Media Browser Atlas SP1 set for tomorrow release.

At no fault of the developer(s), Media Browser doesn’t have the most reliable history of making release dates.  However, I have been watching the testing forum daily and it appears the latest beta 6 release for the testers may be the magic bean for tomorrow’s slated release of Atlas Service Pack 1.

There is no real changelog yet for SP1, but you can see a complete changelog for all of Atlas here.  Below is a list of action items created for each beta release:

• No longer persist the media count on folders as they weren’t updating properly in many situations
• Fix incorrectly blocking folders when “Block Unrated” was selected and the folder was explicitly set to a rating of “Any”.
• Implement new [DontFetchMeta] tag to cause internet providers to ignore specific file paths (useful for home movies or music videos etc)
• Update Fanart provider to obey DontFetchMeta tag
• Update MBPlus with new collection as a tile group feature (beta)

Beta 5

• Get rating for box set from first child if not specified in movie.xml
• Fix first episode image loading
• Fix episodes not refreshing when add a whole season (very old bug)
• Fix slow configurator load

Beta 4

• Add MG6 to Dutch ratings
• Add AirDay and AirTime to Series
• Add new 5 day weather forecast (Thx ST)
• Add DiscImage support to items
• Add profiling messages to configurator startup

Beta 3a

• Fix parental control issue with TV series
• Add TmdbId to movie object
• Improve embedded mediainfo and ratings icon sourcing. Should find the default ones when they don’t exist in the current theme.
• Make Boxsets read movie.xml if it exists (this will nullify tmdb fetching for these)
• Fix out of order playback of multi-part movies
• Make Ctl-R in interface force a re-download of the internal providers

Beta 2

• Fix losing meta when tmdb sends us bad/incomplete results
• Fix crash with “Hide Empty Folders”
• Translate new PC values (you’d have to back up to 2.6 first to see this)
• Get MPAA rating from first child of boxset until tmdb can provide it to us
• Add option to not overwrite posters even if you are saving local data with internal fetchers
• Fix the search pane for the new ratings functionality
• Fix transcoding DVDs for xbox
• Fix MPC playing wrong media with DVDs
• Fix for MBTrailers crashing in some instances
• Adjust rating values to match better between GB/US
• Move ‘Metadata’ tab so it is in consistent spot in configurator

MBPlus EHS

As you can see, a lot of time and effort has been put into this service pack.  I have only tried it briefly when taking a look at ebr’s new MBPlus plugin, based upon his popular MBTV plugin.  I’m not sold on it yet, but in all honestly, I don’t think I’ve given it a good enough run to be convinced.  It’s still nothing short of awesome in what it can add to your Media Center setup.

Update:

Looks like the release date has been changed afterall…new date set for August 4th.  Bummer, but worthwhile I imagine.

Update 2:

Looks like it will be at least a couple more weeks before we see an official release of Atlas SP1.  A late hang-up with the latest public release candidate has run into some scheduled vacation time for lead developer ebr, so, instead of releasing it “as-is”, the team felt it better to wait until he returns and hash out the remaining issues afterwards.  You can download the Public Pre-Release and necessary plugin updates here.