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[bob]

This is a BETA bulld of JRiver Media Center 27.  Please post bugs here.  Please start a new thread for anything requiring discussion.  Non-bug posts will be deleted.

Download
https://files.jriver.com/mediacenter/channels/v27/latest/MediaCenter270021.dmg

27.0.21 (10/9/2020)

0. NOTE: This is the EXPERIMENTAL Native screen rendering build.
1. NEW: Hardware accelerated video decoding through VideoToolbox.
2. Changed: Audio Path will show "Bitstreaming" when audio is being bitstreamed instead of potentially confusing audio stream details (which identified the physical transport of the audio, not the audio contents).
3. Fixed: Setting the Last.fm option could not work if returning from options switched zones.
4. Changed: Adjusted logging for DLNA TV device discovery.
5. Changed: When building playlists for a handheld using relative paths, if nothing is in common, it will use dots in the path to start at the root then build the path (may make Android devices work better).
6. Changed: Updated Italian translation (thanks matteo e massimo).4. Optimized: EPG loading (including SiliconDust, MC2XML, XMLTV, and Perc Data modes) is significantly faster.
7. Optimized: Processing TV for EPG loading and the like runs less often.
8. Optimized: Standard Television view loads significantly faster, especially if the lists of channels and programs are large.
9. Fixed: Character offset on retina monitors.
10. NEW: Reporter (Help->System Info) will indicate if the native or flipped version of screen rendering is in use.

27.0.20 (10/5/2020)

1. NEW: Beta build with native screen drawing. Please report issues with this!
2. Changed: Enabled automatic retry in 30 to 60 minutes of SiliconDust EPG loading so that we would not miss a daily reloading due to not having discovered the DLNA tuners yet.
3. Fixed: When using SiliconDust EPG, all programs were classified as "new".  Now re-runs will be properly treated as re-runs.
5: NEW: Trackinfo templates implemented.
5. NEW: When the language for the system is Japanese, that will be the default translation used (instead of English).
6. NEW: Added a confirmation when exiting from "Load Program Guide..." window with "Automatically load the program guide every day in the background" option off.
7. NEW: (Experimental) MC allows "Beyonwiz V2" device to be treated as a DMS TV tuner.

27.0.18 (9/30/2020)

1. Changed: Added an information message box to inform the user after DLNA is enabled during SiliconDust EPG setup, that it is a good idea to restart MC before re-attempting EPG setup.
2. NEW: Trackinfo and 2D Visualizations implemented (intel only at this time).
3. Fixed: Spelling error.  On Load Program Guide window, the word "everyday" is changed to "every day".
4. Changed: The program no longer pauses a playing video when clicking to activate the program from another program.
5. NEW: When the language for the system is Japanese, that will be the default translation used (instead of English).
6. Changed: MC will show better error message when it fails to download EPG data, especially from SiliconDust.
7. NEW: Added the web service function File/GetPlaylists to get a list of playlists for a given file.
8. Changed: Respond to a Playlist/Build call with the new playlist ID.
9. Changed: The genre, artist, album, composer, track #, and name are read from the iTunes database during import (so files don't need to be tagged for those fields).
10. Changed: MC will parse <episode-num> element with system="onscreen" attribute in XMLTV files more smartly so it will pick up season number and episode number, in particular from SiliconDust EPG.
11. Changed: MC will reload TV channel logos during EPG loading (if EPG data file contains the logo images) if previous image file is missing.
12. NEW: During SiliconDust EPG setup MC will detect whether DLNA is enabled.  If not, MC will offer to display Media Network options page.
13. Changed: TheMovieDB TV Show lookup populates the IMDB Id with the episode id.
14. Fixed: Subtitle lookup for TV shows was not finding any results.
15. NEW: Added the playlist format "M3U (relative paths, forward slashes)" to handheld upload.
16. Changed: Increased the pause on click timer to hopefully avoid fighting with double-click.
17. Changed: Slovak translation updated (thanks Peter Lukac).
18. Fixed: Importing MP4 video files with Playback set to "External" could result in some information missing.
19. Fixed: MP4 video files will more reliably use the video engine to fill in missing metadata.
20. Fixed: SiliconDust EPG re-loading could randomly be skipped.
21. NEW: Links to websites (that start with http:// or https://) in list controls will be active links now.
22. Changed: Lists will set the cursor in some cases like hoovering over the rating or a link.
23. Changed: On the "Schedule Guide Reloading" window, the "Next Load" column will include a date, instead of just time.
24. Fixed: SiliconDust EPG repeat loading time could be wrong.
25. Fixed: WAV files with a zero sample rate could crash (now they are rejected).
26. NEW: TV EPG loading modes will have their own start time settings so users can configure multiple modes to start at different time of the day.
27. Fixed: Background EPG loading threads could be unnecessarily created in rare cases even though no EPG loading mode was scheduled to start at the time.

