January 2024 Release is here!

Please note this is a 'store only' release.  The pinned post is updated with all of the install instructions and docs:
January 2024 Release | Patreon

For those that are up and running and looking to update, please place the following code into the 'store' and hit the green button, you should see a progress bar after a bit and it should update from there:

pi2024Jan-4353bb3

What's New

Performance!   We're using about 1/3 of the memory we were using before. This is helping us get more stable on a number of use cases including overlays.  The overlay engine is completely rewritten (The UI still needs updates! That's next).  The overlay engine no longer uses a timer and takes up alot less CPU time. For those running on a pi3, you should see much smoother transitions, lower memory usage and be able to use overlays now.  The performance is a huge improvement for the project and was much needed to give us headroom to add more features.

RTSP  / Security Cameras

If you're using a security camera and it has an RTSP stream, you can put it in the experimental page and view the camera on your frame now.  For those using this with home automation, you should be able to enable scenarios such as 'if motion on camera, have it play on my frame' which is the scenario we want to enable long term.  There's a number of video fixes that went in along with this.

Animated Gifs
Animated gifs are still very taxing for the raspberry pis, but we are playing more frames now and are a bit better than we were. There's still some tearing , but overall I'm seeing better rendering of animated gifs.  We have figured out that smaller gifs work better, so if you can find some under a meg they should play pretty well on the frame

Development news
The last two development months are a bit different for how we usually ran the program.  We split our development between some engine improvements to get these perf and stability fixes, and on our big web update.  I went into details in the Jan Developer update - release imminent! | Patreon post, so I won't rehash all of that, but we do feel strongly that this is the path we need to go on to move this project to the next level.   My plan for the February developer update (mid-month) is to have the UI in a state we can show it off and really give you a feel for what the future of this project is looking like (and push it to Beta so you can play with it).  I suspect we'll get to a state where there will be 2 web UIs...the one that we currently have, and a way to get to the new one.  We'll stay with both of those for a bit until we've got all of the functionality of the old one replicated so we can remove it which will be a huge win for performance and functionality.  We can then do tricks like have the web engine restart Dynaframe if it crashes so the frames aren't stuck at a black screen.  There's a ton more, but for now the work is to rebuild every single page of the webUI in the new system, and while we're doing it cleanup the code so we can really get running in say March/April and deliver some great features and fixes.

Pi5 support is being worked on, we have a list of issues to resolve, and we've got some initial work on porting to the new network stack. Most of this is investigations with some prototyping against Bookworm, but we hope to have some exciting news here in February.

Patreon/Discord note

We've linked the Patreon and Discord.   If you're a Patreon member then you'll automatically be promoted on the Discord to "Dynaframe Pro" status so that we know you're contributing and we can support you.  If you need to drop off of the Patreon you are still allowed onto the Discord, it'll just remove you from certain support channels.  The goal is to provide support for the paying members, but to also build a community so that those that are simply enjoying the frames, don't need builds or support can still be part of this journey.  We'll work to develop some rewards for both levels in the future, and may add a tier, but right now we're focused for the next few months on making this the best software it can be, getting it on the new OS (bookworm), pi5 support and more.

As always Thankyou for your support, we're humbled by it and working hard to keep making this better.  I think those of you that stick with us till the webUI is shown off and released will be very pleased with how much of a jump it is in so many ways!

Known Issues

- If you have the video out cable plugged into the 'second' port (typically the one away from power, but the case may change that) then when you play videos you'll get a black screen. Please switch video ports and reboot the pi to fix this

- Crash when playing from SMB/NAS - Some users are hitting a crash when playing files from an SMB or NAS.  We're investigating the root cause of this.

- Overlays may not reflect changes such as deleting items until the next image is shown