Dune Firmware Zone

Dune HD Sky 4K Plus

This version is a big update from r12 to r13 development branch and
contains a huge number of changes.

This version includes all general changes (except changes specific or
exclusive to RTD1295-based models) which were previously implemented in the
latest firmware update for RTD1295-based models and which are included into
the firmware version 181123_2042_r13 for Dune HD Pro 4K; see here for more
information:
    - http://dune-hd.com/firmware/pro4k_tv292a/

Besides, this version includes the following Amlogic-specific changes:

- New feature: IP Control functionality, including the possibility to
  control media playback, is now supported also for Amlogic-based models
  (same as for RTD1295-based models and Sigma Designs based models).

- New feature: "Software Standby" standby mode, with OS and background
  services running in background, is now supported also for Amlogic-based
  models (same as for RTD1295-based models and Sigma Designs based models).

- New feature: Old Amlogic-based models now also support the new IR remote
  controls shipped with the new models (these new remote controls have new
  IR codes in order to reduce chances of conflicts with remote controls for
  other equipment).

- New feature: The setting "Setup / Video / Advanced / Noise reduction" can
  be used to fine-tune picture quality by enabling or disabling video noise
  reduction function of Amlogic media processor. By default, it is now set
  to "Disabled", which provides the best picture quality in most cases.
  (This setting was previously available only on the new Amlogic-based
  models, and now it is now available on all Amlogic-based models.)

- Minor other improvements/fixes.

- New feature: When working with Movies or My Collection functions, on
  Movie screen, the new section "Similar" shows the list of
  similar/recommended movies. NOTE: To eanble this feature for movies which
  are part of My Collection, they should be reindexed (remove indexed data
  and then perform indexing again).

- New feature: Fast forward (FF) and fast rewind (REW) are now supported in
  Dune HD internal player.

- New feature: IP Control functionality is now partially supported.
  Currently, only the possibility to emulate RC button presses is supported
  ("ir_code" command).
   - The protocol is the same as was previously used in Sigma based Dune HD
     models: http://dune-hd.com/support/ip_control
   - NOTE: When the player is in standby mode, IP Control can not be used
     when "Sleep" or "Power off" mode is used (in these modes, CPU and OS
     are not running and can not handle IP Control commands), it can only
     be used when "Software standby" mode is used. "Software standby" mode
     is currently supported only for Pro 4K model and old Sigma based
     models; it is currently not supported for Neo 4K, Neo 4K T2, Neo 4K T2
     Plus, Sky 4K Plus models. So, for Neo 4K, Neo 4K T2, Neo 4K T2 Plus,
     Sky 4K models, IP Control can only be used when the player is not in
     standby mode.

- Improvement: When working with Movies or My Collection functions, the
  performance of loading movies information improved (especially when using
  slow Internet connection).

- Improvement: The UI for choosing time zone in the initial setup wizard is
  now more convenient.

- Bugfix: Some ISO files (with 16-bit filenames encoding) were not
  recognized and could not be played.

- Bugfix: When working with SMB shares which require user/password, files
  on these shares could not be accessed in some cases.

- Bugfix: When connecting via SMB to a host which has multiple IP
  addresses, wrong IP address could be used and thus the host could not be
  accessed in some cases.

- Bugfix: Wi-Fi connection to a network without a password did not work.

- Bugfix: Adding Android applications to "Favorites" menu did not work
  properly in some cases.

- Bugfix: When working with Movies or My Collection functions, when
  navigating through the UI, there were various minor bugs in the shown
  information in some rare cases.

- Bugfix: When starting a plugin which requires network connectivity, the
  system could hang in some rare cases.

- Bugfix: When starting a plugin which uses icon archive functionality, the
  system could hang in some rare cases. Also, the performance of icon
  archive downloading improved.

- Bugfix: After settings reset, when the initial setup wizard id shown, and
  a local storage device with *.dsf or *.dff files is connected, a special
  service dialog listing these files could be wrongly shown.

- Improvements for PHP plugins and PHP API:

    - New feature: New action "RESTART" is introduced, with parameter
      "reboot" (possible values "yes" and "no"), which allows the plugin to
      request GUI restart or full reboot. 

