nessMediaCenter 1.3.2 and nessViewer 3.2.2 for Mac available

Apple announced the new iTunes as the world's best way to play media. As far as our test Macs show, it starts protected DRM media now even slower if started from another application like our media center.
But now we found hopefully a final (?) solution to start these media always successfully. Sometimes the grey screen is still visible and the media is played only for a short time, but now after a short delay the media will be played always!

As already posted, YouTube now offers even German cinema movies. Unfortunately movie categories are (as side effect?) not available any more. Luckily we have the movie database with the YouTube movies (and others) in categories.

Last but not least: we improved the GUI (Graphical User Interface) a little bit: the selection and the icons / previews are shown with a small shadow.

nessMediaCenter 1.3.1 and nessViewer 3.2.1 for Mac available

This version allows it to access protected movies and TV shows, which are bought or rented in the iTunes store. The MediaCenter shows at iTunes the corresponding folders and after choosing one movie it will be started in iTunes. Afterwards the remote control can be used to e.g. pause or rewind the current movie.
For optimal usage the video playback should be set to fullscreen at the view menu. This way the movie playback will be closed and the media center shown again after pressing MENU on the remote control.

The iTunes control was over-worked as well for preventing iTunes to come to foreground (and hide the media center) and for selecting always a music playlist.

nessMediaCenter web site available again

Caused by server problems (power blackout) the nessMediaCenter web site and the services were not available for some hours. We solved the problem now and would like to excuse for any unpleasantness.

nessViewer 3.2 and nessMediaCenter 1.3 for Mac available

We added new internet TV content from Austria, Netherlands and Swiss: ATV, ORF, NL1, Net5, SBS6, VeronicaTV, RTS, SF. For French people the video podcasts offered at Swiss Television might be interesting.
These content will be automatically deactivated if the MediaCenter will be opened from another country - but it might be useful to activate it once: we were impressed by the very good documentations and reportages.

"Delete cookies" has been added to the nessViewer preferences at the tab "Media" to increase security and anonymity. According to the docu of Apple, this might also affect other applications (it is called Shared Cookie Storage) - but as far as we have seen cookies from e.g. Safari were not concerned.
Cookies which are necessary to view content are set automatically and removed if the provider has been changed.

nessViewer 3.1 and nessMediaCenter 1.2 for Mac available

iTunes, EyeTV or VLC can now be controlled via nessViewer by Apple remote control or NV Remote App if one of these applications is frontmost.
iTunes can be activated by the MediaCenter (iTunes -> iTunes Control -> Activate iTunes), EyeTV (or VLC if EyeTV is not installed) will be automatically activated if a EyeTV movie is started by the MediaCenter.
Once activated, in iTunes the current track can be paused / continued or the next / previous track selected, in EyeTV (or VLC) the current movie can be paused / continued or stepped forward / backwards.
Thru pressing MENU, the MediaCenter of nessViewer will be activated and then nessViewer can be controlled again by the remote control.

We have tested all offered internet providers and adapted them if necessary.
FreeMoviesCine is now offering their RSS feeds again so we included their movies in the MediaCenter again. Unfortunately Hulu (only available in USA) can not be offered any more by the MediaCenter because they made it to complicated to parse their flash content.

nessMediaCenter 1.1.1 available

Unfortunately the last version had some minor errors (sometimes a wrong duration at movie informations, no movie informations at all for alias files), which were fixed time by time - but without releasing a new version.

Now it was necessary to adopt some provider offers and thus it made sense to release a new version which combines these adoptions and error fixes.

nessMediaCenter 1.1 available

As already mentioned for nessViewer 3.0, many people have sent us feedback and we added the requested feature in this version.

Most of the changes can be read in the post to nessViewer 3.0.

Additionally nessMediaCenter can now be controlled by NV Remote on iPhone / iPod touch.

nessViewer 3.0 for Mac available

The last weeks many people have sent us feedback to nessMediaCenter and nessViewer - we are impressed about the quality of the suggestions and reports.

Dietmar asked for the option to shutdown the computer via MediaCenter - after selecting the checkbox in the preferences (Center) once and then selecting exit at the MediaCenter, a countdown will be shown and the computer will be shut down after 60 seconds.
By pressing the ESC key or holding MENU on the Apple remote control, the MediaCenter can be closed as before without shuting down the computer.

