SageTV V6.3.9 Release Candidate

[Narflex]

Howdy all,

We've got an updated build of V6.3 for Windows & Linux that fixes a few issues in V6.3.8. Mac is still being worked on; updates will be out soon.

There's also one nifty new feature:
You can now use the 'Record' command while watching an online video and then that video will be saved to your video library. (or to your music library if it's audio-only) The file must be completely downloaded before this can be done.

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

NOTE: The initial builds of SageTV for Windows, SageTVClient for Windows and SageTV for Windows Home Serve posted were broken. Updated builds were posted the night of 2/13/08. The updated version will show as 6.3.9.164 in System Information. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Here's the links:

SageTV for Windows
http://download.sage.tv/SageTV_V6_3_9Setup.exe

SageTVClient for Windows
http://download.sage.tv/SageTVClient_V6_3_9Setup.exe

SageTVPlaceshifter for Windows
http://download.sage.tv/SageTVPlaces...6_3_9Setup.exe

SageTV for Windows Home Server
http://download.sage.tv/SageTV_V6_3_9Setup-WHS.msi

SageTV Media Center for Macintosh
pending

SageTV Client for Macintosh
pending

SageTV Placeshifter for Macintosh
pending

SageTV Media Center for Linux
http://download.sage.tv/linuxbeta/server_6.3.9.tar.gz

SageTV Placeshifter for Linux
http://download.sage.tv/linuxbeta/mi...t_6.3.9.tar.gz

SageTV Media Center for Linux - Debian Package Installer
http://download.sage.tv/linuxbeta/sa...6.3.9_i386.deb

SageTV Placeshifter for Linux - Debian Package Installer
http://download.sage.tv/linuxbeta/sa...6.3.9_i386.deb

And here's the detailed release notes for you all since the V6.3.5 release:

SageTV V6.3.9 Release Candidate 2/13/2008

Core Updates
1. Fixed bug parsing the hour of the day for DVB EPG data streams using UTC time format
2. Fixed rare bug when users would get an EOF exception connecting to EPG server
3. Fixed bug where the commands being sent to SageTVPlayer were not always serialized in the proper order
4. Only reinitialize the metadata for a MediaFile if it has an external Show ID starting with 'MF'. That indicates it was generated internally by SageTV; otherwise it'll end up overwriting data injected by the STV layer.
5. Crop out the top 8 pixels of an image when generating a thumbnail so we don't a line from VBI distortion
6. Increased time difference required to be seen in a file's timestamp in order to think it's different (the new diff is 2.5 seconds; this is because FAT file systems only have 2 second accuracy on file modification timestamps)
7. Fixed regression bug where SageTVClient would try to start a MediaServer
8. Fixed bug where TV recordings might be removed from a drive that goes offline temporarily
9. Added support for 'advanced_video_file_recovery' for imported files (music, video, pictures)
10. Fixed bug where we wouldn't append a file extension to a transcoded file if it had a dot anywhere in the filename
11. Added support for Apple Lossless Audio files (ALAC) on SageTV, Placeshifter and the extenders
12. Fixed bug where at the end of an audio podcast we'd start playing music from the library if random music playback was enabled
13. Fixed issue with misaligned Y coordinate for text that was restricted in its front shrinkage
14. Fixed bug in parsing of album art for AAC and WMA files
15. Fix:write DVB-C channel wrong name into frq file
16. Fix: load PredefinedQAM.frq file bug, QAM user use it to speed up qam scanning
17. Fixed bug where it would return failure when the DirecTV receiver just couldn't receive the channel that we attempted to tune

Extender Updates
1. Added proper synchronization for when the MiniDVDPlayer is closed
2. Fixed bug where transcoded audio files would no longer playback on the MVP

Windows Updates
1. FIX: HDHomeRun 5 min recording missing
2. Fix: DVB crash bug in 6.3.8RC
3. Fix a regression bug that has a trouble for mutiple audio track stream PTS fixing
4. Fix a regresson bug on support Twian card

