Tuesday, March 30, 2010

The builds 9-14

15.0.14 (03/30/2010)

1. NEW: Added new option 'Play silence at startup for hardware synchronization' to Options > Audio that plays a little silence when first opening an output (or changing formats) to allow audio hardware to synchronize. (needed for devices like the Bel Canto USB Link that otherwise crop a little of a new signal)
2. Fixed: DLNA, transcoded music files could be from 1-8095 bytes short if not falling on a 8096 byte boundary.
3. Changed: Add file extensions for audio and image files in the content directory for DLNA. Some renderers improperly key off of the extension.
4. Fixed: Facebook upload status. Now an action window.

15.0.13 (03/29/2010)

1. Changed: MC will install MP4Splitter if it is not already found on user's computer before playing an mp4/m4a file, if the user has not selected any filters.
2. Changed: Further tweaks in mp4 file graph-building.
3. Changed: Improved artwork for Cover View toggle at top right of view.
4. Changed: Cover View only shows the playerbar when the mouse hits the very top of the screen.
5. Fixed: Cover View did not allow forward / back shortcuts.
6. Changed: Cover View hides file lists at the bottom of a library view showing category thumbnails.
7. Changed: Navigation tree appears when moving mouse to the border in Cover View.
8. Changed: F11 includes 'Cover View' when looping through available full screen views.
9. Fixed: Possible DLNA deadlock during especially high DLNA device activity.
10. Changed: Transparent borders in Display View and Cover View fade into view instead of snapping into view.

15.0.12 (03/26/2010)

1. NEW: Added new 'Cover View'. (Ctrl+5 or arrow at top right of views)
2. Fixed: Action Window > Camera could fail to create the output path.
3. Fixed: The French language was corrupted.
4. Fixed: Possible threading dead-lock during high activity DLNA usage.
5. Fixed: Playing a file to a DLNA device from WebRemote's Playing Now list could play a different file.
6. Fixed: DVD could fail to play if an old video renderer selection value was out of range in the new system (build 11 only).

15.0.11 (03/24/2010)

1. Fixed: DLNA device resubscription was not working (only applies to build 9).
2. Changed: Revised DLNA device resubscription system so that a single failed attempt to subscribe won't stop future retries.
3. Changed: Switched WebRemote's default port to 52199 (to stay in the J. River network / DLNA range of 52100 to 52199)
4. Changed: Some changes are made in DVD video renderer selection. Sorry, you will need to make a one time re-selection of DVD video renderer. Other video types should not be affected. Please report any irregularities (other than "my DVD video renderer was changed").
5. Optimized: The program is less aggressive about updating playback information for remote zones that are not active.
6. Changed: Improved how DLNA controlling detects changes in playback state to provide more reliable and faster track changes.
7. Fixed: The playback status ('Playing', 'Paused', etc.) would not update correctly for DLNA zones.
8. Fixed: If there was a failure contacting the Netflix API, it would keep trying every 1/4 second forever.
9. Changed: DLNA engine keeps a list of naughty devices that advertise themselves (sometimes over and over) but are unreachable to avoid communicating with faulty hardware.
10. Changed: Updated German language file (thanks to Bytestar).
11. Changed: Updated French translation (thanks Benoit de Corn).
12. Changed: Optimized Netflix API calls so we'll be less likely to burn through our daily quota. With all my testing we burned through the quota today however (sorry!).
13. Fixed: Some AIFF files created in dBpoweramp played with a brief noise at the end.

15.0.10 (03/24/2010)

1. NEW: Added a DLNA connection status manager for each device that nicely handles device disconnection, reconnection, communication errors, and more.
2. NEW: DLNA framework responds to alive and bye-bye messages from devices so that the device list updates faster.
3. Fixed: Thread locking issue with DLNA subscription management that could cause a hang.
4. Changed: Added a timeout set to the end of April.
5. Fixed: A crash while playing images at the same time as audio in the same zone could leave a dangling 'Images' zone that would cause issues.
6. Changed: Toggling through zones will no longer stop at the internal 'Images' zone used during simultaneous audio and image playback.
7. Fixed: last.fm plugin was not installing properly.
8. Optimized: Improved performance of some core libraries.
9. Fixed: MPC input plugin was linking in unused code, making it larger than it needed to be.
10. Changed: When restoring settings in a library backup, the program attempts to switch paths targeting old versions to the current version. (if you have already restored a v14 library to v15, you should manually clean up paths pointing to Media Center 14 by using regedit and searching / replacing here: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\J. River\Media Center 15)
11. Fixed: If DirectShow DSP property pages were already showing in DSP studio when playback started, the pages appeared to be inactive, until DSP studio was closed and reopened.
12. Changed: Removed outdated Girder files from Media Center 15\Extras folder.
13. NEW: Added the ability to create / update translation files using Google Translate. (as always, please contribute any language improvements back to J. River)

15.0.9 (03/23/2010)

1. NEW: WebRemote allows changing appearance, port, and views in Options > Network.
2. Fixed: DLNA could unnecessarily event a 'LastChange' with no changes in it.
3. Fixed: It was not possible to add 'Playlists' back to a DLNA server's views once it was removed.
4. Changed: Revised bordering and some styling in default WebRemote appearance.
5. Changed: Better progress message is displayed during downloading and installing DirectShow filters.
6. Changed: MC inserts FFDShow Video decoder (if available) during graph-building for mp4/m4a and flv files if the user has not selected any filters.
7. Changed: MC gives MP4 Splitter higher preference than Haali Media Splitter when playing mp4/m4a files.
8. Fixed: Rare crash related to DLNA renderers and volume handling.
9. Optimized: DLNA device subscription occurs in a low priority background thread instead of the main thread.
10. Optimized: Revised how DLNA device searching works so that fewer device description requests are made.
11. Optimized: Revised communication mechanism used for DLNA subscription and eventing for better performance.
12. Fixed: Turn off video support by default for UPnP devices that don't support video.
13. Fixed: Return sane DLNA strings for the MC renderer which didn't have the full information needed to do so

