Wednesday, June 23, 2010

The builds 59-65

15.0.65 (6/23/2010)

1. Changed: Playback prevents automatic system sleep, but does not disable a full manual sleep (S3).
2. Changed: Putting the system to sleep manually will stop any playback.
3. NEW: DLNA servers allow selection of a video conversion mode.
4. Changed: When closing Options with the 'X' at the top right, the save / discard message has a 'Always use this answer' checkbox.
5. Changed: The Browse... button in auto-import folder list allows typing a folder name.
6. Changed: When typing a folder name in a Browse folder dialog, the tree will auto-synchronize with the typed path.
7. Fixed: With a fresh library, the automatic import countdown in the Action Window could run even when manually picking 'Import...' from the menu.
8. Fixed: Doing a 'Restore Library' and only restoring the settings would not work properly.
9. Changed: After restoring settings during a 'Restore Library', the success message informs the user to restart the program for setting changes to take effect.
10. Fixed: When saving a file with encoding in Media Editor, a temporary WAV file could be left behind.
11. Changed: Cross-over used for LFE channel during JRSS mixing uses a 24db/octave slope. (previously used a lesser slope)
12. Fixed: Library Server, client, and J. River URL Reader filter did not handle streaming of files larger than 2 GB correctly.
13. NEW: Added 'Bass Management' section to DSP Studio > Room Correction.
14. Changed: External dependencies such as lame, gogo, ogg, mpc, and ffmpeg are now silently installed on demand into AppData to avoid UAC prompts.
15. Fixed: Closing a dialog while a combobox was open could cause a crash.

15.0.64 (6/21/2010)

1. Changed: More improvements to image conversion system used by DLNA, WebPlay, etc.
2. Fixed: When starting playback, album art could be loaded twice instead of only once.
3. Fixed: Playing YouTube video in Theater View did not work, causing MC to trigger downloading the video outside of MC.
4. Optimized: Starting playback with a Library Server client is faster when converting to MP3.
5. NEW: Gizmo pauses playback when a phone call arrives, and unpauses when the call is finished.
6. NEW: Gizmo holds a partial wake lock during playback to prevent the phone from going to sleep or from turning off the data connection.
7. NEW: Improved Gizmo image playback.
8. NEW: Added video conversion options for Library Server clients. (still a work in progress)

15.0.63 (6/17/2010)

1. Fixed: DLNA playback of images with conversion enabled would not honor EXIF rotation.
2. NEW: DLNA image conversion is done in such a way that a device will not know the image is being converted -- full content length provided, ranged requests supported, etc. (should make image conversion work for all DLNA devices)
3. Internal: Library Server, MCWS, and DLNA server code for handling media files and conversion merged.

15.0.62 (6/17/2010)

1. NEW: Added caching layer for media file serving to Library Server so requesting the same file multiple times in a short time frame won't require multiple analysis or conversion processes.
2. NEW: Added Library Server client option to convert images.
3. NEW: When using WebPlay / Gizmo, images are converted to a lower resolution.
4. Changed: When playing images from Library Server, the previous / next caching was not working nicely.

15.0.61 (6/16/2010)

1. Changed: Improvements to hardware accelerated image playback.

15.0.60 (6/15/2010)

1. Changed: Updated DCRaw to latest (v9.02).
2. Optimized: Search optimizer introduced in build 57 better weighs the evaluation time of calculated fields vs regular fields to aid search performance.
3. Changed: Sharing recorded television over Library Server no longer requires additional configuration of white-list share paths
4. Changed: Backup, Restore, and Clear Library commands are disabled when connected to a Library Server.
5. Changed: Replaced 'Search For Media Servers' with 'Connect to Library...' in Library menu.
6. Changed: When connected to a library, the 'Connect to Library...' command is replaced by a 'Disconnect from Library' command.
7. Changed: Added new command 'Sync Changes with Library Server' to Library menu to allow manual sync of client changes. (no longer use 'Sync Library...' command -- that is for downloading a library and playlists from a server)
8. Changed: Simplified the 'Connect to Library...' dialog so there's only one choice for connecting to a Library Server.
9. NEW: Image playback is hardware accelerated, providing smoother visuals when zooming and scrolling. [experimental]
10. NEW: Image playback draws a pixel-perfect overlay when zooming and scrolling stop (most noticeable on systems with low supported texture sizes or when zooming in on huge images)

15.0.59 (6/14/2010)

