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[/left]- Integrated a new version of Sigma Blu-ray SDK:
- This solves all currently known compatibility problems with new
Blu-ray discs.
- Added autoframerate feature (an initial version):
- A new setting added: "Setup / Video / Auto framerate" with possible
values "Disabled" (default), "50/60Hz" and "24/50/60Hz".
- Autoresolution is not yet supported, only autoframerate is supported.
- Supported only for file playback; no yet support for DVD playback and
Blu-ray playback.
- Supported only for HDMI 720p/1080i/1080p video modes.
- Source framerate detection is implemented for most of the supported
container formats and videocodecs (although it is not guaranteed to
work correctly with each particular file).
- 23.976 vs 24.0, 59.94 vs 60.0 are distinguished and handled correctly.
- When playing a playlist of files with different framerates, video
output is reconfigured before playback of each file in the playlist.
- The currently used video mode and video output framerate are reported
during playback in INFO OSD.
- Completely rewritten file browser engine:
- All existing user-visible functionality of the file browser is
preserved, but the internally used engine is almost completely
reworked to make it much more flexible and powerful. This allows allow
to introduce various additional functionality (such as browsing lists
of SMB/NFS shares, browsing UPnP resources, browsing content of
playlist files, browsing content of Audio CD discs, browsing content
of RAR and other archives, etc). The new egnine allows to implement
all additional functionality in a way consistent with already existing
functionality, reusing all advanced features and possibilities of the
file browser, such as:
- Convenient and fast navigation through the hierarchy of
folders/objects.
- Showing the path to the current folder/object in the title bar and
allowing to quickly navigate to any element of this path.
- Convenient and fast scrolling through large lists of items.
- Ability to customize the look of lists (e.g. switch between list
view and icon view, assign custom visualization using
dune_folder.txt where appropriate, etc).
- Ability to use the general cut/copy/paste (and dlete/rename)
functions where appropriate.
- Ability to use the general possibility to mark multiple items and
play the marked items or perform some other operation on the marked
items.
- Ability to use the general possibility to generate a playlist fro m
the marked items (including recursive scanning of folders with
subfolders), where appropriate.
- Added several new features based on the new engine:
- Browser of content of M3U/PLS playlist files.
- Press "0" on a M3U/PLS file to open the file directly in the
file browser. Then you can e.g. mark some items of the playlist,
and launch playback of the marked items.
- Browser of SMB workgroups/server/shares (see details below).
- Browser of UPnP servers (see details below).
- Added Network Browser feature with support for SMB and UPnP servers:
- There is a new "Network Browser" item on the main screen, allowing to
conveniently browse media resources available in the local network
(w/o knowing their IP addresses and other technical parameters).
- The new item can be disabled via "Setup / Applications / Network
Browser / Show in main screen" setting.
- Currently, the network browser supports SMB and UPnP servers.
- SMB browser features:
- Choose "Network Browser / SMB" to see all accessible SMB workgroups,
SMB servers, and SMB shares.
- After you open an SMB share, you can work with its content just like
as with the content of manually registered SMB network folder (play
files, copy/dlete/rename files, etc).
- By default, guest access to a SMB share is performed; if guest access
fails, you can enter user name and password to be used. Besides, user
name and password if desired can also be entered/modified via "Connect
as user" context menu action.
- Entered user names/passwords are persistently remembered in flash
memory, so you do not need to renter them each time when you reenter
the SMB share (even after player power off).
- Several SMB shares can be accessed simultanously; in particular, if
you want, you can copy/move files fr om one SMB share to another.
- Also added a new possibility for manually configurable network
folders: now, not only IP address or DNS name of the SMB server can be
specified, but also WINS (Windows) name of the SMB server.
- UPnP browser features:
- Choose "Network Browser / UPnP" to see all accessible UPnP servers.
- After you open a UPnP server, you can browse all media content
published by this server and play it.
- The provided funcionality is similar to the functionality available
when working with SMB/NFS shares. You can selec t any files and play
them, play the entire folders (with automatic playlist generation fr om
the folder and all its subfolders), mark multiple files/folders and
play them, etc.
- The currently implemention is has the following limitations (planned
to be addressed in future firmware versions):
- Viewing photo files fr om UPnP servers is not supported. You can
only play video and music files.
