SageTV V7.1.4 Beta is Ready!

[Narflex]

NOTE: We're temporarily removing the 7.1.4 downloads while we investigate some issues that users are reporting with it; we will post any updates to the beta forum

Howdy everyone!

There were some issues in V7.1.3 that would adversely affect users of EPG plugins and also those that relied on season/episode numbering imported from plugins, so we pulled those down, fixed the issues, and here's 7.1.4.

NOTE: The STV has undergone some significant changes since V7.0 in order to make it compatible with the HD300 in standalone mode. All plugins that use STVIs should be tested to make sure they are still compatible. (some may be broken; but the majority will most likely work fine)

Changes of note in V7.1

-Support for Hauppauge Colossus
-Complete over the air analog & digital lineups for the entire US and Canada (all channels on Zap2it's site will now be included, and ATSC channels have their physical channel included already)
-Added ability to create Favorites for Sports Teams
-Added awards information for movies (i.e. Academy Award for Best Picture, and things like that)
-Major improvements to smooth FF/REW quality on HD media extenders
-True frame stepping support on the HD300 and support for seeking while paused
-Placeshifter auto-reconnect when connections are dropped
-Major improvements to latency issues in the placeshifter
-Channel logos provided by SageTV
-EPG data enhancements (season/epsiode numbers, improved detection of 'unique' airings, more than 2 levels of categories, additional flags for various Airing properties such as Live, Dolby5.1, Letterbox, etc.)
-Images related to many of the movies in the EPG
-WOL support for SageTVClient

As always, report bugs you find here:

http://sagetv.com/bugs.html

Here's the download links for V7.1.4:

SageTV for Windows
http://download.sage.tv/SageTV_V7_1_4Setup.exe

SageTVClient for Windows
http://download.sage.tv/SageTVClient_V7_1_4Setup.exe

SageTVPlaceshifter for Windows
http://download.sage.tv/SageTVPlaces...7_1_4Setup.exe

SageTV for Windows Home Server
http://download.sage.tv/SageTV_V7_1_4Setup-WHS.msi

SageTV Media Center for Linux
http://download.sage.tv/linuxbeta/server_7.1.4.tar.gz

SageTV Placeshifter for Linux
http://download.sage.tv/linuxbeta/mi...t_7.1.4.tar.gz

SageTV Media Center for Linux - Debian Package Installer
http://download.sage.tv/linuxbeta/sa...7.1.4_i386.deb

SageTV Placeshifter for Linux - Debian Package Installer
http://download.sage.tv/linuxbeta/sa...7.1.4_i386.deb

The release notes are below, ones of more interest are bolded.

SageTV V7.1.4 Beta 3/10/2011

Core Updates
1. Fixed bug where the new season/episode number information in the database clobbered that same data if it was previously set by a plugin.
2. Modifications to better handle cases where MetaImage objects linked to files with relative paths were unloaded properly.
3. Fixed bug where we didn't handle null category information properly that could come from the AddShow API call or from EPG plugins.

Windows Updates
1. Added workaround for issue where Colossus would sometimes lose sound when recording with SageTV (does the same as if you set mmc/set_crossbar_redundantly in your Sage.properties file)