Thomas (and some others) criticized the handling of alias files. We improved the MediaCenter: aliases to files will now be correctly handled (if the extension is correct). And a hint will be shown if aliases to folders / volumes has been found (but not displayed) which points to the script "Create Symbolic Link". We improved this script, so creating many symbolic links is now much easier.
Nevertheless: symbolic links are a much better solution than aliases. Unintelligible how Apple handles the creation of aliases by changing e.g. the extension "MOV" to "MOV Alias". Either the extension does matter or not...

Many users ask for the feature to mark unplayed movies and to resume to the last play position - a very good idea, but only as an option (and not for all movies). We came to the agreement, that these two features will (only) be offered if the movies are stored in iTunes and iTunes is running. This way everybody can decide on his own whether to use it or not - and we do not have to reinvent the wheel.

Among a lot of other improvements (see News) one last point: the media server offered already the feature to convert movies for iOS or not - but unfortunately "not" was ignored. Shame on us. :-) We fixed that now - so movies can now be easily & comfortable transferred from one to another Mac by a FTP client like Cyberduck.

nessViewer App 1.6.7 for iPad/iPhone/iPod touch available

We are always searching for new interesting content we can offer - and found now video news from "New York Times" and "Reuters". If you know other stuff, please let us know. Especially for the iPad version, we would like to replace all German offers by English content.

Support for a new provider (Veoh) was added - so now we can offer serials from that provider.

File transfer between FTP server and client sometimes failed - we fixed that bug now.

nessMediaCenter 1.0 for Mac available

The media center of nessViewer is now available as a product: nessMediaCenter. And this for a very low price: only 7.50 Euro.

We offer the application nessMediaCenter upon user request - in our opinion nessViewer as solution with plenty of functionality offers much more fun.

nessViewer App 1.6.6 for iPad/iPhone/iPod touch available: AirPlay improvements

This version improves the AirPlay support: movies streamed from the media server can now be presented by (another) media server via AirPlay. And pictures and PDF documents can also be presented by the media server via AirPlay.

We also improved the Cellular support (e.g. 3G) for media server connections and fixed some bugs.

Mac OS X 10.7 / 10.8: movie editing

After opening a movie with nessViewer using Mac OS X 10.7 or newer, you might recognize two things: the current position and the current selection is not visible at the controller.  Thus it is difficult to edit movies.

The reason are two missing images which Apple "forgot" to add to the QTKit framework. We copied these images from MacOS X 10.6, converted them to PNG and added them to the QTKit framework - afterwards the current position and selection was shown correctly.
But there are still 2 things: 1.) the current selection is difficult to see (low contrast between black and dark gray) and 2.) sometimes the current selection is not set correctly. Calling "Select None" in the edit menu before selecting a part of the movie will fix the second problem.

You can download the images at our download area. After unzipping the file, copy the two images to System -> Library -> Frameworks -> QTKit.framework -> Resources.

nessViewer 2.9.7 for Mac available (AirPlay server)

The highlight of this version is AirPlay: presentation of pictures and videos from device (e.g. iPhone) to Mac. That means that both directions are now supported by the media server. (AirPlay is the technology to stream media from device to AppleTV.)
Of course media can be streamed to the media server with every app which supports AirPlay - but with nessViewer App 1.6.6 (available in about one week) e.g. even PDF documents are supported.

But we also improved all other nessViewer components: MediaCenter, media server, media shows, PDF display and web browser.

To name just 2 things: at Google search in the browser, each opened search entries will be called directly (instead of Google redirection). And (among others) YouTube videos can now be automatically presented in lower quality if the internet connection is slow (if "Prefer high movie resolution" at the preferences is unchecked).

nessViewer 2.9.6 for Mac and nessViewer App 1.6.5 for iPad/iPhone/iPod touch available: streaming of DVDs

With these two versions the streaming of media from Mac e.g. to iPad is very well done: no matter what kind of movies / videos (e.g. DVDs, EyeTV movies, AVI / DivX / MOV) we want to stream & watch - with nessViewer no problem. And now this is even possible via Cellular (3G) connection.

Videos of the "Videos App" can now be presented with nessViewer App - just one touch to watch a video or to watch all videos continiously.
Photos of the "Photos App" and videos of the "Videos App" can now be mixed in a media show via MediaCenter and then presented continiously.

Of course internet videos can also be added to such a media show -  enjoy media however, wherever, whenever!

nessViewer App 1.6.5 pre-release for iPad/iPhone/iPod touch

The last weeks we did so much work e.g. to offer movie streaming, that we had no time for testing the user interface enough.

