path: root/UPDATE-1.2.0

This is a summary of the changes in VDR 1.2.0 since the last stable
version 1.0.4. It only contains things that are of actual importance
to the user and doesn't mention the many fixes and improvements that
have been made "behind the scenes". 

See the file HISTORY for a detailed list of all changes.

Plugins:

- Implemented a universal plugin interface. See the file PLUGINS.html
  for a detailed description. The man page vdr(1) describes the new options '-L'
  and '-P' used to load plugins.
  See http://www.cadsoft.de/vdr/plugins.htm for a list of available plugins.
- Rearranged the remote control key handling to allow plugins to implement
  additional types of remote controls (see PLUGINS.html, section "Remote Control").
  The previously used files 'keys.conf' and 'keys-pc.conf' have been replaced
  by the file 'remote.conf', which holds the key definitions of all remote controls.
- The new plugin 'sky' can be used to integrate a Sky Digibox into the VDR system,
  using a Kfir MPEG2 encoder card (see PLUGINS/src/sky/README for details).

Remote control:

- If a PC keyboard is used as remote control, the string entry fields in the
  menus now accept character input directly (however, this works only for keys that
  are not otherwise defined as remote control keys). Also, plugins can switch the
  cKbdRemote class into "raw mode", where all keyboard input will be made available
  through the new 'kKbd' key code and none of it will be processed as normal remote
  control functions.
- The LIRC remote control keys are now handled just like the keyboard and RCU keys.
  This means that you can use the lircd.conf file as is for your remote control,
  without the need of editing it to make the key names the same as used in VDR.
  When first starting VDR it will go into the "Learning keys" mode and ask you
  to press the various keys. The resulting key assignment will be stored in
  the file 'remote.conf'.
- While learning the remote control keys it is now possible to press the 'Menu'
  key to skip the definition of keys that are not available on your particular
  RC unit.
- Implemented additional dedicated keys for "Play", "Pause", "Stop", "Record",
  "FastFwd", "FastRew", "Channel+" and "Channel-". If your remote control supports
  any of these keys you can delete your 'remote.conf' file and restart VDR to
  go through the key learning procedure again in order to assign these new keys.
  See MANUAL for more information.
- Implemented new keys to directly access the VDR main menu functions "Schedule",
  "Channels", "Timers", "Recordings", "Setup" and "Commands". If your remote
  control provides keys you want to assign these functions to, you can delete
  your 'remote.cof' file and restart VDR to go through the key learning procedure
  again in order to assign these new keys. See MANUAL for more information.
- The new configuration file 'keymacros.conf' can be used to assign macros to
  the color buttons in normal viewing mode, as well as to up to 9 user defined
  keys. See MANUAL and man vdr(5) for more information. The default 'keymacros.conf'
  implements the functionality of the old "color button patch".
- Macros in 'keymacros.conf' can now use "@plugin" to directly access the main menu
  function of a given plugin (see man vdr(5) for details).
- The keyboard is now by default always active to control VDR. The 'make' option
  REMOTE=KBD is therefore obsolete. When compiling VDR with REMOTE=RCU or REMOTE=LIRC,
  the keyboard can thus now be active together with the remote control. If you want
  to build VDR without keyboard support you can set NO_KBD=1 in the 'make' call.
  Since the keyboard codes are now different from the ones used previously (which
  were mapped by the 'ncurses' library) you will need to go through the "Learning
  keys" procedure again. To do so, either delete the file /video/remote.conf or
  remove the KBD.* entries from it before starting this version of VDR.
- The "Left" and "Right" buttons now set the cursor to the first or last list item
  even if the list consist only of a single page, like, for instance, the Main menu.
- The red ("Record") and yellow ("Pause") button in the "Main" menu are no longer
  available when replaying.

Devices:

- If the primary device (as defined in setup.conf) doesn't have an MPEG decoder
  (and thus can't be used as a primary device) VDR now scans all devices at
  startup and uses the first one (if any) that actually has an MPEG decoder.
  That way this will also work automatically if the primary device is implemented
  by a plugin.
- If no device with an MPEG decoder can be found at startup, the first device
  is now used as primary device (just to have some device).
- Now turning off live PIDs when replaying. This avoids short spikes from other
  channels when switching between Transfer Mode channels, and also lets an ongoing
  replay continue even if a recording is started on the primary device.
- Now switching to the channel used by the most recently started timer in case
  the original current channel becomes unavailable due to a recording on a
  different transponder. If this fails, a channel up/down switch is attempted as
  a fallback solution.
- Changed the DEFAULTPRIORITY in device.c to -1, so that the primary device
  will be used for FTA recordings in case the CAM is connected to a non-primary
  device.
- The actual tuning is now done in a separate thread, which makes zapping through the
  channels a lot faster and no longer gets stuck on channels that don't broadcast.
  This also makes "Motor-DiSEqC" work. Since switching channels now no longer
  explicitly waits for a channel lock in the foreground thread, the "panic level"
  mechanism is no longer used.

