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After we intensively tested miniDLNA, installed on the Raspberry Pi, we noticed a few things that were not so optimally. On one hand, the date of videos was displayed in an illegible form and the duration directly behind it. Now the date is displayed localized and the duration in the 2nd line. In addition, a preview is now displayed for videos. We have read the opportunity to create a cover for each video and to change the miniDLNA configuration. But that is too complex for us with so many videos. However, the video preview may take 1-3 seconds to display …

nessMediaCenter App for AppleTV now supports miniDLNA too. We have been informed by Dennis that nessMediaCenter App for AppleTV can not access miniDLNA installed on the Raspberry Pi. So far, miniDLNA has not been specified as supported DLNA / UPnP media server, but Raspberry Pi is an interesting solution because of the low price. After a loan was unfortunately too old to install OpenMediaVault 4 on it, we invested in Raspberry Pi – and unfortunately we had to find out during tests that miniDLNA can be accessed with the MediaCenter of nessMediaCenter / nessViewer for macOS but not with nessMediaCenter …

After the adaptions for iOS 13 (nessViewer, finessTV) and tvOS 13 (nessMediaCenter, finessTV), the adaptions for macOS 15 (Catalina) are now available. So far, we had been waiting with the updates for macOS 15, because unfortunately (again this time) Apple has not reacted to our bug report. And through this bug, the access to the media of the Photos App fails with macOS 15. Unfortunately, this bug was not fixed even with macOS 15.1, but since Apple made this update now generally available, we have no other choice. As with macOS 14, we hope that Apple will find time as …

Version 3.9.1 now officially supports some new features that have been added in version 3.9 in recent months. The HEIC image format e.g. is now officially supported (if the macOS version supports it). Although the “Photos App” can export the original files or the media in a compatible format (converting HEIC to JPEG), the latter will not preserve the original date. Although the media of the “Photos App” could already be imported into a media show and then subsequently exported (or the original files dragged & dropped), but the metadata (e.g. recording location) were always exported and the date never. With the new option “Keep metadata” the metadata (including original date) can now be optionally exported. And when importing the media, the original media are always imported – this change was necessary due to the HEIC support of the “Photos App”. Several movies can be selected in the media show and then combined via contextual menu (by right-clicking on one of the movies). The new movie will then be opened in the movie editor for editing. Rotated movies (such as iPhone recordings in landscape format) are now properly rotated in the media server before streaming. If the Apple mediafilesegmenter is installed, it will now be checked in the media server if the selected movie can be segmented in a short time before using it – and otherwise VLC or ffmpeg is used. On slow computers or hard disks, the number of maximum segments is corrected and then taken into account if the mediafilesegmenter is segmenting too slowly. Under macOS 10.15 (Catalina) ffmpeg can not be used at the moment because only notarized “applications” can be started. Therefore ffmpeg is now not used under Catalina until Apple has also found a solution for this. We will continue to test macOS 10.15 and make adjustments if necessary. But there are again (as with macOS 10.14) various problems with the access rights to the “Photos App” and the control of other applications via AppleScript. We can only hope that this time Apple will not need again almost half a year after the official macOS release to fix these bugs.

As of macOS 10.14.5 (Mojave), according to Apple, all applications have to be certified by Apple (notarization). This process checks the applications for malware and, if successful, certifies the applications. Only these “certified” applications can be installed or started. Although it will take a while until macOS 10.14.5 is available, we still have all 64 bit versions now notarized by Apple. The updated versions can now be downloaded from the download page – and in the future, all new versions will be notarized.