Frodo Feature Freeze! - And the October Cycle
The rumors are true. As you may have noticed if you avidly watch XBMC development on Github, we have now entered Feature Freeze for the upcoming release of XBMC 12: Frodo.
For the average user, this means a couple things. First, you should begin to see XBMC Beta releases coming out very shortly. Second, given our fairly well documented open development cycle, there should be very few surprises from now until the release of Frodo. By definition, the features you see now are the same features you will see when Frodo is released with the possible exception of some smaller updates in the default skin Confluence. So if you’d like to see what XBMC 12 is going to look like, feel free to install the October alpha at the bottom of this post. As always, it’s important to remember that the alphas are definitely alpha software that you use at your own risk.
Release Manager
Spaceman Spiff spares no one!
Much as development for Frodo was dramatically different than development for Eden, so too will the upcoming Beta process be different. This year we’ve created the new position of Release Manager, who is in complete control of the Frodo branch from the time we entered feature freeze until the time XBMC has been released. The Release Manager will determine when a new Beta is released, when XBMC is ready to switch to release candidates and Gold status, and whether code changes are fixes (OK) or features (not OK). Needless to say, it is a thankless job and a job that requires a person who is both extremely well versed in the code of XBMC and not afraid to make people angry to get the job done.
Which is why we are excited to say that we’ve selected grumpy developer extraordinaire Spiff to be our Release Manager for XBMC 12. We are convinced that Spiff will do a truly fantastic job in the role, even if he does get a few white hairs in the process!
October Cycle
The current goal is to release the first Beta of XBMC 12 at some time mid-November. At that time, we will review all the many features that have been added since the release of Eden. Likewise, during the Beta cycle, we’d like to continue to highlight the work done by our Google Summer of Code students in one or two posts.
For now, we will simply review the new features submitted during the last dev cycle before feature freeze.
UPnP Update
Just as we hit the feature freeze wire, a significant portion of one of the remaining most frequently requested features was added to XBMC. alcoheca’s GSOC project, a massive update of UPnP to make XBMC a truly capable UPnP server is now part of mainline. While transcoding is not part of the update, all metadata, images, and library functions including watched and unwatched status are now available depending on your client – naturally, an XBMC client is best, though efforts are ongoing to work with the numerous alternative clients that all use slightly different specs from one another.
UPnP in action
Unfortunately, using XBMC as a UPnP server is still not the preferred method for an XBMC client. For one thing, Confluence and all current skins are designed to expect only a local database or a MySQL database masquerading as a local database, which means one would theoretically need to re-scrape the UPnP server into your local library for the TV shows link to show up in the home screen, which immediately cuts out much of the benefit of a dedicated UPnP server.* For another, at present while the server can tell the client what has and has not been watched, a major bug exists in that the client cannot tell the server the same thing. This means, if you mark Big Buck Bunny as watched on your XBMC client, the watched status on the server won’t be updated. For that matter, since you are using the server library, Big Buck Bunny won’t be marked as watched on your client either.
*For early testers, we highly recommend that you NOT Set Content, if that is still an option for you, as it will likely cause problems in the system.
As such, for now continuing to use SMB or NFS shares on your XBMC clients is still the recommended route, but we will keep you updated on the progress of UPnP, including any bug fixes throughout the Beta process. Additionally, skilled skinners, we are excited to see if and how you incorporate UPnP nodes into your design. To see an ongoing discussion of how UPnP will be improved now and in the future, feel free to visit alcoheca’s GSoC forum thread.
Advanced Filtering
If you have been reading the monthly cycle updates, you know that Montellese has been working on major improvements to the underlying XBMC library. A significant culmination of that work has been added this month in the form of the newly updated Filter.
The New Media Filter
Now those of you with an extensive library will be able to filter your library by any number of new, simple methods, including title, rating, year, actor, whether the series is ongoing, etc., and you can of course combine as many of those methods as you like for laser focus. Additionally, this filtering will occur in realtime, so the moment you narrow the span of years, your library will immediately narrow to meet the specification without any need of hitting the “OK” button.
