v26.13.0-e51ac60c-develop

Release Notes

Fixed

• Fix classic schedule duration items with Discard To Fill Attempts running past their duration and skipping later schedule items once the attempts are used up

ErsatzTV Next: v0.2.5

Full changes: ErsatzTV/legacy@v26.12.0...e51ac60

v26.12.0-fbb3685b-develop

Release Notes

Changed

• Use an ErsatzTV-ffmpeg develop build (8.1.2-4089c130-develop, newer than 8.1.2-7) in docker images, Windows packages and macOS packages
  • Fix QSV streams failing about 10 seconds in with Can't allocate a surface or Failed to query an output frame on pre-Tiger Lake Intel GPUs (regression in 26.11.6)
  • Fix QSV, VAAPI and CUDA items failing when the source's color tags change mid-stream

Removed

• Remove the legacy streaming engine; all channels now stream with the next engine
  • Channels still using the legacy engine are moved to the next engine on startup
  • MPEG-TS (Legacy) channels are moved to MPEG-TS, and HLS Direct channels are moved to HLS Segmenter
  • Existing ts-legacy and hls-direct playlist and lineup URLs are redirected to the next engine
  • Playback troubleshooting can still use the legacy engine for comparison; if a channel works on legacy but not on next, please report it with the ID from Upload Results

Fixed

• Next engine:
  • Fix NVENC failing to start (Gop Length should be greater than number of B frames + 1) on very low frame rate sources, such as 1 fps slideshows
  • VAAPI: fix tonemap_opencl and pad_opencl never being used on Intel GPUs when only the OpenCL runtime (libOpenCL.so.1) is installed, such as in docker
  • Fix still-image watermarks disappearing partway through an item, or (QSV) the item ending early
    • This happened when the source's video parameters change mid-stream, such as spliced or smart-cut files
  • Fix 4:2:2, 4:4:4 and 12-bit sources (such as ProRes, or HEVC/H.264 from cameras)
    • Hardware decode is no longer attempted; they are converted to 4:2:0 after deinterlacing and scaling
  • Fix changes to watermarks, decos, etc. not reaching channels until the next hourly playout build
  • Reduce disk writes when syncing playouts; unchanged days are no longer rewritten every hour

ErsatzTV Next: v0.2.5-28bcbf7d-develop

Full changes: ErsatzTV/legacy@v26.11.6...fbb3685

v26.12.0-fb542e55-develop

Release Notes

Changed

• Use an ErsatzTV-ffmpeg develop build (8.1.2-4089c130-develop, newer than 8.1.2-7) in docker images, Windows packages and macOS packages
  • Fix QSV streams failing about 10 seconds in with Can't allocate a surface or Failed to query an output frame on pre-Tiger Lake Intel GPUs (regression in 26.11.6)
  • Fix QSV, VAAPI and CUDA items failing when the source's color tags change mid-stream

Removed

• Remove the legacy streaming engine; all channels now stream with the next engine
  • Channels still using the legacy engine are moved to the next engine on startup
  • MPEG-TS (Legacy) channels are moved to MPEG-TS, and HLS Direct channels are moved to HLS Segmenter
  • Existing ts-legacy and hls-direct playlist and lineup URLs are redirected to the next engine
  • Playback troubleshooting can still use the legacy engine for comparison; if a channel works on legacy but not on next, please report it with the ID from Upload Results

Fixed

• Next engine:
  • Fix NVENC failing to start (Gop Length should be greater than number of B frames + 1) on very low frame rate sources, such as 1 fps slideshows
  • VAAPI: fix tonemap_opencl and pad_opencl never being used on Intel GPUs when only the OpenCL runtime (libOpenCL.so.1) is installed, such as in docker
  • Fix still-image watermarks disappearing partway through an item, or (QSV) the item ending early
    • This happened when the source's video parameters change mid-stream, such as spliced or smart-cut files

ErsatzTV Next: v0.2.5-8cb37069-develop

Full changes: ErsatzTV/legacy@v26.11.6...fb542e5

v26.12.0-fb247350-develop

Release Notes

Changed

• Next engine:
  • Watermark-only graphics canvases render just the area the watermarks cover instead of the full frame
    • This reduces CPU use and GPU upload for animated or opacity-expression watermarks
    • This is currently limited to local watermarks; remote/URL watermarks will still send the full frame

Fixed

• Next engine:
  • Fix active channels falling behind schedule when the playout is updated
  • Fix image subtitles (e.g. PGS) missing or misplaced with hardware acceleration when the subtitle size differs from the video size (e.g. cropped video)

