Dune Firmware Zone

Dune HD Base 2.0

- Bugfix: removed misleading setup option "Cinema mode".

- Bugfix: "Add to main screen" function did not work in most cases.

- Much faster start/stop of playback of video and audio files, w/o video output reinitialization.  
   - NOTE: If autoframerate feature is used, video output reinitialization may still be performed.
   - NOTE: Playback of DVD/Blu-ray discs/images still requires video output reinitilization in any case.

- Added a possibility to record Internet radio stations (HTTP/MP3 and HTTP/AAC).
   - Recording of Internet radio works exactly the same way as recording of IPTV:
     ensure there is a storage attached, and press PLAY RC button to start/stop recording during playback.
   - Each recording is saved into its own file inside "InetRadio_recordins" folder in the main storage.

- Added a special support for watching (and also recording) network/Internet video streams which use HTTP protocol and TS format, with improved buffering approach.
   - To start watching such a video stream, launch a special "http://ts://......" URL in the player (e.g. using dune_folder.txt/media_url).
   - During watching, press PLAY to start/stop recording (ensure a storage is attached).
   - Each recording is saved into its own file inside "MTS_recordings" folder in the main storage.

- Added a possibility to sort files in the file browser.
   - Usage: press MENU, choose "Sorting", choose sorting criteria and direction, press "OK".
   - NOTE: Saving the sorting setting is not supported yet.

- Added support for APE ("monkey audio") audio files.

- Added support for OGG/Vorbis audio files.

- Added support for Vorbis audiotracks in MKV files.

- Added support for external OGG/Vorbis audiotracks.

- Added support for PGS subtitles in MKV files.

- Added support for VobSub subtitles in MKV files.

- Added support for WMA audiotracks in MKV files.

- Added support for correct playback of specific 120fps MKV files.

- Added support for external SSA/ASS subtitles (file extensions ".ssa", ".ass").

- Added support for playback of TS files with ".mod" and ".tos" extensions (used by some models of digital camcoders). 

- Added support for specific TS files which were previously unsupported (audio-only files, files with certain information missing, etc).

- Added a new zoom preset for file playback: "fill screen" (convenient for watching 4:3 broadcasts with nonlinear stretching to 16:9).

- Added a possibility to put link to any folder/file/media resource directly to the main screen.
   - Requirement: system storage should be attached (it is used to store the list of links and the associated icons).
   - Usage instructions:
      - Select any folder/file/media resource in the file browser, press MENU, choose "Add to main screen" in the popup menu.
        A new item will be added to the main screen.
        If the added item has an associated custom icon, the icon will be copied and used when showing the item on the main screen.
      - To delete the added item from the main screen: choose it in the main screen, press CLEAR or choose MENU / "Delete Shortcut".

- Added support for BIG5 and GB2312 encodings (in all places -- subtitles, playlists, etc).

- Added dune_folder.txt feature: a possibility to specify the initial playback position in the playlist for media_url pointing to a playlist.
   - Syntax:
      - media_url = 
      - media_start_index = 
   - NOTE: This feature is useful for implement series support in movies-collection management solutions.

- Added dune_folder.txt feature: a possibility to specify scale factor not only for the primary icon, but also for the selected icon.
   - Syntax:
      - icon_sel_scale_factor = ...
   - NOTE: This feature allows to implement the "selected icon has bigger size" effect w/o need to prepare two different icons.

- Added dune_folder.txt feature: a possibility to force "list" and "extended list" view modes for a folder.
   - Syntax:
      - use_icon_view = list
      - use_icon_view = exlist

- Added dune_folder.txt feature: a possibility to specify what to do when media_url refers to a folder: open the folder for browsing, start playback of folder content, or ask use.
   - Syntax:
      - media_action = browse|play|ask_user

- Added dune_folder.txt feature: support for showing "virtual" items on the screen.
   - The dune_folder.txt in a folder can define a list of virtual items, which are shown in addition to the files/subfolders actually residing in this folder (if any).
   - Syntax ( is the index of the virtual item: 0, 1, 2, ...):
      - item..caption = ...
      - item..media_url = ...
      - item..icon_path = ... (NOTE: HTTP links to images can be used)
      - item..<...> = ... (any other parameters affecting the look and behavior of the media item)

- Added support for working with external catalogs of resources ("virtual filesystems") in the file browser.
   - When dune_folder.txt/media_url points to a HTTP URL using  "dune_http://..." syntax instead of the normal "http://..." syntax,
     such a HTTP URL is handled by the player as a "virtual folder", which can be opened and navigated similarly to how local and NFS/SMB folders can be opened/navigated.
   - The "dune_http" HTTP URL should return dune_folder.txt describing the content of the virtual folder using the mechanism of "virtual items".
   - Each virtual item can be either a reference to a particular media resource, or a "dune_http" reference to a nested virtual subfolder.

- Extended support for VBR MP3 files (added duration detection and seek possibilities).

- Extended the lists of supported encodings for EXT2/EXT3 and NFS (added all encodings supported in other places).

- Improved detection and handling of files which have unsupported file format or can not be opened.
   - Now, when encountering such a file, the player shows a message for a several seconds before skipping the file. Fixed some other bugs with handling of unsupported file formats.

- Improved DHCP client behavior: when the player send a DHCP request, it announces it as "Dune" (instead of using an empty name).

- Improved compatibility with some Blu-ray discs.

- Improved seek performance in specific MKV files.

- Improved LPCM output over HDMI when playing TS files (some issues fixed).

- Improved zoom handling for file and DVD playback: pressing CLEAR resets zoom settings to the defaults.

- Improved online upgrade function: more robust deletion of temporarily downloaded files.

- Improved antialiasing algorithm used for text rendering.

- Improved file browser responsiveness and performance in specific cases.

- Included the fix for the problem with media playback/reading pausing for several seconds.

- Improved handling of low-bitrate audio (less than 32Khz) during file playback (some issues fixed).

- Improved autoframerate: allow to switch to 23.976/24p from interlaced video modes when 24/50/60 autoframerate mode is used).

- Improved Internet radio playback: implemented more robust handling of HTTP connections.

- Improved component video output (prefering "SMPTE" standard instead of "M2"; should fix the problems with bad colors when component video output is chosen in Setup).

