A new release mainly to fix the Weather feature.

Enhancements / New Features

• Tidied Main Menu with new Internet Services submenu.
• Improved performance when browsing videos.
• Added support for m4a audio files.
• Added support for Matroska (mkv) video files.
• Added support for Vorbis Comments tags (flac,ogg).
• Improved embedded image (PIC & APIC tags) support for audio files.
• Can now select transition effects for slideshows.
• Style settings added to Keypad pages.
• Updated Weather feature for new API.

Bugfixes

• Fixed updating RSS feeds from the TV.
• Fixed OFDb parser.
• Fixed encoding of scrobbled tracks to LastFM.

A new release!

Enhancements / New Features

• RSS feeds can now be configured and viewed.
• Languages moved to XML and editor now included. The editor simplifies the task of creating/updating language translations.
• Configuration pages are now resized to the browser window.
• Style settings have been added to the Web and Setup pages.
• Added TVDb parser which also retrieve individual episode images along with series images.
• Schedule page can now be used to configure media updates.
• Added support for Popcorn Hour media player.
• Added support for FLAC audio files.
• Added support for playlists saved in WPL format (Windows Media Player).
• Added Italian movie parser from www.FilmUP.it.
• Added Italian and Norwegian translations.

Bugfixes

• Fixed refreshing of progress on 'Search For New Media' page.

… closely followed by a bugfix release!

Bugfixes

• Fixed media search.
• Fixed editing media locations that were removed if the media type was changed.

A new release was made available a few days ago!

Enhancements / New Features

• Enhanced photo/slideshow options. Photos can now be browsed by their IPTC/XMP metadata information.
• Last.FM support.
• Web browsing can now be performed from your media player.
• Added import of iTunes playlists.
• New TV Series media type. This automatically recognizes TV series and episode details to assist navigation.
• Added a parser for TV Series to get episode details from epguides.com.
• Ability to delete videos.
• Video details and running time can now be viewed.
• Added dvr-ms file support, including metadata extraction.
• Added AlbumArtist and Disc tags for improved mp3 browsing and ordering.
• Improved support for Netgear EVA700 player. Includes remote mapping and custom quick icons.
• Sub-Categories can be defined to improve media navigation.
• Improved style framework to support more configurable styles.
• The current music playlist can be played whilst viewing a slideshow.
• A media search can now be 'forced' to refresh all metadata.
• Added the ability to filter based on "played status".
• Folders containing DVD vob files will be added to database with title taken from folder name.

Bugfixes

• The GetID3 library has been fixed for improved mp3 and wma tag recognition, especially track numbers and genres.
• Fixed various playlist bugs.
• Fixed some search/browse history issues.
• …and various other minor fixes.

• Ability to export/import swisscenter settings.
• Swisscenter now updates MusicIP with details of new media locations and new MP3s found. There is no need to use the MusicIP interface for this any more.
• Updated Dutch and German translations.
• You can now select to search for new media by media type and/or category. Information on the progress of the search is also displayed back to the user.
• Periods and underscores in filenames are now converted into spaces within movie/MP3 titles.
• Added "Expert Options" to edit the swisscenter database and system preferences manually.
  

• Included a workaround for occasions when the wrong port number is reported in the HTTP request sent by the hardware player. This should fix the "Now Playing" screen issues.
  
• Logging level couldn't be set to 1.
• Thumb/list view not switching on the "edit movie details" config screen.
• Updated the version of the GetID3 library used by swisscenter to the latest stable release. This should fix some MP3 tagging issues.
• Old movie details were not being removed if you clicked "Update movie details".
  

• Enahnced "Now Playing" screen. Includes prev/next track, track length and position in playlist.
• The viewed status of media items is indicated by a small icon (red=unviewed, orange=part-viewed, green=viewed). If anyone can suggest/create better icons then please contact me!
• You can now enable/disable individual "Browse by" options.
• The Configuration pages have been better organized.
• Collapsable menus on the config screen to help reduce complexity.
• Photo albums get deleted if there are nolonger any photos in them.
• You can now list movies via their cover art in the "Edit Movie Details" section of the configuration utility.
• New "Filter" option that is applied after you select a category. Currently the only filter is the age of the media (ie: added within the last 7 days) but more are planned.
• If only a single category has been defined, then the category selection screen is skipped.
• The "New media" light on the front of some hardware players now flashes while a media update is in progress.
• Added the Swisscenter license (GPL) to the config pages.
• You can now edit the movie title on the config pages!
• Mapped the Red,Green,Blue buttons to "rewind", "Fast-forward" and "skip-forward" on the Buffalo Linktheater. Better icons to follow in the future.
  

