nessMediaCenter 1.7 available in App Store

One week after Mac OS X 10.10.3 (Yosemite), nessMediaCenter 1.7 is now available in the App Store.

Back in February we had begun to integrate the media of the new "Photos App" in the media center and to offer pre-release versions. At the end of March, we then released the official version on our download page, which is now available in the App Store too.

Although the integration of the "Photos App" media is certainly one of the most important new features - Apple has finally not so often a completely new product that replaces Aperture and iPhoto - this version includes also other important changes: in addition to an improved GPS location (country, city, street), which is now displayed in media presentations too, the availability of DLNA media servers has been improved and an error in the image representation has been fixed.

nessMediaCenter 1.7 & nessViewer 3.7 for Mac available

Access to media of the new "Photos App" by the media center is the most important innovation in these versions. In the preferences can be specified which data is made available (albums, moments, collections, media types), which possibly reduces loading time. In early February, we had begun to implement this feature, as the "Photos App" according to Apple will replace the applications Aperture and iPhoto. Those who participate in the Apple beta program for Mac OS X, can install 10.10.3 - this version is required for the "Photos App" and access by the media center.

Another new feature in nessViewer is the display of a map with the GPS position of the captured image and the images in a media show. In the media show map, each image can be displayed in the media show by clicking on the marker. The MediaCenter displays the GPS location (country, city, street) now more accurately (if these data are available) and in the media presentation the GPS position of a picture is now displayed in the bottom center.

In addition, the handling of the DLNA availability has been improved to access DS214play and a presentation can now be started from the selected entry in the MediaCenter.

The media server can now be started automatically when nessViewer is started, so that the shutdown or start of the computer can be setup by the "Energy Saver" (schedule) and the media server is always available after the computer start. Or you can use, for example, VPN to restart the computer...

In the 64-bit versions, we noticed that some images with orientation data (EXIF) were not displayed correctly what we have hereby fixed.

Once Yosemite 10.3 is officially released, we will upload nessMediaCenter to the AppStore - unfortunately it will then still take (at least) about 1 week until the AppStore version will be available. We would like to upload the new version now, which unfortunately is not allowed.

nessViewer media show with a map of the GPS locations

MediaCenter & the new Photos App from Apple

The new Photos app from Apple is now integrated in a pre-release version of the media center. This allows access to the media of the Photos app, as it has been already available for the iPhoto media.

5 days ago, a pre-release version of Mac OS X 10.10.3 (Yosemite) has been released for developers which now gives you the long-awaited Photos app. How Apple had announced some time ago, iPhoto and Aperture will probably not be developed further, but replaced by the Photos app. Therefore, we have set ourselves immediately to the media center integration of the Photos app.

After the installation of the pre-release version of Mac OS X 10.10.3 and the first Photos app launch, the iPhoto media were easily transferred. As far as we can tell, the new Photos app is stable and makes a good impression. Who knows iPhoto will quickly find one's way.

In a pre-release version of nessMediaCenter and nessViewer, "Photos" is displayed in the media center main menu if the photos library in the pictures folder exists. In the media center preferences either only "Photos" or "iPhoto" and "Photos" can be activated.

On YouTube a demo video can be watched which demonstrates and explains - among some other newer features - the access to the media of the Photos App.

We will continue to test the pre-release and see how far Apple extends the new photos app. So far it would only be desirable from our point of view the ability to sort the media also by title - this is possible in iPhoto, but is absent in the Photos app.

nessMediaCenter 1.6 now available in AppStore

nessMediaCenter 1.6 is now also available in the AppStore:
1.) New icons including Retina icons for Mac OS X 10.10 (Yosemite)
2.) Improved handling of (fullscreen) presentations on multiple screens
3.) Improved handling of (secured) folder access
4.) Bug fix at Miro video podcast playback

The folder access permissions determine which folders can be accessed: the picture and movie folder is accessible by default, all other folders - for example symbolic links that are in the picture and movie folders and link to folders outside these folders - must be granted by the folder access permissions.

So far, the folder access permissions have been granted after opening the media center, so they were not available in "movie info". Therefore, they are now being granted right after the start of nessMediaCenter.

