SageTV V6.1.3 Release Candidate is Available!!

[Narflex]

Howdy again everyone!

We've got a V6.1 Release Candidate for you all to try out. It's already got everything in it we're planning on for the first release of V6.1 (there will be more added after the first full release of V6.1). So let us know about any issues you find and if all goes well it become the new release.

As always, you can report bugs you find here: http://sagetv.com/bugs.html

After the download links you will find the latest release notes. You are encouraged to look them over.

Here's the short list of what's new in V6.1:

Lots of Bug Fixes
New Logo + UI Enhancements
Experimental: YouTube Videos
DVB-T/QAM on Linux
New Cards: Hauppauge HVR-1600 (supports dual ATSC + NTSC) & HVR-950; VistView Saber 2020
Windows Placeshifter client remote control support (MCE, IRMan, USB-UIRT, Windows Messages, Multimedia keyboards) (this one's for you Mikal )

Downloads:

SageTV Media Center V6.1.3 for Windows
http://download.sage.tv/SageTV_V6_1_3Setup.exe

SageTVClient V6.1.3 for Windows
http://download.sage.tv/SageTVClient_V6_1_3Setup.exe

SageTVPlaceshifter V6.1.3 for Windows
http://download.sage.tv/SageTVPlaces...6_1_3Setup.exe

SageTVPlaceshifter V6.1.3 for Mac OS X
http://download.sage.tv/SageTVMacPla...ter_V6_1_3.dmg

SageTVPlaceshifter/Client V6.1.3 for Linux
http://download.sage.tv/linuxbeta/miniclient.tar.gz

SageTV Media Center server V6.1.3 for Linux
http://download.sage.tv/linuxbeta/server.tar.gz

And here's the release notes back to 6.1.1:

SageTV V6.1.3 Release Notes 2/15/2007 RELEASE CANDIDATE 3

Windows Updates
1. Added ATI decoders to DShow decoders list

Linux Updates
1. Added EPG data scanning support on Linux for ATSC/DVB

Extender Updates
1. Prevent non-repeating keys from repeating when using the RC5 infrared optimization
2. Synchronize time reading (fix problem in dvd still screens)
3. Bug fix for when doing a fast file switch with the extender the audio stream wasn't set correctly

STV Updates
1. Changed media browser view names to use the same size font to prevent having to load many different font sizes.
2. Applied new transparent background to all buttons that previously were outlined when not highlighted.


SageTV V6.1.2 Release Notes 2/13/2007 RELEASE CANDIDATE 2

Core Updates
1. Fixed regression bug caused by last bug fix for async Fav issues that would cause all favorite & IR recordings to stop
2. Fixed regression bug where the channel lineups were not initially loaded on the client
3. Fixed regression bug where the display would power off while the user was watching video
4. Fixed bug where some RSS Enclsures didn't parse the duration correctly

Windows Updates
1. Fixed regression bug of timing issues in playback of previously recorded HD content

STV Updates
1. Rearranged Online Services Menu. Used 3x5 array of choices for YouTube & Google Videos. Used new background for non-selected online video options. Removed item numbers from lists of online videos.
2. Modified YouTube & Google Video menu layouts for single line text all at roughly the same size & changed order of menu items.
3. When setting or clearing MR for an airing, close dialog first so the options don't appear to change as the MR status is being updated by the core.
4. Display "Tuning into..." pop-up message when starting playback of a TV show that is currently airing, since it can take a little while for the recording to start so playback can begin.
5. Channel Setup: use a 'waiting' type of dialog when channel scanning is initializing.
6. Fixed use of wrong variable name in animation of music thumb list in Artist/Genre/Year views.