27.0.15 (9/21/2020)

1. Changed: Video pause will fire the OSD when in full screen mode now.
2. Changed: MC will query HDHomeRun devices for the number of tuners, instead of using hard-coded values, for a more accurate count.
3. NEW: The text shown in Theater View's playing now can be customized in Options > Theater View > Advanced > Expression for Playing Now.
4. Changed: MC will classify a show as "movie" if the XMLTV puts it in a category of "Television movie" or "Cinema movie".
5. Changed: Left click won't pause when releasing a menu or double-clicking.
6. Fixed: Internal Volume was not enabled for DMS TV playback.
7. Fixed: When stopping playback in Display View, the position of the window could switch to the previous position.
8. Changed: When no changes are made with a MCWS/v1/File/SetInfo call, the response "No changes." is provided with the failure.
9. Fixed: FLAC files would not always load images properly.
10. Changed: When the program is in gapless between album tracks, it will stay gapless if you back up a track as well.
11. Changed: MC2XML EPG option is removed from TV setup.
12. Changed: Panel - Jump to playing now when playing video files.
13. NEW: Left clicking a playing video will toggle the pause state.
14. NEW: SiliconDust EPG is added to TV setup EPG options for manual setup.

27.0.12 (9/14/2020)

1. NEW: First MC27 Mac release.
2. Changed: TV playback will work on first load in non-fullscreen display view windows. This required a fairly generic UI change, please report any NEW UI issues.
3. Changed: MC will skip automatic creation of DMS (Tuner Stream) channels for an HDHomeRun device if it can determine the tuner's TV format to be DVB-T, and DVB-T channels already exist.
4. NEW: Added a "Find License" button to the purchase / restore dialog.
5. Changed: Updated Finland.Oulu-DNA DVB-C tuning parameters.  Thanks lepa!
6. Changed: When stopped, the display window will go back to showing the logo.
7. Changed: New / Improved This Version links to the v27 page.
8. Changed: Updated ModernCards Dark (thanks Marko).
9. NEW: MC will automatically create TV channels if HDHomeRun tuners are found, and related channels have not already been created.
10. Changed: Panel - Updated video streaming to use HLS Video-On-Demand.
11. Changed: Recent searches will no longer store duplicates.
12. NEW: MC will automatically attempt downloading EPG data from SiliconDust if HDHomeRun devices are found, on condition that no other online EPG has been set up, and SiliconDust EPG has not explicitly been disabled.
13. NEW: URL's that have a content-length will be converted when enabled to DLNA renderers.
14. Fixed: When XMLTV file contain IDs that are shared by different channels, some of the channels may not be properly matched to their XMLTV IDs.
15. Changed: Middle click will close the active tab (before it did nothing).
16. Fixed: Switching to high resolution in the Analyzer could crash.
17. Fixed: VST2 effects would not load properly.
18. Fixed: Right-click on an empty car radio button would crash.
19. Changed: Slovak translation updated (thanks Peter Lukac).
20. Fixed: Right-click in a no column area of a list could crash.
21. Changed: Middle click on the active tab closes instead of cycles the list style.
22. Changed: Showtime disables shuffle.
23. Changed: Auto-import disables getting cover art and getting video metadata by default.
24. Changed: Auto-sizing columns is moved to a new setting name so it will default to on for everyone.
25. Changed: Analyzer has a checkbox to increase the resolution so it should be better at low frequencies.
26. Fixed: TV Channel to XMLTV ID mapping might find very few matches if users choose not to include a channel number in front of each channel name, for some XMLTV data.
27. Fixed: Middle click on the active tab could crash.
28. Fixed: Closing a tab with a middle click could cycle the list style.
29. Changed: Updated Greek translation (thanks Panagiotis).
30. Fixed: TV Channel to XMLTV ID mapping could result in multiple minor channels with the same major channel mapped to the same XMLTV ID, especially for Tuner Stream channels and HDHomeRun EPG data.
31. Fixed: Right-clicking tabs could crash.
32. Fixed: Closing the current tab could crash.
33. Changed: Switched closing tabs to a middle click.
34. Changed: Typing in the search box will hide the suggestions if you press enter with no suggestion selected.
35. NEW: Added the min and max expression functions (they take any number of parameters).
36. Fixed: When editing in a popup, if the underlying file is changed, the edit will be canceled (previously could crash).
37. Changed: When editing in a popup, the file selection will not be changed on track change.
38. NEW: Added the expression functions avg and sum to average and sum numbers.
39. NEW: Added the FieldQuery expression function to return a list of matches based on a list of fields to search.
40. Changed: Previously the entire tab would show a tooltip about closing, but now it only shows on the close button.