• Fixed some issues on the "Installation Tests" screen. Some tests were being wrongly reported as failed.
• Fixed a font size issue on HDTV screens.
• Fixed the downloading of styles/skins from the swisscenter website.
• Thumbnails (of photos) are now rotated according to the EXIF data (if enabled).
• Added the missing "12A" rating from the BBFC scheme.
• The time stored internally for media files is not the timestamp of the file rather than the date it was discovered.
• Internet radio stations from Live-Radio are now limited to MP3 streams only.
• The first genre in "shoutcast" and "live-radio" was not being displayed.
• Implemented better logging of the internet radio features.
• The PC Browser navigations buttons were double submitting, causing problems with navigation.
• Photos that were not withing a subfolder were not being shown.
• The slider controls on the MusicIP settings page were not showing in IE.
• The TTF Font option on the config screen was not being saved.
• Albumart failed to download correctly.
• Precaching images wasn't functioning correctly.
• Old actors, directors and genres were not being removed from the database.
• The default cache location has been changed to within the SwissCenter directory.
• Fixed a bug whereby photos were not being played on some hardware players.
  

1. Integration with internet radio directories Shoutcast and Live-Radio from within the SwissCenter interface. This should make it much easier to find stations to listen to (in addition, the bitrate of each station is also shown).
   
   
2. Integration with a piece of software called MusicIP which analyses each song in your collection and creates an acoustic fingerprint for matching similar songs and artists (regardless of data format or bitrate).

• Integration with Shoutcast and Live-Radio websites.
  
• Integration with MusicIP.
  
• Added Danish language support (thanks to CryptoKnight)
• Added Dutch language support (thanks to Mvdkleijn)
  
• Added Polish language support (thanks to Jaruckil)
• Improved German language support (thanks to Izzy and NoXcape4U)
  
• Improved French language support (thanks to Yqu)
  
• An extra option has been added to allow you to specify the true-type font to use on the "Now Playing" screen. This should help alleviate problems for linux users who were missing the track details.
• Added the ability to rotate images within a slideshow based on the information present in the EXIF Orientation field. Performing the rotate is the default action but it can be disabled from the "Audio Option" screen in the config utility.
  

• Directories starting with a dot are now ignored when searching for new media files.
• Improved finding of the PHP command line executable.
  
• Fixed some bugs related to PIN code entry.
• Added a button (when browsing by filesystem) to rescan the current directory for new media.
• Fixed the ability to download and install styles from the SwissCenter website on windows machines (worked fine on linux!)
• Improved the display of the config utility on Firefox2 and IE7
• Added the missing submit button to the Audio options page.
• Fixed a bug in the thumb.php script which prevented remote images from being resized and displayed correctly.
  

This is patch 4 for version 1.15 and mainly fixes a number of bugs that have been reported in the forums. There are a few feature enhancements and changes to existing functionality, but on the whole this release is being made to enhance stability.

Enhancements:

• Added the French translation (thanks yqu)
• Increased the font size on the menus due to pressure in the forums!
• The default action when selecting a movie by the "Browse Filesystem" method is now to resume playing from the last point you watched if you are using the Simese webserver.
• Precaching thumbnails for photos can now be enabled or disabled in the config screens, and is disabled by default.
• Better "Now Playing" screen support for linkplayer users (hopefully - I don't have any hardware to test this on!).
• More common installation tests to help in problem diagnosis.

Bug fixes:

• Suppressed errors from being displayed when trying to obtain file information for files over 2Gb (this was only affecting linux installations).
• The "Refresh" link for "Browse Filesystem" doesn't cause a timeout problem anymore.
• Better support for foreign characters in filenames.
• Music playback is now automatically ordered by album, track number and then title.
• Fixed some www.dvdloc8.com and www.lovefilm.com parser errors.
• Fixed the bug whereby media that had been removed from the system was not being deleted from the database.
• Fixed a session timeout issue that was affecting movie pause/resume.
• Fixed VBR MP3 issues (I think - let me know in the forums!)
• Provided a temporary workaround for missing subtitles in movies.