Linux Updates
1. Fixed HDHR capture bug on Linux

Studio Updates
1. Fixed bug in animation system where multiple dual surface animations would sometimes cause some of the dual surface animations not to render even though they all used the same Layer
2. Optimzed MediaFile GetSize() call so it doesn't do isDirectory() on the file; it just checks the DVD bit since that's the only reason it would be a folder
3. Fixed bug where Keystroke API call didn't send proper key characters for non-printing characters
4. Added Utility API calls: DeleteFilePath and RenameFilePath

STV Updates
1. Added ability to save fully downloaded media files to the import library, using the Record command or menu option during playback. Video files go to the video lib; audio feeds go to the music lib.
2. Fixed the name of the ui/min_allowed_shrunk_font_size property used in the STV.
3. Modified slide out animations to delay a short time before using "unease" when sliding out.
4. Modified screen saver photo transition to fix fade out of previous image.
5. Fixed position of the direction arrow when scrolling through images in the photo viewer.
6. Fixed overscan area's black fill in photo viewer, in order to clear that area's previous content.
7. Added ability for user to add custom Online Services content w/o affecting the default content list, using custom online video properties files.
8. Fixed another location where the "getting ready for playback" dialog can get stuck open if the parental control code is not entered correctly. Also fixed Parental code request to not return until after the "wrong code" message has been dismissed.
9. Added ability to use Play command while viewing the Song Detail screen.
10. Modified point of determination for whether live TV is being watched in the playback menu.
11. Fixed line at edge of the screen in the photo viewer.
12. Added several more online video feeds.
13. Fixed bug where setting the clock back a significant amount could disable the weather update for awhile
14. Optimized sorting of folder/file lists in the STV

SageTV V6.3.8 Release Candidate 1/31/2008

Core Updates
1. Added support for multi-channel Favorites
2. Fixed NPE when playing back a file with an undefined video format
3. Fixed bug where transcoding a file with PCM audio into an MPEG4 format would use an incorrect audio bitrate
4. Added properties xcode_process_priority_offline and xcode_process_priority_streaming which control process priority for the transcoder on Windows when in offline or streaming modes
5. Fixed a bug where thumbnail generation on a currently recording file could hang forever causing no more thumbnails to be generated
6. Fixed bug where we'd still try to get a thumbnail from an MPEG2-TS file if it was a TV recording using an offset time (it was already fixed for non-TV recordings)
7. Removed the requirement that each DVD had to have all of its files in a VIDEO_TS subfolder (they all still need to be in the same folder though)
8. Completed support for bi-directional text rendering on the media extenders and in 3D mode. It now requires setting the property "ui/load_complete_glyph_maps=true" in order to function.
9. Fixed bug where we'd restart the transcoder incorrectly if we seeked to the end and then back to the beginning
10. Fixed bug where some nested duplicate surface usage would cause some animations to render improperly
11. Added new property "advanced_video_file_recovery" which if set to true will cause SageTV to do a more thorough analysis on newly found video files in the video storage directories in an attempt to re-correlate them with existing recordings (great for when you move your files to a new storage directory or move an install to a new machine)
12. Fixed bug so we select the right media player when playing back FLV files with the VP6 codec
13. Fixed bug with animations on re-use of components within a table
14. Added property 'ui/min_allowed_shrunk_font_size' which specifies the minimum size that 'shrink to fit' text should be shrunk to
15. Fixed bug where Page Left & Page Right didn't work on scrollable panels if they were all the way right or left respectively.
16. Fixed issue where animations on surfaces that had a transparency value didn't render properly
17. Fix: a parsing error on DVB-S region and satelittle name string that is passed in from sage.properties
18. Fix: format detection missing in MPEG1 format.
19. Add genre support for DVB stream embedded EPG.
20. Add a code to handle the ripped TS stream that has a PAT/PMT at begining of stream/file
21. Fix a "No Signal" bug that is caused by missing the main audio track in auido detection.

