1.5.19 available (beta)

[sub]

Let me appologise in advance...

This is a big release with lots of changes. I've had to make changes to some stuff that was holding GB-PVR back, and along the way I've broken all the plugins and skins etc.

In the beginning of December I started rewriting GB-PVR from scratch. I did this for a variety of reasons. A few of the most important reasons include:
- problems with legal ownership of GB-PVR codebase
- many things in the architecture didnt work well, but were impossible to change in the existing framework without major pain for users
- hack upon hack were added over the years as application evolved from a single tuner analog application to a multi-tuner analog/digital application
- millions of odd little rules users had requested over the years, that I no longer understood fully. This made the application fragile and prone to breaking stuff when I made small changes. (yes, you'll probably be annoyed that your specific rule is no longer there)
- and a pile of other stuff...

Sticking with my crappy naming ability, the new application is called N-PVR (short for 'next pvr').

This is a lot of change, and its still rough in places, so should be considered a public beta. Fortunately, its an entirely different application, and can be installed on the same machine as GB-PVR 1.4.7 for you give it a test drive.

I also have to say a big thanks to the testers, who have suffered through this big change from its very feeble early builds, and given me a lot of help along the way.

[sub]

Even though its an entirely new application, the UI is currently very GB-PVR like. There didnt seem to be support for wholesale changes, with many people saying they liked the simplicity of the current UI.

I'm sure some people will love it and some people hate it, but it is what it is. I think it's grown on the testers, so I'm sure it'll grow on you guys too.

Its difficult to give a change list, but some things I noted during development:

Better compatibility with Vista/Win7, with program files stored in "C:\Program Files\NPVR" and data files stored in "C:\Users\Public\NPVR".
More hybrid style application to better support both 10ft and 2ft user interface usage. PVR mode can be disabled for those who just want to watch tv and dont want all the menus etc. Still lots more to be done on this side of things, but the start of this is in place.
Devices are automatically detected and capture sources created.
Scanning is different. Channels are created by default with no EPG, so that the app is ready to be used even by those new users who havnt invested the time to find an EPG source.
Better handling of digital channels, and multiple audio streams, multiple subtitle streams etc.
Usable over Remote Desktop
Native multidec support, including multirecord-multidec;. No more need for mdapifilter.ax. You do still need ffdecsa.dll for the decryption algorithm though. Place your plugins in "C:\Users\Public\NPVR\MDPlugins\Trident DTV Tuner #1-1" (for example).
Configuration for new capture sources can be copied from another capture source.
No more Config app. The Settings screen is now access
More animations, and the ability to easily turn off animations.
Time-shared channels like cbeebies in UK will now be picked up regardless of what time of day you scan for channels.
Media libraries auto refresh file lists if changes are made to the currently directory (files added/delete etc).
Tray app which shows more status information, including what devices are doing, and any pending scheduled rcording
Ability to run without recording service for those that just want to watch tv, and dont want extra stuff running in the background.
If recordings or live tv dont work, there is now nice friendly error messages to tell you why. A few more messages still to be added though.
The app is permanently in timeshift mode. No more live preview. Channel changes are much quicker than the old timeshift mode though, and no pauses between shows.
Analog and Digital tv is now "all .ts, all the time". Sorry fans of third party mux filters.
Multi-record is always used, for both recordings and live tv.
EPG is based on UTC for dates/times, so no more issues around daylight savings time
Metadata and artwork are shown when playing files from Recordings or Video Library.
Can import ready recordings from GB-PVR's recording-dump.xml file.
Support for ATSC broadcast EPG
Updated built in web app (NEWA). Thanks UJB.
Supports analog tv via soft encoder devices.
Basic support for North American Close Captions on digital TV.
Plugins can now act as the main menu menu
Plugins now have lots more information about things happening in the system
Plugins can now control playback (pause, play, skip)
Plugins can now show themselves above video
Plugins can now get monitor for keypresses while video is playing (for example, to launch themselves over the video on a certain key combination)

Things that you need to be aware of, that will most like annoy some users: (Sorry!)

MVPs are no longer as useful as they were in the past. Unfortunately these dont natively play .ts files, which is what NPVR produces. It does try an on-the-fly conversion. At the end of the day, I could let the limitations of the MVP dictate how NPVR worked.
Analog TV is also based on .ts files. This was done so that I could have a single slipping/timeshift engine that worked on both analog and digital tv. Unfortunately this requires the Hauppauge SoftPVR components to be on the users machine. The majority of analog users here have Hauppauge cards, so most likely already have access to this. It does also work with non-Hauppauge cards, but you'll need to find your own source of SoftPVR. ie, a Hauppauge user to zip up their "C:\Program Files\WinTV\WinTV7\SoftPVR" directory for you, copy it to your machine, then regsvr32 the .ax files.

[sub]

The new application requires an updated vcredist_x86, since I've switched to using VS2008. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

It also requires an updated DirectX runtime from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

The application installer can be downloaded from http://www.gbpvr.com/NPVRSetup.exe

After installing the application, run NPVR, right click on the window and click Settings from the context menu. From there you click Devices to configure the channels on each device etc.

[sub]

Some screenshots:

[sub]

Post any problem reports in the new 'NPVR support forum'.

Sorry to the user whose post I've deleted - I dont want to clog this thread up with bug reports.

[LewE]

If going from version 1.4.7 to 1.5.19 involves a complete rewrite and new design for handling recorded programs, it frightens me to think what Version 2.0 will bring.

[sub]

If going from version 1.4.7 to 1.5.19 involves a complete rewrite and new design for handling recorded programs, it frightens me to think what Version 2.0 will bring.

lol - true.

[DanielP]

Wow! Sub...this rewrite must have taken ages.

Fantastic to get "now and next" EPG off Satellite and also to be able to manage multiple audio streams.

It seems to falls over alot for me when scanning and during playback on my Compro, but early days and it has an awful lot of potential indeed.

I'll post in support when / if I have something sensible to report- the only think I will say so far is that all the sat lof settings defaulted to 13000 on mine- I had to copy the settings from GBPVR to get it to scan.

Cheers and hope your kids still recognise you!!!

Daniel

[sub]

Wow! Sub...this rewrite must have taken ages.

Yes. It has been a large amount of work, and a lot more to come.

Fantastic to get "now and next" EPG off Satellite and also to be able to manage multiple audio streams.

Thanks. Yes, these aspect are much improved over GB-PVR.

It seems to falls over alot for me when scanning and during playback on my Compro, but early days and it has an awful lot of potential indeed.

I'll post in support when / if I have something sensible to report-

If you post logs for these in the spport forum, I'm happy to look into it.

the only think I will say so far is that all the sat lof settings defaulted to 13000 on mine- I had to copy the settings from GBPVR to get it to scan.

This 11300 are usual LNB settings used in this part of the world. In future I may attempt to detect the user's country and supply defaults that are likely to match their country.

[wannabepvr]

Hey Sub, I have just gone from nervous anticipation to outright terror!

Any thoughts on minimum specs?

You say that a machine can have both N-PVR and GBPVR together but I assume you have to disable the recording service on one or the other. I assume the N-PVR recording still service based?

I see also the download had got a lot smaller I guess that is what you can do with a clean sheet.