SageTV V6.3.4 Release Candidate

[Narflex]

Howdy all,

Here's the second release candidate for V6.3. We plan on doing the full release on Monday of course. Let us know if you find any issues before then.

No new features for V6.3.4

V6.3.3 has one new feature; if you chose to not use DXVA with the SageTV decoders it'll use the ones from V6.2. We've gotten some reports of instabilities with the new DXVA decoders so we're disabling them by default (But you can still enable them in the UI directly; and they'll be enabled by default if you had V6.3.2 installed)

The big new feature in V6.3.2 is we've added 125 new selections to the online services menu.

Here's the big new features in V6.3.1:

• Hauppauge HVR-950 and ElGato EyeTV Hybrid support on the Macintosh (analog + ATSC)
• HDHomeRun support for Macintosh (ATSC + QAM) (Linux support for HDHR will be in next build)
• DXVA support added to SageTV MPEG Video Decoder
• Support for the SageTV STX-HD100 Media Extender
• Core animation system is enabled by default
• Various bug fixes & performance optimizations

As always, submit bugs to http://sagetv.com/bugs.html

Here's the links:

SageTV for Windows
http://download.sage.tv/SageTV_V6_3_4Setup.exe

SageTVClient for Windows
http://download.sage.tv/SageTVClient_V6_3_4Setup.exe

SageTVPlaceshifter for Windows
http://download.sage.tv/SageTVPlaces...6_3_4Setup.exe

SageTV for Windows Home Server
http://download.sage.tv/SageTV_V6_3_4Setup-WHS.msi

SageTV Media Center for Macintosh
http://download.sage.tv/SageTVMac_V6_3_4.dmg

SageTV Client for Macintosh
http://download.sage.tv/SageTVMacClient_V6_3_4.dmg

SageTV Placeshifter for Macintosh
http://download.sage.tv/SageTVMacPla...ter_V6_3_4.dmg

SageTV Media Center for Linux
http://download.sage.tv/linuxbeta/server.tar.gz

SageTV Placeshifter for Linux
http://download.sage.tv/linuxbeta/miniclient.tar.gz

SageTV Media Center for Linux - Debian Package Installer
http://download.sage.tv/linuxbeta/sa...6.3.4_i386.deb

SageTV Placeshifter for Linux - Debian Package Installer
http://download.sage.tv/linuxbeta/sa...6.3.4_i386.deb

And here's the detailed release notes for you all.

SageTV V6.3.4 Release Candidate 12/6/2007

Core Updates
1. Fixed bug where we'd disable I-frame alignment if we did a re-seek for better accuracy
2. Retry opening the MediaServer socket if it fails initially
3. Added proper file format detection for .tivo files
4. Added VC1 format detection support
5. Fix: wrong audio bitrate in format detection

Windows Updates
1. Fix: Hauppauge HVR-4000 analog TV tuner software encoder filters setup.
2. Fixed playback of .tivo files with DirectShow
3. Fixed bug where we didn't properly detect the Vista OS

Macintosh Updates
1. Pinnacle PCTV HD 800e support
2. Hotplugging a device correctly triggers a device rescan
3. Fixed DVD pause then play causing super fast playback rate

STV Updates
1. Changed online video search results to show the feed's thumb at the top & the individual thumbs on each video when one is available.
2. Learn and Clear IR code confirm defaults to No.
3. Changed layout of the Online Services menu and added the Comedy category.
4. Fixed property check for current setting to enlarge pictures to fill the screen.
5. Enabled fade transitions for photo viewer/slideshow on HD extender.
6. Prevented screen saver from starting while an online video is downloading.
7. Disabled screen saver during channel scan.

SageTV V6.3.3 Release Candidate 11/30/2007

Core Updates
1. Update DVB-C for United Kingdom-Virgin Media
2. Disable automatic EPG data scanning when using a QAM source
3. Fixed bug where inconsistent pack sizes in an MPEG2-PS would cause our parser to run off the end
4. Fixed bug where we can't align on I-frames properly if they don't start at the beginning of PES packets
5. Fixed issue with timestamps and FLAC audio files
6. Fix: channel scan missing music channels in QAM
7. FIX: playback the recording from R5000 that doesn't has SCR, because the recording without SCR casues PTS correcting wrong to remux.