SageTV V6.1.1 Release Notes 2/9/2007 RELEASE CANDIDATE

Core Updates
1. Added persistence for Airing objects that were linked to completed TV recordings. They will now remain in the DB forever. To clear them out; set the property wizard/retain_airings_from_completed_recordings=false
2. Updated CaptureDevice merit sorting so that when merit is equal the device that has the higher quality input will be chosen first.
3. Fixed bug where a newly added Favorite may not get recorded because the profiler does an async update which clobbers the Favorite airing data (normally it would restart but we had added something to stop that if it kept restarting...now that's been adjusted to work in this case as well)
4. When playing back a DVD with the NVidia decoder, automatically insert the NVidia postprocessor unless another PP is specified or the property videoframe/use_nvidia_pp_when_decoder_selected is set to false
5. Fixed bug where channels that had a subchannel number greater than 10 didn't get properly sorter by subchannel number
6. Fixed bug where old channels that weren't mapped to anything stuck around in digital TV lineups
7. Fixed IR repeat timing issue
8. Disabled multipass encoding for PSP & iPod conversions
9. Fixed DVD AC3 encoding so that it doesn't use 5.1 channels unless the source material also has 5.1 channels
10. Transcoding of TS files now go through the remuxer instead of the transcoder
11. Added optimized video thumbnail generation so it won't take 'black frames' of video and will try to find a 'good' thumbnail
12. Added extra check when doing MediaFile verification where we don't fail if the file is not zero length and doesn't exist
13. Fixed bug where the file path index in the DB got broken when files were removed
14. Fixed bug where the timeline for a file would be messed up if it was converted & replaced but with different times
15. Added support for asynchronous loading of URL based images
16. Fixed bug where an unwatched favorite can get deleted before a watched recording if the system was very low on diskspace.
17. Fixed bug that occassionaly caused SageTV to hang for 30 second when shutting down
18. Fixed bug where converted files that were placed in an import directory got imported in addition to their TV metdata linking
19. Fixed bug where the wrong duration was shown sometimes during playback of non-DVD content
20. If there's no Wiz.bin file, but there is a Wiz.bak file; be sure to load the backup file instead of creating a new DB!
21. Recording of DVB/ATSC/QAM will now generate more compliant Program Stream files (the previous ones generated were missing some fields that some editors/players required)
22. When scanning for QAM channels; don't list any encrypted/unviewable channels.
23. Fixed bugs related to transcoding of HDTV files (there may still be issues with recordings that have been made before V6.1; we will release a tool to repair those recordings in the near future)
24. Added support for parsing comments from an Ogg-Vorbis file.

Linux Updates
1. Use Program Stream as the default recording format for digital TV on all platforms
2. Fixed error printouts for eval errors so the expression gets dumped to the log as well
3. Fixed bug where the broadcast standard wasn't getting set for DVB capture devices on Linux
4. Fixed OpenGL video rendering code so that it also takes into account the source rectangle for the video (not just the destination rectangle).
5. DVB-T is now fully supported on Linux
6. ClearQAM is functional on Linux but still considered experimental

Windows Updates
1. Fixed bug where we didn't properly clean up FSE when it was shutdown
2. Set a max limit on D3D VRAM usage to be 120MB.
3. Added more cleanup calls so that when we drop out of FSE or have to destroy the rendering engine everything comes back correctly. There was a repro case where locking the screen would cause the 3D system to fail and not recover. This fix solves that problem.
4. Fixed bug where disabling overlay color keying caused SageTVPlayer to hide video even when using 3D render
5. Fixed support for .tivo imported media files on Windows
6. Fixed bug where SageTV would hang if awoken from the system tray with a double mouse click and video background always on is enabled
7. Optimized detection of current screen bounds which is used to calculate PAR. This should eliminate some of the pauses/stuttering that happen in the UI because it'll no longer be enumerating all of the displays on every image render and every VMR9 callback.
8. Added support for VistView Saber 2020
9. Added support for Hauppauge WinTv-HVR 1600 (can act as an ATSC + NTSC tuner that supports both inputs at once!)
10. Disabled secondary copy of video texture unless it's required to do the BLT (major performance increase for VMR9)

Macintosh Updates
1. Fixed OpenGL video rendering code so that it also takes into account the source rectangle for the video (not just the destination rectangle).

Placeshifter Updates
1. Updates to add support for infrared receive in the Windows Placeshifter client
2. Increased buffer size used to push data to the extender/placeshifter
3. Added support for integer coordinate rendering. This'll fix floating point rounding errors that would occur in the Placeshifter & Extender.
4. Fixed bug in localhost placeshifter license detection so it doesn't count the localhost as a license in use.
5. Fixed bug where we were using premultiplied alpha for sending images to the placeshifter when it was in LAN mode
6. Updated server discovery process so it updates the list in realtime rather than waiting for the whole discovery to timeout
7. Added version information to the About tab in the SageTV Placeshifter

Extender Updates
1. Added support for integer coordinate rendering. This'll fix floating point rounding errors that would occur in the Placeshifter & Extender.
2. Fixed bug where FF/REW play would sometimes continue onto next media file when the last one ended with it on
3. Performance enhancemnts; should be faster.
4. Optimized usage of RC5 remote controls so they're much more responsive

