We are proud to present MediaPortal 2.4
MediaPortal 2.4 is a full-blown media center software that addresses most common user requirements out of the box. Aside from its support for Live TV and Radio, it offers a complete media server for music, movies, and series. Info is automatically downloaded from various sources to provide posters, fanart, album art, and various additional metadata, such as cast, staff, and more. MediaPortal 2.4 also provides access to online video sources such as Netflix and Amazon Prime. Integrated news, weather information and management for your digital images complete this software package.
Nereus
View Mode Settings
The view mode configuration was completely reworked and replaces many obsolete skin settings. Previously several options like watched flags could only be changed globally, everything can be set individually for every screen in a new intuitive view mode dialog now. Changes performed in the dialog are having immediate response in the background making it easy to observe the effect.If media details are hidden, the full screen is used for the arrangement of the media items and only very basic details are shown in bottom left of grid views as already known from home screen. In case of list views basic details are shown within the focus area, if details are hidden.
Extended Menu Editor
The existing menu editor (menu key or right mouse on any menu item) offers already a comfortable way to arrange the menu. With version 2.4 we offer additional configuration options for the home content (just select the gear symbol in menu editor). You can arrange and hide content according to your preferrence.Color Scheme Customisation
Within the skin settings of Nereus skin you can find the new Color Scheme Customisation. Besides the predefined torquoise color setting you can select other color schemes, all areas of the skin will be affected immediately.
Touch Display Support
If touch display support is enabled in skin settings menus won't slide in/out automatically any more, but only on press of the menu button. This option can be also interesting for mouse users.Other
- Visual overwork of media share screens with list index indicators
- Improved visual appearance of list buttons and dialogs
- Better bachground image without diffraction patterns when scaled to other resolutions
- Remember last main menu entry, when client is restarted
- Setting for optimized touch display support
- TV: Dynamic font scaling for EPG programs in relation to number of rows
- Fixed invisible audio button in OSD of PrimaryPlayer, if audio state changed for SecondaryPlayer
- TV: Re-added missing PiP functionality in MiniEPG and MainEPG
- Allow wrapping for settings HeaderLabel in screens without tiles to not exceed the "black" area
- Hide headers and icons for actor, directors, subtitles, audio tracks, if no content existing
System
- MP2-Server crashes if FileSystemWatcher is used for exFAT drives
- MP2-Client crashes while closing from power menu
- Set OpenPlayerConfigInOsd by default to false
- Deactivate IPv6 by default in settings, because causing mostly issues
- Moved HID handling to skin engine so HID messages can be filtered before they overload the message queue
- Changed updating of content list to only update if necessary. This will break content lists in plugins not part of the solution
- Possibly incorrect target index used in refresh rate changer on duplicated displays
- Wrong player key bindings included in Nereus and BlueVision DVD player screens
- DynamicResourceExtension is not thread safe and can crash the main render loop
- Fix race condition in plugin item creation and add test
- Don't handle keyboard mappings if the focus is in a textbox
- Don't set _lastMouseUsageTime on startup to avoid unnecessary mouse events when the home screen is first shown
- Include OV2 feature to use ffmpeg for download of streams on x64 and support for x86
Media
- Added year filter for series
- Support new movie rating format
- External subtitle resource index not updated correctly when merging with an existing media item
- MediaItemListModel can be recreated when closing the client
- Media lists not returning any/all possible results
- Improved handling of refresh of metadata and changed movie name matching to better take into account titles containing a year
- TV: Added option to disable automatic online update of channel logos
Plugins
Alexa
The new Alexa plugin for MediaPortal2 allows speech control for Live-TV and media playback. You can for examle change TV channels, play, pause, skip media items and change volume by just saying "Alexa .." and the corresponding speech commands. It is not possible yet to navigate through menus nore to search for media items, additional features might be added later. For further details please refer to the download section. |
TVMosaic
The current TV engine (TVE3) for Media Portal 1 and 2 was developed long time before and is not state of the art any more. Accordingly we decided to develop the TVMosaic plugin as alternative TV provider. The TVMosaic Community Edition is freeware and can be configured by web browser. Because it is not bonded to windows it may run on many platforms. Please note, that the plugin is currently in beta state and many functionalities could not be implemented yet. The beta version can be found here. |
Moving from MP1 to MP2
Procedures to install MP2 in parallel to MP1 are described in the Wiki
For all those who would like to move from MP1 to MP2 and preserve their current media organisation, our forum member raffe has created a small tool that will extract information from your MP-TvSeries and MovingPictures databases and picture folders, The tool will leave all your original data untouched, create .nfo files for all your media and copy existing pictures from your MovingPictures and MP-TvSeries to your new MediaPortal 2 media folders. The .nfo files and pictures then allow a smooth and quick import of all your media info into MediaPortal 2. See the respective forum thread for further details.
Full list of changes
You can review all changes by taking a look at changelog: MediaPortal 2.4
For known issues please check out our Jira and our Bug Reports Forum.
Installation, Upgrade, Download and Feedback
Installation
Download the zip archive and check the "Allow access" box in the context menu. Then extract the archive and execute the MP2 Setup file.The installer will automatically download any missing components and install them.
Windows 10 K and KN editions: You need to manually download and install the additional Microsoft Media feature pack first. This will add the Windows Media Player and related technologies that are required by MediaPortal 2 to work.
Wiki: http://www.team-mediaportal.com/wiki/display/MediaPortal2/Installing+MediaPortal+2
Upgrade
We strongly recommend to first uninstall previous versions of MediaPortal 2 before installing MediaPortal 2.4, this is also the case when upgrading from MediaPortal 2.3 to MediaPortal 2.4.
We are working on an improved installer for future releases, that is more user friendly and working stable in all conditions.
N.B.: If you upgrade from an earlier version than MediaPortal 2.1 the database is incompatible and cannot be migrated. You will need to redo your server settings including the setup of media sources.
Feedback
Bugs
If you think you found a bug then please first check if it has not already been reported: the Bug Reports Forum contains all active user bug reports with their respective status. For new issues post a detailed report in our Bug Reports Forum. Make sure your report includes all the required information.
Appearance and functionality
We invite you to make suggestions for improvement with special focus on menu layout, menu content explanatory texts and translations. Please post your comments in a new thread in the General section.
Requests for missing/new features should be made in the Feature Request Forum. As for bugs we would appreciate if you first verified that your request has not already been raised before. Also if possible please make only one request per thread.
Download
We hope that you took the time to read this release news as it includes vital information about the major changes. Get your own copy of the new MediaPortal 2.4 by selecting the download link.
If you would like to support MediaPortal, we would be happy to receive a small donation!
The MediaPortal 2 team wishes you a Happy New Year and a lot of fun with this new release!