DVBViewer Media Server 3.0.0.0

December 13, 2020

Changes Media Server 3.0.0

Overview

Please note: The DVBViewer Media Server 3.x contains major changes. Before using it, every DVBViewer in the network that is associated with the Media Server should be updated to version 7.x, because there may be compatibility issues with older DVBViewer 6.x versions. “Associated” means in this context, that DVBViewer Options → DVBViewer Media Server → Enable support for the DVBViewer Media Server is switched on and the Media Server in question is selected on this page.

A brief overview of the main changes:

Web Server: The server now accepts HTTPS connections, after being configured accordingly. The creation and usage of self-signed certificates is supported.
Web Interface: Several fixes and detail enhancements facilitate the usage of the desktop and mobile web interface. Tuner type icons in channel lists make it easier to recognize channels if more than one reception type (like satellite and terrestrial) is used.
Recording: Several measures enhance the usability of timer recordings, including the automatic creation of timers by EPG search mechanisms.
Streaming: The Media Server as streaming client supports MPEG Dash as new format. The support for HLS has been enhanced.
Miscellaneous: The Media Server automatically reloads the channel or favorites list at runtime if it detects that it has been changed by another program (DVBViewer or TransEdit). It is not necessary anymore to stop and restart the server for this.

Please click the links above for more details!

Web Server

Added: Web Server: The server now accepts HTTPS connections, after being configured accordingly. Please note that this (and the following) does not apply to other server instances (Live Stream, Media Stream, UPnP, RTSP). Since the HTTPS includes encryption and authentication by certificates, some preparations are necessary:

1. Port assignment: HTTPS requires a separate port, so that HTTP still works if the Web Server is configured for HTTPS. The HTTPS port can be entered on the Media Server Options → Web/UPnP page. The port number must be unused by other server instances within the Media Server and other servers running on the PC. The default is 8088.
2. HTTPS Activation: The checkbox “Activate HTTPS” on the new “Media Server Options → HTTPS Settings” page enables HTTPS and lets the Media Server listen on the HTTPS port for incoming connections. Since the server needs less resources without HTTPS activation, it should only be used if necessary.
3. Server key and certificate selection: HTTPS requires a key for encrypting data and a server certificate for proving its identity. Without it HTTPS remains disabled in the Web Server. The key and certificate file can be selected on the new Media Server Options → HTTPS Settings page. If the key and certificate are present in a single file, it must be specified in both input lines. The default files are serverkey.pem and servercert.pem in the new Certificates sub-directory of the DVBViewer Media Server installation directory. The initially installed files only enable HTTPS for “localhost” and 127.0.0.1, unless modified.
4. Certificate creation: For modifying the pre-installed certificate the Media Server Options (svcoptions.exe) must be launched with admin rights (see Tray Tool menu → Configure with Admin Rights). This activates the “Certificate Creation” panel on the HTTPS Settings page.
5. Password protection: On the “Create Certificate” panel you can optionally enter a password as additional security measure. It serves for encrypting the content of the key files, thus making them useless for an attacker who steals them.
6. Add addresses: A multiline input field on the “Certificate Creation” panel allows to add IP addresses and domain names, that shall be accessible for Media Server clients with HTTPS (one per line, without protocol and port). A newly-created certificate is only valid for domains and addresses in the list. The “Add Local Addresses” button adds the computer name and all IP addresses to the list, under which the Media Server is accessible in the local (home) network.
7. Create certificate: This button executes the batch file CreateHTTPSCertificates,bat. It uses OpenSSL to create a new server certificate (servercert.pem). Additionally, if the password has been changed, other relevant files are recreated. The previous files are renamed to *.bak. On a password change the Media Server Options will prompt for confirmation, because the CA root certificate (cacert.pem, CA = Certificate Authority) has to be re-installed on client devices. This file is used to sign the server certificate, thus confirming that it can be trusted. Since the Media Server Options also create the CA certificate, the server certificate is “self signed”, requiring another measure:
8. Root certificate installation: After step 7 the Media Server is ready for HTTPS connections. However, since the issuer of the server certificate is unknown to clients, browsers and even the VLC will not trust it and display warnings. It can be avoided by installing the “Certificate Authority” (CA) certificate in the Windows store on the client PC: Click the “Certificate Folder” button and copy the files cacert.pem and InstallRootCertificate.bat to the client PC. Then execute the batch file with admin rights. Then restart browsers or other clients that are running on that PC. Please note that Firefox does not use the Windows store by default (recent versions can be configured for it), so cacert.pem has to be imported manually: Firefox Options → Privacy & Security → scroll down to the bottom → View Certificates → select Authorities tab → Import.

Installing the cacert.pem file lets Windows and clients trust all certificates that have been signed with this CA root certificate. The signing confirms that everything received from the Media Server (identifying itself with the signed server certificate) is originating from it and not from a “man in the middle” attacker. Step 8. can be avoided by not using self-signed certificates, but signing from a generally approved certification authority like Let's Encrypt, where you can get it for free, in contrast to commercial authorities like Verisign. The root certificates of such authorities are already present in the Windows store. However, the process always includes an (online) proof in one way or the other, that the domain for which the certificate is needed is under the server's control. Thus it is suitable for accessing the Media Server from the internet, but not for using it inside the home network.

By this it should be clear that certificates and encryption keys are security relevant. Keep them private like your identity card! Don't pass them to others, don't publish them. Delete certificate files where they are no more needed (particularly cacert.pem after installation on a client PC). Every bad guy that gets hold of your certificates (plus password, if set) can set up a HTTPS server that is trusted by your browser because it pretends to be the Media Server!

Added: HTTPS Options: Tweak “HTTPS Certificate validity period” (→ execute DMSTweaker.bat). It specifies the validity period of newly created HTTPS certificates in days, beginning with the time of creation. The default value 3652 equals 10 years.
Change: Network Libraries / OpenSSL: Network libraries have been updated for OpenSSL 1.1.x support. OpenSSL is required for encrypted connections via HTTPS. The setup adds new OpenSSL DLLs (libssl-1_1.dll and libcrypto-1_1.dll). They carry different names than the previously used OpenSSL 1.0.2 DLLs (ssleay32.dll and libeay32.dll). The Media Server preferably uses the new DLLs, if available, but is also able to work with the old ones.

Web Interface

Change: Web Interfaces / Channel List: TS Stream channels with a URL referring to the Media Server itself are hidden in the web interfaces, because they would require the Media Server to work as its own client, which is not possible. Additionally “play as file” entries in the channel list (supported by DVBViewer Pro 7.0.0 and later) are hidden, because they have no EPG and can't be recorded. However, there is one exception:
Added: Desktop Web Interface: Tweak “Show channel list file entries in Media -> TV/Radio” (→ launch DMSTweaker.bat). It specifies if “play as file” entries from the DVBViewer channel list are shown in the Web Interface → Media page → TV/Radio sections. The default is “off”. Switching it on enables
- playing the items as transcoded stream in the browser.
- passing the items as M3U playlist to other players, that shall play the original streams.
Added: Web Interfaces: Additional “Favorites Only” switch on the Search EPG page for limiting search results and auto timer creation to favorite channels. If no favorites are present, the “Favorites Only” switch has the same effect as the “All Channels” switch.
Change: Web Interfaces: The caption of the Delete button on the Search EPG page now changes to “Reset”, if the default settings are active and no specific search preset is selected. As before the button resets the special default settings for search and timer creation to the general default, as specified in the Media Server Options.
Fix: Web Interfaces: Selecting the “Select a search preset…” entry in the drop-down list on the Search EPG page (supposed to load the default settings) did not clear the “Search for” input line, so that a subsequent “Save” did not save the default settings, but created another search preset.
Added: Web Interfaces: Hint for File Naming Scheme input lines on the Search EPG page, Recorder Configuration page and in the Timer dialog). It enumerates the available placeholders. In the Desktop Web Interface the hint appears on mouse over, in the Mobile Web Interface after clicking the “File Naming Scheme” label.
Change: Web Interfaces: The Recorder Configuration page has partly been rearranged for consistency with the Recordings and Recording Timers pages in the DVBViewer and Media Server options.
Change: Web Interfaces: A tuner type icon for each channel entry is displayed in channellists, where possible. A small overlaid yellow key indicates encryption. A red cross icon on the Timers page indicates that no channel can be assigned to a recording timer, which means, it cannot be executed. Task timers appear with a clock icon.
Change: Web Interfaces: The “Change Log” link on the Links page has been renamed to “Release Notes”.
Fix: Desktop Web Interface: The attempt to delete a recording that was opened elsewhere flagged it in the recording database as “removed”, though the file could not be deleted. Additionally the Web Interface handled corresponding list items on the Recordings page inconsistently, depending on whether a selection of recordings via checkboxes or a single recording via Delete icon was deleted.
Added: Desktop Web Interface: Double-clicking a channel on the Channel EPG page plays it in the browser.
Change: Mobile Web Interface: Creating a new timer does not require to input a timer name anymore. If it is missing, the Media Server uses the channel name.

Recording

Change: Recording Options: The elements on the “Recordings” and “Recording Timers” pages (former “Recorder” and “Recordings”) have been re-sorted:
- The Recordings page contains settings that are applied to recordings when they are started by the Media Server, including recordings that are sent by DVBViewer to the Media Server.
- The Recording Timers page specifies default values for timer properties, that can be edited and changed per timer in the timer dialog of the web interface.
Added: Recording Timers Options: New Placeholders button. It opens a tool window that enumerates all placeholders that can be used in the File Naming Scheme. Double-clicking a placeholder or selecting it and pressing the Return key inserts it at the current position in the input line.
Change: Recorder: Enhanced synchronization between the channel and timer list. A channel auto-update immediately adjusts the corresponding channel assignment in timers. When reloading the channel list, the Media Server first equips all recording timers with copies from the previous channel list entries. After deleting the old and loading the new channel list it tries to replace the copies by links to new channel list entries, if possible. If not, the copies are preserved until the Media Server is stopped. This prevents wrong or missing channel assignments.
Added: Auto-Timer Creation: The Media Server now additionally stores the EPG title and subheading (if available) in each new set of timer data. They appear in the file svctimers.xml as <Title> and <Subheading> elements and are used to check automatically created timers against already existing timers, in order to deactivate duplicates. Previously the timer name was used for this purpose. Since it is composed by default of the EPG title plus “ - “ as separator plus the 50 first characters of the subheading, the check did not work as intended in some cases, because the title and subheading could not be reconstructed from the timer name, particularly if it was changed by the user.
Change: Auto-Timer Creation: The comparison of the EPG title and subheading for deactivating duplicates now only considers letters and digits. Differences concerning spaces, hyphens, punctuation marks etc. are ignored, so that they can’t affect the detection of repeated broadcast anymore.

