Tvheadend

The Tvheadend team is proud to announce that the new 3.2 release has now entered feature freeze and beta builds (for Ubuntu) are now available from here.

This release represents the first official release from the new development team. Mostly it comprises of a lot of bug fixes for several of the outstanding issues that have been logged in the issue tracker for some time.

However it does include some new features:

1. Muxer framework - A new muxer framework has been implemented to allow the possibility to enable multiple different recording and streaming formats. Currently only MKV and TS are supported, but others may be added in the future.

1. TS recording - It is once again possible to have Tvheadend recording in TS format, this is selectable from the DVR configuration page. This is currently done using the Pass-through container.

2. TS HTTP streaming - this is also now possible, currently there is no way to change the default container so you must specify the container in the URI. For TS streaming append ?mux=pass to the URI. Currently the UI links (VLC plugin etc...) do not allow this to be selected.

3. EPG rewrite - The EPG code has had a complete rewrite, it now includes more structure internally, has the ability to process and store additional metadata including series links and episode identifiers (where available - depends on EPG grabber).

4. EPG grabber updates - In conjunction with the re-write of the EPG, the grabber framework has been updated. This includes addition of several new broadcast grabbers:

- OpenTV (for sky UK/IT/AU support)
- Freesat/view (UK only)

But in addition the standard EIT grabber has been improved as has the XMLTV grabber, to include processing of additional fields.

5. HTSPv6 - the HTSP protocol has had some minor updates to improve some aspects of performance, mainly relating to EPG. For XBMC users with the latest pvr.hts addon from https://github.com/opdenkamp/xbmc-pvr-addons, this should greatly reduce the EPG import time.

6. Adapter Power saving - several options have been added to reduce power consumption from the DVB adapters by shutting them down when not in use. However we have found this causes problems with some adapters, so if you experience performance issues with these options please try disabling them first before reporting issues.

The focus over the coming weeks will be on bug fixing (critical issues) and documentation as we head towards an official release later this month.

Regards
The Tvheadend Team

As many people will be aware Andreas, the project founder, has not been actively developing Tvheadend for quite some time. However following recent discussions he has agreed to open the project up and its with great please that we can now announce that Tvheadend is a fully fledged community project.

The git repository has moved to a new home https://github.com/tvheadend/tvheadend. And a small Team of developers has been assembled to help maintain the project. Forums, Wiki, etc.. will continue to be hosted here on lonelycoder.com.

Before anyone gets worried though, this does not mean the end of Andreas, he will continue to act as Project Lead. And we're actually hoping that with the team around him he's going to rejoin the fray and start doing some more work on Tvheadend.

Tvheadend v3.0¶

We've created a new official release to replace the somewhat ageing v2.12 release. This includes many of the patches and additions (many provided by the community) since Andreas stopped actively developing Tvheadend.

It mostly represents a stopgap solution while we collect ourselves and put together a release based on the current work being undertaken (some of which is already in the git master).

For XBMC users, the builds provided by Lars Op den Kamp http://xbmc.opdenkamp.eu/, will probably remain the best source for the short term.

Tvheadend v3.1¶

This will be a new "development" build, it may not be as stable as v3.0, but it will hopefully include lots of cool new features including (though not limited to):

• EPG Rewrite (including OpenTV, Freesat/Freeview support).
• New Muxer (to allow additional containers to be used, such as TS).
• Transcoding support (useful to users of handheld devices).

At this stage we have no definite plans for a release, we're still trying to find our feet and evaluate the current state of the various development threads. However we hope to be able to provide more input in the next couple of weeks.

Tvheadend v3.2¶

The will be the next "official" release of Tvheadend. It should hopefully include most of the features being developed in v3.1. But should have had more extensive testing and will be considered stable.

By this point we hope to have in place plans for providing official packages and hopefully a PPA to allow users to easily upgrade. The exact details of how this will all work are still under discussion.