path: root/HISTORY

Video Disk Recorder Revision History
------------------------------------

2000-02-19: Version 0.01 (Initial revision).

2000-03-11: Version 0.02

- Fixed compilation with only DEBUG_REMOTE=1.
- Menus now use colors.
- Support for "Red", "Green", "Yellow", "Blue" buttons.
- Channels and Timers can now be added, deleted and moved.
- Basic record/play file handling support (no actual record/playback yet).

2000-04-15: Version 0.03

- Actual record/replay now works.
- Dropped the idea of different "recording qualities" (a 36GB harddisk is
  able to store some 18 hours in full quality, so we don't really need that).
- Termination signals are now caught and the program cleans up before exiting.
- Support for CICAM.

2000-04-24: Version 0.04

- Changed name from 'osm' to 'vdr' to avoid mixups with the 'oms' program that
  appears to be in use with DVD replay.
- Implemented a channel display in the top menu line.
- Implemented replay progress display (press "Ok" when replaying to bring it up).
- Implemented direct channel selecting by pressing the numeric keys.
- Added several 'const' keywords to please stricter compilers.
- The repeat function for the remote control no longer adapts dynamically
  to the timing of the RCU (this sometimes caused the repeat function to
  kick in too early).
- Channel selection is now blocked when recording or replaying.
- Improved process handling.

2000-05-27: Version 0.05

- Support for more than one DVB card.
- Simultaneous record and replay (with two DVB cards).
- Instant recordings no longer get the name "instant". They now get the name
  of the channel, with a prepended '@' character.
- Timers that are not given an explicit Name now use the channel name with
  a prepended '@' character.
- If an instant recording is currently active, the Main menu now contains
  an option to stop that recording.
- Timers are now only processed when the Menu is not active. So after editing
  a timer the effect will take place only after the menu has been closed.
  In order to avoid missing a timer event by inadvertently leaving the menu
  open, the menu will be closed automatically after about two minutes of
  inactivity.
- If a recording is currently being replayed, the Main menu now contains an
  option to stop replaying.
- Displaying the recording DVB interface status in the decimal points of the
  RCU display.
- Reduced the number of remote control keys. Modified the key assignments for
  the PC keyboard to better resemble the "up-down-left-right-ok" layout on
  menu controlling remote control units.

2000-07-25: Version 0.6

- Added support for LIRC remote control (thanks to Carsten Koch!).
  There are now three different remote control modes: KBD (PC-Keyboard), RCU
  and LIRC. See the INSTALL file for information on how to enable either of
  these modes. The default mode is now KBD, not RCU as before (to make it
  work immediately even if there is no actual remote control).
- Fixed small bug in dvbapi.c that was causing some channels (many on hotbird)
  not to be correctly tuned (thanks to Plamen Ganev!).
- Now clearing the replay buffer in search forward/back, which results in
  faster reaction.
- The 'Recordings' menu is now listed alphabetically (thanks to Carsten Koch!).
- The new 'epg2timers' tool (thanks to Carsten Koch!) can be used to convert
  an EPG "merkliste" page (http://www.tvtv.de) to vdr timer entries.
- The new 'xtvrc2vdr' tool (thanks to Plamen Ganev!) can be used to convert
  'xtvrc' channel files into 'vdr' format.
- When more than one timer matches at the same time, the first one in the list
  with the highest 'Priority' is selected.
- The MANUAL section on "Programming the Timer" has been filled in.
- The year in the "Recordings" menu as well as in the progress display during
  replay has been reduced to 2 digits to allow more space for the recording's
  title. In the internal file structure the year is still stored with 4 digits,
  so there will be no problem at the next turn of the century ;-)
- Channel names and timer filenames can now contain blanks. To avoid problems
  with file names that contain blanks, all blanks in recording file names are
  converted to underscores.
- The polarization can now be given in uppercase or lowercase characters in
  channels.conf.
- Fixed buffer initialization to work with DVB driver version 0.6.
- Implemented the "Simple Video Disk Recorder Protocol" (SVDRP) to control
  the VDR over a network connection.
- Implemented command line option handling.
- The program can now run in full background mode by using the --daemon option.
- Added a "summary" field to the timers (thanks to Carsten Koch!).
  This field can contain a descriptive text of the programme and will be
  displayed when the "Blue" key is pressed on a recording that was created by
  this timer. If the text contains the special character '|', a newline will
  be inserted at that place.  When pressing "Ok" on a timer that contains a
  summary field, the summary will be displayed. To edit such a timer the "Red"
  key must be pressed. Timers without a summary still go into Edit mode when
  pressing "Ok".  The summary field can only be filled in directly by editing
  the 'timers.conf' file with a text editor, or by defining/modifying the timer
  via the SVDRP interface.

