The Falcon Pi Player v0.3.0 (FPP-Beta-0.3.0-Noobs.zip) is now officially available
for download via SourceForge.net. Many thanks go out to all of those who helped
us test by downloading the beta-test SD images and taking things for a spin to make
sure we bolted all the wheels on tight before everyone else got on the bus.
The new v0.3.0 image is available for download directly at
http://sourceforge.net/projects/falc...s.zip/download or by selecting the v0.3.0 image from the Falcon Pi Player download
area at http://sourceforge.net/projects/falc...urce=directory
If you're in a hurry to try it out without reading the release novel (err, notes), please scroll down and read the Known Issues and Notes sections at the bottom of this announcement before proceeding.
Changes in v0.3.0 include:
* Additional channel output drivers to add support for the following:
- USB DMX Pro
- This has been tested with the Entec Pro and should be compatible
with the DLA Lynx USB dongle w/ DMX firmware, DIYC RPM, DMXking.com,
DIYblinky.com, and any other DMX Pro compatible dongles.
- USB DMX Open
- This has been tested with Entec & generic FTDI USB to RS485
adapters and should be compatible with LOR and D-Light DMX
dongles and any other DMX Open compatible dongles.
- USB Pixelnet Lynx
- This supports the DLA Lynx USB dongle w/ Pixelnet firmware
- USB Pixelnet Open
- This supports the Pixelnet protocol using generic FTDI USB
to RS485 adapters
- Renard via USB serial dongles
- One strang of WS2801 pixels connected directly to the SPI port
on the Pi.
* Additional Media Outputs
- MP3 audio - MP3 support has made a comeback after going on hiatus
for the v0.2.0 release.
- MP4/MKV video - MP4 and MKV files containing H.264 video may be
played along with a sequence instead of a music file. The video
file will be played in sync with the sequence.
* Channel Remapping
- Ability to remap single channels or blocks of channels onto another
area of the channel data to work around faulty hardware or display
items which have been moved. Prevents having to regenerate all
sequences in an emergency situation.
* Plugin support
- Allows 3rd-party plugins to be seamlessly downloaded and
integrated into FPP, including custom menu items.
* TagLib parsing of media file meta-data
- MP3 ID3 and OGG comments are now parsed to alloe meta-data to be
passed to RDS-capable and other plugins.
* Additional allowable event script types
- Perl (.pl), PHP (.php), and Python (.py) scripts can now be
uploaded and used as event scripts.
* Logging optimizations and configurability
- Log Mask allows turning logging for different functions of FPP on
and off independently from each other.
- Log Level controls whether errors, warnings, or debug information
is logged.
- Log Mask and Level on the fly without restarting
* File Manager enhancements
- Download buttons have been added to the File Manager to allow
downloading previously uploaded files.
- Scripts may be viewed without downloading, similar to the log
viewer.
* Effect sequence (*.eseq) files are now parsed correctly, rather
than being treated as renamed .fseq files. These can be created
by xLights/Nutcracker and contain a single model's effect(s)
including the correct start channel information.
* Memory mapped channel data overlay
- The Memory Mapped Channel Block feature allows blocks of channels
to be defined and then external data can be overlayed onto those
blocks during a running sequence or when no sequence is running.
This will allow for things such as dynamic text to be overlayed
on a matrix or pixel tree while a sequence is running.
Currently the script doing the overlaying needs to understand
how the strings wrap and are folded on the display, but FPP is
being modified to bring that configuration into the core so
the data supplier does not have understand the physical layout.
- A sample script to scroll text across a matrix will be supplied
and a UI plugin is being developed and will be released soon
after the official v0.3.0 release.
* Command-line channel test mode (with web UI to come)
- The backend code has been added to allow turning individual
channels on and off as well as setting the intensity of those
channels. This is currently available only via the command-
line, but a web interface will be developed to allow testing
via the UI
* Screen blanking is now turned off by default, users can
enable/disable on FPP settings page
* Lot of bug fixes and some other things I forgot to mention.
Known Issues:
* Volume control on the VastFMT transmitter and other external USB sound cards is not
working properly, we are working on a solution.
* Volume control is not working properly when playing video. We have discovered that
omxplayer does not use ALSA, so it does not honor our mixer changes. We are
investigating on a solution for this.
* LCD output is currently reported broken. We are investigating this issue as well.
Notes:
* For users using the fall-back IP address of 192.168.0.10, this IP address will no longer
be configured if there is a valid eth0 IP address and gateway configured via DHCP or
statically in the UI. If no valid IP and gateway are detected, the fallback IP will still be
configured.
* For those that helped test v0.3.0 by using the Beta SD images previously released. You
will want download and install the official v0.3.0 image because it includes several minor
changes and it also tracks the official v0.3.0 code branch. The beta images previously
released track the stage branch of code which is where we integrate and test code from
other branches so stage is not guaranteed to be working all the time. If you want to
continue to help test, we will probably release a 'stage' image for tracking the stage
branch to help regression test new features before they are pushed out to v0.3.0.