ErsatzTV Next: v0.2.3-28632bc8-develop

Full changes: ErsatzTV/legacy@v26.11.3...fb24735

v26.12.0-fb0e2bc1-develop

Release Notes

Added

• Add Upload Results button to playback troubleshooting
  • Results are encrypted on your ErsatzTV server so only the ErsatzTV maintainer can read them
  • The upload returns an ID (e.g. etv-xxxx-xxxxxx) to paste into a GitHub issue or Discord thread
  • Uploads are deleted from the upload server after 7 days
  • Download Results still works when ErsatzTV can't reach the upload server
• Detect DolbyVision content from media server libraries
  • This enables the next engine to use the appropriate tonemapping filter

Changed

• Next engine:
  • Watermark-only graphics canvases render just the area the watermarks cover instead of the full frame
    • This reduces CPU use and GPU upload for animated or opacity-expression watermarks
    • This is currently limited to local watermarks; remote/URL watermarks will still send the full frame
• Use ErsatzTV-ffmpeg 8.1.2-5 in docker images, Windows packages and macOS packages
  • Fix transcoding speed drop when burning in image subtitles, especially with TrueHD audio
  • Fix macOS VideoToolbox encoding failure when video contains A53 closed captions
  • Add RKMPP accel support to arm64 docker image and native package; Jellyfin ffmpeg is no longer required

Fixed

• Next engine:
  • Fix active channels falling behind schedule when the playout is updated
  • Fix image subtitles (e.g. PGS) missing or misplaced with hardware acceleration when the subtitle size differs from the video size (e.g. cropped video)
  • Fix QSV stream failing when no Intel device is found; the channel now uses a software pipeline
  • Fix QSV green padding on Windows with certain HDR content
  • Fix slow transcoding of high-resolution video with PGS subtitles until the first subtitle appears
  • Fix RKMPP stream failing with loudness normalization
• Fix Jellyfin external audio files being added as audio streams with negative indexes
  • These broke playback of the whole playout file with the next engine (expected u32)
  • Affected Jellyfin movies and episodes will be rescanned automatically
• Fix channel troubleshooting Play button being disabled with no explanation
  • Date and time now defaults to the current time and shows an error when it can't be parsed
• Fix some extracted ASS subtitles never being displayed
  • Affected subtitles that were already extracted will be repaired automatically on startup

ErsatzTV Next: v0.2.3-74253c2c-develop

Full changes: ErsatzTV/legacy@v26.11.3...fb0e2bc

v26.12.0-f5b5e9aa-develop

Release Notes

Changed

• Graphics engine: decode image and watermark elements with SkiaSharp instead of ImageSharp
  • TIFF, TGA, PBM and QOI images are no longer supported
• Next engine:
  • Software scaling now defaults to bicubic instead of fast_bilinear, which reduces aliasing when downscaling
    • This can be changed using normalization.video.filters.scale.flags in a channel config overlay
  • Log messages from next channels now include the channel number, e.g. [next::channel 7]
• Warn that the legacy streaming engine will be removed in ErsatzTV 26.12
  • The Channels page lists channels that still use the legacy engine
  • The channel editor shows a warning when the legacy engine is selected
  • Starting a legacy engine stream logs a warning

Fixed

• Fix sequential schedules silently skipping nested sequence instructions inside pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll sequences
• Fix local show libraries ignoring episode NFO tag and genre changes after the first scan
• Fix playback from Jellyfin-compatible servers (e.g. Silo) that require authentication for media streams
  • The Jellyfin API key is now included on stream and subtitle requests
  • Jellyfin itself does not require it but continues to play successfully with the API key included
• Next engine:
  • Linux/macOS: fix channels failing to locate playout items after the config folder is copied or restored with a tool that replaces symlinks with real folders (e.g. cp -L, rsync -L)
    • Failures to link the current playout folder are now logged instead of silently ignored
  • VAAPI: fix playback freezing at the end of some items on channels with an Intermittent watermark
    • Most common with music videos, whose audio often runs slightly longer than their video
    • The log showed channel ... terminated after ffmpeg stall
  • VAAPI: fix hevc streams hanging on content with embedded (A53) closed captions with Mesa before 26.2.3
    • Captions are left out of hevc output on those Mesa versions; update Mesa to keep them
  • Always encode 4:2:0 output, which many clients require
    • Still images and song backgrounds were previously encoded as 4:4:4 by software encoders
  • NVIDIA: fix streams failing with a watermark in yuva420p (e.g. lossy WebP with transparency) and opacity below 100%
  • NVIDIA: fix streams with a watermark failing when encoding with software (e.g. mpeg2video)
  • VideoToolbox: fix streams failing to encode to h264 when they contain embedded (A53) closed captions
  • QSV: fix completely green output with legacy Intel encoders
  • Fix fallback filler playback with filler content that has no audio
  • Fix crop scaling mode so it always scales to cover the output before cropping, even when the source content is larger than the target resolution
• Fix errors logged when quickly navigating to search results
  • The log showed Navigation failed when changing the location to search?query=...
  • Searches from the search bar and smart collection targets no longer reload the whole page

