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Plex Media Server v0.9.6.1
We’re happy to announce a new release of the Plex Media Server; this is a followup to the last beta release, which was the first to support DLNA and Silverlight Smooth Streaming, and fixes a number of issues in those areas, along with some other things.
Overall the feedback for those new features has been really awesome. I’ll let our community do the talking:
Thanks so much for all your feedback, we really appreciate all the support!
Without further ado, here are the changes in the latest release. I’ve also included more detailed changes for the 0.9.6.0 release as well at the bottom. The new releases are available in the usual spot.
- NEW: Mac OSX releases are now signed with Developer ID, making it Mountain Lion and 10.7.4 friendly.
– NEW: We now allow the selection of higher quality streams over 3G with the latest iOS client.
– NEW: Show “Plex Media Server” when mapping a port via UPnP so it’s nice and pretty on the router.
– NEW: Plex Media Server is now available for ReadyNAS Duo v2 (ARM).
– NEW: (DLNA) Support matching headers by regular expression in DLNA profiles.
– NEW: (DLNA) Allow MIME types to be flexibly overridden by DLNA profiles.
- FIX: Don’t return empty Silverlight Smooth Streaming (SLSS) manifest files, crashes some clients.
– FIX: Bad transcoder regression that made remuxing produce ugly artifacts on iOS clients (purple/green).
– FIX: Transcoder regression where WEB-DL files (and others) could crash the transcoder.
– FIX: Fixed a bug where a large number of sections could make the server not show up in clients.
– FIX: Make sure media files sent back can be cached by clients.
– FIX: Speed up deletion of (especially large) library sections by at least two orders of magnitude. Fast!
– FIX: Fix for subtitles not being enabled automatically in certain cases.
– FIX: When we have *known* foreign audio, and a single unknown subtitle, enable it.
– FIX: Handle SIGTERM, this is the default kill signal and we should do a proper shutdown.
– FIX: (Linux) Plex Media Server now bundles rsync.
– FIX: Don’t allow the OS to go to sleep while streaming media.
– FIX: Crash that happened when manual NAT setting was used.
– FIX: Silverlight and Flash channel crashes on Windows and OS X. (e.g. Netflix)
– FIX: Audio transcoder fixes.
– FIX: SLSS crash fixed and support for files which claim crazy frame-rates.
– FIX: Long shutdown on Linux.
– FIX: Some videos not Direct Streaming with LG TVs.
– FIX: Crash when /etc/mtab doesn’t exist, use /proc/mounts instead.
– FIX: /search endpoint supports single quotes in queries.
– FIX: (DLNA) Fix dimensions for DLNA videos of unknown size.
– FIX: (DLNA) Don’t error out on unknown DLNA profile tags.
– FIX: (DLNA) Give up on starting the DLNA server if it fails too many times in a row.
– FIX: (DLNA) Windows setup now creates a firewall exception for DLNA.
– FIX: (DLNA) iTunes artist titles was not read correctly by DLNA.
– FIX: (DLNA) Return a better protocol info for picky clients.
And for 0.9.6.0:
- NEW: DLNA support.
- NEW: Silverlight Smooth Streaming support.
- NEW: Audio transcoder (not yet used).
- NEW: Many enhancements to generic transcoder.
- NEW: Support for gzipped replies, making mobile browsing much quicker.
- FIX: Image thumbnails are rotated according to EXIF data.
- FIX: (Transcoder) Resuming certain videos on mobile clients didn’t work.
- FIX: Crash in network detection code.
- FIX: Cases where scans can abort prematurely.
- FIX: On Lion, don’t require the more powerful GPU.
- FIX: Detect local network access via IP/netmask.
- FIX: (Linux) Crash scanning when permissions were wrong.
- FIX: Sometimes auto-generated thumbs turned out too dark.
- FIX: An issue signing into myPlex (“Plex Headers are Required”).
- FIX: Don’t return disabled build-in plug-ins (e.g. Aperture).
- FIX: (Windows) Kill phantom transcode sessions.
- FIX: A number of other crashes and minor bugs.
Since we’re detailing the changes behind not one, but TWO releases, I figured you deserved something more than a photo of Barkley, so we made you a video. No, he’s not fishing, he’s just confused by objects on the bottom of the lagoon looking closer than they actually are.
One More Thing (on April Fools’ Day)
[NOTE: From the name-calling and angry comments, it's clear we offended some BlackBerry users, and I wanted to clarify a few things: 1) we were poking fun at the company (which seems to have lost its way), not the users. 2) We've discussed BlackBerry as a Plex platform, and looked into getting our Android app into the App World, but there were issues (the PlayBook version of Android was too old to support the video features we need, and the custom video solution we use for Android 2.x doesn't work on the PlayBook). 3) I'm personally sorry I offended anyone. This was an April Fools' post, and not intended to be taken seriously! Please check your pitchforks and Torches at the door.]
It’s been a big week for us here at Plex. We released a killer update of the Plex for Roku client, which is now officially in the Roku Channel Store. We released a massive update of the Plex Media Server, with DLNA and Windows Phone support. And we released a beautiful new client for the Windows Phone. Not bad, right?
We wanted to bring you equally big news on the business front. This may come as a surprise to many of you, but we’ve been talking to a number of companies over the past year, and have rejected quite a few otherwise generous acquisition offers, simply because we didn’t feel like they were good fits. (At one point we were entertaining an offer from a certain Cupertino company, but in all honesty I was left entirely unimpressed with the cafeteria food.)
A few months ago, however, we found a company which shared our passion, our ethos, our philosophy. The company was looking to revitalize their brand, and was lacking a cohesive media story for their devices. One thing led to another, and now that the ink is dry on the paperwork, I’m incredibly proud to be able to share the news with you: We have been acquired by RIM.
Think about it for a moment: they have a great line of phones, a killer tablet, a magnificent sense of design (have you let your thumbs run over a BlackBerry keyboard lately?), and an incredible vision for the future. And have you heard the new CEO speak? When he says “What I’m really good at is inspiring teams” he means it! I’m inspired!
So what does this new direction imply for our current users? Most of you probably already own a BlackBerry device (who doesn’t?) so you shouldn’t notice much a difference at all. The iOS, Android, and Window Phone clients will get updates which redirect you on launch to the RIM homepage, and our new BlackBerry/PlayBook client (we’re calling it “PlexBerry” which I think you’ll agree has a nice ring) will be available for download in the next 24 hours. Since RIM’s focus for the week is on corporate customers, we’re including a new “boss key” feature in Plex which will quickly overlay an Excel spreadsheet over any video you’re watching.
We want to thank you all so much for your support over the past years! I will of course continue working on Plex for RIM devices, reporting directly to Thorsten (now that he’s cleaned house - about time!).
[Before taking this too seriously, check the date on the article.]
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