The following errors has been found by us and other users:

1.) FTP button at top left

Touching this button without a local WiFi connection did show nothing - just because the FTP server is not available then and this was the only functionality. Of course at least a message would have been nice. Now there is always something shown because we added "Open FTP client" (which will show "Open URL" with "ftp://" as text).

2.) Provider icons at main view (on 2. main view for iPhone/iPod touch)

If the MediaCenter was opened by an provider icon and "arrow up" was pressed multiple time, then on iPad the view for the iPhone was shown - which is too small and looks "funny".

3.) Media Shows

On iPad after changing a media show and touching "Close", only the "Save" button (and not the "Dismiss" aka "Do not save" button) was visible.

4.) Movie Presentation

If presenting a movie failed, then the failure message was not shown long enough with iOS 5. The reason was, that iOS 5 calls the "movie playback finished" message twice - and even worse the first time with no failure message. In this case the code is now analysing whether the movie was loaded at all - and if not ignores the first message. This way the failure message is shown as expected.

5.) Live Broadcast (MediaCenter -> Internet)

The English provider file had an error and because of this the country list was only shown after another touch of ">" or another double-touch. (Unfortunately now the Italian TV channels will be shown instead of the country list.)

And at live broadcast ">>" was enabled (which presents all entries starting at the current enty) which does not really make sense.

We are continuing to test the GUI... if you find (other) errors please let us know.

If your device is registered, please open the nessViewer App web page and touch one of the links at the bottom right to install this pre-release.

Tutorial: Media server access setup

On user request we wrote a tutorial how to setup the access of the media server (Mac) via nessViewer App (e.g. iPhone) from outside the local network.

nessViewer 2.9.5 for Mac and nessViewer App 1.6.4 for iPad/iPhone/iPod touch available: enjoy media - wherever, whenever

Beside the streaming of EyeTV movies to nessViewer App, this version stands for "enjoy media - wherever, whenever".

After several tests, the media server can now stream movies to nessViewer App outside the local network. Some routers might need a second port for this.

We would like to thank everybody who helped us to test several routers.

In nessViewer App, the media server can now be accessed by the MediaCenter outside the local network. The server (TCP/IP address or DynDNS name) must be entered in the "Settings App" for this.

In nessViewer App a double touch on a list entry opens now this entry. This way it is much more easy & comfortable to view content.

The MediaCenter and the integrated internet browser support now "SuperRTL Now" on the Mac. And some providers were adapted.

nessViewer media server & EyeTV movie streaming

After even complete cinema movies can be streamed by the media server so perfectly, we are now integrating the streaming of EyeTV movies.

This was a little bit confusing us with the EyeTV solution: it is possible to watch the EyeTV channels of the Mac e.g. on the iPad, but the EyeTV archive is always empty - unless the automatic conversion of all movies is activated and the corresponding movie is already converted. Which means that all movies will exist twice (volume capacity) and the computer is permanently converting (frequent high CPU usage)... and all this just for the case to watch one of the movies.

With the pre-release of nessViewer 2.9.5 and nessViewer App 1.6.4 it is now possible to stream EyeTV movies e.g. to the iPad: as before the movies will be converted & segmented "on the fly" and then streamed. After finishing the streaming (or rather when starting another movie) the old stream data will be removed.

nessViewer 2.9.4 for Mac available (optimized movie streaming)

As already posted, this version offers optimized streaming of movies e.g. to the iPhone via media server.

Movies can now be streamed running MacOS X 10.5 or newer - even long cinema movies will be streamed directly (aka within seconds). And that independent from the movie format which might not be compatible for iOS.

VLC 2.0 should be installed in the application folder to use this new feature.

If Apple's "mediastreamsegmenter" is installed and the movie is already iOS compatible, then the result will be even better since the movie must only be segmented (and not converted).

We also added support for media presentation of Veoh movies.

nessViewer App 1.6.3 for iPad/iPhone/iPod touch available

Again after 6 days nessViewer App 1.6.3 is now available in the AppStore.

The changes can be read in the post about the pre-release.

On Monday we had a intensive discussion with a new user of the nessViewer App from Norway - in addition to some minor changes we integrated the "double touch" on list entries to open the entry: that way the button at the buttom has not to be touched.

If your device is registered, please open the nessViewer App web page and touch one of the links at the bottom right.

nessViewer media server & movie streaming

Today there are 2 good news:

1.) Apple's "mediastreamsegmenter" is available for MacOS X 10.7 - as far as registered free of charge as Apple developer.