- Improved support for output of high quality PCM audio though digital audio outputs (S/PDIF and HDMI):
   - Relaxed software limitations on the sample rate (to the level allowed by the hardware). 
   - Introduced a new setting allowing to limit maximum sample rate for compatibility with particular S/PDIF cables and A/V receivers.
   - NOTE: For compatibility with all S/PDIF cables and A/V receivers, the limit is set to 48 Khz by default.

- Bugfix: in Blu-ray playback, 1921x1081 scaling was wrongly used, leading to slightly decreased picture quality.

- Bugfix: huge BD ISO could not be played properly (problem at ~40 min).

- Bugfix: network folders of different types (e.g. SMB and NFS) and having the same names did not work properly.

- Bugfix: some PCM WAV files were playing with a slight noise in the beginning.

- Bugfix: opening SMB share using guest account could not work in some cases.

- Bugfix: when reading/playing content from a SMB share, an error could occur in some rare cases.

- Bugfix: default choosing of internal audiotrack in TS files could not work (manual audio track switching could be required).

- Bugfix: external subtitles could be not available when starting file playback in specific ways (e.g. via network browser).

- Bugfix: UTF16-encoded external subtitles could be handled wrongly in specific cases.

- Bugfix: wrong information about audiocodec could be displayed when playing ASF/WMA file in specific cases.

- Bugfix: AC3 audiotracks in TS files could be decoded wrongly in specific cases.

- Bugfix: FIP button presses could cause duplicate actions in specific cases.

- Bugfix: loading invalid/corrupted user-created icon files (via dune_folder.txt) could be handled wrongly.

- Bugfix: during file playback, if specific zoom settings were used, switching to the next file in the playlist could cause wrong zoom settings/handling.

- Some menu languages added/updated.

- Various other minor fixes and improvements.

NOTE: This version has very few differences (mostly bugfixes) from the
previously released 100307_2100_beta version. This firmware version is
considered to be the most stable and bug free version in comparison with
any previously released firmware versions, and thus is recommended to
everyone. New big features and further improvements will be included into
future beta versions. 

- Some menu languages updated/improved.

- Minor improvements in the player boot procedure; popup dialog for
  choosing menu interface language is now shown when booting the player for
  the first time (when player settings are not initialized yet).

- Bugfix: white vertical line consisting could be visible on the right side
  of the screen in some cases.

- Bugfix: switching to another item in the playlist could lead to playback
  crash (e.g. when switching between IPTV channels).

- Bugfix: picture adjustments could be handled in a wrong way during file
  playback when autoframerate was used.

- Bugfix: specific TS files could be handled wrongly.

- Bugfix: the player could hang when starting the upgrade process, if the
  player was busy with some activity (e.g. torrent client running, access
  to the player from network, etc). (Workaround was needed: before starting
  the upgrade process, disable torrent client and disconnect the player
  from network.)

- Bugfix: the player could hang after succesfull finishing of the upgrade
  process (if Extra Applications were updated during the upgrade).
  (Workaround was needed: reboot the player manually using power switch.)

NOTE: This firmware version includes quite a lot of internal code changes,
and, despite a lot of preliminary testing performed, there are good chances
that some functions may not function correctly under specific
circumstances. The most probable areas where things may be broken are:
   - File browser (working with network shares, "dune_folder.txt"
     mechanism, and any other file browser features).
   - File playback.
   - DVD and BD playback (especially when autoframerate is switched on).
   - USB WiFi.

- Improvements for autoframerate:

   - Implemented autoframerate also for DVD-Video and Blu-ray content (in
     addition to autoframerate previously supported for files only).
      - Supported for both optical discs and disc images.
      - For DVD-Video, supports switching between 50 and 59.94 framerates
        (no support for switching to 23.976 on NTSC pulldown content).
      - For Blu-ray, supports all framerates (including 24p).
      - If a disc consists of multiple fragments with different framerates,
        framerate switching is automatically performed also when switching
        between disc fragments.

- Improvements for subtitles support:

   - Added support for PGS (Blu-ray) subtitles in M2TS/TS files. It is now
     possible to use Blu-ray subtitles not only playing full BD-images, but
     also when playing individual M2TS files.

   - Added support for external subtitles in SUB/IDX format.

   - Added support for UTF-16 encoding in SRT and SUB (MicroDVD) external
     subtitle files.

- Improvements for USB WiFi support:

   - Upgraded WiFi driver for RALink RT2870/RT2770 chipsets to the latest
     available version 2.3.0.0, and allowed the use of all USB WiFi devices
     supported by this driver (66 USB-IDs in total).

   - See here for more details on the
     supported USB hardware.

- Improvements for working with network shares:

   - Added a new function "Add to Main Screen" for SMB shares in SMB
     browser. Allows to easily add a new network folder corresponding to a
     SMB share to the main screen. NOTE: Supported for the SMB shares only,
     not supported for other items in SMB browser (SMB workgroups, SMB
     servers, or folders inside SMB shares).

   - Implemented a better scanning for available SMB workgroups and hosts
     in SMB browser. Now, there are more chances that SMB resources are
     found immediately, w/o the need to wait or restart network components.
     (This should fix the problems such as certain SMB workgroups sometimes
     visible, and sometimes not visible.)

   - In SMB browser, all printer shares are now excluded from the list of
     SMB shares (previously, some printer shares could be shown).

   - Added showing drive information (total/used/available space) in the
     "Information" dialog for network shares (the network share should be
     in the "connected" state).

   - Added a possibility to explicitly "disconnect" (i.e. unmount) a
     mounted NFS or SMB share. Press INFO on a connected network folder, or
     on a connected SMB share in SMB browser, and then choose "Disconnect".

   - Bugfix: Iw was impossible to access SMB shares on a SMB server after
     deleting some files from another SMB share on the same SMB server.

   - The Setup option "Fast SMB Access" (introduced in the previous beta
     firmware versions) is now disabled by default (since some users
     reports problems when using this options with some SMB servers).
      - NOTE: When upgrading to this firmware version from one of two
        previous beta firmware versions, the value of this option is kept.
        If you experience any problems with SMB access from the player,
        please manually disable this option.