Windows Updates
1. Fixed bug where animation system would halt for a brief period of time if an animation was fired at the same time VMR9 was active and a pause was initiated
2. Fix issue with MS-DRM file playback
3. Updated to handle new and legacy SageTV decoders. The legacy ones are used if DXVA is disabled (that's the default now)

Extender Updates
1. Added properties to enable an extended image cache for hardware scaling devices; useful on the STX-HD100 if you have high-resolution thumbnails. ui/enable_hardware_scaling_cache (it's also controlled by ui/hardware_scaling_cache_min_pixel_count and ui/hardware_scaling_cache_ratio)
2. Added client-specific property 'extender_resolution_extra_modes' which allows specifying additional video output resolutions for the STX-HD100
3. When playing back a DVD image on the STX-HD100 with native mode switching enabled; use 480i if it is enabled; otherwise use the best resolution available

Placeshifter Updates
1. Fixed bug where images on remote placeshifters had the wrong transparency if they used scaling insets

Macintosh Updates
1. Various bug and crash fixes
2. Added live preview player for doing channel setup and color calibration

Studio Updates
1. Fixed bug where the API call RemoveServerPropertyAndChildren wasn't executed on the server.

STV Updates
1. Fixed the Capture Color Calibration menu to only list "Audio Level" on Linux & "Sharpness" on any other OS.
2. Changed layout of Online Video content listings to 3 rows x 4 columns.
3. Added Play, Info, and Right arrow listeners to the items found on the Search menu.
4. Added ability to enter username & password for Placeshifter via number pad using NTE dialog.


SageTV V6.3.2 Beta 11/21/2007

Core Updates
1. Added support for progressive download handling of MOV/MP4 files
2. Fixed bug where the transcoder didn't always preserve the aspect ratio properly (H.264 aspect ratio problem)
3. Added temporary file caching of URL loaded images. They're then re-used if they need to be decoded again unless UnloadImage was called on it by the STV.
4. Changed image loading code to use the native image loader for parsing image dimensions
5. Major optimizations to album art loading
6. Fixed bug where there wouldn't be any EPG data downloaded for stations that were remapped onto another lineup; but not enabled on their original lineup
7. Put QAM freq scheme info frq file
8. Fix: Mpeg1 video format detection failure on some kind of small clips (have only one video header information packet)
9. Fix a problem that can't tune channel in QAM, the locking channel by major minor didn't work correctly.

Macintosh Updates
1. Fixed unable to exit fullscreen mode in Mac OS X Leopard

Windows Updates
1. Fixed bug where changing the aspect ratio wouldn't refresh the video when using VMR9 and the new animations were enabled
2. Added support for progressive download playback of MP3 files in the DirectShow music player
3. Changed trial period to be 21 days
4. Add suport for a new version of Technotrend TTBdaDrvAPI_dll
5. Fix a crash in DeviceDiscovery
6. Added registry settings to control SageTV MPEG-2 Video Decoder filter settings

Extender Updates
1. Fixed bug where re-seeking didn't account for the initialPTS in the seek call
2. Fixed bug where infinite loops would be caused in the server if a placeshfiter or extender disconnected at just the right (*wrong*) time
3. Fixed bug where buffer size comparison was wrong for sending data to the extender (caused hanging on video playback on the MVP)

Studio Updates
1. Added Animations suffix options for Fade, North, South, West and East (and any combination of those that are logical).
2. Added new HZoomIn, HZoomOut, VZoomIn and VZoomOut animations
3. Added Global API calls: GetFileDownloadStreamTime and IsFileDownloadProgressivePlay
4. Improved duraton and image detection for RSS feed content

STV Updates
1. Fixed issue where the 'getting ready for playback' dialog can get stuck open if the parental control code is not entered correctly.
2. Using the Home command while on the Main Menu now has no effect instead of repeatedly loading the Main Menu.
3. Added LOTS of additional content to the Online Services menu.
4. Restored use of Left/Right to toggle display of detailed show info as part of the OSD. If there is a description that is turned off, a blank area is shown below the separator line.
5. If video is never played on a menu, then using Play on a group of recordings starts playing that group regardless of whether anything else is already playing.
6. Added DXVA option when using the SageTV MPEG Video Decoder.
7. Removed DXVA MPEG Mode & Deinterlacing options from the UI.
8. Added ability to use the Favorite command on a group of airings to add, modify, or delete a Fav that affects the whole group (if the entire group is a single Fav and/or a single Title).

