MediaPortal 0.2.1.0 Feature Release

Finally it's there! 0.2.1.0 released on Oct 21st!
We couldn't let you wait until Halloween, so here it is!

Download the new release here.

Integrating the last plugins like "My MusicVideos", "WikiPedia" and the totally revamped "Playing now" screen into the next stable patch I came to a point where a major re-sync with svn was needed. This is why we needed to test more thoroughly and call this a "feature release" and not a stable update.

Working on this release was a nice team experience as we decided to include a widescreen mod of BlueTwo - and got it ready in just 2 weeks! Special thanks go to:

• mPod for doing so much "under the hood work"; he e.g. wrote a skin converter to change all skin xml files to a desired resolution.
• Inker for upscaling most gfx to 1366x768.
• mofux for his sexy new OSD files and all those mockups
• Harley for helping with TV skin files
• Boilermaker who has done all this work on his own for the former B2 16:9 skin!

This skin is 100% identical to B2 4:3 and therefore fully supported with every new feature. "Dark lovers" should check out Harley's Project Mayhem 3 skin which is also up to date for this release.

There are looots of other changes and fixes of people who deserve a big "thank you" but I don't want to bore you - just drop by on IRC or the forums and remember we're doing this in our spare time.

Please note: This release does not contain a new skin engine nor the new TV engine. Those will follow in later releases.

A changelog will follow.

This release also contains the new, fast "BASS" audio engine offering great features like cross-fading and out-of-the-box playback of e.g. flac and musepack files.

Please note that this might not be 100% stable on every machine. If you get memory leaks or high cpu usage issues please try switching to the internal dshow player.

 

This release doesn't have any relation or impact on the upcoming tv-engine ;-)

I plan on releasing at least one further patch for this release containing features which are almost finished but maybe not ready for prime time yet:

• Visualization support via BASS

• New Tag reader for many file types

• New home menu plugin with nice animations

• Last.fm radio stream plugin

• Further BlueTwo skin improvements

Last but not least I want to express my thanks for ronilse and the test team who are a big help hunting down those nasty bugs ;)