your device. And more... There have been lots of tweaks and fixes. The Android client now uses the same logic to play media as most other clients. This means the client is smarter with regards to choosing which audio track to play. The client is aware of more media types, no more transcoding for media types that Android natively supports. Support for Dolby Digital is also a feature of the improved internal media player. The device has to support Dolby and the media must contains dolby tracks.

First of all congratulations for your fantastic software. I upgraded my data connection at home and so i thinked to use my multimedia files in mobility. Via browser from remote pc mediabrowser works very well, but i have some issues with mediabrowser client for android. i have a Samsung note 2 with android 4.3, and when i play a musical album and the played song ends, mediabrowser often give me "error loading next item" and skip the right track that should be played. Is it a known issue? Another issue i noticed is when i left mediabrowser opened without playing any track:When i wake up my phone from standby sometimes the app doesn't respond and i need to force closing it from task manager. Finally, when i receive a phone call and it ends, mediabrowser stops playing and i need to push the play button again but it doesn't resume but plays from beginning. Thanks in advance for your answer and sorry for my bad english. Francesco

Hi All - I would appreciate a quick check to see if anyone else is experiencing the loss of playback controls before I add logs and screen shots. I have a great new Samsung Tab Pro 8.4 running Android 4.4.2. I have MB3 app 1.0.45 installed which works a treat. I am using the tablet/app to direct the playback to my DLNA recognized HP MediaSmart X280N extender's interface rather than to Media Center. Most of the time the playback controls disappear after a few seconds and I can't find a way to bring them back up. Anybody else see this or know how to get the controls back in the app display? Thanks, Tanamur

Last Saturday I uninstalled MB2 and installed MB3. Main interest was Android app for portable access to my library, so of course I also bought the Android App. I've set up MB Server, MB Classic in 7MC, and MBforAndroid. Some quirks getting used to the new way of "serving" the media to clients, but all programs and apps are at least basically functioning. I can play movies (MKV and WTV attempted so far) via the Android MB client, but only on my own WiFi network--nothing external. I have set my ASUS RT-AC66R router to do Port Forwarding on port 8096 for the IP of my MB Server computer, per another thread here on these forums. Issue: How can I use MB Android via external networks (4G or WiFi-other-than-my-own)? Currently, when running that client app on external network, it "Cannot connect to server." Media Browser Server version: 3.0.5070.20258 Media Browser Classic version 3.0.96.0 B11-19.1 Media Browser Android version 1.0.2 (191113) Many thanks to all involved in producing these programs and applications!