Time Shifting:

- Changed device handling for being able to do simultaneous recording and
  replay on the same device (Time Shifting). In order for this to work you need
  to use a driver with a firmware version that has this feature implemented.
- It is now possible to do simultaneous recording and replay with a single DVB
  card, even with encrypted channels. This requires the use of the Link Layer
  firmware, version 2613 or higher; the -icam firmware is still limited to live
  encrypted channels only. Finally we have time shift for encrypted channels on
  single card systems!
- Implemented "pause live video". You can now press "Menu/Yellow" or "Pause" on
  your remote control while watching live video to start an instant recording
  of the current programme and immediately start replaying that recording.
- Implemented separate PausePriority and PauseLifetime parameters for the recordings
  created when pausing live video.

Channels:

- Modified channel handling to cover all parameters necessary for DVB-C and DVB-T
  (see man vdr(5) for the meaning of the additional parameters stored in the field
  previously named 'polarisation').
  If you have a system with different kinds of DVB cards, like DVB-T and DVB-C,
  for instance, there is no more need to distinguish the channels through the
  'Ca' parameter in order to assign them to the various DVB cards. This is now
  taken care of by the "source" parameter. So a channel marked as "terrestrial",
  for example, will only be received on DVB-T cards.
- Updated channels.conf files.
- Switching through channels with the 'Up' and 'Down' keys now skips channels
  that are currently not available (for instance because all devices are
  recording and these channels are on different transponders).
- The new configuration file 'sources.conf' contains the various signal sources
  (satellites, cable and terrestrial) which are used in 'channels.conf' and
  'diseqc.conf'.
- The 'diseqc' parameter in the channel definitions has been redefined to hold the
  "source" of the given channel (which can be either a satellite, cable or terrestrial).
  For compatibility with channels.conf files from older versions, numeric values in
  this parameter will be tolerated, but they have no meaning. If you want to use
  DiSEqC you will need to replace these old values with the proper source identifiers
  defined in the new configuration file 'sources.conf'. See how this is done in the
  'channels.conf' file that comes with the VDR package.
- The new configuration file 'diseqc.conf' can be used to set up the individual
  diseqc configuration (see man vdr(5) for a description of the file format).
- The "Edit channel" menu has a new entry "Source:" in which the source of this
  channel can be selected (either a satellite, cable or terrestrial). The set of
  parameters at the end of this menu will change according to the type of source.
- The "Use DiSEqC" parameter in the "Setup/LNB" menu has been moved to the beginning
  of the list and disables the rest of the parameters when set to "yes", since these
  are now only meaningful if DiSEqC is not used.
- Group separators in 'channels.conf' may now be given like ':@201 My Channels',
  where '@201' indicates the number to be given to the next channel. This can be
  used to create 'gaps' in the channel numbering (see 'man 5 vdr'). BE CAREFUL
  TO UPDATE YOUR 'timers.conf' ACCORDINGLY IF INSERTING THIS NEW FEATURE INTO YOUR
  'channels.conf' FILE!
- Frequency values for cable and terrestrial channels in 'channels.conf' can
  now be given either in MHz, kHz or Hz. The actual value given will be multiplied
  by 1000 until it is larger than 1000000.
- First step towards a "unique channel ID". The channel ID is a human readable
  string, made up from several parameters of the channel's definition in the file
  'channels.conf' (see man vdr(5) for details).
  In order for the "unique channel ID" to work, all channel definitions now must
  be unique with respect to the combination of their Source, Frequency and SID
  parameters. You may have to fix your 'channels.conf' manually if there are error
  messages in the log file when loading it. BE SURE TO MAKE A BACKUP COPY OF YOUR
  'channels.conf' AND 'timers.conf' FILE BEFORE SWITCHING TO THIS VERSION, AND CHECK
  VERY CAREFULLY WHETHER YOUR TIMERS ARE STILL SET TO THE RIGHT CHANNELS!
  When reading an existing 'timers.conf', the channels will be identified as before
  by their numbers. As soon as this file is written back, the channel numbers will
  be replaced by the channel IDs. After that it is possible to manually edit the
  'channels.conf' file and rearrange the channels without breaking the timers.
  Note that you can still define new timers manually by using the channel number.
  VDR will correctly identify the 'channel' parameter in a timer definition and
  use it as a channel number or a channel ID, respectively. Also, the SVDRP commands
  that return timer definitions will list them with channel numbers in order to
  stay compatible with existing applications.
  The channel ID is also used in the 'epg.data' file to allow EPG information from
  different sources to be stored, which would previously have been mixed up in case
  they were using the same 'service ID'. Note that the contents of an existing
  'epg.data' file from a previous version will be silently ignored, since it doesn't
  contain the new channel IDs. When inserting EPG data into VDR via SVDRP you now also
  need to use the channel IDs.
  Currently the EPG data received from the DVB data stream only uses the 'Source'
  and 'Service ID' part of the channel ID. This makes it work for channels with
  the same service IDs on different sources (like satellites, cable or terrestrial).
  However, it doesn't work yet if the service IDs are not unique within a specific
  source. This will be fixed later.
- Added three new fields to the lines in 'channels.conf': NID, TID and RID. NID and
  TID are the Network and Transport Stream IDs, respectively. RID is an additional ID
  that can be used to tell apart channels that would otherwise be indistinguishable.
  This is typically the case with radio channels, which may have the same NID, TID
  and SID, but different "radio IDs". This new field is therefore called RID ("radio
  ID"). Currently NID and TID are not yet used by VDR and should always be 0. The
  RID is actually used when building the "unique channel ID", so if you have channels
  in your 'channels.conf' file that cause error messages when loading, you can set
  the RIDs of these channels to different values.
  When reading an old 'channels.conf' these new fields will be automatically
  initialized to 0 and once the file is written back to disk they will be appended
  to the channel definitions.
- The "unique channel ID" now contains an optional 5th part (the RID). See man vdr(5).
- Modified LOF handling to allow for C-band reception.
- The PCR PID can now be set separately from the video PID. The syntax in the
  'channels.conf' file is, for example, ...:164+17:..., where 164 is the video PID
  and 17 is the PCR PID. The separator is a '+' sign, not a comma or semicolon as
  with the audio PIDs, because this is not an alternate PID, but rather an
  additional, necessary PID.