Version 1.15 of SwissCenter is now available. You can upgrade your existing installation by selecting the "Update" icon on the main menu.

If you do not have an update icon, and you are also missing links to Weather forecasts and Internet radio then you will need to read the details posted here.

It has been a long time since the last non-beta release, and I can warn you now that 1.15 isn't perfect... however... I plan to release smaller but more frequent updates. For example, any bugs that are reported will be issued as a patch as soon as a fix becomes available. No more waiting for the next major version.

Feedback on the new features such as high-definition support would be appreciated (please post to the forums).

PS: If you're wondering about the remote control on the left, it's a Logitech Harmony universal remote which I can heartily recommend. It's certainly better than the remote supplied with the Showcenter 1000 and has the added benefit of controlling practically anything you want!

A beta release of version 1.14 is available for installation for those who would like to try it. Please note that not this is not a final release, and there are still a few features that are not implemented (eg: The "Now Playing" screen does not display in HD mode).

New Features and Bug fixes include:

• Resume movie support (for Simese users only).
• Wikipedia Integration.
PHP5 support
Corrected the screen size in HD browser mode.
Updated language files (es).
• Added a series of environment tests to help detect Linux installation problems.
• All video files are added to the database, regardless of whether GetID3 thinks that are valid files or not!
• Added missing MPAA ratings ("PG", "Unrated" and "Not Rated").
• Better handling of ratings between BBFC and MPAA rating schemes.
Better playlist support (tested with Winamp and Windows Media Player).
Fixed searching issues.
• Fixed the bug where Mozilla wasn't detected properly.
• Fixed pagination problems on the "update movie details" pages.
• Finally fixed the bug where load/save playlist didn't redirect to the correct page.
• Added "divx" as a valid movie file extension.

To install the beta version, please see the instructions posted to the Beta forum. As always, please report any bugs that you find to the forums...

This is a critical bugfix for the automatic update feature and must be applied immediately. If this release is not applied then future online updates will fail.
 

Fixes a few minor bugs:

• Fixed movie info edit/remove buttons in the configuration utility.
• Corrections to the English and German language files.
• Changed the way library files are included to ensure that the correct path is always identified.
• Improved logging of file permission problems (for auto update and media search).

Version 1.14.2 is now available - Click on the "Update" icon on the main menu of your SwissCenter installation to upgrade.

New Features and Bug fixes include:

• Automatic media refreshing and movie downloads should be more reliable.
• Song length wasn't being calculated properly for new mp3s
• Radio stations no longer need a blank line at the beginning of the .url file
• Removed some visible PHP warnings
• Creates the windows temporary cache directory properly
• Added better support for other hardware players
• ABC buttons now work on the Showcenter 200
• You can manually edit the synopsis field for movies
• Added support for downloading movie info from www.dvdplanet.com
• Added support for the American rating system in addition to the british one.
• Improved "best match" when fetching movie info
• Better support for the LinkPlayer and Elgato Eyehome.
• Updated the German translations with those provided in the forums.
• Photos can now be accessedby category (previously, only "All Categories" worked).
• Fixed a bug that was preventing unknown hardware players from streaming media.
• Images in the thumbnail views now have transparent backgrounds.
• Added an option to choose a "fast" resize of images for less powerful machines (lower quality though).
• Shuffle now remembers your last setting (instead of defaulting to "on")
• Fixed a bug where the "Select All" button didn't work with the "Anywhere in Name" option.
• Fixed the search box on the "edit movie details" page in the config utility.
• Fixed the bug whereby the Showcenter 200 was being identified as a Showcenter 1000.

A beta release of version 1.14 is available for installation for those who would like to try it.

New Features and Bug fixes include:

• Automatic media refreshing and movie downloads should be more reliable.
• Song length wasn't being calculated properly for new mp3s
• Radio stations no longer need a blank line at the beginning of the .url file
• Removed some visiable PHP warnings
• Creates the windows temporary cache directory properly
• Added better support for other hardware players
• ABC buttons now work on the Showcenter 200
• You can manually edit the synopsis field for movies
• Added support for downloading movie info from www.dvdplanet.com
• Added support for the American rating system in addition to the british one.
• Improved "best match" when fetching movie info

To install the beta version, please see the instructions posted to the Beta forum. As always, please report any bugs that you find to the forums...
 