Many More
Needless to say, because October was feature freeze month, numerous additional features have been added, including…
- numerous JSON-RPC updates, including PVR support, optimizations, better conflict handling, and better webserver support by Montellese
- PVR timeshift support (if the backend supports timeshift) – hat tip to non-team member Margo for this one
- improvements to the OMXplayer, the media player of Raspberry Pi by gimli
- Additionally, OMXplayer can now play back DVD ISOs if users have gotten the MPEG2 codec license thanks to user epideme
- the CD ripper now works in the background thanks to Spiff
- panoramic photo panning support by Montellese
- Dirty Region support is now on by default by TheUni
- Further improved image handling in the database, allowing one to select fanart, poster, banner, and thumb, rather than forcing the choice between downloading posters and downloading banners – kudos to Jonathan Marshall and Montellese for this work.
As always, this is a mere selection of numerous changes from this month. For a full list, feel free to check out the GitHub changelog. Or, if you are feeling a bit brave and a bit lucky, just start downloading.
- Windows and OSX
- Apple TV and iOS installation instructions
- Given the additional complexities of distribution, builds for Linux are not currently available at XBMC.org. A number of developers are currently hard at work on the problem however. With luck, we should finally have a Linux PPA available by the time the Betas begin rolling out.
I’m really welcoming the improvement on the image handling, can’t stand to either choose between poster or thumb. XD
Fantastic news! Very much looking forward to the release. Also, UPnP looks very interesting and could simplify server-client setups a hell of a lot! Bye-bye NFS, SMB, MySQL. Hello UPnP!
*You can not set content for UPnP sources any longer, see pull request 1722
So no need to warn people not to try to scrape DLNA sources any longer ;)
Thanks to all behind who working hard to brings the best multimedia experience to our homes.
Thank you so much, guys !!!
You are really fantastic !!!
Good job !!!
Will it be possible to filter based on number of votes?
@Harley
This was added after this monthly build so hence the warning
Congrats, great work!!!
“PVR timeshift support (if the backend supports timeshift) – hat tip to non-team member Margo for this one”
Someone has more infos? i can’t find it on the forum ( possibly wrong search terms)
I do not know why people would use XBMC as a UPnP server. OK its indexes the content for getting nice info in its database but any DMS can also do that and are much lighter to use : who need to start a graphical interface for UPnP streaming? A DMS should be always on… BUT I’m very happy to see frodo soon.
Good job, i waiting for the beta ;)
DSP support please! :) We’d like to use equalizer! Thanks!
@Eric V: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=132919 ;-D
@EricV
A common usecase would be if you have a dedicated HTPC running XBMC, you wouldn’t need to have a separate DMS running.
And more important, which are the backends+addon which support timeshifting?
Kind regards.
Yes, thanks for this great program/media center. I just love it, and have used it for several years.
The uPnP is very much welcome :-)
I’ve been using some of the alphas from September and October (the Win32 October 3rd version is the one I’m currently on) and I have to say, Frodo is a really big step forward from Eden. My personal reason for the change was XBMC v11 stable would fall apart when trying to play 1080i50 TS files direct from my satellite DVR, whereas in the v12 betas the newer FFmpeg libraries allow seamless playback (with proper deinterlacing) that I could not attain with Media Player Classic and VLC even after some tweaks.
But there are other great options and improvements that go beyond that too, like all the more advanced HD audio options and general speedup of all parts of the UI, no doubt due to better dirty region implementation as XBMC developers remove more of the legacy Xbox stuff and optimise the core code for smoother multi-platform support. It also fixes the annoying playlist order bug that Eden had too, at least on my hardware. The uPnP stuff is irrelevant to me – it’s never been easier than just sharing stuff via SMB and FTP, so defeats the object – but I’m sure the improved support will please some of the user base, so was worth the effort
Other than some problems related to the alpha state of the build I’m using (LOTS of crashes, although I had a fair few with Eden per week), and some problems I’ve had with menus on full Blu-ray ISOs – all of which may well be ironed out by RC stage – I’m very happy with the results, and once again reassured that using XBMC as my main media player since 2008 has been and still is the right choice.
