nxtvepg 2.8.1 pre-releases changelog

The following lists summarize changes between current pre-releases for development on the upcoming release 2.8.1.

Changes between 2.8.1pre1 and 2.8.1pre2 (2008-02-03)

• The position of reminder markers and other images in the programme list behind titles with special characters was fixed (thanks to Kurt Lettmaier for reporting this bug.)
• A bug in the INI file upgrade from nxtvepg versions 2.8.0pre16 or earlier, which caused loss of the network name configuration, was fixed (again, thanks to Kurt.) Additionally compatibility between UNIX and Windows INI/rc files was restored.
• The HTML export was fixed to be fully compliant with HTML 4.0
• A new entry was added to the context menu which allows to disable reminder popups for selected reminder groups (to use the new feature you must add the new menu entry in the context menu config dialog.)
• Bugs in handling of special characters were fixed in several more configuration dialogs (Network name and Client/Server configuration, as well as HTML export from UTF-8 executables.)
• Bug fixes in endian conversion in the acquisition daemon protocol have restored compatibility between big- and little-endian architectures.

Changes between 2.8.1pre0 and 2.8.1pre1 (2008-01-22)

• A bug in the Nextview EPG data stream decoder was fixed which allowed half-received blocks to be used (under weak signal conditions and heavy packet loss), which sometimes caused all network names to be blank.
• Mapping of network identifiers (CNI) for merged databases in the GUI was further improved since 2.8.1pre0. This fixes some remaining bugs in the network selection and network name configuration dialogs when handling merged databases with Nextview and teletext data.
• Fixed database export via option -dump so that the user-configured expire time setting is applied.
• Prepared binary compatibility between 32-bit and 64-bit systems for database files and the daemon protocol (enabling compatibility requires to define compile switch USE_32BIT_COMPAT in the Makefile; not enabled by default to maintain backwards compatibility for existing 64-bit databases)

Changes between 2.8.0 and 2.8.1pre0 (2008-01-13)

• A bug in TV application channel table reading was fixed which sometimes caused wrong names to be associated with channels. (Thanks to "dj1985" for reporting this bug.)
• For merged databases duplicate networks in the network name and network selection configuration dialogs are now filtered out. (Relevant when merging teletext with Nextview EPG.)
• Changed XMLTV import to allow overriding of network identification codes via xmltv-etsi.map even for files written by the teletext EPG grabber which contain a valid VPS/PDC code.
• The network identification map (xmltv-etsi.map) was extended for the teletext grabber for networks with inconsistent VPS/PDC identification.
• UNIX: A bug was fixed which caused a crash immediately after start-up with Tcl/Tk 8.5.0 when the libraries were compiled with multi-thread support. (Thanks to Enrico for reporting this bug.)

nxtvepg 2.8.0 pre-releases changelog

The following lists summarize changes between pre-releases which led from 2.7.4 to the 2.8.0 release. It's only kept for historical interest as the main change log summarizes all changes that finally went into release 2.8.0.

Changes between 2.8.0pre18 and 2.8.0 (2007-12-31)

• Linux: Fixed a major bug that was introduced in 2.8.0pre19 with the DVB patch and prevented the start of EPG acquisition with an "invalid argument" device error.
• Improved EPG database reload failure diagnistics, esp. for conflicts between character encoding (Latin-1 vs. UTF-8) and integer width (32-bit vs. 64-bit)
• Removed a major performance bottleneck in the GUI which caused noticable delays even on fast machines when handling databases with programmes very far in the future (e.g. due to parsing errors by the teletext grabber)
• Improved documentation for configuration of TV-card driver on Windows (WDM) and the teletext EPG grabber.
• Adapted for Tcl/Tk library version 8.5.0 (which finally brings some long-awaited improvements in widget appearances and anti-aliased fonts - particularily visible on UNIX.) The new library is included the win32 release, but UNIX users need to upgrade the Tcl/Tk library separately to benefit from this.

