Archive:XBMC v12 (Frodo) changelog

See also: XBMC v12 (Frodo) FAQ, Frodo API changes, and Releases

XBMC Wiki copy of the XBMC v12 (Frodo) changelog.

Changelog

Live TV and PVR (Personal Video Recorder)

• Added unified Live TV and PVR frontend with a common EPG and DVR (Digital Video Recording) client GUI
• Added unified PVR backend framework and API for multiple PVR backend software from third-parties
• Added support to integrate PVR Addon's recorded TV Show Episodes and Movies with XBMC's Video Library
• Extended JSON-RPC and embedded Web Server API with PVR support to enable Web EPG in a web interface
• PVR backend clients addons availabe for many popular third-party PVR backend software:
  • PVR Demo Client dummy addon with fake backend from Team-XBMC for skinners and regression testing
  • Argus TV / ForTheRecord PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from XBMC's community
  • DVBViewer PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from XBMC's community
  • NextPVR (former GB-PVR) PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from XBMC's community
  • Njoy Digital (N7) PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from XBMC's community
  • MediaPortal PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from XBMC's community
  • MythTV PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from the XBMC's community
  • Tvheadend PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from XBMC's community
  • VDR (Video Disk Recorder) PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from XBMC's community
  • Vu+ / Enigma2 / Dreambox PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from XBMC's community

Add-ons Framework, API, and Manager

• Added addon API for homebrew DIY RGB LED Ambilight clone client software such as Boblight
• Added ability to extend XBMC's native Python API by writing C++ code generated via Groovy and SWIG
• Added support for screensavers written in Python.

GUI Engine

• Enabled Dirty Regions rendering to redraw screen on single dirty region by default on all platforms
• Added ability to run a split display resolution for GUI and video playback on embedded platforms
• Extended XBMC's GUI for PVR and EPG
• Improved touch and gesture support for all platforms
• Improved mouse support, add better control for dragging of scroll bars, and click handling
• Improvements to art handling, allowing Skinners to display multiple art types for each item, such as banners and posters for tv shows.
• Improved texture caching for GUI speedup

Platform Independent Playback

• Added software decoding of 10-bit depth H.264 profile (Hi10P) videos (requires around a core2duo or equivalent and up)
• Added HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) and M3U8 (Extended M3U) playlist support
• Added support for color and font style tags in MPL2 (MicroDVD) subtitles
• Added support for direct playback of ISO image files for Blu-ray Disc media
• Added Bluray HDMV menu support (but not BD-J / BD-Live menus)
• Improved Bluray playback support of unencrypted bdmv and mpls files without menus
• Improved deinterlacing "Weave" method for playback of interlaced video when upscaling
• Upgraded FFmpeg's libavcodec and libavformat audio/video codec and demuxer libraries
• Improved support for forced subtitles
• Added option to set a default preference for subtitles and audio tracks based on language.

Library

• Library customization that allows for custom video nodes
• Added Advanced Library Filtering for Movies, TV Shows, Music Videos, and Music views
• Improved Smart Playlists
• Added custom video library tags for Movies, TV Shows and Music Videos
• Added support for both banner and poster video art types simultaneously
• Improved performance for SQL database queries for faster browsing
• Added support for exporting video art as JPG or PNG rather than TBN file extension
• Switched to TagLib for reading metadata embedded into audio files
• Movie sets can now only be used one set per movie. See here for more info.

Scrapers

• Improved TheMovieDB.org movie scraper by automatically scraping movie sets.
• Improved TheTVDB.com (Multi-Lingual) TV Shows and Episode scraper to obtain both posters and banners for shows and seasons.

Skins

• Confluence: PVR front-end with Live TV and EPG specific windows, plus PVR stuff in OSD and GUI settings
• Touched: Improved the default touch screen skin for iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, and Android touch devices.

