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In the 64-bit version of nessViewer, we have extended the movie processing, so that now movies must not be saved after each change any longer. So it is now possible to join multiple videos, to rotate the new movie afterwards, then to delete (undesirable) parts of the movie and finally to change the size of the movie (for example to remove black bars or to reduce the displayed part). And only after this 4 processing steps must / can the movie then be saved once. The advantages are obvious: on one hand the saving takes time (only 1x instead of 4x), on the other hand the quality is not getting better by (multiple) recompression. And movies can now be saved in a higher resolution (with Mac OS X 10.10 or newer) too: iPhones have for example a recording resolution of 1920 × 1080 pixels and after rotating the movie left, the video could previously only be saved with 1080 × 600 – now in the original resolution of 1080 × 1920. Unfortunately, we also found a few bugs: for example, in the dialog for changing the size of a movie, in which the system routines added a point to integers (eg “1.920” instead of “1920”) – which meant that “1” instead of “1920” was returned from the system routines after confirming (because integers have no point). To install a “formatter” in text fields which can not read the formatted content makes, of course, no sense – we have therefore now installed our own “formatter” which adds no point. A trial version can be downloaded now. We will continue to test and wait for feedback from some users. Please note: the 64-bit version of nessViewer requires at least Mac OS X 10.9.5.

Jon from an University has send us a request: “I would like to share a folder on our network and allow students to drop images, movies and PDF documents into it and for those to be continually shown on a loop”. Our first idea was to use the (nessViewer) AppleScript commands to start automatically a (new) media presentation if media was added to a folder and to extend the AppleScript commands to set this media presentation to “endless”. But this solution has one disadvantage: each time new media was added to the folder, the current media presentation must be stopped and a new media presentation must be startet. Therefore we decided to extend the 64 bit version of nessViewer to support “watching folders” if a media presentation has been started by clicking “present media” in the toolbar. If media will be added to the selected folder(s) or subfolders during the fullscreen presentation, then these media will be added to the presentation (after 10 seconds) and the presentation will start at the beginning. Of course a started presentation can be set to “endless” and “random” (after moving the mouse up until the menu bar is visible to see the presentation menu). If new media has been found, then all media will be “sorted random” again. A test version can be downloaded now. We will continue to test and wait for feedback of some users. Please note that the 64 bit version of nessViewer requires at least Mac OS X 10.9.5.

As previously reported we had extended the media server to display combined previews for folders and metadata (movie info, cover) for movies when accessing the media server in nessMediaCenter for Apple TV. These enhancements are now also used in nessViewer App when opening “Media Files (Server)” in the MediaCenter. Also by working on nessMediaCenter for Apple TV, the access to DLNA media server has been developed – and iOS and tvOS are so very similar in development. Unfortunately, there are significant differences in terms of playback options: whereas tvOS has no problems to play long movies (motion pictures), this is not possible with iOS. In this respect, the access to DLNA media server should be used only for pictures and short videos. For longer movies, the nessViewer media server should be used, because it segments long movies into short parts (m3u8) which can be played immediately in nessViewer App. In addition, some providers were also adjusted, including SpiegelOnline.

On Apple TV (tvOS), the default behavior of lists differ between the highlighted and selected entry. So far nessMediaCenter for Apple TV followed this Apple concept. However, since this concept is not particularly intuitive and you get too often another entry displayed as desired and we also also could not find any other app which is following this concept, we have also adjusted the handling now: instead of selecting an highlighted entry by pressing the touch surface or PLAY button once on the Siri remote control and pressing twice to display the selected entry, an entry can now be displayed with a single press directly. Media Shows are now supported when using the nessViewer media server: after selecting the media show, it will be downloaded from the server and stored locally and then displayed. Thus one can now easily arrange a media show of supported providers with nessViewer (iOS or Mac) and then watch the linked internet videos on the Apple TV.

Only 2 days after the first version, a new version of nessMediaCenter for Apple TV is now available after we had unfortunately found a few bugs. When accessing the download web page, which handles the access and the conversion for nessMediaCenter app now in a better way. We apologize for above-mentioned bugs and will continue to test intensively…