Files search for raw and providerless media adds a dedicated way to search footage, archives, and other files that do not have movie, TV, or music metadata. ShowShark now scans technical file metadata, exposes facets, shows rich result details, and can reveal or play matching files from the existing library path.
Professional video playback support is much broader. ProRes, DNxHD/VC-3, MXF workflows, and a long list of intermediate or archive codecs are now recognized and routed through appropriate decoders instead of falling back to the wrong H.264 path.
Channels can now be built from playlists and YouTube subscriptions. Video and music playlists can drive scheduled channels, and subscribed YouTube content can appear in Library, Search, Recently Added, channel programming, and normal playback flows.
Admin tools moved into a dedicated Client Admin tab. Admin users now get a focused place for scanning, cleanup, server status, connected devices, and remote access invite generation, while Settings stays focused on profile and client preferences.
The Library tab is easier to browse at scale. Locations remain available, and the tab now adds paged top-level lists for TV Shows, Movies, and Music so large libraries do not need to start from folder navigation or Search.
Playback and remote connectivity are more resilient. Scheduled channels reconnect at the current live position, iPhone rotation no longer stops video playback, post-update server startup is more reliable, and remote access failures now produce more specific guidance.
Server administrators can publish a welcome message that appears once per client per update, with platform-specific presentation on iOS, macOS, tvOS, and visionOS.
ShowShark Server now supports macOS 14, extending the supported Server floor while preserving the newer launch behavior on macOS 15 and later.
File Search & Professional Libraries
New Files search mode searches providerless media using file metadata rather than movie, TV, or music provider data. It is aimed at raw footage, camera archives, review libraries, and mixed collections where filenames and embedded technical metadata matter more than catalog matches.
File metadata scanning captures container, codec, duration, dimensions, frame rate, audio details, HDR and color information, camera RAW sidecar data, and other technical attributes during library scans.
Facet chips and cursor-paged results let you narrow large file libraries without loading everything at once. Results include a detail sheet with the captured metadata and actions to reveal the file in the library hierarchy or attempt playback.
Filmstrip thumbnails now appear in file search results. ShowShark chooses offsets around the file timeline, adapts the number of thumbnails to the available row width, and falls back gracefully for short media.
Location metadata search captures GPS and place metadata from supported video files, including common iPhone/QuickTime exports. File search can now surface and filter by location-related values such as geo presence, city, country, and coordinate bounds.
Large metadata scans are quieter and smoother. File metadata progress updates are throttled to the same cadence as regular library scans, reducing UI churn during large post-scan metadata passes.
Search state is safer when switching servers. Library and file search results are cleared immediately on server changes, active submitted searches are re-run after reconnect, and late responses from the previous server cannot repopulate stale results.
Channels & YouTube
Playlist-backed channels let you create video and music channels from existing playlists. Scheduling follows playlist order, and channel source editors now include playlist-based configuration.
YouTube subscriptions are a first-class source. Subscribed content can appear in Library, Search, Recently Added, media grids, and channel programming, with normal play history handling and finite-video playback controls.
YouTube playback resumes like other on-demand video. Subscription episodes now show the normal pre-play surface, respect saved progress, and offer resume prompts instead of always auto-starting.
YouTube subscription cards now use poster artwork through the normal thumbnail loading and cache path, with the generic YouTube icon kept as a fallback.
Long-form YouTube playback restarts more smoothly. After a stopped session with progress, ShowShark warms a seekable playback path so the next resume can start closer to the requested offset.
Scheduled channel reconnects now resume at the current live program offset. Regular on-demand playback still resumes from the locally saved position, while channel reconnects refresh the current program before restarting playback.
Shared channel playback context is preserved across starts, seeks, reconnects, music channel transitions, and mini-player transitions, keeping Now Playing, picture-in-picture, and progress state aligned.
Recently Added no longer gets flooded by TV episode batches. Newly added TV episodes are coalesced into one show row, ranked by the newest show or episode timestamp.