So my new little box turned up today and I lost my android virginity. So this is the unit i bought http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00GY1B3PU/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 This is the mini keyboard/mouse i bought http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00BX0YKX4/ref=oh_details_o00_s01_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Initial Setup Ok so I opened up the box and got all the bits out (you can see the bits in the link above). I set it up on my bedroom TV (LG 47LN575V) So first things first was to attach the WIFI antenna to the mini pc. I then used the HDMI extension cable that came with it to attach the mini pc to the TV's HDMI port, as the mini pc itself is too wide for a single HMDI slot and if you have other HDMI connections then you'll run into problems. I then connected the USB power to my TV's USB (HDD) socket and hey presto the little thing powered up and saw the boot screen straight away. Within about 10 secs I could see the dash with all the little preloaded icons on there. Now you have to remember that i'm an Android Virgin so all of the little system icons were alien to me at this point. Anyways next step was to connect the mini keyboard to the mini pc. Haha!! Well this was kinda odd. I had a Bluetooth mini pc in the tv, I had a bluetooth mini pc but there was no automatic discovery for the keyboard. I plugged the USB into the keyboard and then into the mini pc in order to try to control the UI via a wired connected, however all it did was charge the keyboard. So i went and got a spare full size USB keyboard I had and connected it, and thankfully I could navigate to the settings. I clicked on the bluetooth setting and paired the mini keyboard. I was now controlling the UI with the little keyboard now. I then connected up the WIFI in the settings. My bedroom is the opposite end of the house and one floor up (on the diagonal), which is pretty much as far as I can get them apart from my router. It's a BT HomeHub3 with 150N wifi capabilities. Anyways this is what the interface had to say about my WIFI strength I went thru each setting header and just checked thru them (as you do when you get something new) and I was quietly surprised that everything else was automatically detected based on the mini pc and what my TV was capable of. The last thing to do in the settings was to add an account and credit card details. Performance I can honestly say that i didn't experience any lagginess in the UI when navigating around. Launching the browser was quick, loading pages seems like my desktop, even sorting out the clock/time zone and Weather was all very snappy. By this point I had multiple apps open and have no idea how to close them, so the performance is absolutely fine. MediaBrowser The google play icon was already on the Home screen so I just clicked that and went straight to the app store where there was one mission in this and that was to acquire @@Redshirt MediaBrowser App. Suprisingly it's easy to find what you want but it wasn't immediately obvious what to click to install the app. but literally 4 clicks and I was there PS YOU HAVE TO CLICK ON THE PRICE TO GET THE APP IN THE SCREEN SHOT BELOW I DID ENABLE THE AUTOMATIC UPDATING OPTION Thats it. MB was installed and I saw the all famous Icon on the Home Screen So Clicking on the MB icon, the app immediately picked up my server and I was away. I experienced no lag when browsing the UI, the artwork updated very quickly and playback buffering only took a max of 5 secs. I really like the fact that the app tells you with audio and video what the app is doing with regards to directstream or transcoding... that's a really nice touch. I played "Prisoners" @ 1080p and 6mb/s stream and to be fair I think my BT HomeHub router is a bit crap so I experienced ever such a slight judder on playback, this was a direct stream. I then played an NCIS episode which was transcoded and this played fine but was only 480p stream. The Mini Keyboard Well it works, but i can't get used to it, the mouse seems to be the focus on this keyboard and even navigating with the directional buttons when pressing the enter key, it actually mouse clicks where ever the cursor is and not on the highlighted item. When using the mediabrowser app (I understand it's designed for touchscreen) but you need to swipe left and right to get to the different collections so you basically hold down the left mouse button and swipe the touchpad, this feels so un-natural it's unreal. I'm going to buy an Air/fly mouse with keyboard and see how I get on with that. I can't say I'm a fan of this handset for keyboard and mouse. however it may grow on me after a bit of getting used to.

Hi, I have a lot of full HD music videoclips which have different birates. For some reason I could play some pretty good on my Samsung S3 mini phone, but some others showed a black screen and I could only hear the music. Especially videos with a low bitrate (around 2000-2500) gave these problems. By setting the Wifi bitrate to 1.8mb/s I can play all video's, no matter what the bitrate is. So, my burning questions: 1) Can the Wifi bitrate not to be determined automaticly? 2) If not, what is the best rule to determine the optimized setting?