SageTV V6.3.1 Beta 11/8/2007

Core Updates
1. Fixed bug where the background transparency was wrong for some animations
2. Fixed bug where thumbnail generation on the client of a currently recording file would overload the media server with requests
3. FIX: that a sub channel in PAT is not descripted in SI causes missing channel name in channel scan
4. Fix: fail to lock channel with the same physical channel as last channel.
5. Fixed aspect ratio detection for H.264 video files

Windows Updates
1. Fixed bug where extra BDA capture devices would show up
2. Completed integration of new software encoding DirectShow filters
3. Remove Digital TV Tuner input from analog capture source on hybrid devices that can do analog + digital at once

Linux Updates
1. Fixed bug leaving full screen mode in the linux client

Media Extender Updates
1. Fixed bug where the display resolution for the MVP would show up as junk in system information
2. Fixed usage of the 'DVD Return' command when watching DVDs on the extender

Studio Updates
1. Added new 'Mouse Transparency' option for Items and Panels that'll let mouse events pass through them
2. Added new Utility API call AnimateVariable (allows targeting of animations by varname/value like the SetFocusForVariable call)

STV Updates
1. Fixed issue where DVD would resume while the resume confirmation dialog was still shown.
2. Fixed animation issue where OSD may use animation for portions not currently active. Also added transition from OSD showing volume control only to full bottom OSD.
3. If video is never played on a menu, then using Play on a recording starts playing that recording regardless of whether anything else is already playing.


SageTV V6.3.0 Beta 11/2/2007

Core Updates
1. Added support for MKV files
2. Added support for DVR-MS files
3. Bug fix for parsing ASF files with binaray data tags
4. Added new commands: Online and 'Video Output'
5. Add "PAS-8 (166.0)", Nimiq-1 (91.0), OPTUS D1 (160.0 E) scan entries for DVB-S
6. update DVBT frq for Sweden-Stockholm/Nacka
7. Various performance and memory usage optimizations
8. Core animation system is now enabled by default
9. Fixed bug where we would sometimes select the wrong audio track when we did transcoding
10. Disable caching in SageTVPlayer for .mov and .mp4 files since this was causing problems for some lower bitrate cases (and disabling it didn't seem to negatively impact high bitrate playback)
11. Fixed bug where we didn't properly create native images from Java BufferedImages objects
12. Fixed bug in Morph animation when the two sizes were different and there were surfaces rendered over the surface that's animating
13. Fixed bug where a consolidated focus animation would kill a normal animation
14. Fixed bug where we didn't copy the non-animated regions properly when doing a smooth animation
15. Fixed incorrect video format setting for Argentina
16. Fixed bug where we would lose channel tuning requests in live mode because they happened during a file transition
17. Fixed bug where an EPG data change for a manual record's timeslot can end up being tagged with the wrong EPG data due to a minimal overlap
18. Fixed floating point errors in the numPages calculation for scrolling panels
19. Optimized file format detection code so we will less often try a parser that won't work
20. Add Support loading *.scn data file to make a virtual scan that uses scn data to create a frq file and feed channel information into data base. HDHR uses this feature to pass channel data from HDHR to SageTV.
21. Fix broken code for MPEG1 format that's dected as MPEG2
22. FIX: missing channels of clear QAM of scanning, or "no signal".
23. reduce ATSC timeout for waiting more packet to parse out channel name.
24. Reset AVINFO buffer before tuning a new channel to fix AV wrong information in a recotrding
25. ResetTSSplitter wasn't clearing the av context info
26. Enhanced DirecTVSerial support to support more boxes based on testing feedback. There's a new registry setting 'DirecTVCmdSet' which can force the command set so it's not auto-detected. There's also another bit (0x4) for 'DirecTVSerialFastChannelChanges' which will disable sending the extra 0xd byte.