2000-08-06: Version 0.61

- When scrolling through a list it now moves a full page up or down when the
  cursor reaches the top or bottom of the menu (thanks to Heino Goldenstein!).
- Added missing '#include <sys/stat.h>' to recording.c.
- The video directory can now be defined with the command line option -v.
- There can now be more than one video directory (in case you have several
  disks).
- Fixed learning key codes for PC keyboard.
- New command line option '-l' to set the log level.
- Times in timers.conf are now always printed with 4 digits (leading '0').
- Slow forward/back mode (thanks to Guido Fiala!).
- The "Up" key in replay mode no longer restarts replay at the very beginning,
  but rather resumes normal replay mode after a "pause", "forward" or "backward"
  operation. Use the "Skip -60s" function repeatedly to go back to the beginning
  of the recording.
- Improved reaction on user input in fast/slow forward/back modes.
- No more upper limit for the value of 'Pnr'.
- Checking if the video card is really a DVB card.
- New SVDRP command UPDT to update an existing timer (or add a new one if it
  doesn't yet exist).
- New version of the 'epg2timers' tool (with a modified channel list).
- Bugfix in closing window in DEBUG_OSD mode.

2000-09-03: Version 0.62

- The Makefile now defines DVBDIR to easily point to where the DVB driver
  source is located.
- When switching channels the current/next information is now displayed if
  available (thanks to Robert Schneider). Since there is now more information
  to read when switching channels, the timeout for displaying it has been
  increased from 2 to 5 seconds (remember that this info can always be recalled
  by pressing the "Ok" button).
  For this feature to work it is necessary that the 'Pnr' parameter in the
  channel setup ('channels.conf') is set to the proper value. This has been
  done for some of the channels in the default 'channels.conf'. Some other
  parameters in the default 'channels.conf' have also been updated, so please
  make sure your timers still use the correct channels!

2000-09-10: Version 0.63

- The new "Setup" menu allows the user to configure several parameters to his/her
  personal taste (see MANUAL for details).
- Workaround for a driver timing problem in cDvbApi::Cmd(), which sometimes caused
  the OSD to no longer be displayed (thanks to Niels de Carpentier).
- Added the '-m486' option to the compiler call.
- If a channel name contains a colon (':') it is now replaced with a '|' in
  channels.conf.
- Not everybody appears to like the "page scrolling" mechanism introduced by
  Heino Goldenstein in version 0.61, so this is now configurable via the "Setup"
  menu.
- The new 'dvbrc2vdr' tool (thanks to Plamen Ganev!) can be used to convert
  'dvbrc' channel files into 'vdr' format.
- Channels can now be "grouped" (thanks to Plamen Ganev!). See MANUAL for details.
  There is currently no mechanism to define and maintain "Channel groups" via
  the menu, so you'll have to insert "Channel group" control lines into your
  'channels.conf' file manually (for example with a text editor).
- Started a new file named FORMATS with a description of the various file
  formats used by VDR.
- The "Primary DVB interface" can now be chosen via the "Setup" menu.
- Display of the "current/next" information when switching channels can now
  be disabled via the "Setup" menu.
- The "current/next" display now only shows those lines that actually contain
  information.
- When directly selecting a channel by entering the channel number, the digits
  entered so far together with the name of that channel are displayed on the
  OSD (suggested by Martin Hammerschmid).

2000-09-20: Version 0.64

- NOTE: If you are using DVB driver version 0.7 you need to load the dvb.o
  module with option outstream=0, so your insmod statement should read
  'insmod dvb.o outstream=0'. This is currently necessary because 'vdr'
  still works with AV_PES data.
- Video files now have the 'group read' bit set.
- Fixed handling errors in 'readstring()'.
- Handling SIGPIPE and re-establishing handler after intercepting a signal.
- The configuration files are now by default read from the video directory.
  This can be changed by using the new '-c' option. Make sure you copy your
  current '*.conf' files to your video directory ('/video' by default), or
  use "-c ." to get the old behaviour of loading the configuration files
  from the current directory.
- Waiting for input is now handled by a common function, which improves
  response time on user actions. As a consequence the EIT data may sometimes
  not be displayed, but this will change later when cEIT runs as a separate
  thread.
- The new SVDRP command 'HITK' (thanks to Guido Fiala!) can be used to 'hit'
  a remote control key.  Establish an SVDRP connection and enter HITK without
  a parameter for a list of all valid key names.
- The new SVDRP command 'GRAB' (thanks to Guido Fiala!) can be used to grab
  the current frame and save it to a file.
- The new SVDRP commands 'OVL*' can be used to control video overlays (thanks
  to Guido Fiala!). This is mainly for use in the 'kvdr' tool (see the 'kvdr'
  page at http://www.s.netic.de/gfiala).
- If the name of the video directory used with the '-v' option had trailing
  slashes, the recording file names have been damaged. Trailing slashes are
  now silently removed.
- Fixed a buffer overflow in EIT parsing.
- Added a security warning regarding SVDRP to the INSTALL file.
- Fixed 'confirm' dialog.
- The daemon mode (option '-d') now no longer works with REMOTE=KBD (there
  is no stdin in daemon mode, so KBD makes no sense - plus it sometimes
  crashed).