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

The builds 1-8

15.0.8 (03/22/2010)

1. Changed: A few fixes and optimizations to make J. River URL Reader filter work better.
2. Fixed: WASAPI plugin was not available (only applies to last few builds).
3. Fixed: WebRemote could crash during very high activity image serving.
4. NEW: Added support for if(...) statements and loop_no_first / loop_no_last in HTML template engine used for WebRemote.
5. Fixed: WebRemote would show an incorrect item at the end of the list.
6. Optimized: Numerous improvements to WebRemote server performance.
7. Changed: WebRemote skips levels with only one item so going into an artist with one album goes straight to files, etc.
8. Changed: MC will try downloading an MP4 splitter if it fails to render an mp4 video / m4a audio.
9. Changed: Revised WebRemote layout system to use the physical device size for page sizing (like mobile Wikipedia, etc.)
10. Changed: WebRemote no longer shows an empty image in Playing Now when playback is stopped.
11. Fixed: DLNA could expose internal zones like the image playback zone.

15.0.7 (03/17/2010)

1. NEW: J. River URL Reader filter that helps playing video from the Internet.
2. NEW: Numerous improvements and refinements to the appearance of the default WebRemote template.
3. Fixed: Kernel Streaming didn't show friendly names for devices when running under UAC.
4. Fixed: International characters were not being properly supported when browsing the library with WebRemote.
5. Optimized: Added a caching layer to the search for external art during import, which can substantially improve import performance in cases where there is no art in the tags and there are many files in a single folder.
6. NEW: Added 'Image' section to Options > File Location that is used during camera, clipboard, etc. image acquisition.
7. Changed: Switched Action Window > Acquire Images options dialog to use a base path + directory rule, to match the new Options > File Location system. (both dialogs configure the same settings)
8. Fixed: Installing on a system with Media Center 14 installed could fail in some cases.

15.0.6 (03/16/2010)

1. NEW: Added Kernel Streaming output plugin.
2. NEW: Added internal volume support to J. River audio renderer.
3. Changed: Removed WebRemote header on all pages except the homepage.
4. Fixed: The splash image didn't list 2010 as the copyright.
5. Fixed: 'Network' options page was not sorted in the list properly.
6. Fixed: Content-Range in partial content in the http server. Messed up end of files when serving files to some DLNA renderers.
7. Changed: Bumped facebook upload image size to 720 pixels.

15.0.5 (03/15/2010)

1. Fixed: Restoring settings with certain library backups could crash / hang.
2. Changed: Improved how WebRemote reports pages should be cached to avoid stale page issues.
3. Changed: WebRemote builds thumbnails as necessary instead of requiring thumbnails to already be built.
4. Changed: Removed legacy 'Remote Server' (Options > Startup > Remote Server) in favor of WebRemote and MCWS.

15.0.4 (03/12/2010)

1. Changed: If all the pieces of DLNA are disabled, no SSDP multicast responder server will be started. (could cause spurious firewall prompt)
2. Fixed: If user selected filters for DVD playback while DVD was playing, the selection would not take effect when playback restarted.
3. Changed: ASIO output plugin supports lower latency settings.
4. NEW: Reworked J. River audio renderer clocking to provide (hopefully) perfect lip sync with any output plugin.
5. Changed: Renamed 'DLNA' options to 'Network', added a section for Web Remote.
6. Changed: The type selected in Options > Video is remembered when leaving and returning to options. (so testing a given video type with different filters is much easier)
7. Changed: Options > General > Advanced > Features moved up a level to Options > General > Features.

15.0.3

Internal testing build

15.0.2 (03/05/2010)

1. Fixed: Edge snapping did not work nicely in some multimonitor configurations.
2. Fixed: Scheduled television recording of an analog television program would cause MC to crash if J. River Audio Renderer feature was enabled.

15.0.1 (03/04/2010)

1. NEW: When restoring a library backup, user settings can also be restored.
2. NEW: DLNA Renderers expose a 'presentation URL' to allow control from any web browser (find Media Center zone in Windows 'Network' area, right-click, select Properties, and click the 'Device webpage' link) (not functional yet, just added framework to support the feature)
3. Changed: Added support for [App Version] keyword when customizing the display at the top of the program.
4. Changed: Purchases done through this version (and newer) will receive a Media Center 15 license.
5. Changed: DVD audio/video decoder enumeration is done in JRWorker so that bad filters can not cause crashes.
6. Changed: DSP Studio > Room Correction only applies distance based attenuation across matched speaker sets (phasing correction is still applied across all speakers in play).
7. Changed: Improved J. River Audio Renderer clocking method to improve lip-sync.
8. Fixed: Netflix feature could fail to authorize user if the computer's clock was off quite a bit.
9. Fixed: If WAV tagging was disabled (the default), setting cover art to the WAV files could still result in the database incorrectly switching the image field to "Inside File".
10. Fixed: Playing an MP3 from a server could make an unnecessary head request back to the server once a second.