In fact we are skipping a full 0.8.1 release entirely, but features for 0.8.2 will be out soon. We’ll be releasing 0.8.2 as soon as we are all back at the office as we’re taking a week off (for some much needed R&R) until August 2nd. We look forward to bringing out a stream of new stuff in August.

Download the release candidate:
http://getmediacore.com/files/MediaCore-0.8.1rc1.tar.gz

If you find bugs, please report them:
http://github.com/simplestation/mediacore/issues

If you would like to suggest features for our next 0.8.2 release please post them below.

Cheers,
The MediaCore Team

Major new features in 0.8.1

• Improved HTML5 device support (including fixes for iPods and iPads)
• Improved performance, especially when serving media files.
• Automatic fetching of thumbnails, duration, and title, for YouTube, Vimeo, and Google Video items
• Adds the option to use the JW Player HTML5 player

Minor features and improvements

• Simplified database setup and automated migrations for when schema changes become necessary.
• Automated tests for some key features, with more coverage coming.
• Streamlined media edit interface.
• Many small interface updates
• Improved file serving efficiency, including support for apache’s mod_xsendfile
• Added ability to upload non-jpeg thumbnails
• Fixed situation when uploading files or thumbnails for a media item that hasn’t been ’saved’ yet.
• Reorganizes and formalizes how the best media-file/player combination is chosen to serve to a given browser, if a media object has more than one file associated. see
• docs for details
• All display options now also indicate how much extra bandwidth they add to the included files.
• Adds the beginnings of internationalization and a German translation.
• Uploader now accepts files with .avi, .mka, .mkv, .oga, .ogv, .webm extensions
• Uploader no longer accepts files with .3g2, .divx, .dvx, .qt, .vob extensions

Bug Fixes

• Fix bug with iphone-ipod-ipad being incorrectly identified as plain old Safari.
• Fix JW Player to be able to use media URLs with query strings.
• fixes a bug where .m4a files would be labelled as video files, because the old code passed the container to guess_media_type(), rather than passing the original file extension
• Fixes an XSS vulnerability in the StaticURLParser
• Hopefully this fixes an intermittent issue where the submit button wraps to the line below the text input.
• Improve error message when saving media returns a 500 error
• Fix media API to return proper category names
• Fix google video embed ID parsing for some IDs
• Fix pick_media_file_player when selecting files for iTunes, when combined with certain player settings
• Fix non-relative links in base.css that were preventing icons from loading on some pages
• Fix what ‘Latest Episodes’ are shown on the frontend podcast index to actually always show the latest episodes.
• Fix frontend categories list not updating until server reboots. Closes #21
• Fix incorrect escaping of Media.title
• Fix Media.increment_views() to (hopefully) handle concurrency better
• Fix issues with JWPlayer in some browsers, due to incompatibilities between Browser/MooTools/JWPlayer and their acceptance of the ‘application/xhtml+xml’ content type
• Fix podcast feeds incorrectly treating unicode text as HTML
• Improve reliability of FTP uploads to remote storage servers
• Fix some IE javascript issues
• Fix potential slug collisions when adding groups of tags.
• Fix setting the duration on a new media file before saving the main form (admin media edit page)
• Fix (admin Media page) adding new files on previously unsaved new media
• Fix (admin Media page) adding thumbnails on previously unsaved new media
• Fix (admin media page) removing a queued file upload not removing it from the sidebar list
• Fix 500 errors when dealing with a client with no HTTP_USER_AGENT
• Fix ajax validation problems when using Rich Text Editing
• Fix the progress bar for image uploads
• Fix random bullets appearing on the “share” box
• Fix JWPlayer thumbnail display with embedded media

A lot of effort has gone into this release and I’d like to take a moment to recognize Felix Schwarz, who has helped out with patches and bug fixes. Thanks Felix.

We’ll be posting the official announcements later this week, as we need a bit of time to update the marketing information, but the downloads are all ready now.

Enjoy!

The MediaCore Team

We’ve improved our HTML5 support and file handling, slimmed down the frontend CSS and javascript, and fixed a number of minor bugs. For more details, see the complete list of changes.

For those users concerned about preserving their existing MediaCore 0.7.2 database when they upgrade to 0.8, see this comment I posted to the rc1 announcement.

For a list of new features in the MediaCore 0.8 series check out our recent blog post:
http://getmediacore.com/blog/upcoming-0-8-release-iphoneipad-and-more/

Thank-you everyone for your continued support of our growing open source project.