SageTV V7.1.3 Beta 3/9/2011

Core Updates
1. When an Airing is indicated to be 'Live' (i.e. a live broadcast), consider that to be a first run.
2. Updated how we determine what shows with IDs starting with 'SH' are actually unique by using new fields in the EPG data feed. It should be much more accurate now and prevent duplicate recordings of Shows that are the same.
3. Fixed bug where the Effect animation system sometimes got out of sync and rendered things improperly due to a delay in preparation of the display list for rendering. Manifested itself in the SageTV7 UI as sometimes having all the items on the main menu temporarily increase to a larger size like they do when selected.
4. Initialize the value for the last input time to be the current time when a UI sessions starts up rather than using zero. This prevents the call for GetTimeSinceLastInput() from returning a very large value if it is invoked before any user activity takes place.
5. Added support for internal rendering of a cursor in TextInput Widgets, as well as using left/right to reposition the cursor and use of backspace/delete. The mouse can also reposition the cursor as well. TextInput fields that have text wider than their visible space are also now offset and rendered appropriately. These new capabilities are controlled by the "Focusable and Cursor" property in the TextInput Widget (it is off by default for legacy support reasons).
6. Fixed bug where sometimes the bottom of a text glyph would get cutoff in rendering if the font's height was smaller than the font's ascent + descent.
7. Added property "disable_pooler" which defaults to false, and if set to true will disable pooling of some object types used in SageTV as well as threads. This may help with large pauses due to Java garbage collection because pooled objects won't hang around for a long time anymore causing the garbage collection mechanism to have to scan more of the heap which may have been paged out by the operating system.
8. Added WOL support to SageTVClient if it's set to automatically connect to a server.
9. Fixed issue where having a custom lineup defined that had Zap2it channels in it; wouldn't have the EPG data downloaded for those channels unless they also appeared in another Zap2it lineup the user had configured.
10. Updated database to include new fields for storing Show season/episode number, more than 2 levels of Show categories, Show artwork indicators, Channel logo indicators and extra Airing attributes
11. Fixed video resolution shorthands for 720p/1080i/1080p so they're only ever used when both width/height match the expected values (not just one or the other).
12. Fix: QAM channel scan missing channels. skip encrypted QAM channel checking to reduce channel scan time.

Windows Updates
1. Ignore the 'mmc/hdpvr_magic' flag if using a Colossus card (it acts like its set to false for the Colossus card now).
2. Added property on Windows of "videoframe/do_not_insert_directshow_cc_filter" which defaults to false; if set to true then the CC decoder filter will not be inserted into the playback graph. This is there because some decoders do improper things with the aspect ratio of the video when the CC decoder is in the graph.
3. For SageTV & SageTVClient on Windows, when they startup, attempt to reconnect any mapped drives that are disconnected.
4. Fix: HVR-1250 deviceCapability bitmask
5. Fix: HVR-2250 support broken, because of HVR-2250 mfg vender id (1131) conflicting with black gold tuner.

Extender Updates
1. Fix: DVB subtitle rendering problem, PES buffering causes subtitle miss subtitle rendering timimg window.

Plugin System Updates
1. At startup; check to make sure that all the files that are supposed to be installed for a plugin actually exist on disk, and if they don't, create a system message about it. Only send the message once for each file for each plugin; the tracker status for that message will be cleared if the plugin is uninstalled or upgraded.
2. When loading an STVI plugin, verify that the STV is compatible with it, and if not, then disable that STVI and don't load it.

Studio/API Updates
1. Added support for internal rendering of a cursor in TextInput Widgets, as well as using left/right to reposition the cursor and use of backspace/delete. The mouse can also reposition the cursor as well. TextInput fields that have text wider than their visible space are also now offset and rendered appropriately. These new capabilities are controlled by the "Focusable and Cursor" property in the TextInput Widget (it is off by default for legacy support reasons).
2. Fixed bug where calling Refresh() during the BeforeMenuLoad hook for an OptionsMenu could possibly cause focus to be set to a location other than the one configured to be the default focus location.
3. Fixed bug where changes to Effects in the Studio no longer immediately rendered the change in the UI.
4. Added new Airing API call AddAiringDetailed(String ShowExternalID, int StationID, long StartTime, long Duration, int PartNumber, int TotalParts, String ParentalRating, String[] Attributes, String PremierFinale)
5. Added new Airing API calls IsAiringAttributeSet(Airing Airing, String Attribute) and GetAiringAttributeList(Airing)
6. Added new Airing API calls GetAiringPartNumber(Airing), GetAiringTotalParts(Airing) and GetAiringPremiereFinaleInfo(Airing)
7. Added new Channel API calls GetChannelLogo(Channel Channel, String Type, int Index, boolean Fallback) and GetChannelLogoCount(Channel)
8. Added Favorite API call GetFavoriteProperties(Favorite)
9. Added Global API call IsOptionsMenuOpen()
10. Added MediaFile API calls GenerateThumbnail(MediaFile, Time, Width, Height, File) and GetMediaFileMetadataProperties(MediaFile)
11. Added new integer metadata properties of SeasonNumber and EpisodeNumber (stored in Mpeg metadata, new Show APIs and also available in Get/SetMediaFileMetadata API)
12. Added new boolean metadata properties of 3D, DD5.1, Dolby, Letterbox, Live, New, Widescreen, Surround, Dubbed and Taped (stored in Mpeg metadata, new Show APIs and also available in Get/SetMediaFileMetadata API)
13. Added Playlist API call GetPlaylistProperties(Playlist)
14. Added new Show API calls GetShowCategoriesString(Show) and GetShowCategoriesList(Show) (Show objects can now have more than 2 categories)
15. Added new Show API call AddShow(String Title, boolean IsFirstRun, String Episode, String Description, long Duration, String[] Categories, String[] PeopleList, String[] RolesListForPeopleList, String Rated, String[] ExpandedRatingsList, String Year, String ParentalRating, String[] MiscList, String ExternalID, String Language, long OriginalAirDate, int SeasonNumber, int EpisodeNumber)
16. Added new Show API calls GetShowSeasonNumber(Show) and GetShowEpisodeNumber(Show)
17. Added new Show API calls GetShowImage(Show Show, String Type, int Index, int Fallback) and GetShowImageCount(Show Show, String Type) which provides artwork for many movies in the SageTV EPG database
18. Added Utility API calls SaveImageToFile(MetaImage, File, Width, Height), GetMetaImageSourceFile(MetaImage) and IsMetaImage(Object)
19. Listener Widgets can now be children of TextInput Widgets since its possible for a TextInput Widget to have the focus now