1. Changed: Updated German language file (thanks Bytestar).
2. Changed: Updated Theater View News for better support of The Onion, Comedy Central Jokes, BBC, Interact, etc.
3. Fixed: Big endian TIFF files could have the incorrect dimensions listed in the database.
4. Changed: Better (hopefully) way of obtaining video dimensions in JRWorker.
5. Fixed: Trouble switching channels with some DVB-T television devices.
6. Changed: In digital television, extra output pins of MPEG-2 Demultiplexer filter are deleted instead of being rendered to NULL renderer.
7. Changed: DLNA container type for videos to try and get it working for some TV's that don't see them. Needs testing to make sure it doesn't mess up devices that currently work.
8. Changed: Added an approximate size to DLNA images when converting as some renderers need to know the size in the content directory or they won't try to display the image.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

The build 58

15.0.58 (6/11/2010)

1. Changed: JRSS improvements to matrixing algorithms used for rear channel creation. (applies to 2.0 -> 7.1 and 5.1 -> 7.1 conversion)
2. Changed: The 'hardware style previous' button mode will use a 10 second cutoff when controlling a DLNA device unlike the 1.5 second cutoff during regular playback.
3. Changed: The 'Play / Pause' command for WebRemote plays the current file instead of visible files if playback is stopped.
4. Fixed: WebRemote commands like 'Play' could get cached by the browser and stop working.
5. Fixed: Using WebRemote with an Android, links could fail to work properly after navigating back due to AJAX caching.
6. Optimized: Improved cache-ability of WebRemote / WebPlay webpages, helping browsing performance.
7. Fixed: In rare cases, a core string function could read one character too far and cause a crash.
8. Fixed: When syncing content from Library Server to a handheld, extra unneeded numbers could end up in the final filename that were used during download time.

Friday, June 11, 2010

The build 57

15.0.57 (6/10/2010)

1. Optimized: Search engine uses more sophisticated logic for deciding the order to evaluate pieces of a database query, providing substantial speed improvements in some cases.
2. Optimized: Database search engine can better discard duplicate search terms, helping performance in applicable cases. (stacking of similar searches is common in nested views, etc.)
3. Changed: Numerous Gizmo improvements: loads images in background thread, adds ability to enter a library server access key to get to library, etc.
4. Changed: Gizmo should be installed from the Android Market (it's free). Search for "Gizmo" in Market on your phone.
5. Fixed: WebPlay was not showing Play / Shuffle buttons for playlists.
6. Fixed: Mouse wheeling on a horizontal scrollbar could scroll diagonally.
7. Fixed: The player window buttons could highlight on mouse over, even when the mouse was actually over a window on top of the player.
8. Changed: Increased maximum boost / gain available in DSP Studio > Volume Leveling to 18 dB from 12 dB.
9. Fixed: The in-place edit available choices for fields with a fixed list of acceptable values was not working properly.
10. Changed: Reworked how link bar at top right of view is loaded so that it is pulled from disk less often.
11. Changed: Link bar allows creating link rules like '[Genre]=[Rock]' and the available links nicely update as different files are selected.
12. Optimized: Improved performance of link bar system, so that evaluating what links should be shown is much faster.
13. Optimized: Revised view header update system works to provide better view performance.
14. Fixed: The 'Previous' button did not seek to the beginning of the current track when controlling a DLNA device.
15. Optimized: Improved performance of seeking when controlling DLNA devices.
16. Changed: The /MCWS/v1/Alive function does not require password authorization to make checking for running servers possible from MC, Gizmo, etc. without requiring a password prompt.
17. Changed: Added additional handling to prevent DLNA control from skipping two (or more) files when pressing 'Next'.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

The builds 50-56

15.0.56 (6/7/2010)

1. Changed: Added PlayingNowPosition, PlayingNowTracks, and PlayingNowPositionDisplay variables to MCWS/v1/Playback/Info function.
2. Changed: Added .FileKey variable for WebPlay / WebRemote file objects.
3. Fixed: During DLNA control, a manual Next or Previous could causes multiple files to be skipped depending on network timing.
4. Changed: Removed timeout.
5. Fixed: Column changes made while drilled into a library view in the tree were not saved.
6. NEW: Added 'Author' database field, used for author metadata when importing documents. (previously used 'Artist' field)
7. Changed: Import of document title, keywords, etc. from the filesystem better handles UTF-8.
8. Optimized: Loading the default 'Artists' view with a huge library is about 5% faster. (speed increases should help smaller libraries and other views as well)
9. Fixed: VST plugins that exposed a standard DLLRegisterServer(...) function in addition to the standard VST plugin export would not install properly.