- Improvements for bookmarks:

   - Reenabled a simple support for bookmarks when using playlists (the
     initial version of such a support introduced in 091211_1311_beta was
     disabled in 091229_1411_beta, and now a more reasonable implementation
     is provided):
      - When starting playing a playlist (e.g. by presssing PLAY button on a
        file in a folder containing several files), the bookmark is
        checked/used for the initial file in the playlist.
      - When stopping playing a playlist, the bookmark is saved for the
        current file in the playlist (so, by pressing PLAY on this file, the
        playback can be later resumed from the saved bookmark).
      - When switching between files in the playlist, bookmarks are neither
        checked/used nor saved (as in the previous firmware version).
      - The Setup options for disabling autoresume for video/audio files
        influence both individual files and playlists.
      - NOTE: Full-fledged support for playlist bookmarks (remember
        bookmark for the entire playlist) is still absent; will be
        addressed in future firmware versions.

- Improvements for IPTV support:

   - Added support for viewing the list of audiotracks and switching
     between them when watching IPTV (multicast UDP) channels.

- Added online firmware check/upgrade function:

   - A new Setup section "Miscellaneous / Firmware Upgrade" allows to
     conveniently check for the presence of new firmware version directly
     from the player, and, if a new version is available, automatically
     download and install it (w/o the need to use a PC to download the
     firmware upgrade file).

   - Also, if the player is connected to Internet, the player periodically
     automatically checks for the new firmware updates, and when one
     becomes available, informs the user about it and proposes to
     download/install it.

   - System Storage or any other attached storage can be used as a
     temporary location to download a firmware from Internet; if no
     writable storage with enough free space is found, the user is prompted
     to attach one.

   - When downloading a firmware from Internet, progress is indicated, and
     a possibility to stop/cancel the download is provided.

   - Advanced users can fine-tune various online upgrade settings via Setup
     menu: enable/disable checking for non-stable (beta) versions,
     enable/disable automatic checking.

- "dune_folder.txt" mechanism improvements:

   - Added support for "smb://...", "nfs://...", and "network_folder://..."
     media_url values, allowing to reference media content on SMB and NFS
     network shares.
      - Syntax:
         - "smb://[user[:password]@]host/share/path"
            - "user" and "password" are optional.
            - "host" can be IP-address, DNS-name, or SMB-name of SMB server.
            - "share" is SMB share name.
            - Example: "smb://10.0.0.1/MYSHARE/folder/file1.avi"
         - "nfs://host[:/export-path]:/path"
            - "host" can be IP-address or DNS-name of NFS server.
            - "export-path" is optional; when omitted, the player tries to
              automatically deduce it from the specified "path" (by
              analyzing all NFS-exports of the NFS-server). For better
              performance and correct working, it is recommended to always
              explicitly specify "export-path".
            - Example (w/o explicitly specified "export-path"):
              "nfs://10.0.0.1:/MYSHARE/folder/file1.avi"
            - Example (with explicitly specified "export-path"):
              "nfs://10.0.0.1:/MYSHARE:/folder/file1.avi"
         - "network_folder://network-folder-name/path"
            - "network-folder-name" is the name of network folder
              econfigured in the player.
            - Example: "network_folder://MYSHARE/folder/file1.avi"
      - So, it is now possible to use "dune_folder.txt" to organize links
        (e.g. Media Collection Indexes) pointing not only to any locally
        attached storage devices, but also to any network resources
        accessible via NFS or SMB.
      - Network URLs are supported for all kinds of content: regular media
        files (video, audio, photo), DVD-images (VIDEO_TS, ISO), BD-Images
        (BDMV, ISO).
      - Such network URLs are also supported in playlist files (M3U, PLS).
      - The network shares are automounted by the player on-the-fly as
        needed; when using "smb://" and "nfs://" URLs, there is no need to
        manually configure the corresponding network folders.
      - When playing a playlist consisting of items pointing to different
        network shares, the player automatically unmounts/mounts network
        shares as needed (in particular, it correctly unmounts a SMB share
        before accessing another SMB share pointing to the same SMB server,
        in order to avoid the limitation that Linux kernel can not work
        with multiple SMB shares of the same SMB server simultanesouly).

   - Added the following new "dune_folder.txt" parameters:

      - "system_files = {pattern1}[,{pattern2}...]".
         - Allows to specify which files should be treated as system and
           thus hidden (when "Hide system files = Yes" option is enabled in
           Setup).
         - Each "pattern" can be the exact name of file/folder, or a
           pattern including wildcards ("*" means any sequence of
           characters, "?" means any single character).

      - "media_url_check = (yes|no)" (default is "no").
         - Allows to specify whether the player should try to check if the
           "media_url" is valid and points to an existing file when
           painting the item corresponding to this media folder, and also
           determine a suitable icon to show (e.g. video file, audio file);
           if the "media_url" is not valid, the item is painted in the
           "dimmed" way. Such a check may reduce browsing performance, so
           it is now disabled by default, and this new parameter allows to
           reenable it.

   - Added support for specifying "dune_folder.txt" parameters which affect
     not just the current folder, but also subfolders.
      - This allows to provide custom look for the entire folder
        hieararchies (e.g. all folders on a HDD) just by creating a single
        "dune_folder.txt" file in the root of the folder hierarchy.
      - Almost any "dune_folder.txt" parameter can now be prefixed in the
        following way:
         - "direct_children.{parameter} = {value}"
         - "level2_children.{parameter} = {value}"
         - "all_children.{parameter} = {value}"
      - When "{value}" is a relative path to some file, the following
        syntax can be used to specify how the relative path should be
        resolved:
         - "rel_path://{relative-path}": treat path relatively to each
           particular subfolder (default).
         - "cur_path://{relative-path}": treat path relatively to the
           parent folder (i.e. the folder where "dune_folder.txt" file is
           located).

- Other improvements and bugfixes:

   - Improvement: Windows 7 Recycle Bin folder is considered to be system
     file and is hidden by default.

   - Minor improvement for the "Hard Disk" icon.

   - Improved progress indication when preparing to play and building large
     playlists.

   - Bugfix: Audio could be absent when playing specific TS files.

   - Bugfix: When accessing Dune from a Windows PC via SMB, "dir" command in
     Windows shell could work wrongly (filename case sensitivity problem; now
     Dune's SMB server treats all filenames w/o case sensitivity).

   - Bugfix: Photo viewer could hang up in specific rare cases.

   - Bugfix: Optical disc eject was wrongly allowed when running file read
     test on a file located on the optical disc.