2000-10-03: Version 0.65

- Modified LIRC interface to better handle repeat function.
- Faster OSD by first writing into a bitmap and then sending the entire bitmap
  to the DVB driver at once (requires the patch 'dvb.c.071.diff' to be applied
  against the version 0.71 DVB driver file 'dvb.c').
- When switching channels the channel is now immediately displayed, and the
  current/next information is shown as soon as it becomes available.
- No longer displaying the year in the 'Recordings' menu to save space for the
  title.
- The 'Recordings' menu now displays a '*' to indicate new recordings.
- Added the description of the timers.conf file to the FORMATS file (thanks to
  Bastian Guse).
- Displaying as much as possible of the current/next info (dropping characters
  that would display only partially).
- In normal viewing mode the '0' key now toggles between the current and the
  previous channel.

2000-10-08: Version 0.66

- Remote control data is now received in a separate thread, which makes things
  a lot smoother.
- Repeat and release of remote control keys is now explicitly distinguished.
- In replay mode the search forward/back and skip functions now have two modes:
  Pressing the key shortly and releasing it starts the function, and pressing it
  again stops it. Pressing and holding down the key starts the function and
  releasing the key stops it.
- The '@' character that marks an "instant recording" can now be turned off
  in the "Setup" menu (thanks to Matthias Schniedermeyer).
- Pressing the "Back" button while replaying now stops replaying and brings up
  the "Recordings" menu (suggested by Carsten Koch). This can be used to easily
  delete a recording after watching it, or to switch to a different recording.
- The "Recordings" menu now places the cursor on the last replayed recording, if
  that file still exists.
- The "Blue" button in the "Main" menu can now be used to "Resume" a previously
  stopped replay session (suggested by Martin Hammerschmid).
- The low and high LNB frequencies can now be changed in the "Setup" menu.

2000-11-01: Version 0.67

- The EIT information is now gathered in a separate thread.
- The sytem time can now be synchronized to the time broadcast in the DVB data
  stream. This can be enabled in the "Setup" menu by setting "SetSystemTime" to
  1.  Note that this works only if VDR is running under a user id that has
  permisson to set the system time.
- The new item "Schedule" in the "Main" menu opens VDR's EPG (thanks to Robert
  Schneider). See the MANUAL file for a detailed description.
- The new setup parameters MarginStart and MarginStop define how long (in
  minutes) before the official start time of a broadcast VDR shall begin
  recording, and how long after the official end time it shall stop recording.
  These are used when a recording is programmed from the "Schedules" menu.
- The delay value in the dvb.c.071.diff patch to the driver has been increased
  to '3', because on some systems the OSD was not displayed correctly. If you
  are running an already patched version 0.71 driver and encounter problems
  with the OSD, please make sure the parameter in the ddelay call is '3', not
  '2'.
- Fixed initializing the RCU remote control code (didn't work after switching
  on the system).
- Problematic characters in recording names (which can come from timers that
  are programmed via the "Schedules" menu) are now replaced by suitable
  substitutes.