I know it's been a long wait, but I've finally found the time to release a new version. There might be a few bugs - so if you find any, post the details to the forum and I'll try to get them fixed as soon as possible!

New Features:

• Multi-language support added*
• Enahanced photo support (more viewing options)
• EXIF data extracted from photos where available.
• Added "Compact" thumbnail view which allows 18 pictures/icons to be displayed on a single page.
• Installation checks are performed to help identify potential configuration issues.
• Uses the built-in media refresh capability of the Simese webserver when possible (the windows "at" command is no longer used).
• Downloadable styles are now available on linux.
• For playlists containing only music tracks the "Now Playing" screen is displayed
• The photo slideshow is available when using the SwissCenter through a browser on the PC.
• More film details are displayed (Unfortunately, only in english)
• Files that have been modified on disk are re-scanned during a media refresh to identify changes.
• Better "Save Playlist" screen.
• Added buttons to the PC browser version to imitate certain remote control functions.

Bugs Fixed

• Fixed some issues with the "Search for new media" - should now be more robust
• Modified the movie information download to reflect changes to the lovefilm.com site.
• Better check for internet connectivity (reduced timeout)
• The "Update" icons was being shown after the initial installation, even if there was no update available.
• Picture thumbnails are shown with a border, allowing them to be correctly aligned with each other.
• Movie details are now downloaded only if an internet connection is available, and the user has enabled the feature on the config page.
• Cache filenames include the XY size in the filename.
• Identified issues giving the warning "Using a side-effect of php 3...blah blah blah".
• Fixed image resizing issues - sometimes images were not resized correctly.
• Empty playlists don't cause an error anymore

* Please note that although the code supports multi-language, only the english language file is complete. To help translate SwissCenter into other languages, please see this forum post.
 

This is a patch release which fixes the "Errors on first access" issue that was reported in the forums.

To apply this patch, download the swisscetner source distribution from here and unzip it into the "C:Program FilesSimesedata" directory so that it overwrites the files already there.
 

New Features:

• Added a "Category" filter to the "Organise Videos" section on the configuration utility. Also added a "Search" feature.
• WMA and WMV support added for showcenter 200 users... of course, not having a Showcetner 200, I couldn't test this. I'm sure everyone will let me know if it doesn't work!

Bugs Fixed

• Movies which could not be identified by GetID3 as of a valid type were not storing their media location - and hence were not visible in the swisscenter interface (but they were visible in the config page).
• "Back" from the music/photos page was taking the user back to the movie ategory screen (only if categories for music/photos were being used).
• Modifying the details of a media location was broken - fixed.
• Typos fixed.

New Features:

• Added the ability to perform a search for new media from the Configuration Utility.
• Moved the "Organise Movie Information" to the Configuration Utility so that you only have one place to go to configure the SwissCenter.
• Added an option to force a refresh of all extra movie information downloaded from lovefilm.com.

 
Bugs Fixed

• AlbumArt displays correctly again!
• Updated the code that queries lovefilm.com for extra movie information as the website format had changed slightly.
• Fixed issues with "Organise Movies" where the certificate was not being set correctly.
• Sensible defaults for "Maximum Certificate" and "Category" are now chosen if you do not specify them whilst adding a media location.
• Fixed a display issue when updating.- the message was being displayed off the bottom of the screen.
• Added a page to keep the user informed what's happening when a style is downloaded from swisscenter.co.uk.
• Downloaded styles are applied immediately (previously they required a reboot or a second selection)
• Corrected a few typos, and fixed some page formatting issues in various places.

New Features:

• Multi-user support. - each user has their own preferences and can protect their account with a PIN number.
• Certificates - each account can be set to restrict access to a maximum certificate level. (film certificates are automatically downloaded from the internet along with actor/director information)
• "Quick Play" to allow you to watch or listen to a random selection very easily.
• Improved Linux support.
• Scheduler interface added to the Configuration Utility for Linux users.
• New styles available that use 24-bit background images - 2 styles are provided as default, and more can be downloaded from this website.