   - Bugfix: JPEG images (assigned via dune_folder.txt) could be displayed
     wrongly in the right panel of the file browser (when using "Extended
     List" view mode).

   - Bugfix: screensaver could become non-functioning after using photo
     viewer.

   - Added Thai characters into fonts (adds support for Thai language in
     filenames and subtitles).

   - Added more menu languages: Greek, Danish, Czech. Some other languages
     updated/improved.

- Bookmarks improvements:
   - File bookmarks are disabled when playing playlists, they are used only
     when playing individual files (press ENTER on a file).
   - The setting "Miscellaneous / Playback / Autoresume video files" allows
     to completely disable bookmarks for video files.
   - The setting "Miscellaneous / Playback / Autoresume audio files" allows
     to completely disable bookmarks for audio files.
   - The setting "Miscellaneous / Playback / Autoresume DVD" allows to
     completely disable bookmarks for DVD discs and DVD-folders/ISO-images.

- Added a support for tags in audio files (MP3, FLAC, WMA, M4A).
   - When tags are detected, they are automatically shown for the currently
     played file during music playback. The supports tags include: title,
     artist, album, track, year, comment.
   - The setting "Miscellaneous / Playback / Audio file tags" allows to
     disable reading and showing the tags (could be helpful e.g. if it does
     not work properly for some files).
   - Both Unicode and 8-bit tags are supported. The setting "Miscellaneous
     / Encodings / MP3 tag encoding" allows to force the specified encoding
     for tags in MP3 files.

- When music playback starts, a hint about INFO and MENU buttons is
  displayed (INFO -- show details about the current track, MENU -- show the
  playlist).

- Added full support for discrete power-off and power-on IR commands.
   - IR hex codes:
      - DISCRETE-POWER-ON: 00 BF 5F A0 
      - DISCRETE-POWER-OFF: 00 BF 5E A1
   - The DISCRETE-POWER-ON IR command is handled exactly as POWER RC button
     when the player is in the standby mode, and is ignored when the player
     is turned on.
   - The DISCRETE-POWER-OFF IR command is handled exactly as POWER RC
     button when the player is turned on, and is ignored when the player is
     in the standby mode.
   - If the player is configured to perform full power-off instead of
     entering software standby, the DISCRETE-POWER-OFF and
     DISCRETE-POWER-ON commands perform full power-off and power-on.

- Added a possibility to easily format a non-initialized drive (e.g. HDD)
  just by pressing ENTER of the drive item on the main screen.

- "dune_folder.txt": "background_order" parameter now supports the
  following set of values (instead of "first" and "last" as took place in
  the previous firmware version):
   - "before_all": the same as "first" in the previous firmware version.
   - "before_icons": the same as "last" in the previous firmware version.
   - "after_all": a new option, allowing to paint the custom background
     after everything else (including file icons).

- "dune_folder.txt": added a possibility to hide file icons (w/o using
  dummy fully-transparent icon). Syntax:
   - "paint_icons = no" (default is "yes").

- Added more menu languages: Hungarian, Polish. Some other languages
  updated/improved.

- The configuration of built-in FTP server adjusted to allow "FXP"
  transfers.

- Added support for playback of video files with ".trp" extension (no more
  need to rename them).

- Improved the speed of startup of specific MKV files, which previously
  could take too long to start (that could even be considered by the user
  as hangup in some cases).

- Bugfix: playing a file with an unknown length (such as MP3 with VBR
  bitrate) caused playback crash (this bug was introduced in the previous
  beta firmware version).

- Bugfix: playing/reading files from SMB share could crash in some cases
  (the bug introduced by SMB optimizations in the previous beta firmware
  version) (plus some other SMB-related bugs fixed).

- Bugfix: returning to file browser (e.g. after playback) caused crash if
  current folder had dune_folder.txt with custom background image.

- Bugfix: specific Blu-ray images could not be played in some cases.

- Bugfix: after switching to TrueHD audiotrack in MKV file, stuttering
  could take place in specific cases.

- Bugfix: "dune_folder.txt" / "paint_captions = no" did not work properly
  in some cases (when the filename was too long and scrolled, it was shown
  despite this setting).

- Added more conveniency for working with subtitles and audiotracks during
  file and DVD playback:

   - Added the setting "Misc / Playback / Enable subtitles by default for
     files" which allows to choose one of the following settings:
      - "No" -- do not use subtitles by default.
      - "Yes" -- always use subtitles by default if any subtitles exist
        (internal or external).
      - "Internal only" -- if internal subtitles exist, use them by
        default.
      - "External only" (default) -- if external subtitles exist, use them
        by default.

   - Added the setting "Misc / Playback / Default subtitles preference"
     with choices "Internal" and "External" (default), which controls which
     kind of subtitles have priority if "Enable subtitles by default for
     files" is set to "Yes" and both internal and external subtitles exist.

   - Added the setting "Misc / Playback / Quick toggling of single
     subtitles" (enabled by default), which enables special behavior of
     SUBTITLE RC button when there is only one subtitles track: instead of
     showing the usual subtitles menu, the SUBTITLE RC button allows to
     quickly toggle this single subtitles track (select / deselect it). To
     enter the subtitles setup, press SUBTITLE and then SETUP.

   - Added a new possibility to conveniently and quickly show/hide the
     currently selected subtitles track (even if there are multiple
     subtitles) just by pressing the RC button "D" (blue).
      - When a subtitles track is selected, the "D" RC button toggles the
        visibility of the currently selected subtitles.
      - When selecting a subtitles track from the subtitles menu, the "D"
        RC button allows to select the subtitles track but hide it
        initially (until the "D" RC button is pressed during playback to
        show the subtitles).

   - Added the setting "Misc / Playback / "ENTER" closes subtitles/audio
     menu" (enabled by default). When enabled, selecting a track from the
     menu of available subtitles/audio tracks (by pressing "ENTER" RC
     button, or also "D" RC button for subtitles), automatically closes the
     menu (instead of keeping it shown).

- Added bookmarks functionality also for file playback (previously worked
  only for DVD playback).
   - Bookmarks work similarly to how they work for DVD playback: when
     stopping playback of a file, the current position is remembered and
     then automatically resumed when the file is played again; the bookmark
     is automatically deleted when the file is played till the very end;
     bookmarks are remembered for up to ~200 files.
   - NOTE: you can press "0" (jump to 0%) to quickly start file playback
     from the very beginning, if bookmark was used.
   - NOTE: there is no yet ability to disable bookmarks or confirm bookmark
     usage, possibility to review recent bookmarks, etc.
   - NOTE: still no support for generic Blu-ray bookmarks (only standard
     bookmarking possibilities provided by some Blu-ray discs on their own
     are supported).