Streaming

Added: TS Stream: Support for receiving MPEG Dash streams. Usually the URLs have the filename extension .mpd and refer to a XML manifest. The general handling is similar to HLS. Please note the following limitations:
- Supported codecs are H.264 and HEVC video and AAC, AC3 and EAC3 audio.
- The only supported container format is the mostly used segmented MP4 base media format, which is internally transcoded to TS. Some rarely used MPEG Dash options are omitted.
- The current implementation does not support playing encrypted / DRM-protected streams.
Added: TS Stream: Support for HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) with
- streams containing AC3 and EAC3 audio (previously only MP3 and AAC).
- segments in MP4 base media format (previously only segmented transport and audio elementary streams). DVBViewer converts it internally to a transport stream.
- master playlists that offer streams with different video/audio formats (e.g. H.264/HEVC). The desired format can be selected by appending ?codec=… to the URL (or &codec=… if there is already a query part). The specified codec must be a sub-string of (or equal) the CODECS attribute in the master playlist, e.g. codec=avc1
Added: Transcoded Streaming: Transcoding of video only files (without audio) except for HLS output. Previously FFmpeg rejected such files with an error. Please note: As soon as the Media Server uses the files config\iphoneprefs.ini (for HLS output) or config\ffmpegprefs,ini (for other output), it will replace them by new versions and rename the previous ones to *.bak. This can be avoided by changing the version number in the old files with a text editor from 5 to 6.
Fix: Transcoded Streaming: WebM or Flash streams with identical parameters could not be played at the same time by more than one client (see here).

Miscellaneous

Added: Channel List: Monitoring of the files channels.dat and favourites.xml. After changes the Media Server automatically reloads them with a delay of one to two seconds, and additionally the associated files ChannelsURL.ini and DiSEqC.xml. Thus changes in the channel or favorites list performed by the local DVBViewer or TransEdit take effect in the Media Server, as soon as the files are saved, without the need to stop and restart the server. However, web interface pages have to be reloaded manually in the browser in order to make channel list changes visible.

Change: Hardware Options: The tuner type of BDA devices cannot be changed anymore in the options, in order to prevent misconfiguration by users (see here). If really necessary, the type must be tweaked by editing the file svchardware.xml (0 = Cable, 1 = Satellite, 2 = Terrestrial, 3 = ATSC), while the Media Server is stopped.
Added: Web/UPnP Options: EPG Checkbox in the Live Stream Server section for adding EPG data to HTTP live streams (if contained in the received stream).

Added: Task Options: The new “Placeholders” button in the Task Editor opens a window that enumerates the placeholders that can be used in command line parameters for after recording tasks. On mouse-over the window shows hints containing examples for the replacement applied by the Media Server. Double-clicking a placeholder or pressing Enter inserts it in the parameters field of the Task Editor.

The placeholders specify where the path\filename or other recording properties shall be inserted in the command line. Additionally they allow to set up conditions that decide which parts of the command line shall be used or omitted in certain cases.

Added: Task Options: A new “Maximum timer duration” input field allows to specify a duration for the timer that is associated with an after recording task. Please note that the timer does not stop the task when it is due, but prevents sleep mode, hibernate or shutdown while it is active. The timer is automatically canceled when the task terminates.
Added: Media Server Options: “Extra wake up lead time” tweak (→ launch DMSTweaker.bat). It specifies the extra lead time in minutes for the wake-up process of the PC before a recording starts. The default is 3 minutes (see here).
Added: Hardware: Plugin interface that allows to support new hardware (e.g. ATSC 3.0 devices) by adding a DLL.
Removed: Hardware: Support for Freenet DVB-T2 USB devices. If still needed the support will be added again as plugin (see above).

December 30, 2020

Changes Media Server 3.0.1 (Bugfix Release)

Fix: Installer: The file openssl.exe was not copied to the Media Server program directory, causing the creation of self-signed certificates in the Media Server Options to fail.
Fix: Installer: After running the installer a cmd.exe process persisted, because the batch file CreateHTTPSCertificates.bat (executed by the installer) did not terminate due to a Pause command.
Fix: Plugin Interface: A bug disabled the usage of some plugins (see here).
Fix: TS Stream: The Media Server displayed no EPG for TS Stream channels delivered via HTTP by receivers/servers like Dreambox or VU+.
Fix: Recorder: The Media Server could not delete recordings without filename (like D:\MyVideos\.ts).
Change: Recorder: Timers for timeshift recordings are not written to the file svctimers.xml anymore. This prevents the restart of timeshift recordings after a Media Server stop and restart. Furthermore the Media Server deletes timeshift recordings when it is stopped, provided they are not opened in a client anymore.
Fix: API: Wrong EPG data assignment to timers that were added via api/timeradd.html (particularly by DVBViewer and add-ons). The Media Server used the program running at the start time, not as intended the program running in the middle between start and end time.
Fix: Web/Live Stream Server: Instability if clients were using the Web and Live Stream Server extensively (particularly Kodi).
Fix: Hardware Options: The tuner type selection has been re-enabled for HDHomeRun devices. It is required because the tuner type information exposed by the driver is ambiguous (see here).

January 31, 2021

Changes Media Server 3.0.2 (Bugfix Release)

Change: Web Interfaces: Some corrections and additions (see here)
- Desktop Web Interface: Lighter background color for selected elements in the channel list tree view of the Channel EPG page, so that the tuner type icons of selected channels remain visible.
- Desktop Web Interface: Size adjustments in the Timer dialog avoid an unnecessary horizontal scrollbar (particularly in Chrome and Edge),
- Desktop / Mobile Web Interface: Tuner type icons have been added to the status page.
- Desktop / Mobile Web Interface: The status and signal quality columns on the Status page have been merged to a single column, because they are never used at the same time.
- Desktop / Mobile Web Interface: The Status page of the Mobile Web Interface now refreshes itself every 10 seconds. Previously the refresh had to be done manually. The refresh time of the desktop Status page has been shortened from 15 to 10 seconds.
- Mobile Web Interface: Wrong relative JavaScript paths disabled using the Timeline page if a reverse proxy was used.
Fix: Web Server: If “Configuration → Web Interface → Show timer edit window” was switched on, timer creation on an EPG page did not store the EPG title and subheading in the timer data.
Change: Recorder: The EPG monitoring option “Start/Stop by EPG running status" is now automatically replaced by "Start / End time update from EPG" if imported EPG data is used for the to be recorded channel (see here).
Fix: Recorder: If a timer recording was supplied with external (imported) EPG data, but also received the native now/next DVB EPG while the recording was going on, it replaced the Event ID of the imported data by the DVB Event ID, thus causing inconsistencies (see here).
Change: Recorder: Recordings that are started by manually created timers via “New Timer” on the Timers page of the Web Interface (not from an EPG page) now perform logging of now/next EPG data, if available. Previously this was disabled due to a missing Event ID (see here).
Fix: Recorder: Audio frames (particularly AAC frames) that were not aligned with the data packets, misled the audio format detection of the recorder repeatedly and yielded wrong entries in the recording log (see here).

Fix: TS Stream: A wrong calculation of time stamps for MP3 streams (particularly internet radio) with 44.1 kHz sample rate could cause periodically interrupted playback after 20 to 30 minutes.

Added: Hardware: Possibility to flag devices in the hardware database with “needs tuner type selection”, so that tuner type selection is enabled for them on Options → Hardware, thus avoiding the necessity to change it in the file hardware.xml. Up to now this applies to HDHomeRun devices and the Hauppauge WinTV-dualHD ATSC Tuner (see here).
Fix: Timeshift: The DVB hardware used for timeshift recording was not released correctly after a “Keep Timeshift File” on/off change in DVBViewer. Besides that issues after using TV/Radio → Stop Timeshift Recording in DVBViewer were fixed.
Added: EPG: Experimental possibility to supply IPTV channels with an EPG if the same channel is received via DVB-S/T/C. The mechanism is based on a user-created text file EPGPairingList.txt in the configuration folder that specifies source and target EPG Channel ID pairs. DVBViewer and Media Server share the same file. They load it when they are started. It works for both in the same way. Please read the DVBViewer Pro 7.0.2 release notes for further details.

April 24, 2021

Changes Media Server 3.1.0

Added: EPG Search: Hint for the “Search for” input line on the Search EPG page (Desktop Web Interface only). It appears on mouse over and enumerates characters with a special meaning that can be used for the search if “Use regular expressions” is switched off.
Added: EPG Search: Checkbox “Also deactivate on a match up to the end of the shorter title/subheading” in the Timer Settings panel of the Search EPG page. It refers to automatic recording timer creation by search presets. The option deactivates automatically created timers, if the EPG title/subheading equals the title/subheading of an already existing recording or timer up to the end of the shorter one. It lets the Media Server ignore additional information like “minimum age 12 years” appended to one of the titles, which otherwise would prevent recognition. However, “Red Roses” and “Red Roses in Winter” would also yield such a partial match, for example.
Change: EPG Search: The Search EPG page now also supports using the pipe character “|” in search items as logical OR, if “Use regular expressions” is switched off. This enables searching two or more titles with a single search item, e.g. The Walking Dead|Grey’s Anatomy|Games of Thrones, that finds all three series. Previously this was only possible with regular expressions (see here).
Fix: EPG Search: Non-ASCII-letters (like German umlauts) were regarded as word boundaries by the search engine, if double quotes (or \b in regular expression mode) were used for a “whole word only” search, thus yielding unwanted results. It has been fixed by a more up-to-date search engine in a DLL (pcre.dll).
Added: EPG: Tweak “Remove (German) gender-neutral language” (→ launch DMSTweaker.bat). If activated, it replaces German forms of gender-neutral language in the EPG by generic forms, either masculine or feminine: 0 = unchanged (default), 1 = masculine (Musiker*innen → Musiker), 2 = feminine (Musiker*innen → Musikerinnen). Please note that the setting is applied to EPG data when it is received, not to data already stored in the file \config\epg.dat. Thus it may take time until it fully takes effect, unless the file is deleted.
Fix: Web Interface: Issues if the Media Server had to display a channel as selected, that was not part of the displayed channel list in the Timer Dialog or in the Stream Playback Window, particularly in case of channel list items assigned to a timer, that are not the main audio track in the channel list. The missing entry is now simply attached to the end of the displayed channel list.
Fix: Desktop Web Interface: Some adjustments on the EPG Search, Configuration, Timers and Status pages.
Fix: Desktop Web Interface: Changing the language on the Configuration Page did not work with Safari.
Fix: Desktop Web Interface: The Recordings page was not updated after editing a recording.
Fix: Transcoded Streaming: Transcoded streaming failed if the client did not specify a preset and a default preset (640x360 resolution or lower) for the requested format was not available in the file ffmpegprefs.ini or iphoneprefs.ini. Now the Media Server uses the last available preset (with the highest index) for the requested format in this case.
Fix: TS Stream: HLS channels were played and recorded without audio if the broadcaster used MP4 segments that contained both video and audio, instead of separate segments.
Change: UPnP: On video database updates the Media Server now tries to retrieve a short description of the file via MediaInfo.
Change: UPnP: The Media Server does not include long descriptions anymore if it delivers recordings as videos to UPnP clients, but confines the text metadata to the EPG title and subheading.
Added: UPnP: Possibility to transcode radio streams to the FLAC audio format. It requires FFmpeg and modifying the file \config\UPnPProfilesV4.xml in the configuration folder. For transcoding MP2 audio the profile in question must contain the following lines in the <LiveExtensions> section:

</Ext>

For other radio source formats like AC3 or AAC the Ext element must be modified accordingly (Ext name=".ac3", Ext name=".aac" etc.).

