0.1.0-beta.37

MisterZine Plex Core 0.1.0-beta.37

• A movie's edition (Director's Cut, Extended, Remastered) now shows after the runtime on the movie page, the Home hero and the library band, on the right of the playback controls, and in search results, so two editions of one film can be told apart.
• Composite and S-Video colour: the core now reports its video clock count over a whole frame to MiSTer main (words 19/20 of the current framework), so main computes the subcarrier exactly on every start instead of from a one-line measurement that landed on 80.99 or 81.01 MHz. The yc.txt lines added in beta.36 stay as a fallback for MiSTer releases before August 2026. The core also picks up the framework's Y/C chroma and NTSC timing fixes, registered analog audio pins and a scaler state reset at VSync.
• 720p transcodes from Plex servers that use Intel Quick Sync hardware encoding now show a picture; before, the screen stayed black while the sound played. Intel's encoder codes 720p as 1280x736 with a note to show only 720 lines, and the core silently refused anything larger than 1280x720. It now accepts pictures up to 4,096 blocks of 16x16 pixels, which its frame memory always had room for, so hardware encoding can stay on.
• If the core still decodes a stream but shows none of it, or drops its pictures as too large, the app now notices (within a second for pictures that are too large, a few seconds otherwise) and restarts the item once at the same point as a transcode of at most 854x480, instead of leaving the spinner up over the sound. A file played as stored falls back to an ordinary transcode first.
• Files coded at 1280x736 and similar sizes just over 720 lines can now play as stored, at up to 29.6 frames per second.

Ships a new qualified FPGA core. Existing settings, calibration and saved access are preserved. Rollback restores the previous release.

Test build for one tester

Test build for one tester: video that never appears, second try

Not a release. The app never offers this build, and the next regular beta
replaces it. Install it by copying MisterZine-Plex-Install-0.1.0-beta.36.2.sh
to Scripts on the MiSTer card and running it from the Scripts menu.

What it changes:

• The decoder core now accepts the picture size that Intel hardware encoding
  produces for 720p. Intel codes 1280x720 video as 1280x736 and marks the
  bottom 16 lines to be cropped off. The old core silently dropped every
  picture larger than 1280x720, which is why those movies played sound but
  never showed a picture.
• The automatic restart as an 854x480 transcode from the previous test build
  stays as a safety net. It no longer fails when the server is still shutting
  down the transcode it was sending before.
• Transcodes ask for H.264 level 4.1 again, as in the regular betas.

Please play one of the movies that failed before, with hardware encoding on
in Plex and the quality at 8 Mbps, then send a new report code. If it still
shows no picture, the app saves the first few seconds of the video to
misterzine-plex/nopic-capture.h264 on the card again, as before. Please
attach that file to the GitHub issue.

Also in this build, from the next regular beta (0.1.0-beta.37): a movie's
edition shows on the movie page, the hero, captions and the playback overlay.
Everything else is 0.1.0-beta.36.

Test build for one tester

Test build for one tester: video that never appears

Not a release. The app never offers this build, and the next regular beta
replaces it. Install it by copying MisterZine-Plex-Install-0.1.0-beta.36.1.sh
to Scripts on the MiSTer card and running it from the Scripts menu.

What it changes:

• When the decoder receives a video but shows no picture for a few seconds
  after the start, playback restarts by itself at the same position as a
  server transcode of at most 854x480, for the rest of that playback.
• Before that restart the app saves the first few seconds of the video it
  received to misterzine-plex/nopic-capture.h264 on the card. Please attach
  that file to the GitHub issue. It holds video of the title you played and
  nothing else.
• Transcodes are now requested at H.264 level 3.1 instead of 4.1.

Also in this build, from the next regular beta (0.1.0-beta.37): a movie's
edition shows on the movie page, the hero, captions and the playback overlay.
Everything else is 0.1.0-beta.36.

0.1.0-beta.36

MisterZine Plex Core 0.1.0-beta.36

• Video crop set to Fill applies when playback starts again. Since the
  decoder-core release it only took effect after changing Crop under More
  during playback; a saved Video geometry calibration hid the fault.
• Theme music fades out over its last seconds instead of stopping dead.
  The clips servers hold are mostly 30 s long and cut hard at the end,
  which sounded like the app cutting the music off.
• Direct Video works again through HDMI-to-VGA adapters, such as a DAC
  feeding a 15 kHz CRT. Since the decoder-core release the core clocked the
  HDMI transmitter at 81 MHz on Direct Video and put a broadcast-style
  composite sync with equalizing pulses on the sync line; adapters dropped
  lock and the screen stayed black. The transmitter now runs at 27 MHz there
  and sends the plain composite sync the other cores use. Confirmed on the
  reporter's adapter with test build 0.1.0-beta.35.2.
• Composite and S-Video colour (MiSTer.ini vga_mode=svideo or cvbs) is now
  pinned: the installer and the app add this core's lines to the SD card's
  yc.txt, as the other cores have, so it applies from the first start. This
  fixes the occasional wrong colours after an OSD Reset or a new start, and
  the dot crawl that came with them.
• The 4:3 filter now ignores season 0 specials when judging a show, and
  re-checks the TV libraries once a day while the menus sit dimmed.

Ships a new qualified FPGA core (the Direct Video fix is in the core) with an
updated playback worker. Existing settings, calibration and saved access are
preserved. Rollback restores the previous release.