Windows Updates
1. Added support for Hauppauge HVR-4000
2. Reset trial for V6.3 Extended trial period to be 21 days
3. Upgraded SageTV decoders now also support DXVA
4. Fixed text rendering bug in DirectX9 where the bottom of the text was sometimes cut off.
5. Fixed bug where animations were choppy with VMR9 when video was playing
6. Regression fix for remuxing with the Plextor TV 402U
7. Add DiSQEC and LNB support for DVB-S
8. Added ability to specify a plugin transport stream processing filter

Macintosh Updates
1. Added support for Hauppauge HVR-950 in ATSC and analog capture
2. Added support for El Gato Hybrid Stick in ATSC and analog capture
3. Added support for HDHomeRun in ATSC and QAM
4. USB-UIRT transmit and receive support

Media Extender Updates
1. Support for the SageTV HD Media Extender
2. Major increase to seeking accuracy in MPEG2 content on media extenders; accuracy can be increased by increasing the value of 'miniplayer/num_reseek_attempts' and/or decreasing the value of 'miniplayer/seek_diff_for_reseek'
3. Increased seeking performance of MPEG2 on media extenders by aligning on I-frames when we seek
4. Added property miniplayer/align_iframes_on_seek which if set to false disables I-frame alignment when seeking in MPEG2 files on the extenders
5. Added support for native output resolution switching. It's disabled by default.
6. Fixed bug where the bottom of text would sometimes get truncated in rendering on the extender
7. Fixed bug where the bottom pixel row of clipped text was sometimes not rendered on the media extender

Studio Updates
1. Added support for 'mms://' URLs to the Watch API call on Windows
2. Added Configuration API call: GetHDMIAutodetectedConnector (only used w/ HD extender)
3. Added Configuration API calls: GetAudioOutput, SetAudioOutput and GetAudioOutputOptions (only used w/ HD extender)
4. Added Configuration API calls: CanDoNativeOutputResolution, IsNativeOutputResolutionEnabled and SetNativeOutputResolutionEnabled
5. Added Global API call: GetPreferredDisplayResolutions
6. Added new Global APIs DiscoverSageTVServers and GetDisplayResolution
7. Added Utility API call: AnimateTransition

STV Updates
1. Added listeners to use new Online command to jump to the Online Services menu.
2. Added entry for Recoverable Video Diskspace in System Info -- this is the space taken up by recordings that SageTV is allowed to automatically delete if space is needed for new recordings.
3. Added lines in OnlineVideoLinks.properties to define how to find the YouTube video link info.
4. Added "Online Videos" item to the Search menu. When selected, it presents a list of online video services that can be searched, then jumps to the appropriate online video search menu.
5. Disabled use of Left/Right to toggle display of detailed show info as part of the OSD.
6. Changed conditionals to show Aspect Ratio Mode option in Detailed Setup & the OSD options menu to depend on whether there are aspect ratio modes to choose from.
7. Fixed playback screen to remove OSD via animation when the Options command is used.
8. Added animated transition when one dialog closes and another immediately opens.
9. Added playback OSD animations & config options in Detailed Setup.
10. Added "Native Output Resolution Switching" in Detailed Setup -> Multimedia
11. Updated "Output Resolution" option in Detailed Setup -> Multimedia to use new GetDisplayResolution() API call to display the current setting and highlight the current setting in the list of options.
12. Implemented the ThemeParent theme property so each theme can define what its parent theme is.
13. Added RemapImage theme property to allow virtualizing an image to use a different image file.
14. Added navigation menu animation transitions.
15. Modified most dialogs using radio buttons to indicate the current selection so that the selection is updated before the dialog is closed, so the user sees feedback about the change before the dialog zooms out.
16. Updated the animation option dialog to work with the new animation system and control use of thumbnail, menu, and dialog transition animations.
17. Prevent displaying options to use the color customization dialog outside of SageTV's window when FSE mode is active.
18. Changed Google Video's Movie item to use "genre:movie_feature" instead of "type:movie" to get a list of movies.
19. Imported media browsers: if no imported media exists, display options to configure the import directories and to rescan the import directories.
20. Added actual recording times to the Recording Detail screen. Info is displayed if the recording is padded or if the airing is currently recording. The Program Information screen shows scheduled or current recording times.
21. Fixed some deletion confirmation dialogs so that "No" is the default selection.
22. Fixed problems using music playlists on the Search menu.
23. Fix Browse by Category's left column so only 1 item can show the selection highlight.
24. When playback stops: changed return to Archived Recordings to return to SageTV Recordings instead, since that is where archived recordings are now listed.
25. Fixed Instant Search on YouTube & Google Video menus when used in Instant mode -- it now jumps to the correct text entry screen, not the consolidated search menu.

[Opus4]

BTW: This RC has the updated v6.3 PDF manual -- see chapter 8 for a list of some of the document changes.

- Andy