    - New feature: "PLUGIN_OPEN_FOLDER" action is extended with the new
      parameter "sel_id", which can be used to preselect the given item in
      regular folders (value is media_url of the item to preselect).

    - New feature: A possibility to emulate RC button presses (same as in
      Sigma based Dune HD models) is now available for PHP plugins.

    - New feature: "android_platform" parameter is now available via
      "/tmp/run/versions.txt" and "/firmware/config/android_platform.txt".

    - Bugfix: Loading images via HTTP URL which redirects to HTTPS URL did
      not work in some cases.

- Updated/improved UI translations for some languages.

- Some other minor improvements/fixes.

This version is the same as 180420_0153_r12, but supports Sky 4K Plus
model.

- New feature: Playback of BD4K images is now supported in Dune HD internal
  player (both BDMV and BD ISO are supported).

- New feature: Decoding of DTS audio tracks (stereo downmix) is now
  supported in Dune HD internal player.

- New feature: Decoding of DTS HD HRA, DTS HD MA, DTS:X audio tracks
  (stereo downmix) is now supported in Dune HD internal player (for MKV,
  M2TS, BD images; DTS core is extracted and decoded).

- New feature: Decoding of TrueHD and Atmos audio tracks (stereo downmix)
  is now supported in Dune HD internal player (for M2TS and BD images, not
  for MKV; DD core is extracted and decoded).

- New feature: DD decoding quality is improved and it now supports Dolby
  DRC (Dynamic Range Control). (DRC mode can be adjusted via "Setup /
  System" menu.)

- New feature: Remembering and restoring playback position is now supported
  in Dune HD internal player (same as on Sigma models). Remembered playback
  position is shown in Recent menu.

- New feature: When starting file playback and there is a remembered
  playback position, a question is asked to resume playback from the
  remembered position or to start from the beginning. The new setting
  "Setup / Playback / Preferences / Resume playback" allows to control this
  behavior, with the following options: Yes, No, Ask user. The default is
  "Ask user".

- New feature: REPEAT and SHUFFLE functions for playlists are now
  implemented (same as on Sigma models).

- New feature: Subtitles visualization settings (vertical offset, color,
  font) are now remembered (same as on Sigma models).

- New feature: Added setting "Setup / Misc / Encodings / Subtitles
  encoding" which allows to specify subtitles encoding (same as on Sigma
  models).

- New feature: Sleep timer is now implemented (same as on Sigma models,
  works only when working with Dune HD GUI). By default it is disabled. It
  can be enabled via the new setting "Setup / Misc / Power manamenent /
  Sleep timer".

- New feature: Added support for HFS+ (Mac OS X) partitions on storage
  devices with GPT partition table (in addition to previously supported MBR
  partition table).

- New feature: Added support for storage devices with hybrid MBR/GPT
  partition table.

- New feature: Added support for storage devices formatted without
  partition table.

- Improvement: EXT2/EXT3/EXT4 and BTRS partitions on storage devices are
  now mounted more correctly (with full read-write permissions).

- Improvement: Storage devices are now mounted more robustly, even if they
  were not correctly ejected last time.

- Improvement: NFS browser now searches for NFS servers on all network
  interfaces when both Ethernet and Wi-Fi are enabled simultaneously.

- Improvement: Automatic detection of subtitle encoding now works more
  correctly.

- Improvement: In initial setup wizard, if the connected TV supports 4K, 4K
  resolution is now recommended by default.

- Improvement: In initial setup wizard, the suggested by default timezone
  is now automatically detected based on GeoIP (when Internet is
  accessible).

- Improvement: When Community source is enabled in Dune Store and there are
  a lot of applications to choose, applications are split by categories (as
  on Sigma models).

- Improvement: "+" item in "Android applications" menu can now be removed
  (hidden) via "Delete" command in POP UP MENU, and then restored via
  "Restore hidden applications" command (i.e. same way as for other
  built-in applications).

- Improvement: When UI Type 1 is used, "Android applications" section is
  now also available.

- Improvement: When UI Type 2 is used, the "Applications" tab now has a
  proper title "Applications" (rather than "Dune HD Applications").

