Changes Media Server 2.1.0
Recording
Please note: The handling of recordings and automatically created recording timers (“auto-timers”) in the Web Interface has changed in some points:
Removed: Recording Database: The Media Server does not use the “Recording History” anymore (but still keeps it in the database for compatibility). The corresponding tasks “Clear / Rebuild Recording History” have been removed from the Web Interfaces, as well as “Clean Up Recording Database”. The functionality is now covered by a new system (see below).
Change/Added: Desktop Web Interface: A new category “Removed” on the Recordings page displays recordings that have been marked as not being present anymore, but are kept in the database because they may be useful for auto timer creation (see below). The “Removed” category allows to view, selectively delete and even edit these “gone” recordings, thus providing a more controllable recording history than before. Please note that a recording database clean-up (which can optionally be restored as Web Interface task) removes these history entries altogether.
Change/Added: EPG Search / Auto Timers: The options for automatically deactivating auto-timers due to already done recordings have been reworked and renamed in order to make them more comprehensible:
The two checkboxes “Deactivate auto-timers if a recording exists with the same EPG Title / EPG Subheading” are self-explanatory. If both checkboxes are ticked, the title and subheading of a recording must match to deactivate an auto-timer. The comparison is case-insensitive.
The checkbox “Additionally check against removed recordings” lets the Media Server include removed recordings in the comparison as long as they are present in the database, thus preventing recordings that you already had in the past. If required the additional consideration of the previous recording history database table can be reactivated by the “Consider recording history on auto-timer creation” tweak (launch DMSTweaker.bat).
The checkbox “Additionally check against recording timers” lets the Media Server compare auto timers with timers that have been created before (with other words: it considers future recordings). This comparison also works as specified by the “EPG Title / EPG Subheading” settings above. The former comparison of timer names has been dropped (see here).
Added: Desktop Web Interface: The list of recordings can be sorted by clicking the column titles.
Added: Recording Database / Desktop Web Interface: Basic support for storing / displaying the season and episode number of recorded series. They can be entered In the Recording Edit Window of the Desktop Web Interface (› click the pencil icon on the Recordings page). Please note: The values only take effect if the Series field is not empty.
Added: Web Interfaces & UPnP: Additional categorization by recording folder (see Desktop Web Interface › Recordings or › Media › Recordings, Mobile Web Interface › Recordings).
Added: Recorder Options: Separate radio recording format setting. The default is pure MP2 / MP3 / AAC / AC3 audio (without TS and other containers) depending on the broadcasted format. The previous general recording format setting now only applies to TV recording and has been renamed accordingly.
Fix/Added: Recording Database: MP3 recordings (resulting from internet radio or transcoding) got lost on database updates because .mp3 was missing in the list of file extensions. This list can now be changed by using the “Recording Extensions” tweak (launch DMSTweaker.bat).
Added: Recording Database: On recording database updates the Media Server now detects recordings that have been renamed or moved to another recording directory, thus avoiding unnecessary “removed” database entries for the previous name/location.
Change/Fix: Recording Database: On database recreation / refresh reading the EPG info files now precedes reading the NTFS file properties of recordings (previously the other way round). Within the file properties reading the start time and duration as text string precedes reading binary values. Both measures avoid messed up duration values that were not stored and processedcorrectly in the past.
Fix: Recording Log: The media Server partly used Unicode for writing the log, partly the local character set, yielding an unhealthy mix and garbage characters. Now the entire recording log is written as Unicode.
Fix: Web Interface: The Media Server did not update UPnP and DVBViewer clients after a recording was edited.
Fix: Recorder: Wrong TS packet check that may cause discontinuities if the broadcaster does not fully comply with the ISO specifications.
Fix/Change: Recorder: Better error handling in case of a Service ID in the channel list data that does not match the Service ID in the received data (which previously disabled “all audio tracks” recording).
Fix: Recorder: Filename schemes containing backslashes (e.g. %series\%event_%title) could result in file paths with double backslashes and cause follow-up issues (e.g. recording database entry can not be assigned to the file).
Removed: Recorder Options & Web Interfaces: “Adjusted PAT/PMT” recording option. It is still available as tweak (launch DMSTweaker.bat for changing it) and switched on by default. “Adjusted PAT/PMT” makes sure that the table of contents in TS files specifies what has been recorded, not what has been broadcasted, in order to avoid issues with other players than DVBViewer.
Removed: Web Interfaces: “Whole transponder” checkbox/switch in the timer dialog. The setting is now available as “Transponder Dump” in the Timer Action drop-down list.
Added: Desktop Web Interface: New sort type “By Active / Inactive” on the Timer page that lets active timers appear at the top of the list.
