Because there were known problems with VDR 1.7.19 the yaVDR team has skipped packaging that version. With 1.7.20 being out and fixing those issues, we are currently working on new packages of VDR core and all VDR plugins for Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal / yaVDR 0.4.0-pre1) and also for Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx, yaVDR 0.3). Those packages are highly experimental at the moment. Therefore they are part of our unstable-vdr PPA. As soon as we think they are ready to be tested by a broader audience, we will copy them over to the PPA testing-vdr and replace the 1.7.18 packages in there. This will make 1.7.20 available as a regular package update for testers of yaVDR64-0.4.0-pre1. We have not decided yet if or when the Lucid packages will hit our stable-vdr PPA (being the PPA yaVDR 0.3 pulls the VDR package updates from).

But first, let's have a close look at the new stuff included in VDR 1.7.20. Klaus describes the changes since VDR 1.7.19 as follows:

• Added some missing 'const' to tChannelID (reported by Sundararaj Reel).
• The isnumber() function now checks the given pointer for NULL (thanks to Holger Dengler).
• Now checking Setup.InitialChannel for NULL before using it (reported by Christoph Haubrich).
• cSkins::Message() now blocks calls from background threads (thanks to Michael Eiler for reporting a crash in such a scenario).
• Fixed the return value of the svdrpsend.pl script in case of an error (thanks to Jonas Diemer).
• Increased MAXCAIDS to 12 (thanks to Jerome Lacarriere).
• Fixed handling DiSEqC codes (thanks to Mark Hawes for reporting the bug, and Udo Richter for suggesting the fix).
• Added a mechanism to defer timer handling in case of problems (reported by Frank Niederwipper).
• Fixed distortions that happened when splitting recording into several files (was a side effect of "Fixed detecting frames in case the Picture Start Code or Access Unit Delimiter extends over TS packet boundaries" in version 1.7.19). cRecorder::Action() now buffers TS packets in case the frame type is not yet known when a new payload starts. This adds no overhead for channels that broadcast the frame type within the first TS packet of a payload; it only kicks in if that information is not in the first TS packet.
• Fixed handling the channelID in cMenuEditChanItem (thanks to Udo Richter).
• cStringList::Sort() can now be called with a boolean parameter that controls case insensitive sorting (suggested by Sundararaj Reel).
• Now scanning new transponders before old ones, to make sure transponder changes are recognized (thanks to Reinhard Nissl).
• Implemented static cIndexFile::IndexFileName().
• The length (as number of frames) of a recording's index file can now be determined by a call to cIndexFile::GetLength() (suggested by Christoph Haubrich).
• Fixed some crashes in subtitle display (thanks to Rolf Ahrenberg).
• Made DELETENULL() thread safe (reported by Rolf Ahrenberg).
• The pic2mpg script of the 'pictures' plugin now generates HD images (thanks to Andre Weidemann for his support in using convert/ffmpeg). The old SD version is still available as pic2mpg-sd.
• Added a mutex to protect cOsd::Osds from simultaneous access from different threads (reported by Rolf Ahrenberg).
• The cutter now sets the 'broken link' flag for MPEG2 TS recordings (thanks to Oliver Endriss).
• Fixed language code entry for Portuguese.
• The new command line options --filesize (suggested by Marco Göbenich) and --split can be used together with --edit to set the maximum video file size and turn on splitting edited files at the editing marks. These options must be given before --edit to have an effect.
• cTimeMs is no longer initialized to the current time if the value given to the constructor is negative (avoids the "cTimeMs: using monotonic clock..." log message before VDR's starting log message).

An overview of earlier VDR developer versions of the 1.7 branch can be found here.