2000-11-19: Version 0.68

- Date and time in the title of an event info page are now always right adjusted.
- The 'current channel' is now handled device specific (in case there is more
  than one DVB card).
- The 'SetSystemTime' option in the "Setup" menu is now shown as "yes/no".
- Implemented "internationalization" (see 'i18n.c' for information on how to
  add new languages). Thanks to Miha Setina for translating the OSD texts to
  the Slovenian language.
- Fixed learning keys on the PC keyboard (display oscillated).
- Fixed a timing problem with OSD refresh and SVDRP.
- Avoiding multiple definitions of the same timer in the "Schedule" menu (this
  could happen when pressing the "Red" button while editing the timer).
- There can now be a configuration file named 'commands.conf' that defines
  commands that can be executed through the "Main" menu's "Commands" option
  (see FORMATS for details on how to define these commands).
- Added a 'fixed' font for use with the output of system commands.
- The 'Priority' parameter of the timers is now also used to interrupt a low
  priority timer recording if a higher priority timer wants to record.
- A timer recording on a DVB card with a CAM module will now be interrupted
  by a timer that needs to use this specific DVB card to record an encrypted
  channel, if the timer currently occupying this DVB card doesn't need the
  CAM module (and thus can continue recording on a different DVB card).
- The "Yellow" button in the "What's on now/next?" menus now displays the
  schedule of the current channel from that menu. 
- All DVB cards in a multi-card system now write their EIT information into the
  same data structure.
- If there is more than one DVB card in the system, the non-primary cards are
  now used to periodically scan through the channels in order to keep the
  EPG info up-to-date. Scanning kicks in after 60 seconds of user inactivity
  (timeout in order to keep user interactions instantaneously) and each channel
  that has the 'pnr' parameter defined in 'channels.conf' is switched to for
  20 seconds. If there is only one DVB card in the system, that card will start
  scanning after 5 hours (configurable through the "Setup" menu) of user inactivity
  and will switch back to the channel it originally displayed at the first sign of
  user activity. Any scanning will only occur if that particular card is not
  currently recording or replaying.
- Now shifting the 'Subtitle' info into the 'ExtendedDescription' on stations
  that don't send the EIT information correctly (like, e.g., 'VOX').
- Implemented a 10 seconds latency when removing files.
- Fixed unwanted reaction on the "Green" and "Yellow" button in the "Event" display.
- Implemented 'Transfer Mode' to display video data from the DVB card that actually
  can receive a certain channel on the primary interface. This is currently in
  an early state and may still cause some problems, but it appears to work nice
  already.

2001-01-18: Version 0.70

- VDR now requires driver version 0.8.1 or higher.
- Recordings are now saved in PES mode. Note that you now need to install the
  driver *WITHOUT* 'outstream=0'! This is the default when you 'make insmod' in
  the DVB/driver directory.
  Old recordings (in AV_PES mode) can still be replayed (as long as the driver
  still supports replaying AV_PES files). The only limitation with this is that
  in fast forward/back mode the picture may be slightly distorted and there may
  be sound fragments.
- The EPG data is now dumped into the file /video/epg.data every ten minutes.
  Use the Perl script 'epg2html.pl' to convert the raw EPG data into a simple
  HTML programme listing.
- Fixed handling of channel switching with the "Blue" button in the "What's on
  now/next?" menus.
- Fixed saving the MarginStop setup parameter.
- Fixed missing initialization in cConfig.
- Implemented "On Disk Editing".
- There is no more default 'timers.conf' file.
- Added Italian language texts (thanks to Alberto Carraro).
- Fixed starting a replay session when the program is currently in "transfer
  mode".
- Fixed setting/modifying timers via SVDRP with empty summary fields.
- Fixed a problem with recordings that have a single quote character in their
  name (this is now mapped to 0x01).
- Changed the value for Diseqc to '0' in the default 'channels.conf'.
- Fixed displaying channels and recording status in the RCU's LED display when
  a recording is interrupted due to higher priority.
- Implemented safe writing of config files (first writes into a temporary file
  and then renames it).
- In case the video data stream is broken the log message will come only every
  5 seconds.
- The current channel is now saved in the 'setup.conf' file when VDR is cancelled,
  and will be restored next time it is started (thanks to Deti Fliegl).
- The EIT scanning thread is now locked when switching channels to avoid problems.
- Encrypted channels can now be selected even without knowing the PNR (however, it
  is still necessary for the EPG info).

2001-02-04: Version 0.71

- Fixed 'Transfer Mode' in cases where a non-primary interface was switched to
  a channel that only the primary interface can receive (which could happen in
  the EPG scanner).
- The EPG scanner now starts with the first channel (it used to start with the
  second channel).
- Reacitvated setting the PNR.
- Adapted the frame scanning to the new muxing of the driver.
- The new compile time option REMOTE=NONE can be used to compile VDR without
  any remote control support (for applications where it shall be controlled
  exclusively via SVDRP).
- The new command line option -D can be used to define which DVB interfaces
  a certain instance of VDR shall use.
- The "Left" and "Right" keys are now used to page up and down in lists (thanks
  to Martin Hammerschmid). Since the "Timers" menu already uses these keys to
  (de)activate timers, this functionality is not available here.
- The "Main" and "Commands" menu now support "hotkeys", which means that if the
  first non-blank character of a menu item is a digit in the range 1..9, that
  item can be selected by pressing the respective numeric key on the remote
  control.
- The channel data in 'channels.conf' now contains the teletext PID (thanks to
  Dave Chapman). Existing files will be read normally (and the teletext PID set
  to 0), but once they are written back (due to some channel editing) the file
  will have the new format.
- The EPG scanner now scans each transponder only once per cycle.
- Deleted recordings are now automatically removed from disk after a while (not
  only when disk space is being needed for a new recording).
- Fixed repeat function in LIRC remote control.