- Added zoom functionality for photo viewer.
   - Instructions:
      - Use P+/P- to zoom-in/zoom-out.
      - Use arrows to scroll through the zoomed picture.
      - Use ZOOM to toggle through "fit to screen", "pixel to pixel", and
        "custom" zoom modes.
      - NOTE: Any zoom action shows ZOOM information box, which is
        automatically hidden after some period of user inactivity. Press
        ENTER or RETURN to hide it immediately.
      - NOTE: Any zoom action pauses the slideshow. To resume the
        slideshow, press PLAY.
   - NOTE: When working with photos having very high resolution (much
     bigger than FullHD 1920x1080), photo viewer initially loads photos
     with a reduced resolution (minimal resolution which is enough to
     ensure excellent photo quality on FullHD display, in order to speedup
     things); after zooming into the picture, photo viewer initially shows
     the already loaded version of the picture (with reduced resolution),
     and then automatically loads and shows the version of the picture with
     full resolution in background (so it may take some seconds to show the
     best quality photo in zoom mode).

- Added time search (go to HH:MM:SS) functionality also for file playback
  and DVD playback (previously was provided only for bluray playback, while
  for file/DVD playback it was only possible to use +/-10sec/1min/10min
  navigation).
   - Instructions:
      - Press SEARCH, enter HH:MM:SS, then press ENTER.
      - When entering HH:MM:SS, the following RC buttons are available:
        ENTER, RETURN, CLEAR, LEFT, RIGHT.
   - NOTE: the "Quick Play" feature is still available, the same way as
     before: quickly press SEARCH, then PLAY.

- Added more font sizes for text subtitles (file playback) in addition to
  "small" and "medium": "large" (+25%), "x-large" (+50%), "xx-large"
  (+100%).
   - NOTE: This feature is intended primarily for relatively small screens
     (or for relatively big viewing distance).

- Added a possibility to switch between Internet Radio stations, IPTV
  channels, or other streamable media (where time search is not supported)
  via P+/P- buttons. Instructions:
   - Launch the playlist with streamable media sources in the usual way,
     then use P+/P- buttons instead or in addition to the usual NEXT/PREV
     buttons.

- Various playback and file format compatibility improvements:

   - Performance of network playback from SMB servers further improved
     (effective data transfer rate is now up to 20% bigger, and may be even
     comparable to NFS, so even playback from problematic SMB servers
     should work better now).

   - Bugfix: specific Bluray images could not be played properly.

   - Bugfix: specific DVD-Video discs with MPEG audio streams could not be
     played properly.

   - Bugfix: specific DVD-Video discs could not be played properly.

   - Bugfix: playing TS files in a loop (more than 40 repeats) could cause
     playback crash or hangup.

   - Bugfix: MKV and MP4/MOV files with multichannel AAC+SBR audiotracks
     could not be played because of unsupported AAC+SBR audiotrack. Now,
     such unsupported audiotrack is simply excluded from the list of
     audiotracks and file playback is possible.

- General/miscellaneous improvements:

   - Added more menu languages: Italian, Romanian, Spanish. Some other
     languages updated/improved.

   - Added a warning when the user attempts to choose non-recommended
     settings in the "System" setup section.

   - Improvement: FTP server and SMB server applications running on Dune
     consume less processing power during playback now (their "nice" level
     increased).

   - Improvement: switching directly to the main menu in file browser (via
     RC button STOP/REPEAT/TITLE/TOP-MENU) works slightly faster now.

   - Change: "IPTV" and "Internet Radio" items are now always shown on the
     main screen when they are enabled in the "Applications" setup section
     (even if their configuration is missing). To remove these items from
     the main creen, disable them in the setup.

   - Bugfix: setting "HDMI audio" to "off" caused wrong colorspace on HDMI
     video output (purple/absent/distorted picture).

   - Bugfix: after playing a video/music file from UPnP server and then
     returning to file browser, an empty folder content could be shown in
     specific rare cases.

   - Bugfix: initialization of System Storage during firmware update could
     not work for partitionless USB flash drives.

- Various "dune_folder.txt" mechanism improvements:

   - Added support for images files not only in Dune-specific AAI file
     format, but also in BMP, PNG, JPG, and GIF formats.
      - NOTE: For BMP and PNG formats (as well as AAI), transparancy and
        alphachannel are supported.
      - NOTE: The performance of reading images from various file formats
        may differ, depending on the exact file format, image resolution,
        and media source kind (e.g. local or network disk). In most cases,
        AAI and BMP are the recommended formats having the best
        performance. If you need a standard and widely used image file
        format with tranparancy/alphachannel support and good performance
        on Dune, use BMP.

   - Added progress indication during loading of custom background image
     when image loading takes a while (could take place e.g. when loading
     FullHD 1920x1080 background from a network media source).

   - Added a possibility to show just icons w/o captions (filenames) below
     them. Syntax:
      - "paint_captions = no" (default is "yes").

   - Added a possibility to hide the "path box" (the box showing the path
     to the current folder at the top of the screen). Syntax:
      - "paint_path_box = no" (default is "yes").

   - Added a possibility to hide the scrollbar. Syntax:
      - "paint_scrollbar = no" (default is "yes").

   - Added a possibility to hide the "help line" ("CONTROLS: ..." text at
     the bottom of the screen). Syntax:
      - "paint_help_line = no" (default is "yes").

   - Added a possibility to hide the "icon selection box" (a frame around
     an icon indicating that the icon is selected).
     Syntax:
      - "paint_icon_selection_box = no" (default is "yes").

   - Added a possibility to not paint the shaded background for the
     "content box" (the area listing icons). Syntax:
      - "paint_content_box_background = no" (default is "yes").

   - Added a possibility to alter the location and internal padding for the
     "content box" (the area listing icons). Syntax:
      - "content_box_x = ..." (>=0, -1 means default = auto).
      - "content_box_y = ..." (>=0, -1 means default = auto).
      - "content_box_width = ..." (>0, -1 means default = auto).
      - "content_box_height = ..." (>0, -1 means default = auto).
      - "content_box_padding_left = ..." (>=0, default = 20).
      - "content_box_padding_top = ..." (>=0, default = 20).
      - "content_box_padding_right = ..." (>=0, default = 20).
      - "content_box_padding_bottom = ..." (>=0, default = 20).