Added: UPnP: 6 tweaks allowing to modify the FFmpeg command lines for transcoded UPnP radio output (→ launch DMSTweaker.bat). Transcoding to MP2, MP3, AAC, AC3, WAV and FLAC is supported. It is defined for each UPnP profile separately in the file UPnPProfilesVX.xml (X = version number) within the <LiveExtensions> element. The file is located in the config sub-folder of the configuration folder.
Removed: UPnP: Tweaks “MP3 bit rate for UPnP transcoding” and “MP3 sample rate for UPnP transcoding”. Both parameters can now be influenced by modifying the FFmpeg command line for MP3 (see above). The bit rate is the value after the -ab command (in kbps, followed by the letter k). It must be a valid MP3 bit rate (e.g. 128k, 160k, 192k, 320k). The sample rate is the value after the -ar command (in Hz). It must be a valid MP3 sample rate (e.g. 32000, 44100, 48000).
Fix: Recorder: Options → Recordings → Auto split on channel data change was not handled correctly, particularly in case of dynamic program switching by the broadcaster, as performed by the German ARD when switching to regional editions of a program and back to the main program.
Fix: General: If a WebGeneral → Root entry in the file service.xml (possibly created by an old Recording Service version) specifies a path to a SVCweb folder that does not exist, the Media Server now falls back to the default (usually C:\Program Files (x86)\DVBViewer\SVCweb) instead of canceling its initialization.

July 25, 2021

Changes Media Server 3.1.1

Added: Options: After a new (first) installation, when no configuration has taken place yet (no config\service.xml is present), the Media Server and its options (svcoptions.exe) adopt several settings from DVBViewer on the same PC, in order to spare users a manual adaptation (see here). This applies to the following DVBViewer settings:
- Options → Extended: Don’t shut down if a recording is due within…
- Options → Recordings: Recording/Timeshift directories, minimum free disk space, all settings except “Signal recording in the video window”.
- Options → Recording Timers: All default timer settings except the default timer action (that is always “Record” in the Media Server).
- Options → EPG: Preferred language and time zone settings
- Options → Hardware: The complete device list including all settings, except RTSP network devices referring to a (previous) Media Server installation on the same PC.
- Options → Movies/Music/Images: Media paths (except CD/DVD drives).
- All tweaks that have the same meaning in DVBViewer and the Media Server.
Added: Recordings: If the recordings database is empty (particularly after a new/first Media Server installation), the Media Server copies the content of the DVBViewer recording database on the same PC to its own database, provided the recordings exist and are located in a Media Server recording directory. This procedure is only performed once. It sets a flag in the file service.xml that prevents further attempts (entry Recording → DVBViewerDBRead).
Change: Recordings: If a recording is deleted by or in the Media Server, directories that were automatically created for this recording due to path elements in the file naming scheme (e.g. %year\%m\%event\…) are now deleted too if they are empty after deletion of the recording. This also applies to timeshift recordings. Please note that Windows may prevent the deletion of empty directories in case of access conflicts e.g. with the Explorer.
Added: Recorder: Support for %season and %episode placeholders in the file naming scheme. If no season and/or episode value is available, the placeholders are removed.
Added: Recording / Radio Text: Recording of RDS data that is not contained in the audio data, but in a separate stream, as used by German ARD radio channels after changing the audio format from MP2 to AAC. The radio recording format must be TS and the “Include Teletext” option switched on for the timer in question. DVBViewer is able to display the radio text when playing such a recording.
Added: Recording: Tweak “Convert LOAS/LATM to ADTS for AAC recordings” (→ launch DMSTweaker.bat). For recordings with the file extension .aac it may be useful to let the Media Server convert a broadcasted LOAS/LATM container to the older ADTS container for compatibility with certain software/devices, particularly editing software like mp3DirectCut.

Fix/Change: Recording: Some fixes and enhancements concerning the processing of AAC audio.
Fix: Desktop Web Interface: Full screen video was not displayed correctly in Safari under macOS. Parts of the picture were cut off.
Fix: Web Server: Chrome and Edge under macOS were wrongly detected as Safari, which restricted the stream format selection for playback in the browser to HLS, though both browsers can’t play it natively.
Fix: Desktop Web Interface: A channel logo was only shown after a channel change in the browser window, not before the first TV/radio channel started playing.
Added: Desktop Web Interface: Optional teletext display when playing (transcoded) live TV in the browser. It can be switched on/off by clicking the new TXT button, provided teletext is available for the channel. Initially the teletext panel shows the first available page (usually 100). It provides the following navigation possibilities:
- Switch to the previous/next (sub)page by clicking the << >> links in the top line of the page or by pressing the left/right arrow key.
- Click a page number on a page for switching to the new page.
- Select a page by typing the number on the keyboard. Typing 234 first selects page 200, then 230, then 234. So it is sufficient to press 2 for selecting page 200. A number can be continued / completed within two seconds after the last input. When the time has elapsed or the number is already complete, the number key buffer gets erased, so that the next input starts a new page number.
- Update the page by clicking the page number in the top line or by typing its number again. Pages don’t update automatically in the browser.
- Press Backspace for going back in page history and Shift + Backspace for going forward.
- Pressing Esc hides the teletext panel.

Please note that the teletext panel can only receive keyboard input if it has the input focus. Initially (when appearing) it gets the focus. However, after clicking something else in the video window, it is necessary to first click the teletext panel somewhere in order to give it the focus again.

Fix: Desktop Web Interface: Editing the recording database entry of a removed recording on the Recordings → Removed page and saving the changes could create a new EPG Info File.
Removed: Desktop Web Interface: Support for playing Flash videos in the browser.
Fix: Mobile Web Interface: The last audio volume setting was read from local storage, but never saved.
Added: Channel Logos: Support for a new logo administration that spares providing the same logo several times with different filenames for different channel names (e.g. BBC One Scot, BBC One Lon...). In future only one logo file will be needed in this case, plus a file LogoNames.ini that assigns channel names to logo files.
Change: Channel Logos: Enhanced assignment of logos to channel names. It may find more or better matches by unifying the strings before comparison, particularly by replacing “+” by “plus” and removing all characters that are no letters or digits.
Added: UPnP/Videos: On video database updates the Media Server now queries MediaInfo.dll for additional metadata that may be contained in video files (that are no recordings) and stores the data in the database, particularly title, description, comment, genre and series title, if available (previously only the title, see here). Please note that for refreshing entries that are already present in the video database the task “Rebuild Video Database” must be performed. Checking Media Server Options (svcoptions.exe) → Tasks → Shown internal tasks → Rebuild Video Database makes this task visible in the web interface.
Change: EPG: Up to now the Media Server appended extensive technical information originating from EPG data to the long EPG description (e.g. aspect ratio, video format, available audio tracks, subtitles etc.), often occupying several text lines. It has now been reduced to the most important facts that may change per program. They only occupy a single line and use the following symbols/abbreviations for what is signaled in the EPG:
- [4:3] [16:9] Program aspect ratio
- [3D] 3D transmission
- [HDR] High Dynamic Range video
- [OA] Original audio provided
- [5.1] Multi-channel (surround) audio provided
- [SUB] Subtitles provided
- [AD] Audio description for the visually impaired provided
- [age+] Recommended minimum age, e.g. [16+]
- [PDC day.month hour:minute] Originally intended program start time. The Program Delivery Control is used by the Media Server for program recognition and EPG monitoring.

Please note that this information is not always reliable. Unfortunately some broadcasters handle this EPG based information quite carelessly, e.g. signal a wrong aspect ratio or indicate subtitles for all programs if they are only available for some programs. The new format is applied to newly received EPG entries, not to already stored entries.

Change: EPG/Teletext: Further enhancements for the “Remove (German) gender-neutral language” function (see 3.1.0 changes).
Fix: TS Stream: Erroneous confusion of the HTTP Location header (used for redirections to another URL) with other headers that also contain the sub-string “location:”.
Added: Hardware: Support for assigning up to 4 CI modules in the settings dialog of RTSP network devices for Digital Devices Sat>IP servers (previously only 2).
Added: Hardware: On hardware detection the Media Server creates an additional DVB-C tuner entry for the TBS 5881 hybrid USB Box. This measure saves tweaking the tuner type for DVB-C reception.
Fix: Hardware: If the DVB-T2 substream (PLP) ID is undefined, the Media Server does not set it to 0 anymore as default for TBS devices, which prevented auto-detection in the driver and DVB-T2 reception in Austria, where the substream ID is 1 throughout. Now the TBS API call is omitted in this case (see here).

August 18, 2021

Changes Media Server 3.1.2 (Bugfix Release)

Added: TS Stream: Work-around for erroneous time stamp headers in HLS segments of additional audio tracks provided by German ARD channels, that caused audio drop-outs.
Fix: TS Stream: Teletext data in HLS segments of AAC audio delivered as separate stream was mistaken for audio.
Fix: Recorder: Under certain timing conditions the recorder detected the wrong AAC type when a channel with LOAS/LATM AAC audio was recorded, causing permanently changing wrong format information in the recording log, but without disturbing TS recordings.
Fix: Desktop Web Interface/Teletext: Navigation issues if a displayed teletext page contained an internet address. Its <a href...> tag wasn’t closed correctly.
Fix: Web Server: Delivery of (untranscoded) live streams failed if the URL contained the sub-string “/teletext” for letting the server include teletext (since version 3.1.1). This particularly affected DVBViewer clients on the same PC that delegated TS Stream reception to the Media Server.

August 22, 2021

Changes Media Server 3.1.2.1 (Hotfix Release)

Fix: EPG: The import of external EPG data via Xepg did not work anymore (since 3.1.2.0).

January 21, 2022

Changes Media Server 3.2.0.0

Change: Recorder: Sharper check for encrypted data. It prevents that single unencrypted TS packets disable the “restart recording if no data for 60 secs” function and that encrypted data is written to disk (see here).

Fix: Recorder: When launched as application in the user account (not as service), the Media Server could not perform a system shutdown as final action of a timer recording, if a lock screen was active (e.g. after the PC woke up for an unattended timer recording in a password protected user account).