41. Fixed: When Tuner Stream (DMS) type of TV channel started playing, the player status was not changed and remained "Starting TV..."
42. Changed: Pause/Resume is enabled for Tuner Stream (DMS) type of TV channel playback.
43. NEW: Added a new search to options to allow setting a grouping of files to automatically apply a bookmark (so if "Use Bookmarking" is set to default, it turns on for files that match the search).
44. Changed: Tabs always show a close button, even if they're inactive.
45. Fixed: Image lookup from Google (for artist images, etc.) was not working.
46. NEW: Last.fm artist images are used along with Google images for the artist image display.
47. Fixed: Doing a file rename of the case only could hang from a recent change.
48. NEW: RadioJRiver can be played to a DLNA devices that required transcoding.
49. NEW: Cloudplay API updates to allow retrieval of more of the properties of the tracks being played.
50: NEW: MC will try to put the interface into digital mode when playing AC3 encoded material.
51. Changed: Typing in the search box will hide the suggestions if you press enter with no suggestion selected.
52. Changed: Added the min and max expression functions (they take any number of parameters).
53. Fixed: When editing in a popup, if the underlying file is changed, the edit will be canceled (previously could crash).
54. Changed: When editing in a popup, the file selection will not be changed on track change.
55. NEW: Added the expression functions avg and sum to average and sum numbers.
56. Changed: Revised the sorting menu in the column header right-click.
57. Changed: "Show signal strength on screen" context menu item is not displayed for TV tuner types that do not support it (OpenCABLE, Sat>IP, Tuner Stream, etc.).
58. Changed: "Window" context menu (aspect ratio, zooming etc.) is not displayed for Tuner Stream type of TV playback as it is not supported right now.
59. Fixed: "Audio Programs" context menu did not work when playing a Tuner Stream TV channel.
60. Fixed: Zooming in on an image thumbnail will scroll so the selected item is shown (previously it could scroll to a different spot).
61. Changed: Removed the obsolete mini view skins from the build.
62. Fixed: Uploading to a handheld would replace the filename in the database with the handheld filename.
63. Fixed: Video playback and TV playback would show incorrect error message on screen if MC failed to download LAV filters.
64. Changed: The right-click choice "Remove Column From Sorting" only appears for columns in the current sorting.
65. Changed: Made the sorting interactive in the right-click menu instead of only display.
66. Changed: Re-integrating TV functionality.
67. NEW: Added MPL to the list of output formats for playlist export.
68. NEW: Added the MCWS function GetFilledTemplate.
69. Changed: Made the export playlist dialog split into two columns.
70. Changed: When setting a filename, all other files with the same name will also be changed.
71. Changed: Allow renaming a particle filename.
72. NEW: Allow up to 16 simultaneous conversions for handheld configuration.
73. NEW: Added standardize quotes to the Clean File Properties tool.
74. NEW: Right-click on a tab close button will close all other tabs and leave that one open.
75. Changed: Column auto-sizing defaults to on.
76. NEW: Added the field [Playlist Total Time] to the player customization.
77. Changed: Made the total disc calculator run at startup faster by setting anything with no disc number to have one total discs.
78. NEW: Added the option to keep pane tagging on to Options > General > Advanced.
79. Changed: The tab key will not auto-select a choice from the tag box.
80. NEW: Added mode 2 to the ListRemove expression function which does substring matching (instead of entire string).
81. Changed: When playing to a tuner near startup, the error message indicates that you might need to allow the program longer to run.
82. Fixed: If chapters are at the same time, the names will be sorted by the chapter name.
83. Changed: When installing too new of a license, a more informative message is shown.
84. NEW: Added the library field "Last Sync" that gets set when a file is synced to a handheld.
85. NEW: Added a right-click command to Car Radio buttons to Add to Playing Now.
86. NEW: Added the sorting of a list to the column header right-click menu.
87. NEW: The volume slider shows zero when the volume is muted (instead of the unmuted level).
88. Changed: When setting up TV channel logo, the image file location is saved in the channel's ImageFile tag even if the image file is located inside the TV Logos folder.  This way it will be easier to remove the logo when necessary.
89. NEW: Undo / redo in the menu summarizes the changes by the menu text.
90. NEW: Added a stop after current file button to the toolbar.
91. NEW: Added a right-click command to library server to close both the server and Media Center.
92. Changed: Model name will be included in the device name of a DMS TV tuner for easier visual identification.
93. NEW: Added the ability to freeze columns.
94. Changed: Updated German translation file (thanks Bytestar).