A little while ago I posted a little review of this device in @@Cheesegeezer's thread, I thought I might as well start a separate thread now that I've had some time to play with the unit a bit: I originally ordered the RikoMagic MK902 and MK705 AirMouse from AliExpress quite some time ago; as I stated in the other thread, this wasn't exactly a pleasant experience... After waiting 46 days for my device (!!!), it finally arrived. Woohoo! Except for one small problem: The MK902 was D.O.A. That is, the unit wouldn't turn on or anything. Didn't I feel great after waiting for so long. The remote, on the other hand; worked great! I plugged it into my PC to try it out, and it was excellent. The design makes it quite comfortable, and it's heavy enough to not feel like a piece of junk (it only cost $29 if I remember correctly). All the little goodies that came with my order The AirMouse functions much like a Wii Remote, but in my opinion, easier to aim, with smoother movement than a Wii Remote. The remote control functions work great as well. It has a decent amount of programmable buttons on it, which can be accomplished by simply holding the set button and then teaching the remote using an existing remote, much like you do with most programmable remote controls. AirMouse and Remote Control portion of the MK705 Flip the control over, and you have a full QWERTY keyboard including arrow buttons (which are handy for navigating the Android MB App). Keyboard side of the MK705 After many, many emails back and fourth with the supplier I bought my MK902 from, I eventually convinced them to ship me another unit with DHL Express, and I received my replacement unit about a week later (Why they couldn't ship that way from the beginning, I'll never know). And this one WORKS!! First off a few specs on the MK902: Comes loaded with Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean RK3188 Quad-Core CPU 2GB Ram Available in 8/16GB models (I purchased the 16GB model) Ability to add an additional 64(?)GB of storage via SD Card RikoMagic MK902 Android Mini-PC with WiFi Antenna I plug the unit into my TV, and it boots up in no time. After doing some research, I managed to find and install a custom ROM which allows for 1080p playback, which is a plus, since I'm using the device on a 50" Samsung LED TV, and 720p just wasn't cutting it (I'm used to the 65" Panasonic in the living room, which has an amazing 1080p picture). MK902 Sitting on top of my TV, sitting at my Home Screen Close-up of the MK902 on top of TV As far as WIFI signal quality goes, I'd say the antenna on this unit works great. It's located in a bedroom in the basement in the North-west corner of the house, and the router is in the South-West corner of the upper-floor, and I'm getting full signal according to the little WiFi icon in my settings menu. I've played a few games, and emulators and what-not on the device, and it seems to be very snappy, so I'm very impressed with the performance of this little box so far. It even has a built in (low quality) camera, in case you're interested in Skype or anything like that. As far as playback is concerned within the MB Android app, I've had to do a bit of a workaround to get it to my liking: I found that no matter how I set up transoding, I wasn't impressed with the quality on my 50" LED TV, so initially I started using the "Remote Play" function to send it to my TV using DLNA, which gave me full quality video (Although, I wasn't able to send 1080p video without an excessive amount of buffering, which made the video unwatchable). And the fact that I have no REW/FF capabilities on my TV with the current DLNA service. Also, I'm not sure what's causing it, but I've noticed when using DLNA, the video seems to end prematurely for some reason (not sure exactly how early, but seems like it could be as much as 30 seconds or more). So far, what I've found to be the best playback method for me is to use an external player. In my case I've found MX Player to work the best, and it gives me on-screen controls for REW/FF, etc. (A little annoying that I need to use the AirMouse, and not the playback controls on the remote) but I'm sure this kind of thing will get figured out eventually. Unfortunately, installing the custom ROM was a bit of a waste of time, because I can't seem to play back 1080p video with either method with a decent loading time, so for now, I can only watch 720p video with the device anyway. I will eventually run an Ethernet cable to the device directly from my modem, and see if this helps at all. All-in-all, I'm very satisfied with this device. For $140CDN (including the remote) I think it's a great deal. Especially for someone that doesn't own a smart TV, since this adds full internet functionality to you television. That combined with the plethora of games and apps available in the Android Market, it's a really fun device, with great performance to boot. Once the 10' UI Android app is released, it'll be even better. I just hope I can get 1080p playback sorted out, I don't think it's the device itself, I think the problem is in my current setup. Here's a few more photo's of the unit hooked up: RikoMagic MK902 on top of my TV, sitting at the Android MB3 App start page Android App details screen The MK705 keyboard works very well in the Android App Same goes for the AirMouse funtion of the MK705 Feel free to let me know if anyone has any questions regarding the device! Take care, Patrick

So, I notice that when looking at the iOS and Android mobile apps the Android app costs $4.53 to purchase and the iOS app is free. I'm curious about a couple of things regarding these prices: Where did the $4.53 price for the Android app come from? This seems like an odd number to choose, is there a reason behind it? Why is the iOS app free but the Android app not? Any reason why they either are both free or both have a cost? I still intend to buy the Android app (my iPad doesn't support iOS 7 and I don't intend to pay the $700 for a new one any time soon), and I'd be willing to pay a reasonable price for the app regardless platform, but the price discrepancy bothers me a little...

It would be nice to be able to build a playlist with the music tracks and also be able to play a song and exit out of the player or lock the screen and the song would keep playing.