Recording:

- It is now possible to record several channels on the same transponder with "budget
  cards". VDR automatically attaches a recording timer to a card that already
  records on the appropriate transponder. How many parallel recordings can actually
  be done depends on the computer's performance. Currently any number of recordings
  gets attached to a card, so you should carefully plan your timers to not exceed
  the limit. On a K6-II/450 it was possible to record three channels from transponder
  12480 with a single WinTV NOVA-S.
- Timers that record two successive shows on the same channel may now overlap and
  will use the same DVB card. During the time where both timers record the data
  is simply saved to both files.
- Since several channels put very long strings into the Subtitle part of their
  EPG data, that string is now limited in length when used in a recording's
  file name.
- Timers are now processed even if an OSD menu is open (except for menus that
  explicitly handle timers).
- Implemented a "resume ID" which allows several users to each have their own
  resume.vdr files. This parameter can be set in the "Setup/Replay" menu (see
  MANUAL for details).
- Extended logging info when starting/stopping timers to show the channel number,
  start/stop time and the file name.
- Reduced the time to wait for EPG data when starting a recording to 3 seconds.
- Checking for duplicate recordings with the same file name and disabling the
  second timer.
- It is now possible to directly delete a timer that is currently recording.

SVDRP:

- The new SVDRP command CLRE can be used to clear the entire EPG data.
- The SVDRP command PUTE now triggers an immediate write of the 'epg.data' file.
- The SVDRP command CHAN now also accepts channel IDs.
- The new SVDRP command STAT can be used to request information about the disk
  usage.
- Now taking an active SVDRP connection into account when doing shutdown or
  housekeeping.

Conditional Access:

- Implemented "Link Layer" based CAM support. This allows access to the CAM menu
  and also to reset the CAM. Furthermore the CAM can now be in any slot of any
  DVB card, and there can be more than one CAM.
- If your particular CAM doesn't work with the Link Layer interface, you can
  still use the old firmware version ("-icam"), which does all the CAM handling
  by itself (see DVB/driver/av7110/README-firmware).

Misc:

- Removed compiler option '-m486' to make it work on non-Intel platforms.
- Changed setting of CXX and CXXFLAGS variables in Makefile, so that an externally
  defined value will be taken if present.
- New and improved internationalized OSD texts.
- The VDR version number is now displayed in the title line of the "Setup" menu.
- Changed the VFAT handling to allow users who normally use it but have forgotten
  to set it when compiling a new version of VDR to at least see their recordings
  made with VFAT enabled.
- Commands in the file 'commands.conf' can now have a '?' at the end of their
  title, which will result in a confirmation prompt before executing the
  command.
- If a command executed from the "Commands" menu doesn't return any output, the
  OSD will now be closed automatically.
- The new configuration file 'reccmds.conf' can be used to define commands that
  shall be executed from the "Recordings" menu; see MANUAL and 'man vdr(5)' for
  details.
- The Makefile now includes the file Make.config (if present in the VDR source
  directory), which allows the user to overwrite several settings with individual
  values. The VDR distribution archive does not contain this file in order to not
  overwrite a user defined file. There is a Make.config.template which contains the
  default values of the macros the user can overwrite.
- Extended the '-l' option to allow logging to LOG_LOCALn (n=0..7) by writing, for
  instance, '-l 3.7'.
- The character '|' in description texts of EPG records is now interpreted as a
  newline character.
- Now using "Doxygen" to generate source documentation.
  See INSTALL for information how to do this. Some function descriptions have
  already been adapted to Doxygen, more will follow.
- Added VDRVERSNUM to config.h, which can be used by the preprocessor to check the
  actual VDR version.