- Improvement: The hint about possibility to use "POP UP MENU" RC button is
  now shown on other main screens where it was not previously shown, but
  the button actually could be used.

- Improvement: When performing "Reset Settings" action, a message is now
  shown while the system is handling it.

- Improvement: Kartina.TV application includes now some new minor
  improvements.

- Bugfix: In initial setup wizard, when booting w/o HDMI cable connected,
  the wizard crashed.

- Bugfix: Playback crash could happen when stopping or finishing playback.

- Bugfix: Starting audio playback immediately after player boot could cause
  playback crash.

- Bugfix: Playback could hang when switching TV channels very fast.

- Bugfix: Playback problems or crashes could happen in some cases after
  long use of the player or after a lot of switching between TV channels.

- Bugfix: Subtitles could become not working till player reboot in some
  cases.

- Bugfix: Playback of TS files and streams could hang in some cases when
  teletext subtitles substream is present in the stream.

- Bugfix: Pressing NEXT RC button could cause playback crash.

- Bugfix: Wrong information about the index of the current playlist element
  could be shown in INFO panel.

- Bugfix: BD ISO with quotes in filename could not be played.

- Bugfix: Plugin auto-resume and auto-start could not work in some cases
  when booting or when exiting standby mode.

- Bugfix: Storage devices could not detected correctly when existing from
  standby mode in some cases.

- Improvements for PHP plugins and PHP API:

   - New feature: For TV plugins which support TV archive (catchup),
     LEFT/RIGHT RC buttons can now be used to switch to archive mode and
     seek in the archive even in Live TV mode. For TV plugins which do not
     support archive, LEFT/RIGHT RC buttons are now correctly ignored in
     Live TV mode.

   - New feature: "PLAYBACK_STOP" action now supports the following
     additional parameters: "plugin_vod_stop_position",
     "plugin_vod_duration", "plugin_vod_start_tm", "plugin_vod_stop_tm",
     "plugin_vod_prebuffering_end_tm".

   - New feature: Added the possibility to use different fonts for the
     information shown in the right panel. The following new commands are
     now supported for "%ext%" syntax in
     "ViewItemParams::item_detailed_info":
      - "%ext%%fN%": use font size N (0..2) for the current text line.
      - "%ext%%f+%": increase font size for the current text line.
      - "%ext%%f-%": decrease font size for the current text line.

   - Improvement: In skins w/o glasses ("disable_glasses" set to "yes"),
     such as "Silver" or "Black" skins, a bit more space (30 pixels at the
     left and 30 pixels at the right) is now allocated to show useful
     information in the right panel.

   - Improvement: When loading images from HTTPS, the performance is now
     improved.

   - Improvement: When PHP plugin uses auto-resume functionality,
     "ip_address_required" setting is now enabled by default for this
     plugin.

   - Improvement: folder ".platform.android" can now be used to store
     Android-specific versions of platform-dependent plugin files (such has
     native executables) in the plugin (similar to ".platform.87xx" folder
     that can be used for SMP87xx-specific files).

   - Bugfix: "/tmp/run/ext_command.state" was not implemented; now it
     contains the information about current playback state (same as on
     Sigma models).

   - Bugfix: Playback timer did not work.

   - Bugfix: Saving/restoring playback position during auto-resume and
     setting initial playback position using
     PluginVodInfo::initial_position_ms did not work properly.

   - Bugfix: In "PLAYBACK_STOP" action, in rare cases,
     "plugin_vod_series_ndx" and "plugin_tv_channel_id" parameters could
     contain wrong information.

   - Bugfix: When switching to playlist item N, the next item (N+1) was
     actually wrongly used.

   - Bugfix: In TV OSD, crash could occur in some specific cases when
     trying to scroll through the list of TV channels.

- Other minor improvements/fixes.

The first version that was recommended for Neo 4K, Neo 4K T2, Neo 4K T2
models.

This version adds Dune HD internal player, Google Play services, DD
decoding, built-in shortcuts to popular Android applications, integration
of SPMC application as DVD playback engine (and as optional file playback
engine) with automatic installation and configuration, and many other
improvements and fixes.