The Apple Remote work is taking a bit longer than I expected, so another release is probably a good idea, to share some of the bug-fixes and new features that are complete. Here are the changes in this release:
- NEW: High quality software upscaling is now supported. You can specify preferences in Video -> Player as to when the scaling is enabled and what scaling algorithm is used. This makes a huge difference when viewing SD content. It takes quite a bit of processing power, but the good news is that decoding SD content doesn’t.
- NEW: Monitor blanking is now supported. When selecting a full-screen mode, you have the option of telling XBMC to blank the other monitors. The preference is in Appearance -> Screen. I suspect Martin will be happy that he can stop throwing a sweater over his iMac, which sounded like a total fire hazard to me.
- NEW: The built-in web server now works. Among other things, it serves as an alternate remote control for those of you using a laptop as an expensive remote. Make sure to set a port above 1024.
- NEW: You can now store your own skins in the /Users/XXX/Library/Application Support/XBMC/skin directory, to avoid having to move aside and reinstall skins every time you upgrade. Thanks to d4rk for coding this up!
- FIX: A crash when reading WMA files.
- FIX: The OS X mouse cursor sometimes made an unwelcome appearance in full-screen mode.
- FIX: Settings that made no sense for OS X have been removed to reduce confusion.
The XBMC source has been updated to near-trunk as well, which means a host of improvements and fixes. Note that the new music library features may still have some kinks, but hopefully things work pretty well for you.
We’ve got some good stuff in the pipeline for 0.5.0, including the improved Apple Remote support and some display/computer sleep stuff that Cayce’s been working on.
Also, as a side note, if you have a moment, register your usage of the application on http://osx.iusethis.com/. I’ve tried to update the version on there, but unfortunately someone else “owns” the application and doesn’t seem willing to give it up.
And now of course, the moment you’ve all been waiting for.