Extender Updates
1. Fixed crash bug on the STX-HD100 where it would try to render a rectangle of zero height
2. Fixed bug on HD media extender where doing a smooth rewind to the beginning of a file would never actually stop by itself
3. Fixed bug where we'd use pull mode when trying to placeshift anything but MPEG2-PS to the extender
4. Fixed smooth FF/REW on the HD media extender so that resuming of playback will occur from where the smooth FF/REW was ended and not up to 30 seconds further in the stream which is where the buffering was at.
5. FIX: a rebuilt PMT bug for play back saved TS stream by third party into HD extender

Windows Updates
1. Updated to newest version of the MPEG Audio/Video Encoder/Decoder DirectShow filters on Windows
2. If we have an error rendering a texture in DX9 then remove that texture so it'll be re-created properly
3. Fixed bug on Windows where other applications couldn't use the 3D system if SageTV was in full screen exclusive mode and then put into the system tray without first playing back video
4. Add preferred media support in TSSplitter for upstream filter to query.
5. Allow PMT rebuilt in TSSplitter that is controlled by registry RebuildPMTEnabled(DWORD)
6. FIX: stuttering HDHR recording in PS format recording
7. Allow a third party to create a push filter that appears in DirectX of "Video Capture Source/BDA Source Filters/BDA Receiver Component" to feed in TS stream directly into sagetv, such as Firewire USB capture.

Studio Updates
1. Added an 'Unease' animation option which will do an ease out instead of in (and vice versa) for In/Out animation operations
2. Added 'Unclipped' animation option which is used with the 'Slide' aniimations so the same motion is achieved but with no clipping
3. Added new 'Behind' suffix as another animation option. This'll cause animated surfaces to show up behind others where normally they would be on top (such as in any 'out' animation)
4. Fixed bug where the NumHPages & NumVPages variables weren't always being set correctly for scrolling panels

STV Updates
1. Converted SageTV Recordings and the music, photo, and video browsers to use the core animation system for grouped item thumbnail transitions .
2. Added transitions for groups in row mode for SageTV Recordings.
3. Converted slideshow/photo viewer to use core animations for photo transitions.
4. The music info shown on the playback menu moves via core animation.
5. Converted screen saver to use animation system for state transitions: logo, photos, and music info.
6. Moved Animation Options to the General section of Detailed Setup.
7. Fixed download of mp3 online content when the duration was not specified in the feed data.
8. Increased size of thumbnail for single item buttons (non-grouped items).
9. Added option in Detailed Setup -> Customize to set the minimum font size.
10. Updated Favorites Manager for multi-channel Favorites.


SageTV V6.3.7 Release Candidate 1/22/2008

Core Updates
1. Add Switzerland DVBC frequency entries.
2. Fixed bug where animations in nested surfaces was falsely detected if there was another nested surface behind it (fixed scrolling animation issue in limit Fav by day setting)
3. Added SageTV recording recovery for .mkv files
4. Fixed bug where parental controls dialog wouldn't come up on remote placeshifter clients (actual bug was global hook cache wasn't cleared when switching STVs)
5. Fixed bug where we'd detect MPEG1-PS files as MPEG2-PS
6. Fix: ATSC tune to wrong channel with tuning string "channel-0-minor" (major = 0)
7. Fix: DVB channel scan return no channel found.
8. Fix: MPEG1 recording duartion dectection bug.
9. Fix: a aspect ratio format dection bug for the 1:1 ratio mpeg2 recording.

Extender Updates
1. Fixed smooth FF/REW for HD files on the STX-HD100 so that it matches the desired rate much better
2. Changed behavior of property 'ui/enable_hardware_scaling_cache' so that it makes image loading on the STX-HD100 behave like the MediaMVP (but this will negatively impact performance of the extender so this is not on by default). This will resolve users issues with large custom thumbnails.
3. Fixed bug on STX-HD100 where clipped non-filled rectangles wouldn't render
4. Moved default advanced aspect ratio to be in the client's properties; not the server's (also fixed support for this property)
5. Fixed support for AVI, MP4, MKV and ASF files that dont' have native codec support on the HD extender so that the server will transcode them (such as MJPEG and WMV8)