Added: Channel List: Tweak “Recognize TS Stream channels by name, if necessary” (→ launch Tweaker.exe). Deleting a TS Stream (IPTV) channel and then restoring it with a different URL usually disables favorites and timers that are associated with this channel. This option allows the Media Server to re-establish the connection as soon as possible by searching the channel list for TS Stream channels with the same name and type (TV/Radio). Please note that this function may cause unwanted wrong assignments if there are two or more TS Stream channels with the same name and type (see here)!
Added: Channel List: Automatic adaptation to the character coding in the DVBViewer channel list (channels.dat). Beginning with version 7.2.0 DVBViewer may either use the local (ANSI) character set for channel, category and root names (like previous versions) or Unicode (UTF-8). Please note: Most parts of previous Media Server versions are already able to handle UTF-8 channel names (particularly the web interfaces), so only minor issues are expected if a Media Server before 3.2.0 is used in combination with DVBViewer 7.2.0 or later.
Added: General: Tweak “Broadcast standard” (→ launch Tweaker.exe). This setting helps the Media Server to apply suitable methods for the received broadcast standard, if it can't be detected automatically (e.g. when receiving Japanese EPG with start times that are not UTC, see here). Possible values are 0 = DVB (default), 1 = ATSC, 2 = ISDB (Japan), 3 = ISDB (Latin America).
Added: TS Stream (HLS and MPEG Dash) Recording of TTML and WebVTT subtitles, that are used by some providers for HLS and MPEG Dash TV streams and videos. They are included in TS recordings, if the corresponding checkbox in the timer settings is ticked. Other players than DVBViewer may not be able to (dis)play these subtitles, particularly since (in contrast to TTML) there are no official specifications for embedding WebVTT in a transport stream (TS).

Fix: Desktop Web Interface: Misaligned table columns on the TV Guide page.
Fix: Desktop Web Interface: The Timeline Page did not respond to shift + mouse wheel rotation by scrolling horizontally, which is a standard behavior in browsers.
Added: UPnP: .mts and .vob as video file extensions, so that these files are included on video database updates. The change takes effect on new (not update) Media Server installations or after deleting the file UPnPProfilesV4.xml in the config sub-directory of the DVBViewer configuration folder while the Media Server is stopped, which forces recreation on the next Media Server start.
Change: Hardware: Newly created virtual RTSP (Sat>IP) Network Devices now use a client UDP port range from 47700 to 47800 as default (previously 52000 to 52100), particularly for avoiding collisions with port ranges excluded by Windows due to the usage of Hyper-V.
Added: EPG/API: Import and export of program image URLs and review URLs/text from XMLTV EPG data sources via Xepg. Currently the images and reviews are not used/displayed by the Media Server, but only passed on as export via /api/epg.html They appear in all export versions identically in XMLTV style as UTF-8:

February 10, 2022

Changes Media Server 3.2.1.0 (Bugfix Release)

Added: E-Mail Options: The message box that appears after clicking the “Send Test E-Mail” button now displays an error number in case of failure (see here).
Fix: EPG: The EPG export to add-ons like the DVBViewer Controller for Android or the DVBViewer PVR add-on for Kodi failed (since version 3.2.0.0, see here).

June 2, 2022

Changes Media Server 3.2.2.0

Fix: Recorder: Certain dynamic channel data (PMT) changes were not handled correctly, particularly audio track changes in connection with the “auto-split on channel data change” option, when German ARD TV channels switched over from common to regional programs.
Change: Recorder: If no EPG data can be assigned to a recording, the Media Server now stores the actual recording duration as duration value in its database and EPG Info file, not the timer duration anymore. If EPG data can be assigned, the stored duration value is the program duration.

Change/Added: EPG: EPG start times from ISDB EPG data are now converted to DVB compliant times (UTC, GMT) on arrival, so that afterwards they can be handled like DVB EPG data throughout and the “Automatic Time Zone” setting in the EPG Options is applicable. In detail:
- Japan: The broadcasted EPG start times are UTC+09:00 (JST, Japan Standard Time), so 9 hours are subtracted. On a Japanese PC, the EPG Options in Automatic Time Zone mode will usually show a GMT offset of +09:00 (see here), which is added to the UTC EPG times, yielding the original JST value.
- Latin America: The broadcasted EPG start times are UTC-03:00 (Brasilia time zone, see here), so 3 hours are added. The GMT offset displayed by the EPG Options in Automatic Time Zone mode will depend on the actual time zone for which the PC is configured and whether daylight saving time is in effect.

Please note that the Media Server does not detect the ISDB broadcast standard automatically. If not initially set up in the DVBViewer Configuration Wizard (see DVBViewer 7.2.2 changes), it has to be configured by launching DMSTweaker.bat, searching for the “Broadcast Standard” setting and entering 2 for ISDB Japan or 3 for ISDB Latin America.

Change: EPG: Smarter algorithm for rounding EPG times to minutes, if they are broadcasted to the second. It avoids 1 minute gaps or overlapping between adjacent programs due to double rounding errors.
Added: TS Stream (HLS/MPEG Dash): Tweak “Default delay for HLS/MPEG Dash playback” (→ launch DMSTweaker.bat). The settings specifies the default position in the broadcaster’s timeshift buffer, or with other words, how many seconds playback lags behind the "live edge" of HLS and MPEG Dash live streams. This allows the Media Server to fetch data ahead and to buffer it, in order to avoid stuttering playback. It can be regarded as a "minimum timeshift" that the Media Server tries to establish. The default is 30, the minimum 10 and the maximum 60 seconds. The default in previous Media Server versions were hard-coded 30 seconds.
Fix: Web Interfaces: In certain situations (e.g. when creating a recording timer from an EPG page) the selected channel was replaced by a similar channel from the favorites, if Configuration → Show in channel list → Favorites additionally was switched on.
Fix: Web Interfaces: The start times in already received EPG data were not adjusted to a changed GMT offset after switching from Manual to Automatic Time Zone mode on the Configuration page.

Fix: Desktop Web Interface: A useless second scroll bar appeared under certain conditions on the Timers page in Firefox and Safari .
Fix: Desktop Web Interface: Tool tips containing an EPG description did not show up anymore on the Timeline page when hovering over a program (since 3.2.0.0, see here).
Added: Web Options: Tweak “Display timer names in the web interface” (→ launch DMSTweaker.bat). For displaying timers in a timer list, the Media Server uses the associated EPG title and subheading (if available). This option specifies if it shall rather use the time name, that by default also contains the EPG title and subheading, but can be edited by the user.
Change: General: A PC shutdown performed by the Media Server now considers whether the Windows fast startup feature is enabled (also called hybrid shutdown, available since Windows 8). If yes, shutdown is performed with a flag that lets Windows boot faster on next startup, due to the usage of “suspend to disk” (hibernation). Otherwise a shutdown performed by the Media Server causes a “traditional” power off and subsequent slow startup (see here).
Fix: Hardware Options: The Default Button in the RTSP Network Device settings dialog reset the UDP port range to the old values 52000...52100, not to the new values 47700...47800 (see 3.2.0 changes).
Updated: OpenSSL Libraries to version 1.1.1n with an important security fix (see here).

December 17, 2022

Changes Media Server 3.2.3.0

Fix: General: Potential infinite loop in the network library if an error reported by Windows was handled as an exception error in the background (see here).
Fix: TS Stream: General failure with URLs containing no path element, but an at sign (@) or colon in the query part (something like http://xxx.xxx?y=@zz:zz). They were parsed incorrectly, causing a socket error. Moreover redirections from a persistent “keep-alive” HTTP connection to an HTTPS URL with the same domain were not handled correctly.

Change: API: api/getepgdat.html, which is primarily used by DVBViewer clients for getting the Media Server EPG in binary format, now discards all data for programs ending before “Today” (00:00 of the current day), thus conforming to the DVBViewer behavior when reading data from its own epg.dat file. Previously the Media Server discarded all data for programs ending before “Now”.

Fix: Web Interfaces: During EPG updates the string “EPG Update” did not appear anymore on the Status page (since 3.2.2.0).
Fix: Desktop Web Interface: The number of recordings displayed on the Recordings page in brackets at the end of the list title was not updated after the deletion of recordings via the checkboxes on the right. The update required a page reload.
Fix: Recorder: If the “Send mail when recordings are finished” function triggered an exception error when a recording was stopped, the recorder skipped parts of its code, causing recording log files not to be closed and other potential issues (see here).
Fix: Recorder: Under certain (rather infrequent) timing conditions initial recording log entries with EPG information for recordings with the “Start/Stop by EPG running status” option were redirected to the svcdebug.log.

Fix: RTSP Server: Tuning parameters received as part of a DESCRIBE request were not assigned correctly to a subsequent SETUP request that referenced them with the previously established stream ID. Clients received an error code in this case, so that tuning in VLC or the Kodi Simple IPTV Add-On failed (VLC succeeded with a second attempt by appending the parameters directly to SETUP).

April 23, 2023

Changes Media Server 3.2.4.0

Change: Recorder: Different handling of loading/saving the timer list from/to the file svctimers.xml for avoiding data loss on crashes (see here):
- If the file svctimers.xml cannot be loaded, because it is corrupted, the Media Server automatically replaces it by the file svctimers.bak, which contains the previous timer list state before the last saving. Previously the Media Server preserved an already existing svctimers.xml by renaming it to svctimers.bak before saving a new one, but did not use it.
- If the file svctimers.xml is detected as invalid on loading, it is deleted or renamed, so it cannot become svctimers.bak anymore on next saving. Renaming occurs If there is still some content in the file. The new name is svctimers[yyyymmddhhnnss].bak, where [yyyymmddhhnnss] is the current date and time, e.g. svctimers20230105100634.bak. This file can be used for manual repair attempts.
- The Media Server now avoids unnecessary saving of the timer list right after loading the svctimers.xml on Media Server start and before the PC enters sleep mode / hibernate. In the latter case usually all timer list changes have been saved before. However, the list is still saved on a Media Server stop “just in case” to make sure that the current state of the timer list is identical with the one on disk. Normally this yields identical svctimers.xml and svctimers.bak files.
Change/Added: Web Interfaces: Restructured options on the EPG Search page for controlling how the Media Server uses EPG search presets for automatically creating recording timers. A preset can now be configured for always creating times in deactivated state. This enables to later choose the to be recorded programs manually on the Timers Page by activating timers selectively. Previously timers could only be created automatically in deactivated state conditionally, depending on already present recordings/timers with the same title/sub-title. Furthermore, if conditional deactivation is configured, the comparison of the EPG title and sub-title with already present recordings can be deselected. Previously this was not possible.
Added: Desktop Web Interface: “Internet Search” binoculars icon in the EPG Details popup. The new icon, that replaces the former “IMDB” icon, opens a menu. It offers sites that are suitable for searching for movie or program titles, like Google, IMDB, Wikipedia etc. The site URLs and names are defined in the file EPG_URLList.ini in the DVBViewer configuration folder. The file is also used by the DVBViewer internet search function. It can be modified by the user. The following rules apply to it:
- The first line in the file must contain the section name [URLList] (in square brackets).
- The site entries in subsequent lines must be numbered consecutively, beginning with 0.
- The site URL is specified by URL.x (where x is the site number) and must contain :Item: (Item enclosed by colons) as placeholder for the search item, e.g. URL.0=https://www.google.com/search?q=":Item:". In this example %22 are URL-encoded double quotes (":Item:"). The URL must be specified in a way that lets the site realize it as search request, after the Media Server has inserted a program title as search item.
- The site name, that appears in the menu, must be specified by Name.x, e.g. Name.0=Google
- UTF8.x specifies whether the Media Server shall encode the search item as Unicode (e.g. UTF8.0=1) or as Windows Western (e.g. UTF8.0=0). Nowadays almost all sites are expecting Unicode.
- Optionally a Blank.x entry can be added to specify a character string that shall replace blanks in the search item, e.g. Blank.3=_
Fix: Desktop Web Interface: If the EPG Search was started from an EPG Details window displaying details of a video from the Media page, the search item was always empty.
Removed: Desktop Web Interface: Twitter icon in the EPG Details popup.
Change: Desktop Web Interface: Measures against display issues caused by Firefox “overlay scrollbars”, appearing under Windows 11 in list views on the Channel EPG, Timers and Recordings page. They partly covered checkboxes or record buttons on the right.