15.0.55 (6/7/2010)

1. Changed: Media Type specification for DVB-T television's MPEG-2 audio and AC3 audio is updated.
2. Changed: MC configures DVB-T television's video format before connecting a filter graph so the video media type conforms to DVB-T's PAL standard.
3. NEW: Added new video file type wtv.
4. Fixed: WebRemote did not work nicely with Library Server authorization enabled.
5. Fixed: Quicktime files (mov, qt) could not be thumbnailed if they were set to play in DirectShow.
6. Changed: When playing files externally to MC (i.e. double click a file in Win explorer), windowed playback is now an option in General options.
7. Changed: Improved DLNA track advancement system to be less dependent on DLNA events. (events are used to help performance, but system functions fine even if device doesn't event properly)
8. Fixed: Webpage style stores would just show 'Installing' instead of a webpage. (since build 51)
9. Fixed: Theater View > Playing Now > Info view would not advance properly as tracks changed.

15.0.54 (6/3/2010)

1. NEW: The player automatically detects the arrival of a Google Android (previously required a program restart if the Android was mounted while Media Center was running).
2. Changed: Options > Media Network > Advanced Server Settings > Authentication password is no longer in plain text.
3. Fixed: Leaving Theater View's Hulu view could be slow.

15.0.53 (6/2/2010)

1. Changed: Renamed network options and view to 'Media Network'.
2. NEW: New 'Media Network' view under 'Services & Plug-ins' in the tree.
3. Fixed: Possible resource leak when switching views.
4. Fixed: Certain podcast streams were failing to download because of a 307 redirect status. We handle them like other redirects now.
5. Changed: Gizmo could unnecessarily load the same image multiple times. (Gizmo updated to 15.0.53)
6. NEW: Added Russian translation.

15.0.52 (6/1/2010)

1. Fixed: Playing different audio file types consecutively without clicking the stop button could cause some audio types to output noise.
2. Fixed: The background behind a video would be glass instead of black when using a glass-enabled skin.
3. NEW: Library Server, WebPlay, and WebRemote use a token-based authorization system so that once a client is authorized, it won't have to authorize again on subsequent requests. (fixes issues using Gizmo with authorization enabled, etc.)
4. Changed: List management windows no longer hide their list when disabled now that lists can nicely render a disabled state (applies to Options > Network, etc.).
5. Changed: Revised naming and versioning of Gizmo Android application.
6. Changed: WebPlay and WebRemote no longer show Play, etc. buttons at the view scheme level.
7. Changed: Reversed change #6 in build 51.
8. Changed: Added 'Statistics...' button to Network Servers view (a precursor to revised network servers overview page)

15.0.51 (5/28/2010)

1. Fixed: "Type" field in MyMovies data file could not be imported.
2. Changed: Updates (or initial install) of the Performer Store happen in a background thread when the store is viewed.
3. Optimized: Improved caching of server hits done by Performer Store for better performance.
4. Changed: Playing a Performer track from the local library (or Playing Now) will login so that full length version is played.
5. Fixed: Fixed possible dead-lock from audio engine parallelization improvements of build 50.
6. Changed: Television will try using generic Microsoft Network Provider filter first, instead of individual ATSC/DVB-T Network Providers.
7. Fixed: Making changes to Playing Now just as a song was ending (and the next track was prebuffering) could cause the visual play indicator to disappear.
8. Fixed: The 'Media Editor' start menu shortcut was not working (will recreate start menu group at stock location; later upgrades will not).
9. Fixed: Converting multiple audio files to mp3 did not work properly due to temporary filename conflict.

15.0.50 (5/26/2010)

1. Changed: Improvements to MC15.exe /MonitorSwitch to work better with certain configurations.
2. Optimized: Core audio data path 8% faster (used for playback, burning, conversion, etc).
3. Optimized: Disk Writer output plugin operates faster.
4. Optimized: Improved parallelization of audio playback engine to provide faster and more robust playback, especially when doing channel or sample rate conversion.
5. Optimized: Improved core audio engine data delivery mechanism to provide more skip resistant playback.
6. Changed: When clipping list or tree items that are outside the current scroll position, soft faded edges are used instead of hard edges.
7. Changed: Numerous improvements to J. River Gizmo Android application. (requires reinstallation from WebPlay homepage)