   - Added new options for altering the way custom background is painted.
     Syntax:
      - "background_order = first/last". Here:
         - "first" means paint custom background before "path_box",
           "content_box", and "help_line" (i.e. under these elements).
         - "last" (default) means paint custom background after these
           elements (i.e. over them).
      - "optimize_full_screen_background = yes" (default is "no"). "yes" is
        reasonable to specify in order to slightly improve the performance
        in the following cases:
         - Custom background image is full-screen (1920x1080) solid image
           (w/o transparent pixels).
         - "background_order = first".

   - Added a possibility to paint a custom scrollbar using a user-defined
     image file. Syntax:
      - "scroll_path = {image-path}"
      - "scroll_x = ..." (>=0, -1 means default = auto)
      - "scroll_y = ..." (>=0, -1 means default = auto)
      - "scroll_height = ..." (>0, -1 means default = auto)

   - Added a possibility to paint custom "mark" icons (icons used when
     marking files via SELECT RC button, e.g. to select items for the
     playlist) using a user-defined image file. Syntax:
      - "mark_path = {image-path}"
      - "mark_dx = ..." (-960..960)
      - "mark_dy = ..." (-540..540)

- Added a possibility for vertical shifting of video area (move up/down)
  during file playback. Instructions:
   - Press ZOOM, enter custom zoom mode, then use V+/V- RC buttons to
     perform vertical shifting.

- File playback improvements:

   - Improved speed of opening specific MPEG-TS files, which previously
     could take too much time to open (especially when playing them from
     network).

   - Added support for MPEG-TS files having no PMT/PAT tables, which
     previously could not be played.

   - Added support for correct playback of specific TS files (with invalid
     TS packets and some other specific files), which previously could not
     be played properly.

   - Improved scrolling in audiotracks and subtitles menus in specific
     cases.

   - Improved RC/menus responsiveness when playing streaming audio (e.g.
     Internet Radio).

   - Bugfix: autoframerate did not work correctly for specific TS/H.264
     files (such as Sky_1080i-50.ts).

   - Bugfix: wrong number of PCM channels could be output to receiver
     during file playback (e.g. stereo MP3) after switching to a next
     playlist item.

   - Bugfix: file playback could crash when switching from internal TrueHD
     audiotrack to an external auditrack in specific cases.

   - Bugfix: switching from external audiotrack to internal audiotrack
     could lead to no sound when playing specific MPEG-PS files.

   - Bugfix: audiotrack switching during file playback did not work
     properly in specific other cases.

   - Bugfix: audiotracks detection (for file playback) did not work
     properly in specific cases.

   - Bugfix: playback could stop accidentally or some other unexpected
     actions could be performed in specific rare cases.

- DVD playback improvements:

   - Bugfix: fixed various problems with audio output during DVD playback
     (including those introduced in the previous beta firmware
     090731_1629_beta).

   - Bugfix: DVD playback worked wrongly in specific rare cases.

- Blu-ray playback improvements:

   - Bugfix: RETURN and SETUP RC buttons did not work properly during
     bluray playback in specific rare cases.

   - Bugfix: mute indication did not work properly for bluray playback in
     specific rare cases.

- Photo viewer improvements:

   - Added a possibility to view photo files via UPnP (previously was
     supported for all kinds of media sources except UPnP).

- File browser improvements:

   - Added a possibility to open and browse a playlist file (M3U, PLS) by
     pressing "0" RC button also when browsing files on a UPnP share
     (previously was supported in all cases except UPnP).

   - Quick switch to the main screen in file browser is now possible not
     only using STOP/REPEAT RC buttons, but also using TOP-MENU RC button
     (for 2.0+ Dune RC) and TITLE RC button (for 1.0 Silver Dune RC).

   - Improved handling of STOP/REPEAT/TITLE/TOP-MENU RC buttons in the
     Torrents screen: not just return to file browser, but also go to the
     main menu (the same as in file browser).

   - Bugfix: player could hang up trying to recognize label/UUID of
     specific optical discs. Now, for FTP and SMB access to Dune, optical
     discs in optical drives can be accessed via simple names
     "optical_drive", "optical_drive2", etc, instead of more complicated
     unique names used before.

   - Bugfix: file browser rejected to open SMB share in specific rare
     cases.

- "dune_folder.txt" mechanism improvements:

   - Added a possibility to use HTTP URLs in dune_folder.txt for icon_path
     and background_path.

   - Bugfix: no icons shown when using dune_folder.txt with "num_rows = 1"
     and the path to the current folder shown at the top of the screen is
     too long. Now, the icons are downscaled automatically as needed to fit
     into the visible area.

   - Bugfix: the handling of ENTER RC button on media folders (folders with
     dune_folder.txt with media_url) is rolled back to the behavior which
     took place in the previous stable firmware (090626_1828) (always
     perform PLAY for both folders with media files and Blu-ray/DVD video
     folders) instead of the behavior wrongly introduced in the previous
     beta firmware (090731_1629_beta) (OPEN folder with media files, and
     OPEN/ASK USER/PLAY Blu-ray/DVD video folders).

   - Bugfix: dune_folder.txt and playlist files could not be read in
     specific cases (such as from a NFS share) when non-ascii characters
     were used in file/folder path.

- General/miscellaneous improvements:

   - Added showing of the actual video resolution/framerate in Setup /
     Video when Auto/EDID video mode is chosen.

   - Added more interface languages: French, German, Dutch, Ukrainian.

   - Bugfix: player settings could be lost in specific rare cases.

   - Bugfix: System Storage on HDD partition did not work fully properly
     (torrent client autostart on boot did not work, SMB server did not
     work).

   - Bugfix: launching firmware upgrade using a DFF file with whitespace in
     its path did not work.

- Integrated a new version of Sigma Blu-ray SDK:
   - This solves all currently known compatibility problems with new
     Blu-ray discs.