Added: Desktop Web Interface: Mechanism for forcing browsers to reload CSS files on a Media Server version change instead of using (possibly out-dated) cached files. It is done by appending the version number to the file name (not on disk, but as seen by browsers), and currently applied to SVCweb\css\global.css due to changes (see here).
Fix/Change: UPnP: Panasonic TV sets could not play channels with MPEG2 as video format, that were delivered by the Media Server via UPnP/DLNA. This can be fixed now by stopping the Media Server and deleting the file UPnPProfilesV4.xml in the Config sub-directory of the configuration folder. On next Media Server 3.2.4 start the file is recreated with an adjusted Panasonic UPnP profile.
Added: Hardware Options: Tweak “Allow BDA tuner re-detection by name” (→ launch DMSTweaker.bat). Switching this option on allows the Media Server to re-detect BDA tuners by name if Windows has changed the hardware ID (e.g. after driver installation or a reboot). Retrieving "lost" tuners is performed on Media Server start. It avoids tuner allocation failure and a manually performed "Scan Devices" (see here). Please note: This option should only be applied if really necessary, because two or more tuners with the same name and tuner type (DVB-S/T/C) could be mistaken for each other. After a resulting automatic correction of hardware IDs the Media Server updates file svchardware.xml immediately.
Change: Hardware: On tuner availability checks and tuner initialization the Media Server now only searches for a device with matching ID in the Windows device enumeration. It does not additionally compare the tuner name anymore (see here).
Fix: Hardware Options: For some hybrid/multi-standard BDA tuners a wrong identification string was created on device detection and subsequently transmitted to other simultaneously running applications from the DVBViewer family (e.g. TransEdit), so that they could not recognize a tuner occupation by the Media Server and vice versa. Please note that performing a new device detection in the Media Server Options → Hardware is necessary for the fix to take effect.
Change: TS Stream: Changed timing when receiving radio streams in order to avoid problems with unsteadily arriving data.
Fix: General: A runtime function for conversion of 64 bit integer numbers to text yielded wrong results (particularly concerning Channel IDs), if the Media Server was running on Apple hardware with ARM M1/M2 CPU in a Parallels Desktop virtual machine (see here).

Updated: OpenSSL Libraries to version 1.1.1t (see here).

January 9, 2024

Changes Media Server 3.2.5.0

Fix/Added: General: Measures for receiving Windows suspend/resume messages in case of modern (connected) standby, so that sleep / wake-up events can be handled properly. An application explicitly has to register for it. Without it no wake-up time for the next recording is set. Please note that it may not work with AOAC PCs (Always On, Always Connected), if the Media Server is running as a service.

Fix: Web Interfaces: As long as EPG monitoring is configured for a recording timer, the day of the week checkboxes for setting up weekly repetition and the channel selection are now disabled in the timer dialog (like the Date and Start/Stop input elements already before), thus making clear that EPG monitoring binds the timer to a certain EPG entry of a certain channel. A time/date and/or channel change by the user requires to first set EPG monitoring to “None”.
Fix: Web Interfaces: Due to a missing & character in the default parameters the Record Series function in the EPG Details window did not limit the created search preset to the channel from which the EPG entry originated. Additionally the default “off” for the new “Always create timers deactivated” option was missing.
Added: Desktop Web Interface: Button in the EPG Details popup window for downloading an M3U file containing the address (URL) of the original (non-transcoded) stream, in order to let another player play it.
Change: Desktop Web Interface: Enhancements concerning the visual signaling of certain timer states in the timer list:
- The icon indicating an ongoing recording (or timeshift recording) has been moved from the start to the end of the title/subheading text.
- The icon indicating weekly repetition has been moved from the right edge to the end of the title/subheading text. A hint explaining the meaning on mouse-over has been added.
- A new icon indicating active EPG monitoring replaces the former asterisk (*) at the end of the title/subheading text.
- Two new icons at the end of the title/subheading text indicating the final action replace the former “Hibernate”, “Sleep Mode” or “Shutdown” as text at the right edge.
Change: Mobile Web Interface: Enhancements concerning the visual signaling of certain timer states in the timer list:
- An icon indicating an ongoing recording (or timeshift recording) in front of the title/subheading text replaces “Is Recording” as text in an extra line.
- The icon indicating weekly repetition now appears in front of the title/subheading text, not in an extra line anymore.
- A new icon indicating active EPG monitoring, appearing in front of the title/subheading text, replaces the former asterisk (*) at the end of the title/subheading display.
- Two new icons in front of the title/subheading text indicating the final action replace the former “Hibernate”, “Sleep Mode” or “Shutdown” as text in an extra line.
Change/Added: Mobile Web Interface: The Stream Setup page has been redesigned in order to additionally offer the playback of original (non-transcoded) streams for formats that mobile browsers usually can play natively (particularly MP3, MP4 and HLS). Please note that the Media Server only includes the “ORIGINAL STREAM” section if it detects such a format.
Fix: Channel Logos: Before using a cached channel → channel logo assignment from the file ChannelLogos2.ini, the Media Server now checks if the image file exists. If not, the Media Server automatically deletes the assignment and tries to find another matching logo for the channel. This avoids missing logos in the UI due to removed or renamed logo image files. Previously the user had to reset all cached logo assignments in the Channel Logo Options or to delete the file ChannelLogos2.ini for getting it fixed.

Change: Search Presets: Different handling of loading/saving the list of search presets from/to the file searches.xml for avoiding data loss on crashes:
- Before the Media Server writes a new file searches.xml, it renames the previous one to searches.bak. The previous searches.bak is deleted.
- The search preset list is now also saved after changes triggered by the Media Server API and the Record Series function (previously only after adding/deleting search presets on the Search EPG page), so that a new searches.xml is written after every change in the list. It is also saved on a Media Server stop, though needless now. It is done “just in case” to make sure that the current state of the search preset list is identical with the version on disk. Usually, if all changes have already been saved before, this measure will yield identical searches.xml and searches.bak files.
- If the file searches.xml is detected as corrupted on loading (not empty, but incomplete or XML syntax errors), it is renamed to searches[yyyymmddhhnnss].bak, where [yyyymmddhhnnss] is the current date and time, yielding something like searches20230105100634.bak. This measure ensures that the corrupted file cannot become searches.bak. The renamed file can be used for manual repair attempts. This event is logged in the file svcdebug.log.
- If the file searches.xml is detected as invalid on loading (0 bytes or no “Searches” root node), it is deleted, so it cannot become searches.bak. This event is logged in the file svcdebug.log.
- If the file searches.xml can not be loaded, because it is corrupted or empty/invalid, the file searches.bak (which contains the previous search preset list state before the latest saving) is renamed to searches.xml and loaded. This event is logged in the file svcdebug.log.
Change: Recorder: Optimization avoiding unnecessary internal message handling if multiple timers are added to the timer list (particularly on loading the svctimers.xml and auto-timer creation) and if the Media Server is closed though recordings are still going on.
Fix: Audio Database: A database cleanup did not remove empty album, genre and artist categories, so that they still showed up uselessly on the web interface Media page and in UPnP clients.

Fix: Media Server Options: Adjustments avoiding certain issues if SvcOptions.exe is running under Linux/Wine.
Change: Hardware Options: The “Shared LNB” option has been renamed to “Shared antenna cable” and supplemented by the hint “Tuner connected via 2-way splitter” that appears on mouse-over, in order to prevent misunderstanding and wrong usage.

Change: Hardware: Due to frequent problems with bad DiSEqC timing, the DiSEqCCount value for TBS devices is now 2 by default (previously 1), so that every DiSEqC command is sent two times to the switch (see here).

Fix: RTSP (Sat>IP) Client: Increased socket operation timeout if the presence of Bitdefender security software is detected, that delays connection attempts to Sat>IP servers considerably, so that the normal timeout lets the initialization of virtual RTSP network devices fail.

Fix: TS Stream: Memory leak if a transport or radio stream was received and the server forcibly closed the connection (WSAECONNRESET socket error, see here).