- Playback of DVD and Blu-ray folders and ISO images fro m UPnP
servers is not suppoorted. You can only play regular files (e.g.
TS, MKV, etc).
- The use of external subtitles and audiotracks is not supported.
You can only use internal subtitles and audiotracks.
- Playback of very high bitrate content is supported (may depend on a
particular UPnP server and network conditions). UPnP uses HTTP for
content playback, and HTTP playback has been optimized signficantly to
allow playback of very high bitrate content, such as TS and MKV files
with 40-50+ Mbit/s bitrate (see below for more details). In some
cases, when a file server can not ensure stutter-free playback via SMB
and NFS protocols (e.g. when a NAS with a slow CPU is used), UPnP can
be tried as a potentially more performant alternative.
- National characters in file names are supported (may depend on a
particular UPnP server).
- Note: testing with different UPnP servers have been performed, but
there are no guarantees that any UPnP server will work fully correctly
or work at all. The list of at least partially tested UPnP servers
includes:
- TwonkyMedia Manager/Server (http://www.twonkymedia.com/)
- TVersity (http://tversity.com/)
- Windows Media Player 11 on Windows XP
- Windows Media Player 11 on Windows Vista
- PS3 Media Server (http://code.google.com/p/ps3mediaserver/)
- PlayOn (http://www.themediamall.com/playon)
- uShare (http://ushare.geexbox.org/) on Linux
- FUPPES (http://fuppes.ulrich-voelkel.de/)
- Improved HTTP client:
- Significantly optimized HTTP playback performance. With fast enough
HTTP servers, all containers (MKV, TS, AVI. WMV, MP4/MOV) now support
smooth playback of very high bitrate content (up to 40-50 Mbit/s, even
when using the standard 100Mbit Ethernet network connection).
- Improved HTTP servers compatibility; some bugs fixed.
- Note: HTTP playback can be performed in two ways:
- Play some content fro m UPnP server (UPnP internally uses HTTP for
content playback).
- Put direct HTTP URLs pointing to some media content into playlist
files (M3U/PLS) or into dune_folder.txt (using "media_url").
- More convenient handling of audiotracks and subtitles:
- Added a new OSD GUI for audiotracks/subtitles s election during file
playback and DVD playback.
- Now, when pressing SUBTITLE or AUDIO button, OSD listing all
available audiotracks/subtitles is shown. You can quickly and
conveniently choose any desired audiotrack/subtitle (using UP and
DOWN buttons), w/o the need to toggle through all available
audiotracks/subtitles one-by-one. This is especially convenient
when a fnle has a large number of audiotracks/subtitles.
- Improved handling of external audiotracks.
- Now, when external audiotracks are present, the internal
audiotracks still remain available for choosing. All available
audiotracks, both internal and external, are now listed in the OSD
menu, and you can easily switch between all available internal and
external audiotracks; no more need to dlete/rename files with
external audiotracks to enable the use of internal subtitles.
- Subtitles are not enabled by default for file playback any more.
- Now, as was requested by many users, if a file has internal or
external subtitles, they are not enabled by default. You can easily
enable them by pressing SUBTITLE button.
- Additional adjustments for text subtitles during file playback:
- Besides of adjusting vertical position of text subtitles, it is now
also possible to adjust the following parameters:
- Subtitles font color.
- Subtitles font size (choose between normal or smaller font).
- Subtitles delay (synchronization correction).
- All text subtitles adjustments are now available via a special "Setup"
item in the subtitles menu. You can also quickly show the subtitles
setup menu by pressing SUBTITLE, then SETUP. In the subtitles
adjustment menu, you can use the following RC buttons:
- UP / DOWN: Move subtitles up/down.
- LEFT / RIGHT: Change subtitles synchronization correction.
- P+ / P-: Increase/descrease subtitles font size.
- 1..6: Choose subtitles font color.
- Note: these new possibilities are provided only for text subtitles,
and only for file playback.
- File playback improvements:
- Added support for TrueHD audiotracks in MKV files.
- Added support for 120FPS AVI files.
- Improved handling of VobSub subtitles in MP4 files.