XBMC devs, keep up the outstanding work. You’re making it easier than ever before to create a media convergence device that turns half-decent hardware into a slick, set-top box style appliance.
While most of XBMC’s UPnP features will work with other UPnP clients, most of it is designed to work between multiple XBMC devices, and that’s where it shines. It’s the easiest way to share a library with full metadata (summaries, art, dvd covers, etc) between multiple XBMC clients.
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=HOW-TO:Share_libraries_using_UPnP
Check out the (in-progress) PVR guide on the wiki: http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=PVR/Backend
Well done everyone!!
When will aif tags be supported so that my entire iTunes library multi-language tags and album covers ?
F ya! <3 xbmc
@sialivi
But then you will have to start the HTPC with XBMC running even if using the display for something else.
I really think a much lighter seperate program being able to use the database would be much more useful. PVR programs could also integrate DMS, …
I’m really looking forward to the uPnP side of things. I’ve been using Plex for a while because it just runs on my server so when I start up my htpc it doesn’t take 3-5 mins to get all the latest episodes/movies.
I also want to use some sort of remote like Plex has but to beam uPnP links to my non XBMC devices like my WDTV and Panasonic Plasma. That way I get all the great things about meta-data but on all my devices without hooking up HTPC’s to each screen.
All the work and code being done could be spun into a light and headless server program. There’s already an effort to do this with XBMC’s scraping code as a stand alone server. So no effort wasted, and also something that could be ran on something like a linux-based NAS.
Why is a MPEG2 codec license require for the Raspberry Pi, but not something like XBMCbuntu? Or is the license some sort of firmware level thing, and the SoC rejects any use of hardware decoding unless it detects the license?
sigh… patiently waiting for Linux PPAs. Things are looking sooooooooo good!
Now if only you would let us scan UPnP into our library
Yes, for me this is the most wanted feature – be able to use XBMC on tablet/phone/laptop to browse the library and then play the content on second screen – TV or any DLNA renderer. So basicaly I’d like XBMC to work as a DLNA controller. Not sure whether this will be implemented in Frodo…
@Ego
It’s required for hardware decoding support. Most computers can either handle mpeg2 in software, or they have hardware where the hardware vender has already paid for the license (such as the average GPU, card or on-board).
The Raspberry Pi Foundation, being the hardware provider in this case, did not buy a license for mpeg2 in order to keep the price down, but the ability is there. Now it can be unlocked legally without anyone getting sued.
Stupid question regarding UPnP – if media files are being accessed over NFS from a NAS, and a UPnP “slave” attempts to play a movie, will it stream the movie from the NAS *via* the UPnP master, or will the slave communicate directly with the NAS over NFS? If its the former, that’s going to double the network traffic as the data transfers from the NAS to the master and finally over to the slave (this is with all 3 devices on a Homeplug network).
Also, how important is the relative hardware specification of the UPnP master? I don’t have an “always on” device (other than the NAS) so a move to UPnP would require an always on XBMC player, which would most likely be a Raspberry Pi due to it’s low power requirements.
I’m concerned about the gloom and doom regarding MySQL unless an alternative server or headless variant of XBMC UPnP can be provided for NAS implementations (FreeNAS in my case). Please don’t dismiss MySQL unless/until a superior server alternative is available – we don’t all have XBMC players on 24×7! :)
Will those alpha-versions have the ForTheRecord PVR Add-On included? It’s a killer feature for me.. Pretty unhappy with Eden at the moment :(
@Ego
the raspberry pi can do hardware decoding of MPEG2 and some others but only if you buy the license and put a unlock key file in
I would rather see a solution, where you can have the entire media database on a nas/server and use xbmc as a thin client. Im guessing most people have a NAS somewhere and multiple xbmc devices
Hi does anybody know if the Dolby Digital Plus audio format is supported in the upcoming release?