AudioEngine

• Added unified "AudioEngine" audio abstraction framework with an API and platform sinks

Other

• Improved CEC (Consumer Electronics Control) support for Pulse-Eight's LibCEC
• Improved AirPlay / AirTunes target support
• Improved the Audio-CD ripper that now works as a background task job
• Improved international language file translations system that are powered by Transifex
• Added a Test Suite based on Google C++ Testing Framework to make regression testing easier
• Added rich metadata support to XBMC's UPnP Media Server for UPnP/DLNA clients
• Upgraded Plutinosoft's Platinum (libplatinum) UPnP and DNLA libraries
• Improved performance of the default Web Interface (complete rewrite of JavaScript loading)
• Added WebSocket support for JSON-RPC and to Addons API
• Added basic support for PVR / EPG extensions and notifications over the JSON-RPC API
• Added SmartPlaylist Extensions and Extended Filtering in JSON-RPC
• Removed the old HTTP API in favour of the new JSON-RPC API
• Improved keymap XML files for various controls, including the Xbox 360 Controller for PC (out-of-the-box support for both Windows and Ubuntu).

Android Specific

• Added initial Android (operating system) port with multi-architecture platform support
• Added NEON (Advanced SIMD instruction set) CPU acceleration support for ARM architecture
• Added dedicated AMLPlayer video player for hardware accelerated video decoding on Amlogic
• Added support for OpenGL ES hardware accelerated rendering of XBMC's GUI engine on Android
• Added ALSA audio output sink for the new AudioEngine abstraction framework
• Added Andriod touch support

BSD Specific

• Added initial BSD (operating system) port for FreeBSD, PC-BSD, and other similar BSD platforms
• Added ALSA, OSS, and PulseAudio audio output sinks for the new AudioEngine abstraction framework
• Added VDPAU (NVIDIA) Hardware Acceleration Video Decoding support on BSD
• Added VAAPI (Video Acceleration API) Hardware Acceleration Video Decoding support on BSD

Linux Specific

• Added dedicated AMLPlayer video player for hardware accelerated video decoding on AMLogic devices
• Added dedicated OMXPlayer video player for hardware accelerated video decoding via OpenMAX IL API
• Added ALSA and PulseAudio audio output sinks for the new AudioEngine abstraction framework
• Added alternative name support to LIRC mapping for linux-input-layer devices
• Added lircmap for Conexant's CX23885 IR (infrared) recievers
• Improved ARM processor architecture (Pivos XIOS DS and Raspberry Pi as reference devices)
• Improved OpenGL ES and EGL support (Pivos XIOS DS and Raspberry Pi as reference devices)
• Improved playback with Broadcom Crystal HD PCIe/Mini-PCIe hardware accelerated video decoder
• Improved VAAPI (Video Acceleration API) support (requires VAAPI compatible hardware and drivers)
• Improved VDPAU (NVIDIA) Hardware Video Acceleration and its upscaling/deinterlacing capabilities
• Improved AMD/Intel x86-64 64-bit (AMD64 / IA-64t CPU architectures) support under Linux
• Remove all dependencies of HAL manager libraries from XBMC's code

iOS Specific

• Added CoreAudio audio output sinks for the new AudioEngine abstraction framework
• Improved H.264 hardware accelerated video decoding support decode on iOS via Apple's VideoToolBox API
• Improved support for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad
• Improved XBMC's build system to make compiling XBMC much easier
• Added iOS iDevices can now use the native iOS keyboard. Core functions only, so add-ons might still pop-up the XBMC keyboard.
• Added iOS iDevices can now use native video putout when using the Apple HDMI adapter. "A5" and above iOS devices can also mirror XBMC video to a native Apple TV 2/3 AirPlay server (but not to an XBMC AirPlay server).
• Added key repeat for ATV2
• Added navigation sound support
• Improved stylized subtitle support (ASS/SSA subtitles)

Mac OS X Specific

• Added CoreAudio audio output sinks for the new AudioEngine abstraction framework
• Add support for compiling 64-bit version of XBMC for Mac on OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and later
• Improved Apple VDADecoder Video Acceleration support (requires Snow Leopard or later)
• Improved XBMC's build system to make compiling XBMC much easier

Windows Specific

• Added DirectSound and WASAPI audio output sinks for the new AudioEngine abstraction framework