STV Updates
1. Fixed font name issue for Configuration Wizard subtitle text.
2. Fixed issue where online video link property file wasn't copied to a backup file correctly before downloading a new version.
3. Add New Category Favorite menu: can use letters/numbers to jump to the next name starting with that letter.
4. Plugin Manager: make sure that a plugin update is compatible before offering the option to update it.
5. Converted all text input fields to use the new text editing capability.
6. Fixed issue where linux/enable_nas property could prevent server & media extender server options from being visible in the UI.
7. Added access to YouTube, Channels.com, and temp file path options from the Online Services menu.
8. When sorting recordings/airings by title, sort by episode for each title.
9. Added Title + Date sort option for main SageTV Recordings menu.
10. Hidden: added Detailed Setup -> Customize -> Add option to generate thumbnail during imported video playback while paused. When enabled, the playback menu's options dialog has an option to generate a thumbnail for a non-DVD/BD imported video while playback is paused.
11. When adding a Team Favorite, also ask if the Fav should only apply to shows with the airing's title.
12. If the Screen Saver Timeout is set to 0, instead of displaying "0 seconds" as the timeout, show "Disabled".
13. The "Screen Saver on Sleep" option in Detailed Setup -> General -> Screen Saver Options has been changed to: "While full screen: Sleep option starts the screen saver or sleeps in system tray".
14. Hidden: note when the STV is exiting so the disk space updater thread can also stop for that case.
15. When choosing MPEG2 video, MPEG2 audio, DVD video, or DVD audio decoder on a Windows system, added option to list all available decoders in addition to the known decoders.
16. Added Parental Control Restriction option for unrated content.
17. Added Detailed Setup -> Customize -> File Browser Access option to allow restricting access to the file browser: can enable, disable, or allow access by parental lock code.
18. File Broswer and Online Video Access options are now also available on the Parental Control Restrictions menu.
19. Updated channel logo displays to support use of new Zap2it-provided channel logos when user-provided logos are not available.
20. Added Season & Episode number info to airing info screens and top/right info areas.
21. Display Zap2it-provided show poster and/or photo when available for an airing: detailed info menus, top/right info areas, and multi-column recording view.
22. Use GetShowCategoriesString() to display cat + subcat info.
23. If an airing has a Original Airing Date & it is a movie, display the date as the Release Date.
24. Don't clear the username when the user+pwd combo is incorrect for placeshifter login. Just clear the pwd & set focus back to the pwd field.