In this version, videos of the supported internet providers can be presented which are collected in media shows or Miro video podcasts.

Apple has increased the prices in the Euro zone, so nessMediaCenter would cost 16.99 (mysterious: the AppStore had shown 19.54 Euro; display or calculation error?) instead of 14.99 Euro. We have therefore reduced the Apple price of nessMediaCenter to offer it for 14.99 Euro again - even if this means that we get less. For countries outside the Euro zone (e.g. USA) especially pleasant (for the customers): there nessMediaCenter costs now only 14.99 instead of 16.99 Dollar.

nessMediaCenter 1.6 & nessViewer 3.6 for Mac available

The music video portal Clipfish offers for some time also German motion pictures - both are now available in the MediaCenter in 29 categories and can be sorted by criteria (new, best, most viewed). And of course by selecting a category (by "+" and then PLAY or RETURN), e.g the contained music videos can be played continuously.

Currently, satirical, cross - the Bavarian magazine "Quer" is now available in the MediaCenter at "Deutsches Fernsehen" - but do not worry: it is spoken "hochdeutsch". In addition to the main media libraries (ARD, ZDF, RTL, RTL Nitro, SuperRTL, VOX), there are of course still also a lot of other interesting magazines... And under "Live Broadcasts (Countries)" at "German" also all public German TV broadcasters…

For Mac OS X 10.10 (Yosemite), there are now new icons in the MediaCenter, which are adapted for Retina displays.

In testing we have found problems when streaming videos from Mac (nessViewer media server) to iOS (nessViewer App for iPad, iPhone, iPod touch). After hours of research, we have found the following solutions: for older iOS versions (4.x to 6.x ?) the older VLC version 2.0.9 must be installed on Mac, because Apple has expanded the M3U8 format without regard to compatibility (and VLC 2.1.x uses this new format). And for newer iOS versions (7.x ? and newer), we have updated nessViewer app - version 1.9.1 can be downloaded for registered devices on our website and will soon be available in the AppStore.

Some providers have also been adapted: e.g. Arte, ATV from Austria, BBC, MyVideo.

nessMediaCenter 1.5.4 & nessViewer 3.5.4 for Mac available

Simultaneous with the Mac App Store version of nessMediaCenter, the new versions of nessMediaCenter and nessViewer are now available.

As previously posted, we have adjusted the versions for the upcoming Mac OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) after hints from Kelvin.

The AppStore version was rejected in the first review, because we have pointed out the adaptation to Yosemite - according to AppStore rules, "not yet released" Mac OS X versions may not be mentioned.

The only question is how to update versions simultaneously with the new Mac OS X version (and to inform the user about it) if the review takes almost a week.
Anyway - recent changes mention now just "adaptions for Mac OS X" and the user must think the rest...

Adaptions for Mac OS X 10.10 (Yosemite)

We have now installed Developer Preview 8 of Mac OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) to prepare nessMediaCenter and nessViewer to the new system.

Surprisingly, the message "NSApplicationDidChangeScreenParametersNotification" is sent when displaying a fullscreen window (MediaCenter, media presentation), which should normally only be sent if the monitor resolution has changed. In this case - if the user changes the resolution - the current fullscreen window is closed. But displaying a fullscreen window does not change the screen resolution.
Under Yosemite this meant that the media center or fullscreen media presentation was immediately closed after a very short display. Now the current screen resolution is compared with the size of the fullscreen window and the window is only closed if the size is different.

In addition, we have adapted the export of videos in media shows for the 64 bit version of nessViewer, so that now several videos can be sequentially converted again.

Overall, we are excited about Yosemite - not only because of the new design, but also because QuickTime and the QuickTime extensions (eg Perian) continues to be supported. Thus the 32-bit versions can still be used, which offer the advantage of greater compatibility with video formats.
The 64 bit versions provide better support for multiple screens with Yosemite, so that the menu bar is now finally managed independently for each monitor. This means that now the menu bar no longer "unintentionally" appears if in fullscreen mode.

The modified versions can be downloaded from the download page - a new version will be simultaneously released with the new AppStore version 1.5.4 of nessMediaCenter, which we have uploaded today to the AppStore and is now awaiting the review by Apple.