+1 for the inclusion of the ForTheRecord PVR Add-On.
@Torsten
A “thin client” means something else than that. An actual thin client wouldn’t make any sense for XBMC, since a full copy is already so lean that it can run on very low powered ARM systems. If you want the media database on a NAS then look at MySQL. It would also be possible to run a headless version of XBMC on a NAS. We already run on ARM, and there’s a lot of work being done towards running a headless version of XBMC just for library updates and such. I would not be surprised to see a headless XBMC UPnP server with all the features of MySQL (and more) with less set up, within the next two years.
Spiff is without doubt the one and only grumpy ol’ developer and I’m quite convinced he will do an excellent job as a Release Manager ;-) ;-)
Great luck with all the new releases and a big thank you for the hard work to the xbmc-team!!
I hope the VDPAU improvements from https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/870 make it in there as they are supposed to fix the nasty bug where XBMC hangs at the start of a video and only the audio starts playing (forcing you to kill XBMC)…
+1 on this, in exactly same boat, could anyone answer this at all??
@nedscott
I think the wiki information regarding timeshifting in VDR is not correct, as the VDR wiki says the opposite:
http://linuxtv.org/vdrwiki/index.php/Introduction#Features
Could it be a problem of add-ons not implementing timeshifting instead of backend support? If so, the wiki should be more explicit about timeshifting support/lack of support.
@dCrypt
It’s the VDR add-on for XBMC that doesn’t have timeshifting support yet. I’ll see if I can make that a little clearer on the wiki.
@Anonymous , @Charlie
I’m not entirely sure, but I think it does go over the network twice. A headless XBMC that could run from the NAS directly is very possible, so I don’t think you have to worry much. MySQL won’t be killed for a while either.
Great news!!
An early Christmas present for XBMC lovers!
Hi guys, thanks for your great job, it is amazing. Just one question. Is there any possibility to add PVR add on for DVB viewer? I have seen one, but did not work for me on frodo nightly( do not know already which version). Thanks for your answer.
Thanks for the reply, but if the data has to go over the network twice, that’s a pretty major reason NOT to use UPnP as it could mean XBMC with UPnP now exceeds the bandwidth capacity of the network – a network which may have worked fine when communicating directly with a NAS.
It sounds like UPnP is a great innovation for those users whose “master” XBMC player is also their media storage server, meaning data is only transferred once over the network to any UPnP slaves, but when a separate NAS is being used for media storage (which I’m sure will be the case for a large number of users) the the inherent communication inefficiency imposed on UPnP slaves is a major negative, possibly even a show stopper. At the very least this communication inefficiency of UPnP should be confirmed, and if necessary pointed out in all future discussions. Yes, UPnP sounds great from an ease of use point of view, but it may also be unusable in some networks where bandwidth is scarce (eg. Homeplug networks that are more like a ring than point-to-point network).
That said, when UPnP is running on the NAS, the communication inefficiency should be eliminated, so this can’t come soon enough.
@Charlie
It is a non-issue on most networks that have at least 100meg ethernet. My Apple TV 2 is able to act as a UPnP server and send out 1080 movies that are first accessed via SMB, all without any buffering. I will make sure it gets noted in the UPnP documentation on the wiki, though.
@nedscott
Is it expected that the current issues / limitations with UPnP (i.e. watched status, library views) will be resolved in Frodo? It’s a little unclear between reading the above and the wiki what is planned for for Frodo and what is planned post-Frodo.
Great idea using the Apple TV 2 as a UPnP server by the way!
NICE JOB!
I hope the final release is at the end of december. Can´t wait! :)
The “Advanced Filtering” is a good idea.