SageTV V7.1.2 Beta 2/22/2011

Core Updates
1. Fixed bug where we'd show the spinning wait cursor for 750 msec longer than we needed to
2. Fixed bug where we didn't trim garbage off the title/description info received in embedded EPG data streams
3. Fixed bug where if a digital TV source supported EPG data scanning and had multiple inputs configured for that lineup; then we'd only ever use one of those for scanning. Now any of them that are available will be used.
4. Increased dwell period for EPG data scans to be two minutes in order to capture long-tail EPG information
5. Do more advanced parsing on the parental rating information extracted from EPG data scans to also set MPAA Rating as well as extended rating (violence, language, etc.) information
6. Fixed bug where sometimes an animation effect would not render itself if the UI was refreshed very soon after starting the effect
7. Various performance optimizations to the UI system
8. Added font glyph metrics caching
9. If there's a null/empty ExternalID in a .properties file, ignore it when importing that file
10. Fixed bugs related to online video playback of MPEG2-TS files that have format detection issues at the beginning of them.
11. Fixed bug where .properties files were not parsed for .iso files
12. Fixed bug where sometimes URL based images did not load properly
13. Added offline disk caching of URL images, maximum number cached is controlled by the property: num_cached_url_images and defaults to 1000
14. Optimized timeout for server discovery from SageTV Client
15. Optimized CPU usage in scheduler for when it puts intelligent recordings into the schedule
16. Fixed NPE bug in recording halt recovery when the device failed to reload properly (generally experienced with the HDPVR on Linux)
17. Added property "seeker/ignore_airing_ids_in_imported_filenames" which defaults to false, and if set to true will prevent trying to use the airing ID in filenames to link a file with its content in the database.
18. Optimized intelligent sorting of MediaFiles.
19. Added new 'roles' for people in a Show object of "Team", "Guest Voice", ""Anchor", "Voice", and "Musical Guest".
20. Enabled creation of Favorites for sports teams through the 'Team' role; sports teams will show up as 'Actors' in the create new actor Favorite menu.
21. When entering the pause state during playback; if we're doing a smooth ff/rew, set the play rate to 1 before pausing
22. Mute the media player if we're doing a seek while paused (since some players will then render the stream a bit and that may produce an audible sound)
23. Fixed bug where sometimes we would jump to the EPG during live TV if the file was a multi-segment file and we hit the end of a segment.
24. Fixed bug where we would re-select the default audio track after switching audio tracks in some cases
25. Fixed bug where we'd lose the Language field for a Show after DB maintenance because the Bonus object for it wasn't being retained
26. When inserting Airings into the database, if they are from an EPG data scan, immediately patch the holes that are created in the EPG because these data sets are not always complete (unlike when we download from our EPG server).
27. Fixed bug where sometimes menu unload effects would not get ran if the UI was refreshed after they were first evaluated, but before they were first rendered.
28. Fixed bug where a paging event that did not cause a table to scroll, but did cause the focus to change was not firing the transition event.
29. Fixed bug when a lineup's internal ID on the EPG server changed but its name didn't and the client re-selected that lineup due to a message about it being lost but the client was still using the old lineup ID after that.
30. Fixed bug where we didn't properly indicate that BluRays with 7.1 audio tracks actually had 7.1 channels (it would say 5.1 previously)
31. Fixed bug where parsing of stream information from external format detector that had a stream index greater than 9 only used the last digit for the stream index number.
32. Fixed bug where non-MPEG files with over 20 streams failed format detection
33. Fixed bug where JCIFS improperly calculated hashcodes and equal comparisons which would cause a workgroup entry to match a server if that server was the browser for that workgroup
34. Fixed issue where MasterBrowser failures would cause us to permanently ignore that specific IP address; now we only do this for a limited time period
35. Fixed issues with seamless file transitions and the HDHomeRun
36. Fixed bug in selected the best BluRay title where significantly longer durations didn't trump the number of audio tracks (this caused Ratatouille to play the wrong one)
37. Added ability to cancel channel scans mid-progress without losing the prior scan information (although there is an option in the UI to do that).
38. Optimizations to finding unique channel names during a digital TV channel scan.
39. Various bug fixes related to the digital TV parsing system and transport stream processor
40. Fix: missing PCR on DVB stream that PCR is carried on PSI packets.

