HDR to SDR v3.2.0

⚠️ Please read: licensing has been rebuilt

This release changes how license activation and validation work under the hood. The goal was security. License tokens are now signed with a secret the app no longer gives away, and existing licenses are automatically migrated to the new format the first time you go online after updating.

You should not have to do anything. Your existing license will migrate itself, and it will not consume an extra activation.

Two things worth knowing:

• Your first launch after updating needs an internet connection. Older license tokens can't be trusted offline until the server confirms them once. If you launch offline on that very first run, the app will ask you to activate. Just reconnect and relaunch, and it will pick your license back up. After that one migration, offline use works permanently as before.
• This is a significant rewrite of a critical path, and there may be bugs. If your license isn't recognized, if you're prompted to activate when you shouldn't be, or if anything else looks wrong, please don't re-purchase. Open an issue at https://github.com/TORlN/HDR-to-SDR/issues or email hdrtosdr.dev@outlook.com and I'll sort it out directly.

Fixes

• Fixed a startup hang for existing license holders. Migrating an older license could freeze the app before its window appeared, with no window and no error message.
• Fixed a startup hang on machines with a wedged GPU driver. The Vulkan capability check that runs before the main window appears had no time limit, so an unresponsive driver could stall launch indefinitely. It's now bounded, and falls back to CPU tonemapping if it can't get an answer.
• Hardened license handling against damaged or incomplete license files, which previously crashed the app instead of prompting for activation.

Licensing and legal

• Added full third-party license texts for FFmpeg, x264, and x265, plus a written GPLv2 source offer, in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md and the bundled licenses/ folder.
• The README now documents exactly what the app sends over the network and when, including the hardware fingerprint used for license activation.
• Added TRADEMARK.md reserving the HDR to SDR name and logo. The source stays open under its existing license. The name and logo do not.

Under the hood

Large parts of the app's internals were reorganized this release, particularly around licensing and the batch queue. None of it changes how the app looks or behaves, but it makes the startup and activation paths considerably harder to break, which is what the two hang fixes above came out of.

Looking ahead in 3.2

The 3D LUT color pipeline is now fully integrated across both the CPU and GPU tonemapping paths. Every conversion runs through real BT.2020 to BT.709 LUT math rather than approximate gamut correction. That's the foundation for what's coming next.

Through the 3.2 series I'll be building on that foundation, with the features themselves arriving in 4.0:

• Preset LUTs. A selection of built-in looks, free.
• Custom LUTs. Load your own .cube files, Pro.

A one-time Pro purchase covers every 3.x and 4.x release, so there's nothing extra to buy when they land.

Feedback on which presets you'd find useful is very welcome. Open an issue or email me.

Full Changelog: v3.1.5...v3.2.0