 
Bugs Fixed

• Made sure all table/column names are the correct case (linux is case-sensitive for MySQL)
• Checked and fixed some memory leaks.
• Made support.log a more readable.
• Fixed issues relating to the use of symbolic links on linux.
• Fixed a bug in the weather module where changing units lost the current city you were viewing.
• Thumbnails for media without album art were not being displayed correctly.
• Improved the quality of the "Now Playing" screen image.
• Stopped error messages from appearing when downloading new styles (if there were none available)

Linux Users

Unfortunately, in versions prior to 1.09 the auto-update feature does not work correctly and so you must manually download a replacement upgrade.php script (available as a zip file here). Once you have overwritten your existing upgrade.php file with this one then you may choose the "Update" option from the SwissCenter main menu.

Note: Make sure that the Apache document root where you have installed SwissCenter and all the files/directories within it are owned by the Apache user otherwise the update will not be able to write the new files.

Version 1.08 has been released to fix a critical bug with the "Browse Filesystem" options available for all media types.

• Fixed "Browse Photos" so that it does not report an error.
• Improved Performance of the "Browse Filesystem" pages for all media types.
• Fixed several bugs reelating to AlbumArt images stored within ID3 tags (and improved performance)
• Added a missing library call in the "Organise Videos" page.

New Features:

• Linux compatible (Tested on SuSE Linux 9.2, although it should work with other distributions)
• VOB support added.
• Added support for categorisation of media to enable the user to restrict searching/browsing to a particular category (eg: "TV Series", "Films" or "Music Videos"). User-defined categories can be added/deleted from the configuration utility.
• Added a virtual category called "Recently Added" which displays media that has been detected by the Swisscenter within the last 7 days (this value will be configurable in the next release).
• "Film Art" is now automatically downloaded from the internet where available if it is not already present on your system.
• "Album Art" contained within the ID3 tag of an MP3 is used if it is present (there is also an option to disable this if required within the configuration utility).
• The "SwissCenter Configuration Utility" has been improved to allow in-place editing of various fields, as well as many more configuration options for the new features.
• Windows users can now control the days on which an automatic media search is performed, as well as the time, using the configuration utility (Eg: 8:30am, every Monday and Thursday).
• The size, placement and colours of text and images on the "Now Playing" screen can be controlled from within the style definition .
• All features that require access to the internet can be individually enabled or disabled to ensure you have complete control over information being uploaded or downloaded from your PC (also add a "Privacy Policy" to the configuration utility).
• Limited support has been added to enable the SwissCenter to operate under Microsoft's IIS webserver.

Bugs Fixed

• The version of PHP being used is checked to ensure it meets the minimum requirements.
• The "Total Play Time" now displays the number of days and seconds correctly.
• Playlists of over 4000 items were causing the Showcenter hardware to crash. This has been remedied.
• Duplicate entries in the database for media files are automatically detected and removed.
• Matching of filenames to movie names when looking up extra details on the internet (such as actors and directors) has been improved.
• "Internet Radio" has been moved to the main menu as it wasn't appropriate to have the link from "Listen to Music" now that categorisation is supported.
• After viewing messages, user are not returned to the correct screen.
• The update icon only gets displayed when there actually is an update.
• Many typos have been fixed!

Bugs fixed:

• Weather: In 5-day view: switching between metric and imperial didn't work
• Music: In thumbnail view, first item didn't play, 2nd item played the 1st, etc
• Music: "Back" Navigation bug fixed
• Music: "Refine by" wasn't working properly
• Radio: Didn't work in thumbnail view
• Movies: In thumbnail view, first item didn't play, 2nd item played the 1st, etc

Please note, that Marco has released an update of Simese (Simple Media Server) which fixes some stability issues (Available here - see the forums for more info).

• Added "log" directory to the auto-update as this was preventing database updates from completing successfully.
• Added a central "support.log" file which contains debugging information that will be useful in troubleshooting future problems. (file is limited to 1 Mb in size)
• "Update SwissCenter" option automatically appears on the main interface page when a new version is available.
• Regular expression corrected (again) to use the correct slashes in the OS_Path function (linux specific) [Stomper98]

• "Support Information" added to the configuration utility to allow more detailed troubleshooting of installation problems.
• Space added to redirection headers between "location:" and the referenced URL [Marco]
• Link being incorrectly generated in music_selected.php [Marco]
• Entra quotes added when using "at" to schedule a database update on MS Windows platforms [Marco]
• Regular expression corrected to use the correct slashes in the OS_Path function (linux specific) [Stomper98]

• [Bug] Cities table failed to create in the database setup script.
• [Bug] Movies table failed to create in the database setup script.

• Initial Release