May 19, 2024

Changes Media Server 3.3.0.0

Added: General: Command line parameters allowing to launch additional Media Server instances as application running in a user account (not as service) if the Media Server is already running. It is not necessary anymore to create additional program directories (see here). The new parameters can be added to a DVBVService.exe shortcut by appending them separated by a blank to the path in the shortcut properties. Each instance carries a unique instance number in the range from 1 to 4. Please note the following points:
- Running more than one Media Server instance on a PC requires some experience with the Media Server and advanced knowledge about its functionality!
- There are three ways to start additional Media Server instances:
  - The command line parameter -new starts another Media Server instance additionally to already running instances. The instance number of the new one is the number of already running instances plus one.
  - The command line parameter -N (where N specifies the instance number, e.g. -2 or -3) starts an instance with this number. Using -N parameters should not be mixed with -new usage. Please note that an instance does not start, if an instance with the same instance number is already running.
  - Dragging and dropping a configuration folder or any of the contained files on the Media Server program icon starts an instance associated with this configuration. The instance number is determined by the path (see below).
- Each additional Media Server instance automatically creates its own configuration folder, if it does not exist yet, copies missing configuration files from the original configuration folder (of the first instance) to the new folder and uses it henceforth. If the original configuration folder is CMUV\DVBViewer, the one for the second instance is CMUV\DVBViewer_2, the one for the third instance CMUV\DVBViewer_3 and so on. Initially the configuration of additional instances equals the configuration of the first instance (settings, channel/favorites list, media databases etc). However, certain settings that must be unique are modified automatically, particularly server IDs and ports. The Media Server adds 100 x (instance number minus one) to each server port, in order to avoid conflicts. The settings can be changed separately and persistently for each instance.
- Add-ons and plugins (DLLs) may not cooperate correctly (or not at all) with additional Media Server instances, if they are not designed for it.
- The Media Server Options can be directed to the configuration of a particular instance by launching SvcOptions.exe either with the command line parameter -N (where N specifies the instance number, e.g. -2 or -3), or by dragging and dropping the corresponding configuration folder or any of the contained files on the SvcOptions.exe program icon.
- The Tray Tool (DVBVCtrl.exe) can be configured to communicate with a particular Media Server instance by launching it with the command line parameter -N, where N specifies the instance number, e.g. -2 or -3. The auto start can be configured for each Tray Tool instance separately (see Media Server tray icon menu).
- The Tweaker.exe tool, that is installed with DVBViewer, by default uses the service.xml of the first instance, if it is started with the command line parameter -rs (see DMSTweaker.bat). However, it is possible to let the tool modify the service.xml of other instances, either by launching it with the command line parameters -rs and -N, where N specifies the instance number, e.g. -2 or -3, or by dragging and dropping the file service.xml from the configuration folder of the instance in question to the Tweaker program icon.
- If more than one Media Server instance is running on a PC, it is recommendable to let only the first instance manage DVB hardware allocation, and to run additional instances as Sat>IP clients of the first one by restricting their device lists to according RTSP devices. This has to be configured manually. Generally take care to avoid circular references (e.g. instance 2 client of instance 1 and instance 1 client of instance 2), because they may cause deadlocks.
- It is not possible to run multiple instances of the Media Server Basic version, which is free for DVBViewer users. The feature requires the full version.
Fix: General: Adjustments to the changed Windows 11 idle timeout handling. After the Media Server has unblocked sleep mode, Windows 11 triggers it immediately in case of an already expired idle timeout, without waiting 2 minutes like previous Windows versions (see here). This may cause problems on channel switching in a remote client (see here) or after timer recordings with shutdown as final action (see here). Therefore the Media Server now delays sleep mode unblocking for 5 seconds, if running under Windows 11 (see here).
Added: General: Support for VVC video (see here). It entails recording channels and streaming channels/files with VVC video. Please note that currently
- after updating to Media Server 3.3.0, UPnP/DLNA distribution of TS files containing VVC video requires stopping the Media Server and deleting the file UPnPProfilesV4.xml in the config sub-directory of the DVBViewer configuration folder, in order to force recreation on the next Media Server start.
- playing channels/files with VVC video in the browser requires an up-to-date FFmpeg version (probably a nightly build), that is able to decode/transcode VVC, and adding -strict -2 to the FFmpeg command string in the file ffmpegprefs.ini, that is located in the Config sub-directory of the DVBViewer program directory, as long as the FFmpeg VVC decoder is in an experimental state.

Fix: Recorder and Live Streaming: Under certain conditions transport stream packets with video filler data were not removed, though configured by the user and possible (see here).
Added: Recorder: The Media Server now also writes EPG information (if available) to recordings logs if the program that shall be recorded is not specified. This particularly applies to manual (instant) recordings delegated by a DVBViewer client to the Media Server. Additionally the Media Server writes Internet Radio metadata like song titles, news etc. to recording logs, as soon as the text arrives (see here).
Added: Recording Options: Tweak “Only log internet radio metadata once” (→ launch DMSTweaker.bat). This option lets the Media Server filter out repetitions when writing internet radio metadata to a recording log, particularly house advertising of radio stations (see here). The default is “on”.
Change/Fix: EPG: The EPG start/end time and duration are now stored non-rounded, when EPG data arrives, but are rounded to minutes later when being read from the EPG database, e.g. for displaying them somewhere. Previously the times were already rounded on EPG data arrival. The change avoids issues with internet radio (shoutcast) metadata that is transformed internally to EPG data (see here).
Fix: EPG Search: Changing the general “Final Action” timer default setting to something other than “None” also changed the final action in all search presets to the new default setting, if it was “None”. In the same way the general “Task After Recording” timer default setting changed the according setting in all search presets (see here).

Fix: Channel Logos: Unnecessary checks if a channel logo image files with a hyphen (-) as name exists. As a result, creating API channel list information for clients could take so long that the web interface got unresponsive and the clients ran into a timeout, possibly causing them to try it again and again (since 3.2.4.3, see here).
Fix: TTML Subtitles: Wrong integration of TTML timing information in delivered transport streams. TTML subtitles are frequently used for MPEG Dash streams.
Fix: Mobile Web Interface: The Record and Record Series buttons did not appear anymore in the EPG Details view (see here).
Fix: API: Parts of the api/timerlist output (Title, Subheading, Series, Source) were not converted from Unicode (UTF-8) to the local ANSI character set, if the utf8 parameter was 0 or missing.
Fix: Hardware: Increasing the DiSEqCCount default value for TBS DVB-S devices to 2 in version 3.2.5 (causing every DiSEqC command to be sent two times) proved to be unfavorable in case of Unicable (see here). Therefore DiSEqCCount is now decreased by 1 if (and only if) it is greater than 1 and Unicable DiSEqC commands have to be output with a TBS device.
Added: Installer: Checkbox for adding a firewall rule that allows the Media Server to receive UDP data from the internet (particularly multicast TV like MagentaTV, see here). The same can be achieved by executing DMS_IPTV_Firewall_Rules.bat from the DVBViewer program directory with administrator rights. Please note: Must only be used in a home network behind a router!

December 29, 2024

Changes Media Server 3.3.1.0

Change: Transcoded Streaming: New version number 7 (previously 6) for the file ffmpegprefs.ini in the config subdirectory of the DVBViewer program directory. The file contains presets for transcoding. Please note: The Media Server 3.3.1 replaces a version 6 ffmpegprefs.ini by a new version 7 default file with additional presets for audio transcoding (see below). The old file is renamed to *.bak. This can be avoided by updating the version number in the old file with a text editor from 6 to 7. However, it is better to copy any previous “homemade” changes from the old file to the new file.
Added: Transcoded Streaming: Additional 128 kbit presets for pure MP3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis and Opus audio output. Most browsers are able to play at least MP3 and AAC natively. The new presets can be used for efficiently streaming radio stations or audio files. Previously the Media Server only offered audio presets for the container formats WebM or HLS, entailing more overhead (see here).
Added/Change: Web Interfaces / Stream Setup: If the Media Server detects that a media source (DVB channel, file, network stream...) delivers audio, but no video, it only offers audio presets for transcoding in the Stream Setup dialog (see above). In case of video input, or if the Media Server cannot determine the content, it only offers the container formats WebM and HLS. Please note the following points:
- The first entry in the list of available audio output formats is always “WebM/HLS” (default). It lets the Media Server 3.3.1 use the last container format selected for video (WebM or HLS) also for pure audio, like previous versions did. However, now it is also possible to select MP3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis or Opus for pure audio.
- The Media Server remembers the last used output formats for transcoding separately, for video and audio as well as for each browser (which means, in cookies) and uses one or the other depending on the input.
- The web interface window/page for TV/Radio playback offers switching to another TV/radio channel. This is performed by JavaScript code in the browser without reloading the page. When switching from a radio to a TV channel in this way, there are restrictions, if (and only if) the last used video output container is HLS and the last used audio format is MP3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis or Opus. Since it is not possible to switch on-the fly from one of these formats to HLS, TV channels are played without video in this case. This can be avoided by either selecting “WebM/HLS” for pure audio output (see above), or by closing/leaving the playback window/page and selecting the TV channel elsewhere.
Fix: Desktop Web Interface: Issues in Safari when playing files transcoded to HLS. Playback stalled after some time.
Added: Web Interfaces: The Stream Setup dialog in Safari now also offers WebM as Video/Audio container format for transcoding, because there are reports that WebM is supported since Safari version 16 (macOS) or 17.4 (iOS) (see here). Untested up to now!
Fix: Web Interfaces: Playing the original file/stream in the browser (possible with some formats like MP3 or MP4, that browsers support natively) did not work and resulted in an error message.
Added: Web Interfaces / Stream Setup: More original streams are now recognized as playable in the browser without transcoding, particularly MP3 / AAC / Ogg audio and MP4 video originating from other UPnP sources than the Media Server.
Fix: Web Interfaces: The download of a HTTP Channel List (Transcoded Streams) in the web interface did not consider the “Show in Channel List → TV / Radio” settings. It was announced in the Media Server 2.0.0.0 release notes, but never implemented, so that downloads always contained TV and radio channels.
Fix: Mobile Web Interface: The “HTTP Channel List (Original Streams)” download function on the Info & Help page used the “Show in Channel List” settings (stored in cookies) for the Desktop Web Interface, not the ones for the Mobile Web Interface.
Fix: Mobile Web Interface: Channel names appeared twice on the EPG Search Results page.
Added: Web Interfaces: “Delete Timers” button on the Search EPG page. It deletes all timers that have been created by the selected search preset, or more generally, by a search preset with the same name (see here). The button is disabled if no such timers exist. If the preset name has just been edited, it is necessary to save the preset before it can be used to delete timers.
Change: Mobile Web Interface: Four sections with search preset settings on the Search EPG page can now be expanded and collapsed. By default they are collapsed, thus making the page shorter and more handy. The “Create Timers” and “Delete Timers” buttons are contained in an expandable element at the bottom of the page and hidden by default, so they can’t be tapped accidentally.
Added: Web Interfaces: Additional hints on the Search EPG page, particularly for the Date input fields and the “Create Timers” and “Delete Timers” buttons. In the Desktop Web Interface the hints appear on mouse-over, in the Mobile Web Interface after tapping the blue item label or a question mark button. Such buttons have also been added to the Tasks page of the Mobile Web Interface.
Fix/Added: Mobile Web Interface: It was impossible to enter, edit and display auto-updating date values like “today+1” in the (start- and end-) date input lines on the Search EPG page. Tapping them always let a calendar pop up. Furthermore, already present dates could not be deleted. Now tapping the blue “Date” label opens a menu allowing to clear the dates and to select “Calendar” or “Text” input mode, the latter intended for entering auto-updating dates. If such a date is already present, text input is selected automatically. Additionally the menu provides a hint explaining the usage of auto-updating dates (see here). Please note that entering a normal “static” date in text input mode requires the dd.mm.yyyy format.
Fix: Mobile Web Interface: After selecting a search preset and using “Search” to view the results, saving the preset did not update it, but created a duplicate.
Change: EPG Search: In "Use regular expressions off" mode the search engine now also supports using the anchor characters ^ (text field start) and $ (text field end), if they are preceded/followed by a pipe character |, which represents a logical or. Previously ^ and $ could only be used at the beginning and end of search items as anchors, but not in between (see here and the mouse-over hint for the “Search for” input line).
Added: Auto-Timer Creation: Tweak “Update existing auto-timers on EPG search” (→ launch DMSTweaker.bat). If switched off (default) automatic timer creation works as in previous versions. If switched on, the following changes take effect (also see here):
- On each EPG search with automatic timer creation (also by means of “Create Timers” on the Search EPG web interface page) previously created timers are updated to the current EPG content (start time, duration, title, sub-heading). Manually created timers are not affected.
- The status of automatically created times (activated or deactivated according to the search preset settings) may possibly change on subsequent updates. However, this is excluded for timers that have been manually activated or deactivated by the user in the meantime (by clicking the button at the left of the Timers page in the web interface). Furthermore manually activated/deactivated timers do not influence the activated/deactivated-status of other timers created by the same search preset, not even, if dictated by the search preset settings.
- Timers for canceled programs, that are no more findable in the EPG, are deleted automatically, which avoids unwanted recordings.
- If the ID or the start time of a program changes so much, that the Media Server cannot recognize the correlation with the timer originally created for it, it is deleted and a new one is created, provided the program still conforms to the search preset. This avoids double timers for the same program and other possible problems. However, all timer settings changed by the user manually in the meantime get lost in this case.
Change/Fix: Media Stream Server: This server part, that is mainly used for UPnP media file delivery, has been rewritten and is now based on the same network library as the Web Server and Live Stream Server (previously it was based on another library). This code unification also fixes issues with some clients that respond with a premature playback stop to a server-side connection reset, after a file has been delivered completely (as done by the previous Media Stream Server version, see here).
Fix: UPnP Client: URLs received within UPnP XML structures were not (XML-)decoded, so that using URLs with a query part containing ampersand characters (& encoded as &) could fail. This particularly applied to RTSP Sat>IP URLs received from Digital Devices OctopusNet servers.
Added: Recorder: The recorder now logs each minute without arriving (usable) data, even if Recordings → Restart recording if no data for 60 secs. is switched off in the Options (see here). Additionally it logs if the target drive is FAT32-formatted, which causes an automatic split of the recording into pieces slightly smaller than 4GB (see here). This applies to the svcdebug.log and recording logs.
Change: General: The command line parameter -new for starting a Media Server instance additionally to already running instances now starts the instance with the first unoccupied instance number (beginning with 1). Previously the instance number was the number of already running instances plus one (see 3.3.0 changes and here).
Fix: Tweaker: Tweaker.exe (installed with DVBViewer, launched by DMSTweaker.bat) did not prevent saving changed settings while the Media Server was running (since 3.3.0). The “Only log internet radio metadata once” checkbox was doubled and “Convert LOAS/LATM to ADTS for AAC recordings” checkbox hidden due to a bug in the file TweaksDMS.ini.
Removed: Hardware: Support for the old DVB IPTV reception type, which is integrated in the TS Stream branch since version 2.0.0. Version 3.3.1 automatically converts DVB IPTV channel list entries to according TS Stream entries. Virtual DVB IPTV network devices are ignored when the device list is loaded and cannot be added anymore to the list. If setting up the UDP/RTP interface IP address for receiving the stream is required, add a TS Stream device to the device list and select the interface in its settings.
Added: Hardware Options: The settings of virtual RTSP (Sat>IP) devices now allow to select the network interface (adapter IP address) that shall be used for receiving UDP streams from the Sat>IP server. The default is “Automatic”, which means, it is up to Windows to select a suitable network adapter. Selecting a specific one may be necessary if two or more network adapters are present, particularly virtual network adapters due to a VPN or virtual machine, and Windows selects the wrong one.