I think this is tagged correctly as a Server feature request, but it would require something on the clients too. We regularly go on long car journeys, and my kids and my wife like to watch films on their android tablets and windows laptops. Because our library is all very high quality, high bitrate stuff, and as there is no decent connection to stream them, I need to find out what they want before we leave, and then encode the file for them before we leave, and then copy it onto their individual devices. What would be really cool would be if, for example, my daughter wanted to watch Harry Potter on her Nexus 7, she could just navigate to it in the Media Browser app and have the option to download to her device. This would download a lower bitrate version of the film (maybe dictated by the transcoding settings on the client) suitable for her 16GB tablet, held locally on this machine. I'm not sure if this is as simple as I think it is, or if there are legal/copyright barriers but this functionality would be very useful to my family! BTW great work so far, loving Media Browser 3! *Edit* OK, not the best title! How do I change it?

If you guys haven't heard of the news yet, Chromecast SDK is public now. This means we are READY TO CAST! The devs have been working hard to bring Chromecast support to MB! We are currently in beta testing with the different platforms including Android, iOS and web. We worked very closely with the Google devs over the last few weeks to add Chromecast support to our existing client apps. Chromecast as a receiver device will seamlessly integrate with the other MB apps like MB Classic, MB-Web and MB-Roku and can support up to 1080p video playback. If you haven't gotten a Chromecast yet you can order it from Google or Amazon. Oh and this feature will be available to all our users Android: IOS: Casting:

Finally!! I'm very pleased to announce that the Android MediaBrowser client now supports Chromecast. Everyone who has a device running Google Play Services 4.2 should see it in the coming days. Chromecast will behave like it does in most other clients. Select a route using the route selector and then the play actions will play on the selected Chromecast device. HAPPY CASTING! In the near future I'll be merging the Remote play and CC functionality so that it's the same interface for both.

Hi All Have had a hunt on here for anyone else having this issue, with no luck so here goes. I have an upcoming trailers collection of locally downloaded trailers,(not collected by the any MB plugins, only using Metabrowser to collect). My issue is that this collection is no longer even visible in MBC and while the collection is visible through the MBS web client, MB theater or the android client, the individual items are not visible/playable, which makes me suspect the server is not recognising the media files, perhaps due to them only being up to 150Mb.... only a guess tho. I used to be able to see the collection and play via MBC, although I must confess I'm not sure when this changed. Hopefully some pics will help ... Server Library Config Web Client Collection view Clicking on a trailer show this.. with no playable file The MB Theater Views of the same MBC EHS Screen Web Client home screen for sort order comparison, as you can see the Upcoming trailers collection is not even visible between Movies and TV Shows where its sort order should show. With the recent improvements to audio/subtitles playback in MBT, I'm really keen to start using this as my primary media client on my HTPC's but as we often 'surf' through upcoming trailers, this is proving annoying at present, having to open MBC just to do this. Have tried server restarts and rebuilding the db cache, but neither have made a difference I'm just wondering if I've missed a minimum file size setting, or whether something changed on the server side, that no longer allows this type of collection to work?? More Details Server Version 3.0.5171.19958 MB Classic - 3.0.129.0, MBC Themes tested - Chocolate and Subdued Look forward to any suggestions or confirmation of this being an issue. Regards Brainfryd

It's about the first time I'm using MB3 and just bought the Android app since all the apps seems amazing. But I can't get the subtitles to work. When I do an "Advanced Playback" and select the subtitle (which is detected)... I receive the transcoded video (instead of direct streaming) but the subtitles still missing. Is there something that I need to do on the server ? I've already setted my pref language for subtitles also installed LAV Filters. Lastly, the entire point for me of all this setup is to play this on my Chromecast, but seems like when select the Advanced Play option the Cast button get disabled. Any ideas if this is expected or not? Thanks, keep the good work!