- Added autoframerate feature (an initial version):
   - A new setting added: "Setup / Video / Auto framerate" with possible
     values "Disabled" (default), "50/60Hz" and "24/50/60Hz".
   - Autoresolution is not yet supported, only autoframerate is supported.
   - Supported only for file playback; no yet support for DVD playback and
     Blu-ray playback.
   - Supported only for HDMI 720p/1080i/1080p video modes.
   - Source framerate detection is implemented for most of the supported
     container formats and videocodecs (although it is not guaranteed to
     work correctly with each particular file).
   - 23.976 vs 24.0, 59.94 vs 60.0 are distinguished and handled correctly.
   - When playing a playlist of files with different framerates, video
     output is reconfigured before playback of each file in the playlist.
   - The currently used video mode and video output framerate are reported
     during playback in INFO OSD.

- Completely rewritten file browser engine:
   - All existing user-visible functionality of the file browser is
     preserved, but the internally used engine is almost completely
     reworked to make it much more flexible and powerful. This allows allow
     to introduce various additional functionality (such as browsing lists
     of SMB/NFS shares, browsing UPnP resources, browsing content of
     playlist files, browsing content of Audio CD discs, browsing content
     of RAR and other archives, etc). The new egnine allows to implement
     all additional functionality in a way consistent with already existing
     functionality, reusing all advanced features and possibilities of the
     file browser, such as:
      - Convenient and fast navigation through the hierarchy of
        folders/objects.
      - Showing the path to the current folder/object in the title bar and
        allowing to quickly navigate to any element of this path.
      - Convenient and fast scrolling through large lists of items.
      - Ability to customize the look of lists (e.g. switch between list
        view and icon view, assign custom visualization using
        dune_folder.txt where appropriate, etc).
      - Ability to use the general cut/copy/paste (and delete/rename)
        functions where appropriate.
      - Ability to use the general possibility to mark multiple items and
        play the marked items or perform some other operation on the marked
        items.
      - Ability to use the general possibility to generate a playlist from
        the marked items (including recursive scanning of folders with
        subfolders), where appropriate.
   - Added several new features based on the new engine:
      - Browser of content of M3U/PLS playlist files.
         - Press "0" on a M3U/PLS file to open the file directly in the
           file browser. Then you can e.g. mark some items of the playlist,
           and launch playback of the marked items.
      - Browser of SMB workgroups/server/shares (see details below).
      - Browser of UPnP servers (see details below).

- Added Network Browser feature with support for SMB and UPnP servers:
   - There is a new "Network Browser" item on the main screen, allowing to
     conveniently browse media resources available in the local network
     (w/o knowing their IP addresses and other technical parameters).
   - The new item can be disabled via "Setup / Applications / Network
     Browser / Show in main screen" setting.
   - Currently, the network browser supports SMB and UPnP servers.

- SMB browser features:
   - Choose "Network Browser / SMB" to see all accessible SMB workgroups,
     SMB servers, and SMB shares.
   - After you open an SMB share, you can work with its content just like
     as with the content of manually registered SMB network folder (play
     files, copy/delete/rename files, etc).
   - By default, guest access to a SMB share is performed; if guest access
     fails, you can enter user name and password to be used.  Besides, user
     name and password if desired can also be entered/modified via "Connect
     as user" context menu action.
   - Entered user names/passwords are persistently remembered in flash
     memory, so you do not need to renter them each time when you reenter
     the SMB share (even after player power off).
   - Several SMB shares can be accessed simultanously; in particular, if
     you want, you can copy/move files from one SMB share to another.
   - Also added a new possibility for manually configurable network
     folders: now, not only IP address or DNS name of the SMB server can be
     specified, but also WINS (Windows) name of the SMB server.

- UPnP browser features:
   - Choose "Network Browser / UPnP" to see all accessible UPnP servers.
   - After you open a UPnP server, you can browse all media content
     published by this server and play it.
   - The provided funcionality is similar to the functionality available
     when working with SMB/NFS shares. You can select any files and play
     them, play the entire folders (with automatic playlist generation from
     the folder and all its subfolders), mark multiple files/folders and
     play them, etc.
   - The currently implemention is has the following limitations (planned
     to be addressed in future firmware versions):
      - Viewing photo files from UPnP servers is not supported. You can
        only play video and music files.
      - Playback of DVD and Blu-ray folders and ISO images from UPnP
        servers is not suppoorted. You can only play regular files (e.g.
        TS, MKV, etc).
      - The use of external subtitles and audiotracks is not supported.
        You can only use internal subtitles and audiotracks.
   - Playback of very high bitrate content is supported (may depend on a
     particular UPnP server and network conditions). UPnP uses HTTP for
     content playback, and HTTP playback has been optimized signficantly to
     allow playback of very high bitrate content, such as TS and MKV files
     with 40-50+ Mbit/s bitrate (see below for more details). In some
     cases, when a file server can not ensure stutter-free playback via SMB
     and NFS protocols (e.g. when a NAS with a slow CPU is used), UPnP can
     be tried as a potentially more performant alternative.
   - National characters in file names are supported (may depend on a
     particular UPnP server).
   - Note: testing with different UPnP servers have been performed, but
     there are no guarantees that any UPnP server will work fully correctly
     or work at all. The list of at least partially tested UPnP servers
     includes:
      - TwonkyMedia Manager/Server (http://www.twonkymedia.com/)
      - TVersity (http://tversity.com/)
      - Windows Media Player 11 on Windows XP
      - Windows Media Player 11 on Windows Vista
      - PS3 Media Server (http://code.google.com/p/ps3mediaserver/)
      - PlayOn (http://www.themediamall.com/playon)
      - uShare (http://ushare.geexbox.org/) on Linux
      - FUPPES (http://fuppes.ulrich-voelkel.de/)

- Improved HTTP client:
   - Significantly optimized HTTP playback performance. With fast enough
     HTTP servers, all containers (MKV, TS, AVI. WMV, MP4/MOV) now support
     smooth playback of very high bitrate content (up to 40-50 Mbit/s, even
     when using the standard 100Mbit Ethernet network connection).
   - Improved HTTP servers compatibility; some bugs fixed.
   - Note: HTTP playback can be performed in two ways:
      - Play some content from UPnP server (UPnP internally uses HTTP for
        content playback).
      - Put direct HTTP URLs pointing to some media content into playlist
        files (M3U/PLS) or into dune_folder.txt (using "media_url").

