(2012-08-26, 12:20)ashlar Wrote: Am I mistaken in understanding that, considering AE seems quite unready for primetime, the chance of people testing the new releases diminishes? I mean apart from AE itself. When minor things aren't working, one is more than happy to test it to make it better. But the entire sound subsystem? It's a whole different beast? Maybe it's been merged too soon?
Sorry if I am mistaken, I read several pages of this thread and it scared me off...
Hi Ashlar - I'd have to disagree about it not being ready to merge for a few reasons:
1) the merge took place almost immediately after the Eden final release, which is perfect timing as it gives an entire release cycle for testing
2) we released several pre-built versions for the initial beta-testers (and thx to all those brave souls
)
3) based on their reports and the release of Eden final we merged it for testing on a wider range of users - those using nightlies
4) with the merge we have both a wider tester base and more devs are able to contribute and fix issues
Please remember that reading support or development threads will *always* highlight issues - that's why we created these threads and monitor them. They are not generally indicative of the state of things as for each user reporting a bug ten users may not have issues at all. Or to put it another way many users will report a bug (thank you!) but few will post comments when things are working well.
That's not to diminish the fact that there *will* be issues and fixes required. We knew going in that this was likely the biggest single merge / re-write in XBMC's history, and I noted in the press release for AE that bugs will be found and problems solved along the way. The previous audio system had years of tweaks, additions and fixes - AE is just beginning that cycle. Being a very core function of a media player a wholesale re-coding of the audio system affects everyone - moreso than the addition of something like PVR. For that reason it will be tested on a very wide range of systems, platforms, etc.
Such is progress - without going through these motions we would not have HD audio bitstreaming, 24bit audio, DSP's or for that matter any of the features of XBMC.
Anyone using nightlies or alphas is by default a beta tester. You can expect more issues, overnight code changes and bugs. Often to have the latest features you need to be ready to accept the downsides as well.
It's because of those users that XBMC in general matures and grows. It's not a role for everyone - and for those who are testing nightlies we both appreciate the bug reports and their role in the development cycle, and hope they enjoy the new features. Anything outside of the stable releases (which still obviously have bugs) is bleeding-edge and should be treated as such.
For those who don't / won't / can't accept that we fully understand and hope they enjoy the stable releases!