v1.4.0

MiSTer Hi-Fi v1.4.0 – Stability and Playback Lifecycle Improvements

Note: MiSTer Hi-Fi combines a continuously rendered framebuffer interface with real-time audio decoding, buffering and playback. This makes it considerably more demanding than a typical MiSTer script or utility. While stability continues to improve, edge-case issues may still occur and further optimization may be required.

This update focuses on broader playback stability after extended testing of the new Online Radio and audio pipeline changes.

Fixed

• Fixed race conditions between playback controls and the background playback monitor.
• Added playback-session tracking so stale monitor tasks can no longer act on a newly started track.
• Improved synchronization when stopping, starting, seeking and advancing tracks.
• Fixed a race where CD/PCM playback could still write to the audio buffer while it was being destroyed.
• Improved seek failure handling so the audio engine always returns to a clean state.
• Improved overall decoder, buffer and playback lifecycle stability.

v1.3.1

MiSTer Hi-Fi v1.3.1 – Stability Fix

This update focuses on stability following the Online Radio additions in v1.3.0.

Fixed

• Fixed a memory initialization issue that could cause random crashes during playback.
• Improved stability around track transitions and gapless playback.
• Prevented invalid cleanup of newly added radio stream buffer state.

v1.3.0

MiSTer Hi-Fi v1.3.0 – Online Radio

This update adds Online Radio support to MiSTer Hi-Fi, allowing you to add and play your own internet radio stations using a simple radio.json configuration file.

What's New

• Added Online Radio as a new source.
• Add your own stations using direct HTTP/HTTPS stream URLs.
• Added radio.example.json as a configuration example.
• Added full Ogg Vorbis playback support.
• Added a shared network streaming layer designed for continuous radio streams.
• Improved handling of redirects, buffering, short network reads, stream probing and non-seekable audio sources.
• Supported radio codecs are detected automatically.

Supported Online Radio Formats

• MP3
• FLAC
• Ogg/FLAC
• Ogg Vorbis
• WAV / PCM

Other radio codecs are currently unsupported, including:

• Raw AAC
• AAC+ / HE-AAC
• Opus / Ogg Opus

AAC and ALAC contained in .m4a files remain supported for normal file playback.

Radio Configuration

Create:

/media/fat/Scripts/.config/MiSTerHiFi/radio.json

Example:

{
  "stations": [
    {
      "name": "My Radio Station",
      "url": "https://example.com/stream",
      "genre": "Rock"
    }
  ]
}

v1.2.0

MiSTer Hi-Fi v1.2.0

This update adds M4A support and improves metadata and artwork reliability across supported audio formats.

Changes

• Added .m4a playback support.
• Added support for both AAC and Apple Lossless (ALAC) audio.
• Added M4A metadata support for title, artist, album, and embedded cover artwork.
• Added technical audio information for M4A files, including codec, sample rate, bitrate, duration, and ALAC bit depth where available.
• Improved FLAC metadata loading reliability, especially when using SMB/network storage.
• Separated FLAC core metadata loading from cover-art loading to prevent artwork failures from affecting track information.
• Improved embedded and external FLAC cover-art reliability with independent retry handling.
• Improved metadata refresh behavior so newly loaded technical information appears consistently on the Now Playing screen.
• Improved MP3 technical information detection for bitrate and sample rate.

v1.1.1

MiSTer Hi-Fi v1.1.1

• Fixed external cover artwork detection after the v1.1.0 Unicode file-handling changes.
• Restored case-insensitive support for cover, folder, and front JPG/PNG artwork.
• Embedded artwork continues to work as before.

v1.1.0

MiSTer Hi-Fi v1.1.0

This update adds proper support for filenames and folders containing Japanese and other special characters, along with optional custom fallback fonts for displaying characters that are missing from MiSTer Hi-Fi’s built-in font.

Changes

• Added UTF-8 filename support for SMB/CIFS music libraries.
• Fixed opening and playing files and folders containing Japanese and other special characters.
• Improved file and directory handling for better compatibility across SMB, SD, USB, and other locations.
• Added safer file descriptor handling during playback and failed file opens.
• Added Custom Fallback Font support.
  • MiSTer Hi-Fi automatically creates a fonts folder.
  • Users can add their own compatible .ttf or .otf fonts.
  • Available fonts can be selected from the Settings menu.
  • The option defaults to Off and is disabled when no fonts are available.
  • Custom fonts are used only for characters missing from MiSTer Hi-Fi’s built-in font.
  • Fallback characters respect MiSTer Hi-Fi’s existing font sizes and layout.
• Added explanatory text for the Custom Fallback Font option in Settings.
• Added stb_truetype for custom font rasterization and documented its third-party license in the README.
• MiSTer Hi-Fi does not include or distribute custom font files; users provide their own fonts.

Pre-release

more stability improvements

v1.0.0

MiSTer Hi-Fi v1.0.0

The first stable release of MiSTer Hi-Fi is here.

MiSTer Hi-Fi is a visual music player for MiSTer focused on high-quality and lossless audio playback, with support for local storage, network shares, physical Audio CDs, playlists, and Zaparoo integration.

Features

• FLAC, WAV and MP3 playback
• M3U and M3U8 playlist support
• Physical Audio CD playback
• SD Card, USB and SMB sources
• Embedded and folder-based album artwork
• Optional automatic album-art hiding when no artwork is available
• Audio information display for format, bit depth, sample rate and bitrate
• 5-band equalizer
• Real-time audio visualizer
• Gapless Playback (Experimental) for FLAC, WAV and CDDA
• Optional system clock
• OLED Mode with true-black backgrounds
• Configurable black-screen screensaver for OLED burn-in protection
• Configurable controller button layout
• Confirm on Exit option
• Zaparoo NFC launching support
• Persistent external-launch handling without restarting MiSTer Hi-Fi

Gapless Playback

Gapless Playback is currently experimental and supports:

• FLAC
• WAV
• Physical Audio CD / CDDA

MP3 is currently excluded from gapless playback.

Screensaver

An optional screensaver can turn the display completely black after a selected period of inactivity while music continues playing.

Available options:

• Off
• 30 seconds
• 1 minute
• 2 minutes
• 5 minutes
• 10 minutes

Any controller or keyboard input wakes the display.

Known Issues

• Zaparoo's HOLD mode is currently not compatible with MiSTer Hi-Fi.
• While MiSTer Hi-Fi is active, Zaparoo cannot process another NFC scan.
• Special characters in file or track names are not fully supported yet and may prevent affected tracks from playing. This will be addressed in a future update.

Credits

Developer: Anime0t4ku
Contributor: Phoenix