Tasks
Added: Web Interfaces: Feedback by displaying a notification on the Tasks page. It indicates whether task execution has been started, and if not, why. System tasks like Hibernate or Shutdown that are executed after a delay (configured in the Media Server Options) can be canceled by clicking the notification.
Added: Desktop Web Interface: Hints on the Tasks page when hovering with the mouse over database related links.
Added: Tasks Options: Possibility to configure which internal tasks are visible in the web interfaces. All internal tasks that have been removed from the web interfaces (see below) can be restored here, if necessary, and are still available via /api/tasks.html.
Added: Tasks: Internal system task “Reboot” that reboots the PC. It can not be executed while a recording is going on. In contrast to other system tasks it is not prevented by upcoming recordings within x minutes (x configured in the Media Server options).
Change: Tasks: The “Update Media Databases” and “Rebuild Video/Audio/Photo Database” items have been removed from the Tasks page of the Web Interfaces and replaced by three “Update Video/Audio/Photo Database” items. The Update and Clean Up actions (see below) have been enhanced so that both together can replace the more time-consuming Rebuild process.
Change/Added: Tasks: The “Clean Up Video Database” and “Clean Up Photo Database” items have been merged on the Tasks Page of the web interfaces to a new “Clean Up Media Databases” item that also includes the Audio Database. All clean-up actions are now performed in the background so they do not block other operations in the Media Server.
Change: Tasks: The “Clear Video/Audio/Photo Statistics” items have been merged on the Tasks Page of the web interfaces to a new “Clear Media Statistics” item.
UPnP / Media Page
Please note: The UPnP Profiles version has been changed from 3 to 4, which means, the Media Server will automatically create a file UPnPProfilesV4.xml containing new defaults (including support for .flac audio) in the config sub-directory of the configuration folder and use it henceforth. For keeping own definitions in an UPnPProfilesV3.xml the Media Server must be stopped and the file renamed to UPnPProfilesV4.xml.
Change: UPnP: Using the Media Page of the Desktop Web Interface does not require the UPnP server to be enabled anymore. The underlying UPnP media structures are created independently from it.
Change: UPnP: The “Last Played” and “Most Played” folders have been moved up one level so that they are no more children of the “Playlists” folder (which was misleading), but direct children of the Recordings/Video/Audio/Photo parent folder. The “Last Added” folders have been removed. The “Playlists” folder is now only intended for M3U playlist files (see below).
Added: UPnP: On media database updates the Media Server now also includes M3U playlists that are present in the media directories on the server PC. On the Media page and in UPnP clients they appear within the “Playlists” folder. Their content reflects the playlist items. All items referencing media files that are located in the media directories are included, but no files outside and no URLs.
Added: Desktop Web Interface: Optional statistics display on the Media page for recordings and media files (playback count and last playback date).
Added: Desktop Web Interface: Separate button in the Stream Setup window for starting playback in external UPnP players / renderers, if any are present in the network.
Change: Desktop Web Interface: Polished up UPnP Controller window design. The window enables controlling playback of Media Server content in external UPnP players / renderers.
Change: UPnP Options: The “Enable UPnP Controller” option is no more indicated as experimental.
Added: UPnP / Transcoded Streaming: Ability to select content provided by other UPnP servers on the Media page, to transcode it and play it in the browser (including jumping/seeking in files) and to export it as URL in a M3U file. These features were previously not fully elaborated.
Added: UPnP: Support for .flac audio files.
Fix: UPnP: Left over temporary audio database files after stopping the Media Server and memory leak due to a SQLite table that was not closed.
Fix: UPnP: Creating UPnP URLs for radio recordings with .mp2, .aac and .ac3 as file format failed with an exception. UPnP clients received an unusable data set in this case.
Fix: UPnP / Desktop Web Interface: Missing ATSC category in the UPnP -> TV section if the channel list contained ATSC channels.
Fix: UPnP: When starting the Media Server tried to initialize all enabled UPnP features (UPnP server, Sat>IP server, UPnP controller and client) immediately, thus triggering too many messages at once and causing a high short-time (multicast) network traffic which could restrain the UPnP detection process. Now the initialization is more spread over time.
Web Interfaces
Added: Web Interfaces: “Other Player (M3U)” in the Stream Setup for playback of the transcoded stream by an external player. The link triggers the download of an M3U file that contains the URL of the selected media object. Exception: The Mobile Web Interface redirects an HLS URL to the browser without wrapping it into an M3U file.