0.1.0-beta.35.2 (Direct Video adapter test build 2)

Test build 2 for one tester: Direct Video through an HDMI-to-VGA adapter

Not a release. The app never offers this build, and the next regular beta
replaces it. Install it by copying MisterZine-Plex-Install-0.1.0-beta.35.2.sh
to Scripts on the MiSTer card and running it from the Scripts menu.

What it changes, with direct_video=1 in MiSTer.ini:

• The core's HDMI output carries the plain 27 MHz 480i / 480p (576i / 576p)
  timing that the previous core sent, instead of each dot three times at
  81 MHz (same as the first test build, 0.1.0-beta.35.1).
• With composite_sync=1, the sync on the adapter's HSync line is the plain
  composite sync every other core sends. The first test build still sent the
  core's broadcast-style composite sync (equalizing pulses at twice the line
  rate during vertical blanking, made for televisions on the analog board),
  which an HDMI-to-VGA adapter's receiver cannot lock to.

Everything else is 0.1.0-beta.35.

Known gap in this test build: on a RetroTINK 4K fed by Direct Video, the
pixel-repetition hint the core reports is still the old one, so the 4K may
decimate the picture wrongly. The regular release will carry the corrected hint.

0.1.0-beta.35

MisterZine Plex Core 0.1.0-beta.35

• A resume, a seek or Skip intro that the server never answers now fails
  after 20 seconds instead of a minute, and says what happened: the server
  accepted the request but sent no video. The playback log carries the same
  line for Send a report. Playing from the start is unaffected. (Seen with a
  server whose hardware-accelerated conversion stalls on a seek into 10-bit
  HEVC; turning off the server's hardware acceleration avoids it.)

Uses the same qualified FPGA core as beta.33, with an updated playback worker. Existing
settings, calibration and saved access are preserved. Rollback restores the
previous release.

0.1.0-beta.34

MisterZine Plex Core 0.1.0-beta.34

• Failure reports now show which playback startup stage stalled and how long
  it took. The most recent failed playback log survives playing another video
  before sending a report. This improves diagnosis; it is not a confirmed fix
  for server stream-opening timeouts.

• Movies and episodes stored as several files now ask which version to play
  when you start from the beginning. The version best suited to the MiSTer is
  selected: the largest that plays directly, otherwise the smallest of at
  least 720p. Resuming plays the version last played on this MiSTer without
  asking; a resume point set on another device asks.

• The next episode, the L/R episode hold and Shuffle never ask: they play the
  version the show last played, or the one best suited to the MiSTer.

• A Version row beside Audio and Subtitles changes the version for the next
  play, and Playback Info names the version playing.

Uses the same qualified FPGA core as beta.33, with an updated playback worker. Existing
settings, calibration and saved access are preserved. Rollback restores the
previous release.

0.1.0-beta.33

MisterZine Plex Core 0.1.0-beta.33

• Server connection checks no longer send your Plex token to every advertised
  address. Direct HTTPS connections are tried first, and replies must identify
  the expected server. Plain HTTP fallback is limited to connections advertised
  as local. The new Plain HTTP connections setting can disable this fallback;
  it is on by default, and sessions using it remain unencrypted on the local network.
• A new Direct play setting lets you have the server transcode every file,
  including files that could otherwise play directly. It is on by default.
• Hold L or R for two seconds during playback to go to the previous or next
  episode. The on-screen indicator shows the hold progress.
• Playback Info fetches the item's track details before its first display,
  so original video and audio information is available sooner.

Uses the same qualified FPGA core and playback worker as beta.32. Existing
settings, calibration and saved access are preserved. Rollback restores the
previous release.

0.1.0-beta.32

MisterZine Plex Core 0.1.0-beta.32

• Playback Info fits in one wider, compact panel with no row selection.
• Video and audio separately explain whether the server converted them.
  Original and received formats are compared when the source details are known.
• Plain-language conversion reasons explain format, channel, subtitle and
  playback-limit requirements. Local stereo output is shown separately.
• Measured current and average video bitrate, the applicable bitrate limit,
  MiSTer output and effective de-flicker state are visible together.
• Recent late frames and decoder errors are separated from playback totals;
  the sound buffer is shown in seconds.
• Arrow keys leave Playback Info open. Left/Right on its More-menu row has no
  effect; OK and Back return from Info to More.
• Original video whose file carries wrong or missing frame timing in its H.264
  header no longer judders. The player corrects the timing to the file's real
  frame rate before the core schedules pictures; a steady late-frame count on
  an otherwise smooth title was this.
• Reports include the H.264 stream headers as received, the demuxer's frame
  rates and the core's output changes, for diagnosing wrong output rates.

Uses the same qualified FPGA core as the preceding release. Existing settings,
calibration and saved access are preserved. Rollback restores the previous release.

0.1.0-beta.31

MisterZine Plex Core 0.1.0-beta.31

• Stronger OSD de-flicker for downscaled video, including 720-line video on
  interlaced 480-line output. Off and native-size filtering are unchanged.
• Scrubbing while paused keeps the picture and play icon steady. Press OK on
  the playhead, Start, or the play button to resume at the selected position.
• Playback Info shows separate video/audio conversion status, current and
  average video bitrate, core output, and a concise conversion reason.
  The compact layout removes duplicate position information and indicates scrolling.
• Main and playback menus wrap from the first entry to the last and back.
• Show themes use buffered audio to prevent distortion from underruns and play
  at source volume with smooth fades.

Existing settings, calibration and saved access are preserved. Rollback restores
the previous application and core.