Hi All, I'm trying to set up chromecast on my kindle and managed to get the chromecast app on there via sideload however the kindle store version of the andriod client hasn't been updated in a while so the chromecast functionality isn't available. Is it possible to update the kindle store version of the android client

I am enjoying the functionality of MB Server, MB Classic and MB for Android -- many thanks to all developers! I have re-ripped my DVDs and Blu-Rays into MKV containers with the original CODECs for video and audio (some MPG2, some AVC, some VC1, some Dolby TrueHD, some DTS-MA, etcetera). When playing on my CinemaPC media center computers (Win7x64) with all the necessary CODECs available, performance is of course flawless and not a burden on any of the processors. When streaming to Android, the burden on the MB Server's CPU is about 90% throughout the streaming, and responsiveness of the Android client is very slow if I attempt to advance along the timeline. I can surely adjust the bitrates in the Android client, but do not want to bump it up above the level where pauses will occur while streaming over non-wifi connection (Verizon 4G typically). I'm posting my MB Server specs below, and ask anyone's help in understanding the parameters, variables, or factors that I might consider as I try to improve Android client performance. Intel i5-2500k at 3.0GHz, 8GB RAM, nvidia 430 MB Server 3.0.5171.19958 MB Classic 3.0.129.0 2-12.2 MB Android 1.0.19

Long-time Plex user here. I set up the server on my PC and downloaded the app, since the blog noted Chromecast availability. However, it is nowhere to be found. Is there some sort of beta I have to enroll in?

Just wanted to share this awesome app I just came across, Unified Remote. http://www.unifiedremote.com/ It easily gives you remote control access (over wifi or BT) to many media and windows programs, and mouse control, with NO LAG! I was about to buy an IR receiver and WMC remote to make my MB experience better, but this is better than that ever could be! Check it out! Unified Remote -site / server download Google Play Store For Android 1.5 or later -app Windows Phone Store For Windows Phone 7.5 & 8 -app

I would like to see a DELETE option available to ADMIN users only in the Android client. I use this in the MBC client and would find it useful in the Android client as well.

I just tried side-loading the android app on my Ouya and it seems to work quite well. Im not sure what the requirements for the ouya store are but the only few issues I found were overscan and controller related Ie could do with better support for the ouya gamepad buttons and maybe a confirmation dialog before exiting. I think this would work great with the ouya especially if game/emulator support is added eventually. I also think it would be a success if a mediabrowser app could get into the ouya store while xbmc still has many issues on the platform. Attn Redshirt do you know what would be required to submit your app to Ouya's store?

Good news for all you kindle owners. The Android client has been approved for distribution on the Kindle store. Now let's see what awesome features I can add as we go forward from here.

I've successfully installed the mb3 server, classic (xbox360) and roku versions, but am stuck trying to get the Android client (beta 14, or RC2.1) to log in. I keep getting "Could not connect to library." I've typed in the name of the pc, and the router IP address, and port 8096 seems to be open, and there seem to be rules for the mb3 server in the firewall. Have I missed something obvious? Perhaps a detailed set-up tutorial would help? Do changes to the firewall rules need to be made? Why doesn't the android client "see" the LAN automatically, especially since the phone is already logged into wifi? Do I need to change a setting in server to look for the android client? Running mb3 server on Win7 Pro x64. Running mb3 android on Verizon Moto Droid Razr android 4.1.2.

I have been side-loading the media browser android app for the last month or so. I see the app is now for purchase. I just confirmed my purchase but I notice the streaming still buffers quite a bit or stops to buffer. I am a bit disappointed I see the cellular bit rate is set by default to 850 kb/s and LAN/WIFI is set to 6.0 kb/s.... Here is my phone: http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/phone.php?p=4102 Q: What can I do to make the app stream without buffering so much? I really want to make use of this feature

Thanks Redshirt.

Today I'm pleased to announce that the MediaBrowser client for Android has been released to the Google Play store. The app is available for all devices running Android OS 4.0 (ICS) or newer. Application Features: Browse your entire MediaBrowser library Stream Music, movies and TV from your library Remote play to other MediaBrowser clients Open Books (Requires MB Bookshelf server plugin and document readers installed)