- More convenient handling of audiotracks and subtitles:
   - Added a new OSD GUI for audiotracks/subtitles selection during file
     playback and DVD playback.
      - Now, when pressing SUBTITLE or AUDIO button, OSD listing all
        available audiotracks/subtitles is shown. You can quickly and
        conveniently choose any desired audiotrack/subtitle (using UP and
        DOWN buttons), w/o the need to toggle through all available
        audiotracks/subtitles one-by-one. This is especially convenient
        when a fnle has a large number of audiotracks/subtitles.
   - Improved handling of external audiotracks.
      - Now, when external audiotracks are present, the internal
        audiotracks still remain available for choosing. All available
        audiotracks, both internal and external, are now listed in the OSD
        menu, and you can easily switch between all available internal and
        external audiotracks; no more need to delete/rename files with
        external audiotracks to enable the use of internal subtitles.
   - Subtitles are not enabled by default for file playback any more.
      - Now, as was requested by many users, if a file has internal or
        external subtitles, they are not enabled by default. You can easily
        enable them by pressing SUBTITLE button.

- Additional adjustments for text subtitles during file playback:
   - Besides of adjusting vertical position of text subtitles, it is now
     also possible to adjust the following parameters:
      - Subtitles font color.
      - Subtitles font size (choose between normal or smaller font).
      - Subtitles delay (synchronization correction).
   - All text subtitles adjustments are now available via a special "Setup"
     item in the subtitles menu. You can also quickly show the subtitles
     setup menu by pressing SUBTITLE, then SETUP. In the subtitles
     adjustment menu, you can use the following RC buttons:
      - UP / DOWN: Move subtitles up/down.
      - LEFT / RIGHT: Change subtitles synchronization correction.
      - P+ / P-: Increase/descrease subtitles font size.
      - 1..6: Choose subtitles font color.
   - Note: these new possibilities are provided only for text subtitles,
     and only for file playback.

- File playback improvements:
   - Added support for TrueHD audiotracks in MKV files.
   - Added support for 120FPS AVI files.
   - Improved handling of VobSub subtitles in MP4 files.
   - Improved audio output through HDMI. Now, when playing stereo audio
     files (or video files with stereo audiotracks), and PCM output through
     HDMI is used, the player reports the proper number of PCM channels to
     HDMI receiver (instead of always sending multichannel PCM). This
     allows HDMI receiver to better handle stereo sound.
   - Faster switching between audiotracks in WMV files.
   - Bugfix: PCM audiotrack in MKV could start stuttering in specific rare
     cases.
   - Bugfix: Switching to FLAC audiostram in MKV could lead to no audio in
     specific rare cases.
   - Bugfix: Seek in MKV files could lead to no audio in specific rare
     cases.
   - Bugfix: WMAPro audio could be handled wrongly in some cases.
   - Bugfix: External EAC3 audiotracks could be handled wrognly in some
     cases when HDMI bitstreaming was performed.

- Bluray playback improvements:
   - "P+" RC button allows to show/hide secondary video (PIP), when
     supported by a Blu-ray disk (while "SELECT" RC button allows to do the
     same for secondary audio). 

- File browser improvements:
   - Improved speed of opening folders with huge number of subfolders;
     "dune_folder.txt" files for subfolders are checked/loaded only when
     needed.
   - Improved speed of launching playback and returning to file browser for
     folders with huge number of files/subfolders.
   - Added progress indication (right bottom corner of the screen) on
     lengthy operations (such as opening a folder with huge number of
     files).
   - Playlist generation improvements:
      - Support for very big generated playlists (10000+ items should be OK
        now).
      - Better detection of cyclic references between multiple playlist
        files.
      - Better reporting names of playlist items in case of errors.
   - Bugfix: long path to the current folder (wrapped to several lines in
     the title bar) could lead to wrong picture on the screen when "icon
     view" mode was used.

- Added possibilities to access all locally attached drives from network:
   - Previously, only a single locally attached drive (such as internal HDD
     or USB HDD) could be accessed from network via SMB and FTP protocols.
   - Now, all locally attached drives are accessible (including all
     USB-attached drives, and also optical discs in all attached optical
     drives).
   - For each attached drive, there is a dedicated SMB share with a certain
     name. The fixed "internal_hard_disk" SMB share does not exist any
     more.
   - When connecting via FTP, each attached drive is represented as a
     top-level FTP-folder with a certain name.
   - SMB shares and FTP folders corresponding to attached drives have the
     following names:
      - If the drive has volume label: {volume label}_{uuid}.
      - If the drive does not have volume label: {default name}_{uuid},
        where default name is something like "hard_disk", "usb_storage",
        "usb_storage_2", etc.
      - Volume label and UUID of each drive can be seen in "Information"
        dialog for the drive (e.g. press "INFO" RC button on the drive item
        in file browser).
      - The user can manually assign any name to any drive by using
        "storage_name = ..." syntax in "dune_folder.txt" file in the root
        folder of the drive.

- Added new "dune_folder.txt" features:
   - "media_url" can now contain not just relative paths, but also absolute
     paths point to files on the same drive or other locally attached
     drives (helpful for working with media collections stored on several
     drives). Syntax:
      - "media_url = /path/file". Refers to the file with absolute path
        /path/file on the same drive.
      - "media_url = storage_name://name/path/file". Refers to the file
        with absolute path "/path/file" on the drive with the given storage
        name; here, storage name is the same as used for FTP/SMB access
        from network (automatically generated default name such as
        "usb_storage_UUID", or explicitly assigned custom name -- see
        below).
      - "media_url = storage_label://label/path/file". Refers to the file
        with absolute path "/path/file" on the drive with given volume
        label. (Volume label can seen in Information dialog for the drive.)
      - "media_url = storage_uuid://uuid/path/file". Refers to the file
        with absolute path /path/file on the drive with with given UUID.
        (UUID can seen in Information dialog for the drive.)
      - Note: referencing files on other network drives is not yet
        supported.
   - "dune_folder.txt" in the root folder of a drive can be used to assign
     a custom name/caption to the drive. Syntax:
      - "storage_name = ...". Assigns a custom storage name to the drive.
        This name is used for FTP and SMB access from network and for
        referencing the files on the drive using "media_url". Unless
        "storage_caption" is also explicitly set (see below), the custom
        storage name is also used as the storage caption shown in the file
        browser.
      - "storage_caption = ...". Assigns a custom storage caption to the
        drive, to show in file browser.