ErsatzTV Next: v0.2.1-73a72616-develop

Full changes: ErsatzTV/legacy@v26.11.1...f5b5e9a

v26.12.0-eadb613b-develop

Release Notes

Changed

• Use an ErsatzTV-ffmpeg develop build (8.1.2-4089c130-develop, newer than 8.1.2-7) in docker images, Windows packages and macOS packages
  • Fix QSV streams failing about 10 seconds in with Can't allocate a surface or Failed to query an output frame on pre-Tiger Lake Intel GPUs (regression in 26.11.6)
  • Fix QSV, VAAPI and CUDA items failing when the source's color tags change mid-stream

Removed

• Remove the legacy streaming engine; all channels now stream with the next engine
  • Channels still using the legacy engine are moved to the next engine on startup
  • MPEG-TS (Legacy) channels are moved to MPEG-TS, and HLS Direct channels are moved to HLS Segmenter
  • Existing ts-legacy and hls-direct playlist and lineup URLs are redirected to the next engine
  • Playback troubleshooting can still use the legacy engine for comparison; if a channel works on legacy but not on next, please report it with the ID from Upload Results

Fixed

• Next engine:
  • Fix NVENC failing to start (Gop Length should be greater than number of B frames + 1) on very low frame rate sources, such as 1 fps slideshows
  • VAAPI: fix tonemap_opencl and pad_opencl never being used on Intel GPUs when only the OpenCL runtime (libOpenCL.so.1) is installed, such as in docker
  • Fix still-image watermarks disappearing partway through an item, or (QSV) the item ending early
    • This happened when the source's video parameters change mid-stream, such as spliced or smart-cut files
  • Fix 4:2:2, 4:4:4 and 12-bit sources (such as ProRes, or HEVC/H.264 from cameras)
    • Hardware decode is no longer attempted; they are converted to 4:2:0 after deinterlacing and scaling
  • Fix changes to watermarks, decos, etc. not reaching channels until the next hourly playout build
  • Reduce disk writes when syncing playouts; unchanged days are no longer rewritten every hour
  • Fix channels failing with failed to load playout JSON file: missing field codec
    • This happens when the playout includes a file with a stream ffprobe can't identify (e.g. spatial audio in some phone videos)
  • Fix one invalid playout item failing the whole playout file, so the channel showed failed to load playout JSON file for every item
    • An invalid item now shows the fallback for its own time only, naming the item and the invalid field

ErsatzTV Next: v0.2.5-2ec28d7b-develop

Full changes: ErsatzTV/legacy@v26.11.6...eadb613

v26.12.0-e17cfe84-develop

Release Notes

Changed

• Graphics engine: decode image and watermark elements with SkiaSharp instead of ImageSharp
  • TIFF, TGA, PBM and QOI images are no longer supported
• Next engine:
  • Software scaling now defaults to bicubic instead of fast_bilinear, which reduces aliasing when downscaling
    • This can be changed using normalization.video.filters.scale.flags in a channel config overlay

Fixed

• Next engine:
  • Linux/macOS: fix channels failing to locate playout items after the config folder is copied or restored with a tool that replaces symlinks with real folders (e.g. cp -L, rsync -L)
    • Failures to link the current playout folder are now logged instead of silently ignored
  • VAAPI: fix playback freezing at the end of some items on channels with an Intermittent watermark
    • Most common with music videos, whose audio often runs slightly longer than their video
    • The log showed channel ... terminated after ffmpeg stall
  • Always encode 4:2:0 output, which many clients require
    • Still images and song backgrounds were previously encoded as 4:4:4 by software encoders
  • NVIDIA: fix streams failing with a watermark in yuva420p (e.g. lossy WebP with transparency) and opacity below 100%
  • NVIDIA: fix streams with a watermark failing when encoding with software (e.g. mpeg2video)
  • VideoToolbox: fix streams failing to encode to h264 when they contain embedded (A53) closed captions
  • Fix fallback filler playback with filler content that has no audio