August 18

Media Server Beta 3.3.1.9

An installer for the beta version 3.3.1.9 of the DVBViewer Media Server (restricted basic and paid full version) is available in the Members (Download) Area -> Beta Section.

Please note the following important change: The certificate that we have used to sign our software has expired. Unfortunately getting a new one has become much more expensive and complicated in the meantime, which is a problem for small software manufacturers like us. Therefore we are providing this release first as a self-signed beta version, until we have found a better solution.

Because Windows cannot verify the publisher, launching the beta installer downloaded by a browser will trigger misleading "Windows protected your PC" warnings, and you need to first click "More info" and then "Run anyway" to get it going (see here). Also anti-virus software may respond more suspiciously.

However, you can avoid this hassle by launching the signed DVBViewer Pro Downloader of the previous DVBViewer 7.3.1 version (see Windows start menu -> DVBViewer). After scrolling down to the bottom you will see a new "Applications" section, offering beta versions. Select what you want to install and let the downloader do its job. As long as you are using the original downloader (with Christian Hackbart verified as publisher in the Windows UAC screen) or a download from our members area, you can be sure that we are the publishers, despite any warnings.

Please also note that downloading and running the DVBViewer Media Server Beta 3.3.1.9 full version requires purchasing an additional license (if not yet done)! This does not apply to the restricted Basic version, though (see here).

Changes Media Server Beta 3.3.1.9

Fix/Change: Web Interfaces: Playback of transcoded streams in browsers has been reworked. Some potential issues have been fixed and new features were integrated.

Added: Web Interfaces: The web interfaces now display radio text when playing radio streams. If no radio text (RDS) is available, the current EPG title is displayed (also covers the text transmitted by internet radio channels, which is internally converted to EPG data). If no EPG is available, the web interfaces display the channel name. The TXT button switches the text off and on (see here). Please note that the browser does not pause the text display if the pause function is used, so music and the displayed artist / song titles get out of sync in this case.

Added: Web Interfaces: Teletext pages displayed in the browser as TV overlay are now updated automatically once per second (as well as radio text, see above). Previously the pages were static and had to be updated manually.
Added: Web Interfaces: Integrated DVBViewer remote control, similar to the DVBViewer WiFi Remote Input Plugin (see here). It enables to control every DVBViewer in the home network that is configured as Media Server client. In the desktop web interface the remote control can be opened by clicking the corresponding item on the link page, in the Mobile Web Interface via the corresponding main menu item (see here). A selection list at the bottom left of the remote control image selects the DVBViewer instance that shall be controlled, if multiple instances are running in the home network. The assignments in the new file DVBCommand.txt (located in the config sub-directory of the DVBViewer configuration folder) translate remote control keys to DVBViewer command line parameters (particularly -x plus DVBViewer action number, see actions.ini in the DVBViewer program directory). DVBCommand.txt can be edited for changing the remote control key functions. Please note that the remote control page can be opened in the DVBViewer Media Server Basic version, but only works in the full version with user rights (not with guest rights).
Added: Web Interfaces: A file selection list appearing on the Stream Playback page in the browser, similar to the channel selection list for TV/Radio playback. It enables switching over to another file. The Media Server generates this “playlist” automatically. It comprises all files contained in the folder/category from where playback of a single file has been started, e.g. from the Media or Recordings page of the Desktop Web Interface, or the Recordings/Video/Audio selection pages of the Mobile Web Interface. Playlist generation requires the files to be listed in the Media Server’s media databases. Content from other UPnP servers can not be part of a playlist.
Added: Web Interfaces: Display of album covers or other pictures assigned to audio files when playing them in the browser. If no such picture is available, the browser shows a play symbol in the Desktop Web Interface and a Media Server icon in the Mobile Web Interface as substitute.
Added: Web Interfaces / Transcoded Streaming: File playback mode selection on the Stream Setup page. It only applies to transcoded streaming of files (playback in the browser and M3U export for other players) and offers the following choice (see here):
- Single File: Lets the browser play the selected file and stop playback when finished. An M3U playlist exported for other players only contains the selected file. This was the only mode supported by previous Media Server versions.
- Playlist: Playback starts with the selected file. After it is finished, the browser automatically continues with the next file in the sequence given by the content of the category/folder from where the first file has been selected. If playing the last file is finished, playback wraps around to the first file (endless playback). An M3U playlist exported for other players contains all files of the playlist in the same sequence. Please note that switching playback over to the next file is performed by JavaScript in the browser. Since iOS devices prevent JavaScript execution if the browser is not the foreground app or the screen is switched off, playback stops in this case after the current file is finished (Remedy see next point). On Android devices you may want to switch battery optimization for the browser off for keeping background audio playback up.
- Radio Stream: This option is similar to Playlist Mode, but only applies to audio playback. The output format is MP3 or AAC. If none of them is selected by the user, the Media Server uses MP3. For video the Media Server uses Playlist mode (see above), if Radio Stream is configured. In Radio Stream mode the server concatenates audio files to a continuous stream. Since this mode does not require JavaScript execution in the browser, it can be used on iOS devices (see above) for playing a compilation of audio files in the background, e.g. a whole album. However, there are drawbacks: On the Stream Playback page there is no position slider for jumping within a file. A displayed album cover and the file selection list on the Stream Playback page are not updated to the current tune. But it is still possible to switch over to another file without leaving Radio Stream mode (see above).
Fix: Web Interfaces: If the URL of an internet radio stream pointed to an M3U or PLS playlist file containing the stream URL, the Stream Setup → Original Stream → Play in Browser button triggered an M3U/PLS download instead of radio playback. Please note that the Original Stream → Play in Browser button is only present for media formats like MP3, AAC or MP4 that browsers are usually able to play natively.
Added: Mobile Web Interface: The main menu items Video and Audio contain new “Playlists” sub-items. They enumerate the M3U playlists contained in the corresponding media library and its folders (see media Server Options → Media Libraries) and allow to access all M3U list items specified by path\filename (but not by URL), including files outside the media library. After starting playback of one of the files, the browser will play the whole playlist, if the new file playback mode “Playlist” is active (see above). Please note that you may use the DVBViewer Channel Editor for creating individual M3U playlists, because it allows to drag & drop media files and folders from the Windows Explorer into it and provides several facilities for rearranging and renaming the items. Finally categories can be exported as M3U playlist.
Added: Mobile Web Interface: A new “Full Screen” link on top of the start (menu) page switches the browser to full screen mode (or back), thus hiding the address bar and other elements not belonging to the interface, and letting it more look like an app (see here). Please note: It may depend on the OS and browser version how well the JavaScript Fullscreen API is supported. iPhones currently do not support it. However, creating a link on the iPhone/iPad home screen lets the Mobile Web Interface start in Full Screen mode.
Added: Mobile Web Interface: New “Photos” main menu item allowing to browse through the Media Server’s photo library (if configured, see Media Server Options → Media Libraries). Tapping an image title in a sub-menu opens a Details popup providing additional information: The filename and size, resolution, the camera that has been used (if available) etc. Tapping a thumbnail image in a sub-menu directly opens a page where the photo is shown. It provides the following possibilities (see here):
- Browsing through all images in the category / folder from which the selected image originates by tapping the right or left half (forward / backward) or the forward/backward buttons at the bottom.
- Start a slide show forward by swiping from right to left, or backward (left to right) or tapping the play buttons at the bottom. Each image is displayed for 5 seconds. The slide show is stopped by a forward / backward tap (see above).
- Navigation with a connected keyboard. It is supported in the same way as in the Desktop Web Interface (see below).
- Full screen display of images by tapping/clicking the “Full Screen” link at the top. Swiping vertically lets the display return to normal mode, but - in contrast to the back button - without switching full screen mode for the whole web interface off, if it has been active before.
Added: Mobile Web Interface: A new TXT link on top of the Live Stream (TV/Radio) page opens/closes the teletext (if available) of the played channel (see here). Previously teletext was only available in the Desktop Web Interface. The following navigation options are available:
- Switch to the previous/next (sub)page by clicking/tapping the << >> links in the top line of the page or by swiping to the right/left..
- Click/tap a page number for switching to this page.
- Click/tap any part of the teletext panel that is not a page link for opening a virtual numeric keypad, allowing to input page numbers. Typing 234 first selects page 200, then 230 and finally 234. So it is sufficient to click/tap 2 for selecting page 200. A number can be continued within two seconds after the last input. When the time has elapsed, the keypad is closed automatically. Additionally you may use the left arrow on the keypad for going back in page history and the right arrow for going forward.
- If a hardware keyboard is connected to the device, it provides the same navigation possibilities as for the teletext in the Desktop Web Interface (see 3.1.1 changes).
Added: Mobile Web Interface: Prerequisites for installing the Mobile Web Interface as full screen “Progressive Web App” (PWA) on Android devices, offered by the “Add to home screen” menu item in Chrome. For getting a standalone full screen app, the Mobile Web Interface must be delivered as HTTPS with standard port 443. The Media Server must be configured accordingly (see 3.0.0 changes). If a self signed HTTPS certificate is used, it must be imported in Android for making it work. Please note: Such an import makes using a lock screen PIN or similar measures mandatory on Android devices!
Fix: Mobile Web Interface: Due to a missing meta tag in the file ipad.html the tablet version of the Mobile Web Interface was not displayed in full screen mode when opened via a shortcut on the iPad home screen.
Added: Desktop Web Interface: Additional facilities in the window for displaying images that appears after clicking the play button beside an image item in the Media Page → Photos section:
- Browsing through all images in the folder/category from which the selected image originates by clicking the left / right part of the window or pressing the left / right arrow key (backward / forward).
- Start a slide show by holding the Shift key down while clicking the window or using the arrow keys. Each image is displayed for 5 seconds. The slide show is stopped by clicking / pressing the arrow keys without Shift or by pressing Esc. Please note that these “playlist” features require the image files to be listed in the Media Server’s photo database and to be present in a photo library (see Media Server Options → Media Libraries). Images from other UPnP servers are restricted to being displayed as single image.
Change: Desktop Web Interface: When the internet search function (binoculars icon) in the EPG Details popup window is used, the Media Server now removes season and episode information from series titles, e.g. reduces “The Movies (11/12)” to “The Movies”, before inserting them as search item in site URLs (see 3.2.4 changes). Season and episode information is identified according to the presets in the file EpisodeSearchPresets.txt located in the config sub-directory of the DVBViewer configuration folder.
Added: Desktop Web Interface: New magnifying glass icon for list items on the Timers page. It appears on mouse over if a timer has been created automatically by a search preset (“auto-timer”) and a preset with the same name (still) exists. Clicking the icon lets the Media Server change over to the Search EPG page and select the corresponding preset there (see here).
Added: Desktop Web Interface: New checkboxes on the table headers on the Timers page, enabling to mark/unmark a part of the displayed timers for deletion, e.g. all timers on a certain day or for a certain channel, depending on the selected sort type (see here).
Fix: Desktop Web Interface: If “Sort By Active/Inactive” was selected on the Timers page and only inactive timers were present, no timers were displayed at all (see here).
Added: Desktop Web Interface/Transcoded Streaming: “copy” as possible value for the acodec parameter specifying the audio format in the transcoded output. It lets FFmpeg copy the audio data from the input to the output stream without changing it and without quality loss. Bit rate, sample rate etc. are kept. “acodec=copy” can be specified in the expert settings of the Stream Setup window and applies if
- the input is a file or stream with .mp3 as filename extension and the output is MP3 (an MP3 audio preset is selected).
- The input is a file or stream with a filename extension indicating a transport stream (.ts) or an audio format that can be contained in a transport stream (MP2, MP3, AAC, AC3), and the output is TS (a TS preset is selected).
Added: M3U Export/API: If 128 is added to the tag value of URLs for downloading M3U channel lists, the Media Server adds logical channel numbers (LCN) as tvg-chno tag to the output (in contrast to the value 64, that lets the Media Server add the one-based channel index as tvg-chno tag). If no LCN is assigned to a channel, the tvg-chno tag is omitted. The new value 128 can also be used in the “Live stream M3U configuration” tweak (→ launch DMSTweaker.bat) for channel list downloads from the web interfaces (see here).
Added: Recorder: The Media Server writes RDS radio text like song titles, news etc. to recording logs, as soon as the text arrives, in the same way as text transmitted in internet radio streams. The tweak “Only log internet radio metadata once” also applies to radio text logging (see 3.3.0 changes) and was renamed to “Only log radio metadata once” (→ launch DMSTweaker.bat).
Added: Recorder: Recording timers are now automatically updated to the current EPG title and subheading each time they are displayed in the web interface, provided an EPG entry is available for the program that shall be recorded. The same applies to the timer name, as long as its default (title and subheading separated by a hyphen) remains unchanged. Additionally timers with weekly repetition (with specified days of the week) are updated in the same way when the Media Server switches them to the next recording date (see here). Please note that in case of shifted start times such an update may let the Timers page of the web interface suddenly display a different program than the intended one. This signals the need for a timer adjustment.
Added: Recorder. Plausibility check if the EPG running status signals the end of a program and triggers a recording stop in “Start / stop by EPG running status” (accurate recording) mode. The recorder assumes a faulty stop signal and falls back to normal timer handling (stop at start time + expected duration + follow-up time) if all of the following conditions are met (see here)::
- The recording has actually been started by the EPG running status (not later while the program was already running).
- The recording duration is less than 75% of the expected duration indicated by the EPG.
- The recording duration is at least 10 minutes less than the expected duration indicated by the EPG.
Added: Recorder: When the recorder logs PDC values from the EPG (Program Delivery Control, the originally intended start time) as hexadecimal value, it now adds in brackets the decoded value in a human readable format (day.month. hour:minutes).