Studio Updates
1. Fixed bug where the Studio allowed loading of menus while the debugger was paused (now it resumes)
2. Retain multiple selections when doing a Refresh in the SageTV Studio
3. Fixed bug where the Studio could be closed while it was stopped on a breakpoint (now it resumes and disables stopping while it's hidden)
4. Fixed bug where ensureVisiblityForVariable wouldn't always work on non-wrapped tables
5. Fixed bugs where horizontal scrolling and hor/vert scrolling didn't work correctly
6. Added support for dynamically changing the H & V alignment of image widgets
7. Added Configuration API calls: GetServerSubpropertiesThatAreLeaves, GetServerSubpropertiesThatAreBranches, RemoveServerProperty and RemoveServerPropertyAndChildren
8. Added Global API calls: IsLinuxOS and IsMacOS

STV Updates
1. Added YouTube Video menu - NOTE: This is currently experimental
2. New Logo!
3. Channel Setup: station remapping dialog will remember its sort setting, if it has been set in the remapping dialog. Otherwise, it will sort the same way as current setting for the list of channels.
4. Channel Setup: After remapping a station to the highlighted channel, enable visibility of the remapped channel if the highlighted channel was enabled originally.
5. Added error dialog if google video download failed after calling StartFileDownload()
6. Google Video Search Results now displays in a 4 col x 2 row format & shows the google video thumb for each item.
7. If an imported video or google video has a description, show it as part of the playback OSD.
8. Google Video Search Results: Right listener no longer acts as video selection. Full width of area at the top is used for video info unless it is used as the preview window for a playing video.
9. Allow setting sort direction for photo browser.
10. Conflict Resolution Options: Disabled vertical wrap scrolling in grid. Make sure conflict airing is visible in the grid after entering the menu.
11. Default screen saver style is a photo slideshow. If there fewer than 2 imported photos, the logo will be used instead.
12. The imported media browser items that are in focus will transition their thumbnails to rotate through the contents of the browser item when multiple thumbs are available.
13. Music folder view: when using Play on a folder w/no songs in that folder, don't show the pop-up message that says songs were added to the Now Playing playlist.
14. Fixed the Clear button on search screens so that it clears all input correctly on all types of SageTV clients.
15. Photo Viewer: modified menu layout & added "More Options" area that auto-expands when focus switches to it.
16. Changed animated dots to rotating circle for "please wait" animation in some dialogs.
17. Channel Setup: During a channel scan, added a line that lists the number of channels found so far.
18. Playback: Entire bottom portion of OSD is now shown when using FF & other commands that affect the timeline.
19. Modified the clock display to show day of week + current time.
20. Photo viewer: Added mouse listeners to the tip text, so clicking on the tip text does what it says. Narrowed the semi-transparent buttons slightly. After closing the Info and Rotate options, return to menu w/last-selected button still highlighted.
21. Video conversion: fixed use of start & duration times when the converted video will replace the original.
22. Disabled loading the Placeshifter login STV as the current STV, or importing it.
23. Added scroll bars for all vertical scroll areas.
24. Added temporary pop-up message when adding a music item to any playlist, to provide confirmation that the music was added. Display time is controlled by the "music/add_to_play_info_time" property, default is 1 second.
25. Photo slideshow screen saver: image placement is random.
26. Updated "TV Shows Editorials" menu to new style w/some editorial info on the button. Also modified the "TV Show Highlight" screen to use the series info image if there is no editorial image.
27. Detailed Setup: changed right-side display when "Setup Menu" option is highlighted so that the last-used section above that button wouldn't continue to have the active section highlight.
28. Overscan adjustments: added Page Up/Down/Left/Right as commands to adjust the screen using a larger increment.
29. Aspect Ratio adjustment: added Page Left/Right listeners to adjust the aspect ratio using a larger increment.
30. Photo Viewer: Changed photo rotation menu to semi-transparent style and added ability to use left/right/ff/rew as commands to rotate/flip the image.
31. Improved Play command consistency in Recordings menu and Video browser -- If a video is currently playing (not paused) & the Play command is used while highlighting that video, it will jump to the playback screen. If Play is used while a video is playing and a different video is highlighted, or the viedo is paused, it acts as the Play command to unpause playback. If no video is playing, the highlighted video is started.
32. Music browser: The Play command now adds the current music item to the currently playing music playlist, not just the Now Playing queue. Also added "Add to Current Playlist" to the pop-up music options menu.