Changes between 2.8.0pre17 and 2.8.0pre18 (2007-09-09)

• Linux: Merged patch to add DVB support (originally submitted 2005-03-30 for 2.8.0pre5; adds command line switch -dvbpid) Note: this feature is only available when uncommenting compile switch USE_LIBZVBI in the Makefile. Also note this patch still requires to tune the frequency by external means.
• Linux: fixed bug which broke teletext and EPG acquisition with kernel 2.6.20 and later.
• Made acquisition more robust against broken Nextview transmissions as aired on Pro7 between 2007-Feb-10 and Feb-15.

Changes between 2.8.0pre16 and 2.8.0pre17 (2007-02-13)

• Major internal changes to support XMLTV imported data better. Note the former configuration helper file xmltv-prov.map is now obsolete, as XMLTV specific settings are remembered inside nxtvepg.ini or .nxtvepgrc
• Improved the network name configuration dialog
• As a side-effect of the above changes, exporting into XMLTV from the daemon executable (nxtvepgd) now also uses the user-configured network names.
• Limit width of timescale window and coverage of date scale in the main window to handle longer preview ranges better.
• When database reload fails during short or database is empty, do not switch to another database automatically because this was confusing; instead display error info screen.
• Windows: Use WDM driver only as default source (upon very first start of nxtvepg) if the required DLL is available.

Note due to the extent of these changes (more than 6500 lines of code) some functionality may still be broken. Bugs reports will be appreciated.

Changes between 2.8.0pre15 and 2.8.0pre16 (2006-12-28)

• Teletext grabber: improved robustness for channels with high decoding error rate (i.e. improved teletext header text based channel change detection)
• Linux: improved portability of timezone offset calculation
• Added English translation of the teletext grabber documentation
• Windows: TV-card driver update (merged once again from DScaler.) Most noteable changes: Added support for TV cards with TDA8275/8290 tuner; Driver-adaption for 64-bit platforms
• Bugfix XMLTV import: default VPS/PDC code was incorrect (caused for example reminders to by applied for all programmes of a network instead of the one programme where it was set on.)
• UNIX: Added channel table parser for TV application "tvtime"
• UNIX: minor bugfixes in support for libzvbi; also updated the DVB patch
• Much internal clean-up (committed many recent and not-so-recent changes to version control system)
• Backport of fixes and improvements made in 2006 to the nxtvepg "stable" line, i.e. version 2.7.7 (this only has an effect on the changelog in 2.8.0)

Changes between 2.8.0pre14 and 2.8.0pre15 (2006-11-22)

• Bugfix in -merge function of teletext grabber Perl script which caused every 2nd new programme to be dropped.
• Bugfix in teletext acquisition control which could cause an infinit loop of database merging (i.e. 100% CPU load) when the GUI was displaying a database merged from Nextview EPG and teletext sources.
• Fixed the Perl script so that it doesn't cause huge RAM and CPU consumption when getting fed input with decoding errors in teletext sub-page numbers.
• Improved the provider merge so that it allows for slight variations in start times between provider databases. Note this required essentially a complete redesign of essential parts of the merge algorithm (which was almost unchanged for 5 years and very stable), so please report any misbehaviour.
• Improved acquisition statistics: teletext data rate is now calculated with a running average filter instead of a plain average across the total acquisition runtime.

Changes between 2.8.0pre13 and 2.8.0pre14 (2006-11-12)

This pre-release contains various bug-fixes and continued development for the teletext EPG grabber.

• Added status line updates and a statistics window for teletext EPG acquisition (see Control menu)
• Improved speed of teletext grabber in "Now" capture phase: Down from 30 seconds per channel to 15-20 seconds. (Use "Acquisition mode" configuration dialog to enable this mode)
• Improved merge of XMLTV files (make sure already available programme descriptions aren't lost)
• Implemented handling of "passive" and "forced passive" modes in teletext grabber (i.e. external channel changes, e.g by a TV app)
• Added progress output (i.e. percentage of covered channels) in status line during "Now" phase in Nextview EPG acquisition.