[Awesome Donkey]

This build is blazingly fast in non-retina mode, scrolling in the Panes view is nice and smooth and quick. The Artists view there is a little performance loss from it loading all the album images stacked on each other for each of the over 1,000 artists in my library, this is probably unavoidable, not sure. Albums view is just as fast as the Panes view, I suspect this is because the Album view isn't trying to open/stack multiple images on each other at once like the Artist view is.

The only issue I've noticed is (which affects both non-retina and retina modes), in Panes mode the text for Artist - Album is a little too big by default (this is at 100% skin size on a 1440p screen).

Example: https://i.imgur.com/EytGaTd.png

See what I mean? Slightly too big, IMO. Maybe it can be reduced by 1 or 2 sizes?

Moving on, retina mode is a little bit of a different story though. Once I enable retina mode, the old janky/slower feeling when scrolling in the Panes view comes back, it's not fast and smooth like non-retina mode is. The janky retina mode scrolling is the worst in the Artist view, and just as bad as the Panes view when using the Albums view.

One thing I will note is I still don't like that enabling retina mode decreases the size of the stoplight (close/minimize/maximize/restore) button images when retina mode skin size is at 100%, which is actually a little smaller than the stock stoplight button size in the macOS system. In my opinion when MC is in retina mode (at 100%) the stoplight button images, by default, should actually be sized at 110% which more-or-less matches the actual size of the buttons in the system at 100% size. The rest of the other skin images should stay the same size, just the stoplight buttons size should be slightly increased to 110% when retina mode's skin size is at 100%. The other 'issue' in regards to the spotlight buttons that's not possible to get working in MC as far as I can tell, is when hovering over a stoplight button and getting all of them to "light up" like they're being hovered upon, like the macOS does in the system and other apps. Doing this would match the behaviour of system and other apps, when you hover your mouse over the close button for example to get the X part of the button to appear, the minimize and maximize/restore/full screen buttons also "light up" and show their symbols. Maybe this could be supported by adding a new feature to skins, like <ALLHOVER><Data Enabled="1" /></ALLHOVER> or something in the skins themselves?

If retina mode scrolling performance can be made as far or nearly as fast and smooth as non-retina mode, that'd be great and I'd be using retina mode instead of non-retina mode.

P.S. Since you guys already are using native drawing for macOS now, is it more possible now you guys could implement the native Mac menus for the File, Edit, View, etc. menus? People have been asking for that for years now, and implementing that seems logical and would make a lot of people happy, if it's easy or easier to do now. Might be something to consider, even if it's a "quality of life" type of thing.

Good work overall, I love this build!

[bob]

Are you seeing any of the CPU usage issues reported by others in this build? Perhaps when playing back in retina mode?

I'm not sure why the scrolling should be so much worse in retina mode, it does have to do the scaling calculation but I don't see that should be such a huge deal.

It's most notable on scrolling cover art images up and down? Not on file lists??

Thanks.

[Awesome Donkey]

In non-retina mode I only see CPU and memory spike when switching to the Artist view and even then it's for a few seconds while it's loading the images. CPU usage during music playback is around 5%, which seems to be the range to where it'll normalize. If I scroll through my Panes view list, CPU usage increases too, but performance remains smooth and fast. But once I stop scrolling, CPU usage normalizes once again.

In retina mode, CPU usage during music playback increases to around 16% and stays there. It also spikes higher when scrolling down my Panes view with 1049 artists/8,848 albums/118,083 songs. So yeah, there's definitely a difference in CPU usage when using retina mode and when not using it.

It's most notable on scrolling cover art images up and down? Not on file lists??

The worst view in retina mode is the Artists view, very janky when trying to scroll through it.

Here's how it looks for me in retina mode: https://i.imgur.com/8gigFg8.png

Scrolling performance in this view in retina mode is very bad, I suspect it's because of all the stacked album art images for each artist loading all at once. In non-retina it's not as bad but still noticeable.

Here's how it looks for me in non-retina mode: https://i.imgur.com/JNJaYmB.png

My preferred customized Panes view in non-retina mode performs VERY well in terms of scrolling and speed. Nice, fast, smooth and the fonts look great!

[HaWi]

In MC 27.0.21 I saw this:

Also, scrolling is jerky in the track list part (both Retina and non-retina), the lines are double and flipping upside down intermittently in non-retina.

[bob]

We can for sure work on tweaking menus, etc but first we need to get this native build to be at least as well behaved as the screen flipped build.

It's a bit confusing to me the back and forth in the 2 different release threads so I'm going to create a thread specifically on this topic and I'd like you all to state the comparisons like this for example:

Tooltips
---------
Font Helvetica Regular 12
Monitor Mode: Retina
Flipped: Ok
Native: Momentary upside down on underneath redraw.

And if you have a supporting picture or video like the examples above please include them, it helps a lot.

Thanks very much to anyone that's helping out with these.