nessMediaCenter 1.5.2 & nessViewer 3.5.2 for Mac available

In this version we have internally overworked the MediaCenter completely: for all media center content (DLNA, Internet, Aperture, iPhoto, iTunes, Miro, pictures and movies folders and volumes), there is a separate class now that manages the access to its content.

Thus, the program code is not only clearer, but also easier to customize and extend: because Apple will apparently stop to support Aperture and iPhoto in the future, "Photo in the Cloud" will probably soon be added as new content. Our opinion on it should be known... but we will continue to support future technologies.

Another major internal change affects (currently only) the iTunes control (both the movie playlists and the music control): so far iTunes was controlled by AppleScript, which was now (for Intel computers) replaced by ScriptingBridge.
In addition to a better and faster control - among other things the start of purchased and rented movies and TV shows (DRM) - we primarily prepare ourselves so to further innovations that Apple might bring us with Mac OS X 10.10.

But we have worked on the user interface in this version too:
1) The search for DVD covers - if no cover and description is specified by "Movie Info" - is now executed in the background so that the scrolling is not delayed anymore.
2) Due to a new provider - FreeCovers - better and more appropriate DVD covers are now displayed. Even if we still prefer manually setup of covers and descriptions by "Movie Info".
3) For folders (e.g. picture and movie folder or volumes) a "combined" preview of the included media will be displayed. The creation of this preview is running in the background too.
4) The "combined" preview in iPhoto albums or iTunes movie playlists will also be running in the background.

In addition, the display duration of pictures in media presentations has been improved - not only for little slower computers, but also for NRW images (Nikon camera RAW format), which are a challenge with almost 30 MB, even with fast computers.

And once again very clearly: DVDs are DVDs and should be stored this way too (and not as movie files). And covers are only searched automatically for DVDs - in contrast to movie files, because their contents and especially filenames might be private. Privacy has absolute priority!

For movie files there is "Movie Info", which allows it to setup manually a cover and description for DVDs, (EyeTV) movies and media shows - without sharing their file names automatically with the global "world". Sadly true: privacy sometimes also has disadvantages - manual editing of covers is of course less "comfortable". But also safer ...

Many thanks to Erik not only for various bug reports in pre-releases, but also for the reference to NRW - unfortunately, this format  is only supported by Apple with 10.7 or newer.

Finally, a note on compatibility: with a heavy heart, from now on our applications are "only" compatible with Mac OS X 10.5 or later for Intel computers - but we would recommend for these computers at least 10.6 anyway. For PowerPC (PPC), however, 10.4 is still supported.

And for those who like to use the latest, there are on request of course still the 64-bit versions which require Mac OS X 10.9 and are based on "AV Foundation" instead of QuickTime.

nessMediaCenter 1.5 & nessViewer 3.5 available

Until now, DLNA media server (like Serviio, Plex Media Server) were only available by the "DLNA Browser" of nessViewer.
Now we integrated the DLNA / UPnP access into the media center, so users of nessMediaCenter (and nessViewer) can access their media by DLNA too.
In the preferences you can (de) activate DLNA in the media center menu settings.
If DLNA is not displayed after activation, then EyeTV users should check if EyeTV is sharing its media library - in this case, the EyeTV sharing must be deactivated because it uses the same port.

In nessViewer the media show offers now a context menu for the selected media entry in the drawer: open media in the document window (for editing), and open the internet media browser or download the media.

In addition, a number of provider offer have been adjusted, including Austrian and Dutch television.

In March, we added some more new features like waking up the system by remote control, improved iTunes control handling and iTunes DRM playback.

nessMediaCenter 1.3.7 & nessViewer 3.3.4 for Mac available

After testing our application with Mac OS X 10.9 (Mavericks), we found only one problem: Apple changed the video format description of protected movies (iTunes DRM). Thus movies selected in the MediaCenter were not presented in iTunes. This problem is now fixed.

The AppleScript command to detect the fullscreen mode of iTunes and to switch to fullscreen is not working anymore. After selecting a protected movie in the media center, iTunes shows a grey screen for a short time and then cancels the playback.
So we added a new Apple remote control command to remote control iTunes: "PLAY hold" switches between  fullscreen and window playback. If the fullscreen playback fails, then the playback can be started again via "PLAY" and then "PLAY hold" will switch to fullscreen.

With iOS 7AirPlay of the media server will not be displayed anymore - Apple do not like the idea that other applications offer AirPlay. We are working on this problem...

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.