With Media Browser moving to a paid model you may be looking for alternatives for your movie collection viewing. Fortunately for you there are a few good alternatives on the rise in the open-source community that can fill your need for something a little above and beyond the native movie library. Some, such as Open Media Library, even provide better control over your collection’s metadata and artwork.

To get started head over the the Open Media Library website and download the version to match your operating system. Once you’ve got the program installed you’ll find that there is a new database editor in the programs menu under Open Media Library. This is the tool we’ll use to add our movies to the OML database and edit the metadata and artwork for each movie.

The first thing you’ll need to do after launching the database editor is load your movie collection into the database. For most users this will mean Importing a list of movies from a directory on your hard drive. Select the Import button in the left hand pane then select the Scan for Folders for DVDs and Videos. A small dialog will appear to allow you to select your movie folder, then press OK to begin the import process.

Once the import process has finished press the Movies button on the left hand pane to return to the list of movies that has been added to the database. You’ll notice that unlike other metadata tools OML loads movie titles from the filename as opposed to the folder name at first but also included is the ability to enter custom search strings when retrieving metadata so the impact is minimal if your collection is slightly unorganized.

To get started loading metadata for each movie, right-click the title in the left pane and select Update Metadata then select a provider. If you choose to go with themoviedb.org, fanart will be downloaded as well.

Inside the metadata search window you can enter a custom search string to refine your search in case you aren’t receiving the proper results. Once the correct movie is listed select it from the lower pane and continue to download the metadata by pressing the Select Movie button. If you’ve selected themoviedb.org as your metadata provider the program will download movie backdrops and covers then return you to the main window.

Unfortunately, there is no option for mass downloading movie metadata into the OML database so large collections could take quite some time to get completed. Read here for instructions on mass metadata downloading. The advantages of having this level of control over the metadata may be worth it for some though.

Inside Windows Media Center the plugin is quite impressive as well. Providing a similar interface to that of the native movie library but much more customizable through a series on settings pages accessible from the selections at the top. The sheer customizability of the OML interface is astounding including some thirteen different methods for filtering your movie collection.

When selecting a movie with all the proper metadata you’ll find many of the same features present in other plugins such as Media Browser including description, background art and cast credits.

Though not quite sporting the interface polish of Media Browser, Open Media Library does certainly have the features to compete. Being an open-source platform there’s infinite room for contribution as well. Hopefully, with some of the same dedication that has brought other projects to Media Center greatness OML can become a worthy media plugin for your Windows 7 Media Center.