Hope you all enjoy!

[evilpenguin]

14. Fixed bug where the timeline for a file would be messed up if it was converted & replaced but with different times

Thanks Sage!

Edit: Some questions...

2. Synchronize time reading (fix problem in dvd still screens)

Is this the issue where in some DVD menus the buttons movements wouldn't show up on the screen?

8. Disabled multipass encoding for PSP & iPod conversions

What issue caused you to do this?

23. Fixed bugs related to transcoding of HDTV files (there may still be issues with recordings that have been made before V6.1; we will release a tool to repair those recordings in the near future)
10. Transcoding of TS files now go through the remuxer instead of the transcoder

Can you elaborate on these?

22. When scanning for QAM channels; don't list any encrypted/unviewable channels.
21. Recording of DVB/ATSC/QAM will now generate more compliant Program Stream files (the previous ones generated were missing some fields that some editors/players required)

Do these affect the HDhomerun?

[camus]

"Fixed bug where we didn't properly clean up FSE when it was shutdown.

Added more cleanup calls so that when we drop out of FSE or have to destroy the rendering engine everything comes back correctly. There was a repro case where locking the screen would cause the 3D system to fail and not recover. This fix solves that problem."

I will be sure to test this out. I resigned to overlay for awhile there.


Edit: Seems to have helped a bunch.

[morfinx]

Has the H.264 playback issues been fixed? I don't see it in the change log.

[srothwell]

Qian,

Still having lots of problems with playback in 6.1.3. I sent betatest and you and e-mail.

Basically, if Sage sees a breakup or hit in the video its playback starts stuttering until you stop and start it again. Also, hitting FFW2 will make it jump to the end of the recording if it's stuttering.

Stacy

[hechacker1]

Originally Posted by srothwell

Qian,

Still having lots of problems with playback in 6.1.3. I sent betatest and you and e-mail.

Basically, if Sage sees a breakup or hit in the video its playback starts stuttering until you stop and start it again. Also, hitting FFW2 will make it jump to the end of the recording if it's stuttering.

Stacy

I also have to manually pause the playback of the video and resume so that the video plays smoothly. This is especially a problem when playing back an almost live stream; I assume this happens because there isn't enough buffer. Perhaps something like Purevideo needs to scan ahead to figure out how to decode the content, but if it doesn't have enough buffer it stutters?

dualtv, 250mce, purevideo, 6800gt, athlon 64 @ 2.6GHz, 2GB RAM, VMR9, java 6, 93.71, latest directx sdk, RAID 0 array, 91MB/s+ sustained transer... I doubt my specs are limiting.

Maybe you should implement a "stutter fix" which simply pauses the video after playpack for a second (or less, user configurable?).

[srothwell]

Originally Posted by hechacker1

I also have to manually pause the playback of the video and resume so that the video plays smoothly. This is especially a problem when playing back an almost live stream; I assume this happens because there isn't enough buffer. Perhaps something like Purevideo needs to scan ahead to figure out how to decode the content, but if it doesn't have enough buffer it stutters?

dualtv, 250mce, purevideo, 6800gt, athlon 64 @ 2.6GHz, 2GB RAM, VMR9, java 6, 93.71, latest directx sdk, RAID 0 array, 91MB/s+ sustained transer... I doubt my specs are limiting.

Maybe you should implement a "stutter fix" which simply pauses the video after playpack for a second (or less, user configurable?).

My problem isn't necessarily with live stuff. It happens on virtually every single HD recording since installing 6.1.1. It almost always occurs in two places: 1) between a local ad and the network show 2) when there is a hit or breakup in the digital signal (which happens all the time on comcast digital cable QAM)

[sjgore]

Has the hard-coded blue Windows XP title bar (when using SageTV in windowed mode) been changed? It doesn't change when the Windows theme changes (in either XP or Vista), and it looks very ugly and out of place when using Aero Glass with Vista!

Steve.

[ldavis]

I can say that placeshifting HD and transcoding HD are fixed. Well, mostly. On the transcoding, everything seems to be fine execpt transcoding to MPEG4 standard def. If I do a direct conversion to MPEG4 HDTV then everything is fine. Interestingly, I have some standard def (but still digital TV) recordings and these work with MPEG4 conversions. It is the resolution change that seems to be causing the conversion to fail. Can anyone else confirm ths?