Changed/Added: Web Interfaces: The Main and Recorder Configuration pages have been restructured. The lead and follow-up time settings have been moved from the Main to the Recorder Configuration page. A “Show recording log in details” checkbox has been added on the Main Configuration Page.
Change/Fix: Web Interfaces: The EPG search page has been reworked, including several fixes.
Added: Desktop Web Interface: The possibility to use the words “today” and “tomorrow” as date input on the EPG Search page has been extended to today+n and tomorrow+n, where n is a positive number, in order to set “in n days” as date. This is useful for creating search presets that cover a certain number of days ahead, e.g. from today to today+6.
Change/Added: Desktop Web Interface: Clicking the play icon on the Recordings page, Media page and in the Details popup now immediately starts playback in the browser without showing the Stream Setup first. The same applies to the channel buttons (showing channel logos or names) on the Timeline and TV Guide page. The Stream Setup can be accessed by clicking the new gear wheel icons on the Recordings page, Media page and in the Details popup.
Change: Desktop Web Interface: The Info & Help page has been renamed to “Links”. The M3U channel list download has been moved from the Stream Setup to the Links page. The link for transcoded streams opens the Stream Setup window that offers all available formats. The Media Server now remembers the Stream Setup settings individually for M3U download and playback in the browser.
Fix: Desktop Web Interface: After a language change in “Favorites only” display mode or after a “No favorites” › “Favorites only” change the Channel EPG page was empty without selectable categories / channels in the tree view at the left.
Change/Added: Mobile Web Interface: Clicking/tapping channel logos / video thumbnails (or the play icons displayed as substitute) now immediately starts playback in the browser without showing the Stream Setup page first. Clicking/tapping the text part of items first opens the Details popup and/or Stream Setup page.
Added: Mobile Web Interface: Season sub-categories within series categories for recordings and videos if the season is stored in the database.
Fix: Mobile Web Interface: Video thumbnails and channel logos with an aspect ratio wider than 16:9 were extended into the text area due to wrong scaling.
Change: Mobile Web Interface: In tablet mode the menu on the left now takes less width (33% of the total width) so there is more space for the main view on the right.
Added: Mobile Web Interface: Link “HTTP Channel List (Transcoded Streams)”on the Info & Help page. It first opens a Stream Setup page allowing to select the format, bit rate and encoding speed for the downloaded M3U list.
Miscellaneous
Added: Thumbnails: More efficient and faster internal method for creating thumbnails with FFmpeg. The tweak “Use VThumbs.exe for thumbnail creation” allows to revert to the previous method that delegates the task to vthumbs.exe. (› launch DMSTweaker.bat).
Added/Fix: Thumbnail Creation: Method that prevents the Media Server from repeatedly triggering a thumbnail creation for files that don't yield a thumbnail or let FFmpeg fail for some reason.
Added: Transcoded Streaming: Support for text based subtitles embedded in videos (particularly ASS and SSA in MKV files), external SRT subtitles (all container formats) and graphical DVB subtitles in MKV. Previously only DVB subtitles embedded in TS files were supported. The subtitles can be selected by using the subs parameter in the Stream Setup expert settings of the Desktop Web Interface or the subtitle selection in the Stream Setup of the Mobile Web Interface. Please note: FFmpeg “burns” the subtitles into the output video so they can be displayed by all clients.
Added: Transcoded Streaming: Selection of HEVC video for TS output by using the URL parameter vcodec=hevc e.g. in the Stream Setup expert settings of the Desktop Web Interface. Please note that HEVC encoding with FFmpeg causes a high CPU load.
Fix: Web Server: The server could not deliver media files if the path contained Unicode characters that were not contained in the local character set for non-Unicode compatible programs.
Fix: Media Stream Server: The server could not deliver write protected media files because it opened them in shared read/write access mode for being able to read ongoing recordings. Now it first tries shared read only access, and if this fails, shared read/write access (see here).
Added: Hardware Options: A hint is displayed on mouse over if a device name exceeds the list box width (see here).
Fix: General: Potential access violations when using the EPG content byte as index for the corresponding descriptions due to missing range checks, particularly concerning ATSC reception (see here).
Fix: Databases: An interrupted database update (by sleep, hibernate, stopping the Media Server..) could leave existing files flagged as removed (though they weren't). This applies to the recordings, video and photo database.
Fix: Media Library Options: The myMovies and mySeries buttons (that are supposed to adopt paths from the database of the MyMovies and MySeries plugins) created empty 0-byte database files if they did not exist yet, which subsequently caused series of SQL errors in the Media Server on video database refresh. Now the buttons are disabled if the mymovies.db3 and myseries.db3 are not present or empty, and the Media Server ignores the empty files.