- Improved audio output through HDMI. Now, when playing stereo audio
files (or video files with stereo audiotracks), and PCM output through
HDMI is used, the player reports the proper number of PCM channels to
HDMI receiver (instead of always sending multichannel PCM). This
allows HDMI receiver to better handle stereo sound.
- Faster switching between audiotracks in WMV files.
- Bugfix: PCM audiotrack in MKV could start stuttering in specific rare
cases.
- Bugfix: Switching to FLAC audiostram in MKV could lead to no audio in
specific rare cases.
- Bugfix: Seek in MKV files could lead to no audio in specific rare
cases.
- Bugfix: WMAPro audio could be handled wrongly in some cases.
- Bugfix: External EAC3 audiotracks could be handled wrognly in some
cases when HDMI bitstreaming was performed.
- Bluray playback improvements:
- "P+" RC button allows to show/hide secondary video (PIP), when
supported by a Blu-ray disk (while "SELE CT" RC button allows to do the
same for secondary audio).
- File browser improvements:
- Improved speed of opening folders with huge number of subfolders;
"dune_folder.txt" files for subfolders are checked/loaded only when
needed.
- Improved speed of launching playback and returning to file browser for
folders with huge number of files/subfolders.
- Added progress indication (right bottom corner of the screen) on
lengthy operations (such as opening a folder with huge number of
files).
- Playlist generation improvements:
- Support for very big generated playlists (10000+ items should be OK
now).
- Better detection of cyclic references between multiple playlist
files.
- Better reporting names of playlist items in case of errors.
- Bugfix: long path to the current folder (wrapped to several lines in
the title bar) could lead to wrong picture on the screen when "icon
view" mode was used.
- Added possibilities to access all locally attached drives f rom network:
- Previously, only a single locally attached drive (such as internal HDD
or USB HDD) could be accessed fro m network via SMB and FTP protocols.
- Now, all locally attached drives are accessible (including all
USB-attached drives, and also optical discs in all attached optical
drives).
- For each attached drive, there is a dedicated SMB share with a certain
name. The fixed "internal_hard_disk" SMB share does not exist any
more.
- When connecting via FTP, each attached drive is represented as a
top-level FTP-folder with a certain name.
- SMB shares and FTP folders corresponding to attached drives have the
following names:
- If the drive has volume label: {volume label}_{uuid}.
- If the drive does not have volume label: {default name}_{uuid},
where default name is something like "hard_disk", "usb_storage",
"usb_storage_2", etc.
- Volume label and UUID of each drive can be seen in "Information"
dialog for the drive (e.g. press "INFO" RC button on the drive item
in file browser).
- The user can manually assign any name to any drive by using
"storage_name = ..." syntax in "dune_folder.txt" file in the root
folder of the drive.
- Added new "dune_folder.txt" features:
- "media_url" can now contain not just relative paths, but also absolute
paths point to files on the same drive or other locally attached
drives (helpful for working with media collections stored on several
drives). Syntax:
- "media_url = /path/file". Refers to the file with absolute path
/path/file on the same drive.
- "media_url = storage_name://name/path/file". Refers to the file
with absolute path "/path/file" on the drive with the given storage
name; here, storage name is the same as used for FTP/SMB access
fr om network (automatically generated default name such as
"usb_storage_UUID", or explicitly assigned custom name -- see
below).
- "media_url = storage_label://label/path/file". Refers to the file
with absolute path "/path/file" on the drive with given volume
label. (Volume label can seen in Information dialog for the drive.)
- "media_url = storage_uuid://uuid/path/file". Refers to the file
with absolute path /path/file on the drive with with given UUID.
(UUID can seen in Information dialog for the drive.)
- Note: referencing files on other network drives is not yet
supported.
- "dune_folder.txt" in the root folder of a drive can be used to assign
a custom name/caption to the drive. Syntax:
- "storage_name = ...". Assigns a custom storage name to the drive.
This name is used for FTP and SMB access fr om network and for
referencing the files on the drive using "media_url". Unless
"storage_caption" is also explicitly set (see below), the custom
storage name is also used as the storage caption shown in the file
browser.
- "storage_caption = ...". Assigns a custom storage caption to the
drive, to show in file browser....