All reported bugs have been fixed in 0.8rc2, and the installation/deployment process has been tweaked to be more clear and accommodating.

Hit the link above to download a copy.

For those users concerned about preserving their existing MediaCore 0.7.2 database when they upgrade to 0.8, see this comment I posted to the rc1 announcement.

For a list of new features in the MediaCore 0.8 series check out our recent blog post:
http://getmediacore.com/blog/upcoming-0-8-release-iphoneipad-and-more/

We’ve also updated out Demo Site with the new version so you can see it in action.

For a list of new features in MediaCore 0.8RC1 check out our recent blog post:
http://getmediacore.com/blog/upcoming-0-8-release-iphoneipad-and-more/

We just deployed our first beta test of MediaCore 0.8 to Assistive Technology .TV.

We’re now looking for active feedback. What do you think?

Good news! We’re pushing hard for the next release. Our release schedule (tentatively) is as follows:

Release Schedule

• 0.8 alpha beta – Friday, April 23rd. This will only be available to people who have signed up as beta testers.
• 0.8 rc1 – Friday, April 30th. This will be available via our download page, beta testers will also be notified.
• 0.8 final – Friday – May 7th. This will be available via our download page. Everyone who has subscribed to the mailing list will be notified.

Front-end (User) enhancements:

• New UI – Completely redesigned front-end user interface.
• Multiple flash players – Users can now view videos in either the FlowPlayer or JWPlayer. This is set by the administrator
• HTML 5 video players – Using the new HTML5 video players can make a MediaCore site compatible with devices like the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. An administrator can upload encoded H264 or Ogg videos and MediaCore will automatically select the best encoding for the device the user is browsing with. (It’s up to the admin to be aware of which video codecs and containers will work in which browsers/platforms.)
• Better Accessibility – The whole front-end in 0.8 is very accessible to users with visual disabilities. This includes support for adding closed captioning and audio descriptions to videos.
• Categories – We are now allowing categories to be nested.
• Search – Allows a user to search for videos and podcasts.
• Share – Allows a user to share a video with their friends via email, Twitter, or Facebook.
• Embed – Allows a user to embed any clip from MediaCore on their own site.
• Improved Comments – Integration with Akismet for anti-spam, and Gravatar for user profiles.
• Related videos – If you view a video, it will also pull up related videos.
• Featured videos – A special category that will allow an administrator to feature video content.
• Filter Video – Adds the ability for a user who is browsing videos to filter video by popularity, date, and whether it was featured.
• Over 100 minor bug fixes and UI enhancements.

Administrative Control Panel Enhancements

• Tiered categorization – Allows the administrator to tier categories. You can have subcategories and sub-subcategories.
• Improved add file mechanism – Allows for easier adding and removing of video/audio from the administrative back-end. This also adds support for HTML5 video.
• Add Closed Captioning / Audio Descriptions – Allows for an administrator to associate an XML closed captioning file, or an mp3/m4a audio description to any video.
• File deletion – When an administrator deletes a file from the back-end, it will now automatically remove the file from the server.
• Multiple flash players – Ability to choose which flash player you want to use (JWPlayer or FlowPlayer).
• Revised settings interface – We’ve cleaned up the settings interface and given administrators more power in customizing MediaCore to their specific needs.

Programming Enhancements

• Moving to Pylons – We have moved from TurboGears to Pylons as the web framework we built on top of. This minimizes the number of packages required for installation and makes the code easier to follow, for developers.
• Easier Installation – Most of the dependency issues people have been facing are fixed, as MediaCore now depends on fewer other packages and is more strictly aware of which versions to install.
• Model cleanup – We’ve really cleaned up the models, making everything a little more simple and straightforward.

Front-End Internationalization

• Although we are not ready for internationalization quite yet, this release is a step in the right direction. We’ve removed many of the image-based buttons so that it will be easier to translate MediaCore into other languages. Once we launch version 0.8 final we will start looking for people to help us with internationalization. Our hope is to have French and German translations ready for the next release (version 0.9).
• If you are interested in helping us with this please contact us at info@simplestation.com.

What is Open Video?

As internet video matures, we face a crossroads: will technology and public policy support a more participatory culture—one that encourages and enables free expression and broader cultural engagement? Or will online video become a glorified TV-on-demand service?

Open Video is a movement to promote free expression and innovation in online video through open standards, open source, and open content.