The final version of MediaPortal 1.8.0, the open source media center development has been released. This build focuses on fixing bugs and improves the stability, there is reduced CPU usage for the AutoDJ functions, fixed UNC paths, fixed memory leaks and other fixes.

MediaPortal is an open source media center application for Windows that is built on the .net framework and supports live TV, music and video playback. You can get the latest version and release notes from the MediaPortal site.

For this release, we’ve put our focus on bug fixing and improved stability. To name a few: We’ve reduced the CPU usage for the AutoDJ function. Fixed UNC paths for LiveTV streaming, memory-leak(s), flickering visualisations, incorrect audio-channel mappings, (Spanish) forced subtitles, etc.

New features like creating a folder thumb from inside the UI, a Ping Monitor function in the PowerScheduler++ plugin and the option to allow different standby hours in weekends can also be found in this release.
Scroll down to the ‘Full list of changes’ to read up on all of them!

Highlights of this release

Enhanced TV experience

The default protocol for LiveTV streaming on a multi-seat setup is RTSP. MediaPortal has an option to change this to UNC for those that experience problems with RTSP, but we’ve had a long long lasting issuewith UNC paths, because of a Microsoft problem with the SMB2/3 cache.
After a lot of work on the TsReader filter from our developer Owlsroost, we can now say that this ‘known issue’ is solved, and the issues related to UNC paths should be fixed!

A while ago, we updated the default MySQL install to 5.6, which uses InnoDB as its default database engine. However, the database was not updated to use InnoDB for update installs. It is updated in this release. A few other SQL related bugs have also been fixed.

 Music improvements

A number of things have been fixed in the Music section since our last release. We’ve reduced the CPU load coming from the AutoDJ function, fixed incorrect channel mappings for 3.0 and 4.0 music files, possible flickering visualisations and a sound loop when you have music playing in the background of a pictures slideshow.

 

 

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