Placeshifter updates
1. Fixed playback of MKV files on a local network

Windows Updates
1. Added support for KWorld DVB-T USB 339U (AF9015 DVB) dual tuner
2. Added support for KWORD DVB-T PCI 160 (dual tuner)
3. Fixed bug where the video wouldn't be visible after changing channels sometimes until an OSD refresh when using VMR9
4. Don't try to generate thumbnails for files recorded with the ConvertX because the thumbnail generator can't parse the MPEG2 format used by those recordings
5. Fix: new SageTV software Video encoder wrong aspect ratio
6. Fix Broken code for old HDHR BDA driver support
7. Updated bundled JRE installer to the latest 1.6.0_04

Studio Updates
1. Don't report animations as being supported if the rendering device doesn't support it (it used to just rely on the property's value)
2. Only let animations target components in the top options menu of the UI if an options menu is visible
3. Added interruptable animation support (through an optional parameter to AnimateVariable, AnimateTransition and AnimateDelayed)
4. Fixed bug where full screen BG layer 'out' animations didn't work if an 'in' animation for the BG layer was happening at the same time

STV Updates
1. Look for "background.jpg" themed BG image instead of "Background.jpg", so the file can be found on a case sensitive OS.
2. The videoframe/always_call_fileplaybackfinished property is always reset to false since some custom STVs always set it to true.
3. Fixed calls where ChannelSet() was using GetPhysicalChannelNumberForLineup() instead of GetChannelNumberForLineup().
4. Removed BG for color calibration screen.
5. Fixed several places where the focus indicator was on top of the button text.

SageTV V6.3.6 Release Candidate 1/4/2008

Core Updates
1. Repair the video directory property of MediaFiles since it could be wrong if they moved directories
2. Added retry for when the MiniServer socket fails to open at startup
3. Added property: ui/load_complete_glyph_maps which enables complete characters in 3D mode and on the MVP & STX-HD100
4. Added retry for when the SageTVServer socket fails to open at startup
5. Fixed bug so files with .mp4 file extensions get auto-recovered by the importer (before it only did .mpg, .ts and .avi)
6. FIX: the TS recording created by third party software isn't able playback in SageTV
7. Add H.264 format detection for H.264 remuxed PS file.

Extender Updates
1. Added optimized seeking for MPEG2-TS file playback on media extenders (same technique used with MPEG2-PS files and the media extenders)
2. Fixed bug on HD extender where it wouldn't enter screen saver mode sometimes
3. Added UI specific property: default_advanced_aspect_ratio which allows setting the default aspect ratio on the STX-HD100
4. Fixed bug on extender playback where the volume would get reset to the maximum if there was a failure playing back a file.
5. Increased buffer sizes in remuxer so we don't overwrite data we've already converted
6. Fix missing audio on some DVD. Force sync on interleaved block.

Windows Updates
1. Fixed so that the 'always_use_dshow_player' property also affects music playback as well
2. Ues a temporary walk around way for a M780 bug that recording file is locked, and resource isn't released.

Macintosh Updates
1. Fixed fullscreen mode on Leopard
2. Added mouse hiding
3. Fixed placeshifter not being able to resume video due to an exception in the VM not being cleared or handled
4. Added support for Pinnacle PCTV Hybrid 800e
5. Now properly causes the app to rescan for devices on hotplug events

Placeshifter updates
1. Added property "miniplayer/min_bandwidth_for_no_transcode" which allows setting the bandwidth that must be detected in order to the auto-transcoder not to kick in

STV Updates
1. Reset last thumb scroll time for a folder when the item gains focus so that it doesn't scroll its thumbs immediately.
2. Changed YouTube "Top Viewed" and "Recently Added" categories to "Most Viewed" and "Most Recent".
3. Added "Top Channels" to the YouTube video menu.
4. During playback of a live recording, Detailed Info now jumps to Recording Details instead of Program Info.
5. Changed copyright notice on System Info screen to say "2008".
6. Added some more online video links