Windows Updates
1. Added support for the Hauppauge Colossus card
2. Fixed issue with Windows BluRay playback where if there was a file at the end of the sequence that was smaller than 32k it would break the timeline during playback.
3. Fixed bug where setting SageTV to startup in the system tray didn't work properly on Vista/Win7 if it was using Windows' native title bar in SageTV (which is the default on those platforms for new installs)
4. Fixed regression bug where we would always hide cropped text on the PC now
5. Fix: HVR-2250 recording switching problem. Happauge encoder's sample size is less than 2048 bytes, seamless transition code has trouble with a block that is less 2048 bytes.
6. Add PVR tag "QAME" into a null packet, so that Demux knows it's QAM recording, guide parser to work right on DC-II video stream.
7. DVB-C timeout is too short to handle a some kind of encrypted channel, changed it from 5 sec to 6 sec.
8. Added support for Dvico FusionHDTV 7 RT
9. Fix: The second tuner of HVR-1250 tuners connection bug.
10. Fix: BlackGolde and HVR-1225 tuner support bug.
11. Added support for TERRATEC H7 Digital Capture
12. Fixed bug in WHS installer where it would only remove the old version if the upgrade covered 2 version changes instead of a single version change
13. Fixed bug when using SageTV Service + local UI client and upgrading a plugin; sometimes the upgrade would not get applied until the application was manually restarted.

Linux Updates
1. Added support for dynamically determining the I2C bus to use for the Hauppauge IR blaster on Linux. If for some reason the device switches device numbers; this will then allow the IR blaster functionality to still work properly.
2. When trying to automatically determine the proper I2C port for the IR blaster on Linux; if we can't determine it, then just use the port the user configured in setup.
3. Fixed bug when a capture device changes /dev/video identifiers to one that did not exist at startup which would then prevent us from reloading the capture device properly.

Placeshifter Updates
1. Fixed bug in extender/placeshifter mode where a dead socket on the media channel on initial connection wasn't properly retried
2. Fixed bug where we set the current loaded glyph to zero which could cause issues if the first glyph calculated was the zero glyph (manifested itself as text corruption in the placeshifter when it used cached glyph maps and loading complete glyph maps was enabled on the server)
3. Added support for placeshifter reconnections
4. Added support for new advanced image caching in placeshifter which greatly helps in high latency connection scenarios
5. Added placeshifter client-side property "force_nonlocal_connection" which will make the placeshifter think it's not using a local connection when it actually is. This is very useful when tunneling to the server is done.
6. Fixed issue in Linux placeshifter where it was forcing use of the alsa HW device which wasn't compatible with newer versions of Ubuntu

Extender Updates
1. Fixed bug in seeking in transport stream files during playback on extenders where it would always use the first guessed point for the seek; and not the new position after re-seeking if the first guess wasn't close enough.
2. Major improvements to quality of smooth FF/REW on HD media extenders
3. Added support for seeking while the video stream is paused on HD extenders for MPEG files (it already worked for non-MPEG files)
4. Added true frame advance on the HD300
5. Updates to fix bug where plugin screenshots won't show on MediaMVP (due to its image preloading not occurring)
6. Added support for showing the optimized wait cursor on the HD300 (it doesn't need to render the UI anymore when it shows it; it uses the cursor plane now, which is WAY more efficient)
7. Added support for reconfiguration of the advanced deinterlacing controls on the HD300 when running as an extender
8. Fixed bug on extender DVD playback where DVDs that actually have an end to them don't wait until all the content at the end is played before stopping. (most DVDs never end, they just go back to the menu after the movie is over)
9. Fixed bug when doing a seamless transition between two files on a media extender where we didn't set the configuration for the new MPEG parser completely on the server
10. Fixed bug when doing a seamless transition where the OSD counter would be too far ahead temporarily after the switch occurred.
11. Fixed bug where DVD playback on an extender could crash on startup if native resolution switching was enabled and multiple 480i resolutions were defined
12. Fixed bug relating to closing the cilent connection while playing back media and not tracking the watched end time properly since now we allow for reconnection by clients

Plugin System Updates
1. Added core plugin events for PlaybackPaused and PlaybackResumed (same variables as PlaybackStopped/Started/Finished)