[matt91]

Is it the intended operation that the default SageTV3.XML isn't loaded automatically when upgrading? I seem to recall this happening with a beta for v6 last year too.

My (previously used) SageTV3-5.XML file was loaded when I upgraded. I had to select the default XML, then import my extra STVIs.

Not a biggie; but I didn't, for example, see the new YouTube feature until I loaded the new SageTV3.XML file.

Matt

[MTuckman]

Originally Posted by matt91

My (previously used) SageTV3-5.XML file was loaded when I upgraded.

I just finished upgrading and it did load up the new/default STV file once it started. Not sure if it matters or not, but I am running it in a SERVER/CLIENT mode on my server.

Now... I am not sure if it is my imagination, and my wife thought so too, but the playback seems a bit clearer and I am not getting the stuttering I was getting with the prior version. It is a bit early to tell, but so far fingers are crossed. I played back a few recordings we had watched just yesterday and I would swear there was intermittent stuttering that we are not seeing today!

One question though. I had originally tried running with VMR9 and FSE modes, but as usual the playback stuttered. Changed to Overlay and it looks great. My question is, will it still use FSE mode with Overlay?

[ARMYB77]

The SABER 2020 is not working for me? Could it be that I need to use the drivers that came out with the firmware update?? right now i'm using version 1033.0.4.5 drivers for the card. Please tell use which version drivers are needed.

The error i'm gettting is:
Details:error (-4,0x8007001f) "There was a problem using the capture device please be sure you have the latest drivers installed for your capture device, and that they are installed correctly.


Previous version of SageTV the tuner worked but would use software encoding instead of hardware. Could someone tell me what the problem is?

I did uninstall and reinstall the drivers to make sure they were good.

Thanks
Armyb77

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by sjgore

Has the hard-coded blue Windows XP title bar (when using SageTV in windowed mode) been changed?

You could try changing the ui/window_title_style property. I think it will use 0 - 3, or something like that. It may still be hardcoded to each setting, though.

Originally Posted by matt91

Is it the intended operation that the default SageTV3.XML isn't loaded automatically when upgrading? I seem to recall this happening with a beta for v6 last year too.

My (previously used) SageTV3-5.XML file was loaded when I upgraded. I had to select the default XML, then import my extra STVIs.

I believe that is controlled by the wizard/revert_stv_on_upgrade property. See if you have it set to true.

Oh -- but I think that the MVP and Placehsifter clients don't revert. I'm guessing from your sig that this was when using an MVP.

- Andy

[matt91]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Oh -- but I think that the MVP and Placehsifter clients don't revert. I'm guessing from your sig that this was when using an MVP.

Correct. Thanks.
matt

[nyplayer]

Any reason why my software card goes into the Ignore. Can I just remove it from ignore... it worked in previous versions. The software encoder is the "Conexant's BtPCI Capture"

mmc/ignore_encoders=SB Live\! Wave Device|NVIDIA DualTV YUV Capture|Conexant's BtPCI Capture|SB Live\! MIDI UART|BDA Slip De-Framer|NVIDIA DualTV YUV Capture 2|



Got it working simply removed from Ignore in Sage Properties.

[morfinx]

Originally Posted by morfinx

Has the H.264 playback issues been fixed? I don't see it in the change log.

Anyone?

[DIBU]

great this time...faster booting my mvp`s.. faster response on my mvp`s



i am lucky


you...vid goo..vid ok but for me not needed (also stuttering after some minutes of watching on my mvp) i need rss native..imap native...iradio native..that big points for me...

but great works in the new beta fresh and fast

[harrijay]

"ClearQAM is functional on Linux but still considered experimental"

Does this mean that we can use any QAM capable tuner to watch unencrypted channels? I have an A180 all setup but I am not sure how to scan and view the channels. with QAM256

[archcommus]

Has the issue been fixed with Sage sometimes freezing when coming out of standby after awhile? I don't see it specifically in the bug list but I've been told by support this has been fixed for version 6.1. I just installed it now so we'll see.

I definitely like the slight UI enhancements!

[Rob]

Originally Posted by morfinx

Has the H.264 playback issues been fixed? I don't see it in the change log.

Does anyone know the answer? It was supposed to be in 6.1.

Pretty Please!