2.) VLC 2.0 offers the functionality to convert / segment movies.

We extended the code of the media server to use VLC 2.0 for the convertion / segmentation if the "mediastreamsegmenter" is not available.

This means that streaming movies via media server e.g. to the iPad is now available for MacOS X 10.5 and newer - either via "mediastreamsegmenter" under MacOS X 10.6 / 10.7 or via VLC.

Just install VLC 2.0 in the application folder to convert / segment movies and stream them via the media server. The convertion / segmentation is executed in a thread in the background - that way it is not necessary to launch VLC.

Importent: for MacOS X 10.5 the 32 bits version of VLC 2.0 must be installed.

The new version has to be tested some time - if you are interested just contact us.

nessViewer App 1.6.2 for iPad/iPhone/iPod touch available

After nearly 6 days nessViewer App 1.6.2 is now available in the AppStore. There was a time Apple was quicker releasing new versions. :-(

The changes can be read in the post about the pre-release - as mentioned we are already working on the next version.

nessViewer App 1.6.3 pre-release for iPad/iPhone/iPod touch (EXIF, Geo data)

nessViewer App 1.6.2 is not available in the "App Store" yet even if it was transmitted on Sunday - but there is already a new version 1.6.3. Of course it might be annoying to update an app so regulary but we think the new features are very nice. Anyway - if your device is registered you can install the new version.

To come to the point: a user informed us that the EXIF data (and therefore the geo data) is not saved if pictures are imported from the "Photos App". These infos are only available for pictures taken by the e.g. iPhone camera (because Apple is removing all EXIF data if tranfering pictures by iPhoto), but nevertheless..

We extended nessViewer App now:

1.) In the "Settings" the account name of geonames.org can be set. The registration is free of charge.

2.) In the MediaCenter the geo location (country / town) of pictures will be shown at "Photos" and "Media Files (Local)".

3.) Pictures imported from the "Photos App" will contain the EXIF / GEO data.

The last point was really a little bit of work because (once again) Apple is suppressing these infos.

By the way: we also adapted the presentation of YouTube movies because most of the movies are only available for people who are older than 16 years. To watch the movies, one must register at YouTube and login - but this is against the idea of nessViewer, to give Google statistics as less data as possible.

nessViewer 2.9.3 for Mac available (provider adaptions)

Just after complimenting a user for his great videos on YouTube (and announcing that we arranged these videos with others to a playlist which is offered at the MediaCenter -> Entertainent), YouTube has changed some parameters for the video presentation.

Even some other providers were creative and changed their parameters - not really reasonable if nothing new is offered.

Since we have to offer a new version, we also extended the Clipfish support and changed the MediaCenter extension (downloadable at our web side after login and confirmation).

Last but not least we extended the media presentation on user request: slow motion via remote control for QuickTime movies (press "pause" and then hold "right arrow").

nessViewer App 1.6.2 pre-release for iPad/iPhone/iPod touch

Unfortunately we have found some bugs in nessViewer App 1.6.1:
1.) Touching the German television icons at the main view (on iPhone/iPod touch only available by swiping horizontal) show the wrong entries.
2.) "French Television" in the MedienCenter does not show any entries in the English version.
3.) Pictures of the "Photos App" can not be viewed by the MediaCenter -> Photos since iOS 5.

Beside fixing these bugs, we have added some new features:

• Picture View:
  1.) Rotate pictures left/right by buttons (prior only available by gestures).
  2.) Import of a picture of the "Photos App" (if the picture was opened by a media show, which was created by touching "+" at MediaCenter -> Photos).
  


• MediaCenter:
  1.) Preview of local pictures
  2.) If a internet movie can not be presented, then a better message of the reason will be shown.

We are working on further improvements...

If your device is registered, please open the nessViewer App web page and touch one of the links at the bottom right.

nessViewer 2.9.2 for Mac and nessViewer App 1.6.1 for iPad/iPhone/iPod touch available

At "Open Files" pictures and videos can be imported from the "Photos App" and files can be renamed.

After the import the files can be found at the "Import" folder - and e.g. can be transfered to other devices via FTP.

At the MediaCenter the media hosted by the media server can now be accessed via the local WiFi.

Please notice that videos can only be presented if the necessary tools are installed (see older posts).

nessViewer 2.9.2 was extended to publish the media server (Bonjour) and to host the previews.

Now the FTP access via 3G is also possible - many thanks to Erik for his iPhone and his time!

We also adapted several providers.