Studio/API Updates
1. Added internal reflection of new java.util.HashSet() so it can accept an array as a parameter
2. Updated new_java_util_Vector API call so that it can handle a null argument
3. If a call to SetMediaFileMetadata is made with a value that is used in the internal DB; then don't add that property to the list of retained metadata properties and don't put it in the FileFormat object
4. Fixed bug in Studio where you could do a drag-copy of incompatible widget types. It will still allow this if at least one widget is a compatible type; but it will no longer create invalid parent-child relationships.
5. Fixed bug in Studio where you could do a drag-move or drag-link of incompatible widget types.
6. Fixed bug in the Studio where you could drag & drop Widgets that weren't allowed to be connected as long as the primary source of the operation was allowed
7. Added option to the Tools menu in the SageTV Studio that'll optimize an STV for running on our embedded platform. This does various different optimization techniques.
8. Updated how table transition indication works so that it reports being in a transition until the animation for the transition is over; not just the first frame of it
9. Added support for specifying delay,period,duration settings for the Animation property in Widgets dynamically. Previously a dynamic property for an Animation setting would be evaluated as a boolean; but now if the result returns a String with 3 comma or space delimited items, that will now be used as the timing information.
10. Added Global API call CloseOptionsMenu(WidgetName, WaitForClose) that allows specifying a specific options menu to close based on widget name; used to prevent accidental closing of options menus spawned from global hooks.
11. Added new Global API calls IsEmbeddedServer() and IsPVR()
12. Added MediaNode API call "IsMediaNodeObject(Object)"
13. Fixed MediaPlayer API call "Watch()" so that it can take a MediaNode object as an argument
14. Added SeriesInfo API call IsSeriesInfoObject
15. Added embedded only API calls into the PC version with notes about them only being available on the embedded platform.

STV Updates
1. Various changes to merge items from the embedded Cheetah STV into the SageTV7 UI to enable usage of the SageTV7 UI on the HD300
2. Added support for enabling/disabling motion adaptive deinterlacing on HD300
3. ATSC channel scan: prefer physical channel number matches over logical channel number matches
4. Can use Left to exit the Servers menu
5. Don't show shadow BG image behind channel logo on airing/recording info menus.
6. Fixed issue where using Play while group of recordings was highlighted played the items in the group in an order other than how the subgroups should be sorted.
7. Fixed issue where search result subgroups were shown in a different order at the top search level than how they were listed after browsing into the subgroup.
8. Fixed restoring the Window Always On Top setting at startup.
9. Fixed issue where entering the same channel number as the one currently being watched did not auto-hide the OSD after the inactivity timeout period.
10. Updated copyright year to 2011
11. Fixed issue where changing recording view name cleared menu history.
12. Fixed issue where Online Video search option was still fully accessible even when online videos were disabled or controlled via parental control restriction.
13. Added up/down scroll arrows to the parallel recording schedule view when mouse icons are enabled.
14. Fixed parallel recording schedule issue where a hidden scroll bar prevented clicking on airings near the bottom of the screen.
15. When displaying the duration for an imported video to the side of a menu or on the video's detailed info screen, use either GetAiringDuration() or GetShowDuration().
16. Added support to allow multiple plugins to tell the menu header that their custom header icons are active.
17. Channel Manager now displays count of lineups a channel is enabled on in addition to the number of lineups that include the channel.
18. Fixed issue where default category BG colors for airings was not being created for new setups.
19. Added images for root level of file browser
20. Added definition for speed of animated wait/progress bar
21. If a repeat channel name is found during a channel scan, add a number to the name instead of using the physical chan num as the name.
22. If not a client, don't refer to the SageTV Server when enabling/disabling debug logging.
23. After changing settings that need a restart, offer to restart.
24. Added file system type icons for file browser's root file system view
25. During Zip/Postal Code entry for EPG config, use a full keyboard layout
26. Channel scan: auto start a full scan if no previous scan info detected.
27. Channel scan: if no previous channel scan is detected and starting a scan hasn't already been confirmed, confirm starting the channel scan
28. Changed Favorites menus to refer to Actor/Team
29. Can use Delete command to remove a Favorite from the Favorites Manager menu
30. When adding a Favorite while on the playback screen, show dialog telling user it has been added.
31. Record & Favorite commands: If there are Team roles in an Airing, offer to add Team Favorites if the Airing doesn't already have a Favorite associated with it
32. Call AutoScanChannelInfo(CaptureDeviceInput, "-2") if the user cancels a channel scan.
33. Added Detailed Setup -> Customize option to "Display name of server on the Main Menu footer" when using an extender or placeshifter
34. Fixed enable_converting_imported_videos_to_tv_recordings property to be a server-based property.
35. Converted CloseOptionsMenu() calls that need to close the parent dialog in a forked AfterMenuLoad hook loop, to CloseOptionsMenu( ThisDialogName, true )
36. During ATSC update channel scan, don't report disabled untunable channels that were previously remapped as potential changes.