Guest Post by Scott Whitmore

For many years frustrated home theatre enthusiasts have battled their way to find the best solution to getting their content on a screen. In a future where every device has a powerful powered processor and a high definition display, it’s a wonder why finding a simple way to show your media where you want it, is far from simple.

There are many products out there, fighting to differentiate themselves, but all ultimately aiming for the same goal; sort and display content on a device with minimal effort, in a way that looks good and is easy to use. The Media Browser team now have a new suite of products dedicated to solving that very problem. With years of experience with the famous Windows Media Centre plug-in, Media Browser 2, the teams knows what people want, and how to deliver. It was established that best way to achieve that goal was to completely rebuild from the ground up, moving away from WMC entirely. The target has now moved from not only the TV, but to portable devices such as phones and tablets as well.

Media Browser 3 starts with a free open source server program which can either be run on a Windows based HTPC or Media Server, with Linux development starting in the near future. The server primarily sorts and catalogues videos, music, photos, and books and streams them to a variety of clients. Several clients have already been developed with release dates in the coming weeks. These include Window Media Centre, Windows Phone, Android, iOS, Roku, web browsers, and the much anticipated stand-alone Windows desktop client dubbed Media Browser Theatre.

The software not only automatically fetches metadata and album art, but encourages developers to enhance the experience with third-party plug-ins. The flexibly of the server’s API allows developers to build impressive additions to the software, with a variety already available. These include Game Browser, Cover Art, MBPhoto, MB Bookshelf, Trakt, and more. In a stunning display, your media is virtually accessible anywhere, and more importantly gaining the WAF (wife approval factor) along the way.

The next few weeks will definitely be interesting ones and Media Browser 3 will be sure to impress everyone, not just the enthusiasts. If you haven’t already, head over to the website: www.mediabrowser3.com, for more information.