MediaPortal 2 "Spring of '16" Release
We are excited to bring you the newest, latest and greatest from our MP2 Development Team....
MediaPortal 2 Spring of '16 Release.
Summary of changes
Compared to the Summer'15 Update 1 Release, this release brings a lot of fixes and features:
- Skin engine:
- New window mode, toggle between them by "ALT-Enter":
- Windowed always on top
- Windowed (normal)
- Fullscreen
- Windowed modes keep aspect ratio of Skin and position/size will be restored after restart
- Fixed wrong MP2 window size after sleep/resume cycle due to resolution changes
- Added feature to prevent focus stealing during startup phase
- Updated freetype library to fix occasional crashes
- Switched texture loading back to GDI (with fallback to FreeImage) to improve decoding performance
- Added new feature to specify Texture alignment in images sources
- Extended IScreenControl to allow temporary disabling "TopMost" behavior of MP2 main form (used for OnlineVideos)
- Fixed logging of shader load errors
- New window mode, toggle between them by "ALT-Enter":
- Video playback:
- Updated TsReader for smoother playback of TV and recordings
- Refresh Rate Changer got extended configuration options to allow custom refresh rate mappings (i.e. 25 fps -> 50 Hz, or 23 fps -> 24 Hz)
- Added support for external subtitles by xy-VSfilter
- Added new shortcuts to video fullscreen: "Yellow" to toggle subs, "Blue" to toggle audio streams
- Media Library:
- Major improvements to Image Player: player starts in "still" mode, allows skipping forward/backward through images. "Play" starts the known slide show. Automatically create playlist to play all audio or image items from current view.
- New filter for audio "Album Artist"
- Extended support for IMDB-id detection of non-xml .nfo files
- Extended online lookup support at TheMovieDb by using tmdb ids
- Hide "playlists" action from non-media screens
- Extended SeriesMetadataExtractor to support user defined regular expressions and pre- and post-match text replacements (to clean up filenames)
- Fixed possible NRE in MKV tag handling
- Fixed potential crash for imports of UNC locations when checking for IsVirtualSource
- Improved memory caching logic to avoid "out of memory" for large imports
- Fixed Resource Server that could return wrong url in some cases (fixes loading of fanart / channel logos)
- Changed streaming parameters for remote resource bridge (trying to fix interruption of media playback in multiseat)
- Updates and fixes for SlimTV / TVE 3:
- Updated core to MP1.14 version
- Added option to hide "All Channels" group
- Added new feature to show episode information in TV guide and recording planning
- Improved schedules management: added scheduled programs list / series view
- Extended recordings screen to show more details (channel, recording times),
- Fixed occasional synchronisation issue of channels when switching groups
- Fixed page up/down, home/end navigation inside EPG view
- Fixed tuning details filenames due to wrong zip encoding
- Internal changes to use ILocalFsResourceAccessor for files, while rtsp streams still use INetworkResourceAccessor
- Reworked group / channel / zap handling to use correct group and channel indexes
- Changes to UPnP system (removed IP affiinity in some calls to improve device detection, sending UPnP "update configuration" after resume from standby to improve reconnection)
- Fixed user priorities (solves conflicts with EPG grabber and tuning requests)
- Fixed recording/canceling of programs of series schedules
- Disabled redundant TV Thumbnail creation (done by MP2)
- Fixed endless loop in recording management if folder is missing
- Fixed storing/reading of some settings due to case-sensitive DB storage.
- BlueVision skin:
- Implemented animated page transitions and seamless navigation between home pages
- Fixed help label overlapping
- Fixed flickering of "currently playing" group button and changed the icon
- More fine tuning in all themes
- Using new ImageSourceWrapper for smooth transitions of fanart images
- Moved player controls into new "currently playing" screen (right button in top group menu), so they don't overlap footer contents
- Added help texts for menu items to make features clearer to new users
- New "Windows 10" theme
- OnlineVideos 2
- Added BrowserPlayer support for MP2, sites like Amazon Prime and Netflix should be working fine
- Added support for placing BrowserPlayer above the MP2 GUI
- New plugins:
- Added UPnP renderer plugin
- Emulators plugin available for download
- Installer:
- Fixed detection of x86 VC redistributables on x64 systems.
- Removed license link from initial dialog
- MCE remote support:
- Fixed duplicated "next" / "previous" key handling
- Reduced logging to log unmapped keys only once
- Improved compatibility with some remotes by handling "Windows" keys properly
Screenshots
Note: Screenshots are also showing optional available plugins and skins.
Installation
Before installing MediaPortal 2, please make sure all the prerequisites are met. The new installer automatically downloads missing components and installs them.
Important: Run the installer from a local drive. Mapped network drives will not work.
Extract the downloaded .zip archive and simply run the .exe installer file. For screenshots or further details, refer to our Getting Started wiki.
Feedback & Support
Discuss this release in the official release thread MediaPortal 2 - Spring of '16 Release
- If you are looking for further information please check out the Installation and Setup Guide first. We are working constantly to improve it, and you can help!
- Explanations about usage of default skin can be found here in this manual.
- If you don't find an answer there create a new thread in the MediaPortal 2 forums.
- If you find a bug, please check our Issue Tracker & bug report forums first. If it has not been reported already, create a new thread.
Download
If you would like to support MediaPortal we would be happy to receive a small donation!
The Team wishes you a lot of fun with this new release!