FlowAir v2.3.0

FlowAir now plays practically any video you give it.

Every video, converted when needed

Until now FlowAir could only air what Chromium decodes natively, and flagged the rest in red. It now converts those files for you, in the background, as soon as they are added:

What the file has	What FlowAir does	How long
MP4 / MOV / WebM with H.264, VP9 or AV1	Plays it directly, nothing changes	—
A container Chromium cannot open (AVI, MKV, TS, M2TS, MXF, VOB, FLV, WMV…) with H.264 inside	Rewraps it into MP4, no re-encoding	Seconds
Audio Chromium cannot play (AC-3, E-AC-3, DTS, PCM)	Converts only the audio to AAC	Fast
Video Chromium cannot play (HEVC / H.265, MPEG-2, VC-1, DivX, ProRes…)	Re-encodes to H.264	Depends on the machine

• Heavy conversions use the graphics card when there is one that works — Intel Quick Sync, NVIDIA NVENC, AMD AMF or Windows Media Foundation — and fall back to software otherwise. On an Intel N97 mini PC, a 6-second 1080p60 HEVC clip converts in about two seconds.
• Frame rate, resolution and duration are always preserved, including 60 fps, 120 fps and variable frame rate.
• While a file is being prepared, its row shows the progress and it is skipped on air, so the screen never goes black. Heavy conversions can be set to start automatically or only when you choose Convert from the row menu (Settings → Compatibility).
• Converted copies live in %LOCALAPPDATA%\FlowAir\media-cache, are reused for every copy of the same file, have a size limit, and are removed when FlowAir is uninstalled.

Fixed

• Air could freeze on a skipped row. When a row was skipped because it could not be played, the schedule still counted its full length, so the next clip was timed that much later and the picture held in between. A skipped row now takes no time at all. This fault predates this version; the new conversions made it much more likely.
• Pressing Space after clicking Cue did two things at once. Play, Stop, Next and Cue no longer keep keyboard focus after a click, so Space and Enter only trigger their shortcut.
• The header wrapped at the smallest window size. Buttons keep one height and shorten their labels as the window narrows.
• The installer sidebar said "Trident Sky". It now reads TridentSky.
• The "very high bitrate" warning no longer fires on normal 4K bitrates.

Verified before release

• Conversions of AVI, MKV, variable-frame-rate MKV, AC-3, 10-bit HEVC, 60 fps HEVC, 120 fps HEVC and MPEG-2: every output is H.264 + AAC, same resolution, same frame rate, same duration within 0.1 s — 110 automated checks.
• A playlist mixing 23.976, 25, 29.97, 50, 59.94, 60 and 120 fps and a variable-frame-rate clip transitions within 0.03 s of schedule, with no accumulated drift.
• A playlist of converted clips airs in order within 0.04 s of schedule, and no ffmpeg process is ever left behind.

Install

Download FlowAir-Setup.exe and run it. Windows will show "Windows protected your PC" because the installer is not code-signed: choose More info → Run anyway. Installing over an earlier version keeps your settings. The installer is larger than before (about 148 MB) because it now includes ffmpeg; its licence ships next to it.