Fix: Media Stream Server: When delivering video thumbnails the server appended some useless error text to the image data, which could confuse clients (particularly Samsung TV sets as UPnP clients that crashed badly, see here). Additionally some minor adjustments were accomplished.
Fix: Live Stream Server: Memory leak each time a channel with teletext was played in the browser.
Fix: Live Stream Server: Access violation if a connection got closed and the device used by the server has already been released before due to a tuning error. The access violation caused a memory leak and incorrect reference counting for sleep mode prevention (see here).
Added: RTSP (Sat>IP) Client: Measures to make Sat>IP connections using the UDP transport mode less susceptible to blocking by firewalls, particularly if the network connection is configured as public (see here).

Added: RTSP (Sat>IP) Client: Client-side support for TCP interleaved transport mode (also called RTP/AVP/TCP). It enables the Media Server to receive video/audio and additional data from other Sat>IP servers supporting this mode via a single TCP connection established for sending commands (see here). The normal transport mode uses two additional UDP streams for it. Please note the following points:
- TCP interleaved mode must be enabled in Media Server Options → Hardware → Settings for each virtual RTSP device in question by changing the protocol from UDP (default) to TCP. Previously this setting was only available if the RTSP device referred to another DVBViewer Media Server as source. In this case the setting activated a proprietary TCP transport solution only supported by applications from the DVBViewer family.
- TCP interleaved mode is part of the RTSP standard, but not mentioned in the Sat>P specifications, so Sat>IP servers may not support it. Requesting it from such servers yields an error, and the Media Server gets no data. In this case the protocol must be switched back to UDP. Known Sat>IP servers with TCP interleaved support are the DVBViewer Media Server itself, version 3.3.1.9 or later (see below), the Linux Sat>IP servers tvheadend and minisatip, and receivers equipped with sat>ip-axe firmware (which contains a customized minisatip version).
- The advantages of TCP interleaved mode are dropout prevention (at the cost of more protocol overhead) and no firewall issues, since the Windows firewall only sees a single outbound connection established by the client, which is usually accepted without blocking. Furthermore using Sat>IP via a VPN can get easier by this.
Added: RTSP Server: Server-side support for TCP interleaved transport mode (RTP/AVP/TCP, see above). It enables the Media Server to send video/audio and additional data to Sat>IP clients supporting this mode via a single TCP connection, that has been established by the client for sending commands (see here). Please note the following points:
- The TCP mode offered by previous Media Server versions was a proprietary solution that required an additional separate TCP connection for sending data. It could only be used by clients from the DVBViewer family (DVBViewer Pro/GE, TransEdit). This method is still provided for compatibility reasons, however.
- Sat>IP clients, including Sat>IP servers that are able to work as clients of other Sat>IP servers, usually must be explicitly configured for requesting TCP interleaved mode. Otherwise they will use the normal UDP transport mode. Known clients with TCP interleaved support are VLC, DVBViewer Pro 7.3.2 or later, TransEdit 4.3.4 or later, DVBViewer Media Server 3.3.1.9 or later, and the linux Sat>IP servers tvheadend and minisatip. It has been tested with all of them.
Added: Hardware: Support for new Digital Devices PCIe cards and Sundtek SkyTV Ultimate 8 / Dual USB DVB-S devices (see here).
Change: TS Stream: If the network adapter selection for multicast IPTV in a virtual TS Stream device is set to “Automatic” (default), the Media Server now checks if there is a single adapter with an IP address in the private 192.168… range, which is mostly used by routers. If yes, this adapter is used, otherwise the adapter selected by Windows (see here).
Change: TS Stream: The selected UDP/RTP Interface (IP address) in the settings of a virtual TS Stream Device in the Media Server Options → Hardware now also applies to RTSP Streams that are received via this device. Previously this setting was only used for multicast UDP/RTP streams like MagentaTV.

Change: TS Stream: The order of HLS stream type detection has been changed to prevent detection of audio elementary streams as transport stream, if the server HTTP response wrongly indicates video/MP2T as content-type (see here).
Fix: TS Stream: The Media Server could not receive HLS, MPEG Dash or transport streams, if the URL pointed to a M3U or PLS playlist file containing the stream URL (see here).
Fix: TS Stream: The Media Server could not handle WebVTT subtitles for videos in HLS or MPEG Dash format, if the subtitles were provided as a single unsegmented .vtt file.
Fix: TS Stream: HLS or MPEG Dash streams with segmented MP4 could cause a crash, if the HEVC header data in the initialization segment contained more than 1024 bytes.
Added: TS Stream: The Media Server now automatically adds the RTSP standard port 554 if it is missing in an RTSP URL processed as TS Stream (see here).
Change: Transcoded Streaming: The Media Server installer now (optionally) downloads a newer FFmpeg version (7.1.1 instead of 4.2.1). This avoids a high CPU load if two or more streams are transcoded at the same time (see here).
Fix: Transcoded Streaming: Selecting “burnt in” subtitles in the Stream Setup window of the Desktop Web Interface caused recent FFmpeg versions to output two video streams, one with and another one without subtitles.
Fix: Tray Tool: In new Windows 11 installations the tray menu opened the Media Server web interface in Edge, not in the default browser selected by the user (see here).

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DVBViewer Media Server 3.0.0.0

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