We're back for another go round and we have a pretty exciting beta headed your way. It's packed with features, bug fixes, security improvements, and more.

Server Dashboard refreshed for 2015

The server management interface has been given some minor touchups to stay up to date with trends and make it easier than ever to find what you're looking for.

And it's just as easy when mobile.

Improved Mobile Details

The mobile detail view has been simplified, making it prettier and easier than ever before.

Introducing Media Browser Offline for Windows 8.1

Coming soon to Android, iOS and Windows Phone.

We know that sometimes you'd like to have access to your content when you're offline, and we've been working hard to deliver that to our mobile apps. You'll notice sync buttons all througout the web interface:

Sync from Categories:

Sync from detail pages:

Sync from context menus:

These buttons will allow you to create sync jobs to move content to your mobile devices for offline viewing. Sync jobs have a number of options at your disposal, such as:

Quality levels, to save space on the device



Limits to the number of items being synced



Ability to monitor folders and continuously sync newly added content



Ability to remove watched content from the device automatically



Note that the Offline Sync feature will require a supporter membership. As always we appreciate your donations as they help keep us running so that we can continue to pursue new projects.

Your users can sync, and you can manage them

As the administrator of your server, you'll have full control over who can sync and who can't.

Users can even monitor their personal sync jobs using the web client:

Offline even supports Parental Control

The server now allows configuration of an easy pin code for offline access. If utilized this will allow user-specific content to remain protected even when offline, perfect for families and shared devices.

Shorter URL's

The API now supports url's without the /mediabrowser suffix. When you open the web interface from the tray icon you'll now have a shorter, easier to remember url.

SSL now supported

Thanks to the efforts of Jabbera, SSL is now supported by configuring an HTTPS port and certificate.

Subtitle Encoding Improvements

Thanks to the efforts of Somy and Serios, a number of new character encodings are now supported. We've adopted Mozilla's UniversalDetector library to try and make sure the right encoding is picked for each file.

Roku Thumbnails!

Thanks to the efforts of a new community member, a new plugin is available in the catalog to generate Roku seek thumbnails.

This provides a nice visual experience when seeking on the device.

In Roku language this is called Bif trick mode, and the thumbnail generation process creates a .bif file. It even has an option to save the .bif file alongside your media for easy archiving.

Important Note: The process to create these thumbnails is slow and will affect your server's CPU. Please take this into consideration when installing the plugin.

This will require an update to the Roku app and will take time to go through Roku's approval process. The update is already available in the beta channel. More information on that can be found at:

http://mediabrowser.tv/community/index.php?/topic/8001-media-browser-for-roku-channel/

Revamped web client search

Searching is much faster and more accessible than ever. Just start typing to see visual results. Expect more improvements with this to come.

Play All From Here

This function is now available for episodes, allowing you to quickly queue up several at once for playback. These can be played locally or sent to another device.

Improved Collection Management

You'll now see the Add to Collection function in many more places throughout the web interface, making it easier than ever to manage them.

New Download Button

Now you can easily download your personal media directly from the web interface.

You can even control which users are allowed access to it:

Opt-In Access Permissions

The permissions for library and channel access have been slightly re-worked. Previously you've been accustomed to having to opt-out, that is, new libraries become visible to users by default. You can now stop this from happening by unchecking the option to enable access to all. This means that if you add a new library or channel, your users may not be able to see it until you've granted them access.

Supply your Personal Fanart.tv API Key

At the request of both Fanart.tv and fans of Fanart, we now have a space where you can enter your fanart personal api key. This will get you access to new images faster as well as other benefits that fanart provides.

http://mediabrowser.tv/community/uploads/inline/2/54d8ebaf399a3_Untitled.png

Create your own custom CSS

Now you can design your own CSS rules and apply them to the web interface. Let us know what you come up with!

http://mediabrowser.tv/community/uploads/inline/2/54d8ea242706a_Untitled.png

Bugs Resolved

Fixed multi-disc folder recognition



Artists tag in audio files is now read



External subtitles in Dlna profiles not being used



Fixed Tmdb foreign language fallback



Unable to parse Nfo's containing only a single url



Join the Community

What makes this release so awesome is the number of people who stepped up to contribute to it. In fact, the goals of the release were even shifted as a result of input and contributions that were made. If you're looking for a project, say hello and we'll find a place for you