ErsatzTV Next: v0.2.1-fd86a84a-develop

Full changes: ErsatzTV/legacy@v26.11.1...e17cfe8

v26.12.0-de40b158-develop

Release Notes

Changed

• Use ErsatzTV-ffmpeg 8.1.2-8 in docker images, Windows packages and macOS packages
  • Fix QSV streams failing about 10 seconds in with Can't allocate a surface or Failed to query an output frame on pre-Tiger Lake Intel GPUs (regression in 26.11.6)
  • Fix QSV, VAAPI and CUDA items failing when the source's color tags change mid-stream
• Troubleshooting: replace the separate accel-specific tabs with one Hardware tab showing what the next engine can use on the machine
  • Each accel shows whether it works, why not, and what it can decode and encode
• FFmpeg profile editor:
  • Show when the selected accel, device and driver won't work on the machine
  • Show when the format and bit depth will encode in software given the selected accel
• Merge the Hardware Acceleration and VAAPI Driver health checks into one check, based on what the next engine can use on the machine

Removed

• Remove the legacy streaming engine; all channels now stream with the next engine
  • Channels still using the legacy engine are moved to the next engine on startup
  • MPEG-TS (Legacy) channels are moved to MPEG-TS, and HLS Direct channels are moved to HLS Segmenter
  • Existing ts-legacy and hls-direct playlist and lineup URLs are redirected to the next engine
  • Playback troubleshooting can still use the legacy engine for comparison; if a channel works on legacy but not on next, please report it with the ID from Upload Results

Fixed

• Next engine:
  • Fix NVENC failing to start (Gop Length should be greater than number of B frames + 1) on very low frame rate sources, such as 1 fps slideshows
  • VAAPI: fix tonemap_opencl and pad_opencl never being used on Intel GPUs when only the OpenCL runtime (libOpenCL.so.1) is installed, such as in docker
  • Vulkan: fix hardware decode being chosen for formats the driver can't decode, such as H.264 10-bit on Intel GPUs on Windows
  • Vulkan: never select a CPU (llvmpipe) Vulkan device
  • Fix still-image watermarks disappearing partway through an item, or (QSV) the item ending early
    • This happened when the source's video parameters change mid-stream, such as spliced or smart-cut files
  • Fix 4:2:2, 4:4:4 and 12-bit sources (such as ProRes, or HEVC/H.264 from cameras)
    • Hardware decode is no longer attempted; they are converted to 4:2:0 after deinterlacing and scaling
  • Fix changes to watermarks, decos, etc. not reaching channels until the next hourly playout build
  • Reduce disk writes when syncing playouts; unchanged days are no longer rewritten every hour
  • Fix channels failing with failed to load playout JSON file: missing field codec
    • This happens when the playout includes a file with a stream ffprobe can't identify (e.g. spatial audio in some phone videos)
  • Fix one invalid playout item failing the whole playout file, so the channel showed failed to load playout JSON file for every item
    • An invalid item now shows the fallback for its own time only, naming the item and the invalid field
  • Fix fallback filler showing the previous clip's subtitles, or the fallback error screen for the rest of a gap after one clip ended early

Known issues

• VAAPI on Intel Meteor Lake and Arrow Lake with the free intel-media-va-driver package (Debian, Ubuntu): channels with a watermark run far below realtime
  • Install intel-media-va-driver-non-free, or add "ffmpeg": { "disabled_filters": ["overlay_vaapi"] } to a channel config overlay in ErsatzTV's config folder / next / channel-config-overlays (default.json for all channels, or {number}.json for one channel)
  • The docker image is not affected

ErsatzTV Next: v0.2.5

Full changes: ErsatzTV/legacy@v26.11.6...de40b15

v26.12.0-de2f6043-develop

Release Notes

Fixed

• Fix startup crash The system cannot open the device or file specified when running as a non-root user or with a read-only root filesystem
  • This was caused by a .NET runtime security update that changed where single-instance checks are stored
  • ErsatzTV now uses a lock file in the config folder, which also prevents multiple instances (e.g. two docker containers) from sharing the same config folder

ErsatzTV Next: v0.2.3

Full changes: ErsatzTV/legacy@v26.11.4...de2f604