Changes between 2.8.0pre12 and 2.8.0pre13 (2006-10-15)

• Integrated EPG acquisition from regular teletext pages (i.e. based on package tv_grab_ttx-0.5.tar.gz) See new configuration dialog "Teletext grabber"
• Fixed reported bug "Dump to XML fails" (3.8.2006 by pferdekaemper)
• Implemented feature request "Externes Programm per Doppelklick": Made action which is bound to "Tune TV" button configurable
• Implemented feature request "Verhalten von nxtvepg als Client" by Bernhard: Win32 only: added option "no driver" in TV card configuration (for PCs without a TV card)
• Added option to disable automatic start of acquisition at program start in "Acquisition Mode" configuration dialog
• Various improvements in handling of imported XMLTV data
• Win32: Improved interface to TV applications: Provide more info about the current programme; Allow use of nxtvepg in daemon mode (i.e. without GUI with option -daemon); Teletext acquisition. Note: due to this change a new plugin is required for K!TV.

Changes between 2.8.0pre11 and 2.8.0pre12 (2006-07-02)

• Several minor fixes in handling databases imported from XMLTV files.
• Linux: Work-around for bttv driver bug in kernel 2.6.16
• UNIX: Added work-around for interaction with TV-application tvtime
• Removed former German provider "RTL2" from list of known providers

Changes between 2.8.0pre10 and 2.8.0pre11 (2006-01-28)

• Bugfix in handling of non-latin character encodings in network name configuration dialog and TV application's channel table import.
• UNIX: bugfix in TV app detection (to be able to detect "tvtime")
• UNIX: added possibility to use external program to display EPG info popups to "TV app. interaction" configuration dialog (note: a new variable ${tvapp-wid} can be used to provide the TV app's X11 window identifier to the called application to allow querying the window position.)
• Windows: Minor fixes in parse error handling in new card configuration INI file parser

Changes between 2.8.0pre9 and 2.8.0pre10 (2006-01-04)

• New algorithm in EPG stream decoder to improve performance under reception conditions with high data loss rates
• Windows: update of TV card drivers (import of latest DScaler version.) SAA7134 and CX2388x card config is now read from INI files.
• Minor bugfix in reminder messages: font for programme title can now be changed with "pi_font" in the resource file (Nxtvepg.ad)
• Bugfix XML import: ISO-8859-2 and following now properly distinguished from ISO-8859-1
• Prepared use of UTF-8 encoding for internal text processing: not enabled by default, requires compile switch USE_UTF8 and XMLTV_OUTPUT_UTF8 in Makefile (not enabled by default because export functions not adapted yet.) Note before using this mode any old EPG databases should be deleted.

Changes between 2.8.0pre8 and 2.8.0pre9 (2005-12-11)

• Fixed broken assertion which caused annoying popup messages for Windows users with SAA7134 TV cards and MicroTune tuners.
• Added support for import of UTF-8 encoded XMLTV files
• Improvements in handling of data imported from XMLTV (still many open issues though.)
• Added support for export in HTML format via the command line (does not support all features available in the GUI though.)
• Included bugfix in reminder handling (from release 2.7.6)
• Included German translation of the manual and help pages (note German translation not updated since 2.7.6, i.e. the manual doesn't cover recently added features yet.)

Changes between 2.8.0pre7 and 2.8.0pre8 (2005-06-30)

• Update of XMLTV parser
• Minor fix in XMLTV export (DTD 0.6): several elements were not in the correct order, which caused warnings with some XML processors
• UNIX: Provider scan now issues an appropriate error message upon device errors (Thanks to Andreas for reporting this problem)

Changes between 2.8.0pre6 and 2.8.0pre7 (2005-06-03)

• Added possibility to import EPG data from XMLTV files. (Note: to import XMLTV data, just add the file name to the command line, i.e. start as "nxtvepg tv.xml")
• Bugfix in handling of command line option "-dump xml" (bug was introduced in 2.8.0pre6)

Note: feedback for XMLTV data import is appreciated. Currently only import of data from grabbers for DE, UK and FR has been tested. Possible errors or warnings during data import are logged in your debug.out file.

Changes between 2.8.0pre5 and 2.8.0pre6 (2005-04-09)

• Added support for -dump option in non-GUI executable (nxtvepgd)
  Note: export mode "xml" is not supported in this case, you must include the DTD version (e.g. "xml5", see manual); also user-configured network names (via "Network name" configuration dialog in the GUI) are not adhered.
• Windows: Separated WDM from dsdrv4 sources in the TV card configuration to make the distinction more clear.

Changes between 2.8.0pre4 and 2.8.0pre5 (2005-03-25)

• Bugfix: missing error-check in time conversion lead to inconsistant start/stop times around daylight saving time switch (which lead to reload failure cause: "database corrupt")
• Fixed timezone format in XMLTV output (DTD 0.5, local timezone only) Thanks to Laurent Garnier for reporting the bug.
• Updated network ID tables for EPG scan and TV interaction (updated with TR231 rev. 03/2005) Thanks to Quenotte.
• Windows: Upgrade of Tcl/Tk library from version 8.3.4 to 8.4.9
• Windows: Bugfix in new K!TV channel table import (Import "Test" in TV app interaction configuration dialog failed when tried immediately after switching from a different application type.)
• Windows, WDM support: as work-around for broken Hauppauge drivers: removed VBI frame timestamp check

Changes between 2.8.0pre3 and 2.8.0pre4 (2005-02-27)

• Added support for reading channel table of K!TV 2.3 Thanks to Quenotte for providing a patch.
• Windows only bugfix: "Record this show" did not appear in context menu when connected to K!TV
• Improved network/channel identification by VPS/PDC during interaction with TV applications (e.g. TV5 was not identified)

Changes between 2.8.0pre2a and 2.8.0pre3 (2005-02-20)

• Fixed error message during provider removal in EPG scan
• Windows only: fixed !wintv! keyword handling in scripts bound to reminder events (this was already supposed to be in 2.7.4 but lost somehow)
• Windows only: minor bugfixes in WDM driver support

Changes between 2.8.0pre1 and 2.8.0pre2a (2005-01-21)

• UNIX: Implemented new communication protocol for TV applications: based on the X11 ICCCM protocol (Download the tvsim package to get a demo)
• added command line option -remctrl for UNIX (was supported on WIN32 only)
• Win32: keep acquisition disabled until the user has configured the TV card
• Win32 (2.8.0pre2a): temporarily disable acquisition while in the TV card config dialog when switching to a WDM source (necessary to allow video input selection)

Changes between 2.7.5pre1 and 2.8.0pre1 (2005-01-16)

• WIN32: merged support for WDM driver previously released as 2.8.0pre0 (Note: requires separate DLL, see page; still in alpha testing state; details see section WDM support development above.)
• Included small fixes previously supplied as patch for 2.7.5pre1:
  • Fixed -outfile option for Windows
  • Win32-only: fixed bug during daemon start via GUI
  • nxtvepgd: some memory was not freed during exit which triggered a debug exception
  • Added description for -provscan in manual, added Belgium to country code list
• Suppress warning about missing nxtvepg.ini file when nxtvepg is started for the first time. Thanks to Gérard for pointing out this bug.

Changes between 2.7.5pre0 and 2.7.5pre1 (2005-01-08)

• Split up config file .nxtvepgrc/nxtvepg.ini into sections. Only sections belonging to GUI are parsed by Tcl code; sections containing database and acquisition parameters are read by a new C module.
• Added new command line option -provscan de|fr|at|ch: runs an EPG scan without GUI. It can also be used by nxtvepgd, so nxtvepg can now be set up without ever using the GUI (except for some advanced acquisition options)

Changes between 2.7.4 and 2.7.5pre0 (2005-01-01)

• Fixed HTML export (not all text format options were processed, weekday color column was not implemented) and improved layout
• XML export: format can now be selected via command line options
• Added command line option -outfile
• Possibility to compile separate daemon without GUI (note to UNIX users: enter "make daemon" to compile the daemon-only executable)