Library & Browsing
Library now has category paging. A picker switches between Locations, TV Shows, Movies, and Music. The media categories use paged alphabetical lists with stable ordering and artwork, making large libraries faster to browse.
Location-folder browsing remains intact. The existing folder/location view is still available as the Locations category inside the Library tab.
Server rows are easier to tap. Saved and discovered server rows now use full-row tap targets and clearer pressed feedback on non-tvOS platforms.
The server picker uses cleaner form layouts on iPhone, iPad, macOS, and visionOS, with more comfortable touch spacing and a wider default macOS sidebar so toolbar actions stay visible.
tvOS server and settings navigation is more reliable. The settings button is reachable from the server shelf, Settings uses a more structured form presentation, and related full-screen views own the standard ShowShark background.
Profile avatar picking is cleaner. Visible avatar labels were removed from the picker while accessibility labels remain available to assistive technologies.
The Server Locations tab now explains its read-only behavior. The UI clarifies that ShowShark indexes and serves configured locations but does not edit, move, or delete the underlying files.
The bundled Demo Server is always seeded on first launch so new users and reviewers can exercise the client experience without pairing a personal server first.
Admin & Server Management
Client Admin tab centralizes admin-only workflows. Admin scanning, cleanup, profile maintenance, server status, devices, and invite tools no longer crowd the normal Settings tab.
Client Settings is simpler for non-admin use. It now focuses on profile selection, caches, diagnostics, and client-level preferences.
Server status is visible from the Client. Admin users can view live connection rows and active streaming sessions from the Admin tab, using the same underlying snapshot data as the Server Status view.
Remote access invite creation is available from the Client. Admin users can generate single-use invite codes from the Devices area, with platform-specific invite presentation and automatic cleanup when an invite is redeemed.
Server welcome messages let admins publish a short message that appears once per client after login. The client remembers the last seen message per server so unchanged messages do not keep reappearing.
Client diagnostics can be submitted from the app on macOS, iOS, tvOS, and visionOS. The flow gathers recent client logs, compresses them, and presents platform-appropriate support forms.
ShowShark Server supports macOS 14 with a compatible launch path, while macOS 15 and later continue to use the newer native launch behavior.
Streaming, Video & Audio
Professional and intermediate video formats now decode correctly across more containers and source layouts. Added or improved handling includes ProRes, DNxHD/VC-3, CineForm, JPEG 2000, DV, MJPEG, Hap, FFV1, HuffYUV, Lagarith, Ut Video, SpeedHQ, Apple Intermediate Codec, MJPEG-B, QTRLE, FFVHUFF, Matrox M101, raw video, and MXF sources.
ProRes MOV files no longer fall through to the H.264 pipeline. ShowShark now recognizes ProRes caps and routes them through the bundled ProRes decoder when available, with fallback behavior when needed.
Avid DNxHD MOV playback is fixed. DNxHD/VC-3 files now use the correct decode path and preserve interlace handling for the encode stage.
MXF playback support is stronger. MXF container detection and demuxing now work across local and streaming playback paths, including PCM audio patterns common in production files.
HEVC hardware decode fallback is more defensive. If the hardware decoder cannot accept the discovered caps, ShowShark can fall back to software instead of failing the playback path.
Dolby AC-3/E-AC-3 decoding avoids a known crash-prone decoder. ShowShark now prefers the safer bundled libav decoders and fails gracefully if a compatible Dolby path is unavailable.
Server startup after in-app updates is more reliable. The bundled GStreamer runtime paths and registry behavior are initialized explicitly so the Server does not hang with the window open but core services offline.
iPhone rotation no longer stops active video playback. The playback view now distinguishes rotation-driven view replacement from a real user navigation away from playback.
Remote Access & Connectivity
Remote connection failures are more actionable. The client now distinguishes blocked remote data paths from generic warm-up or server availability failures and can recommend Wi-Fi or VPN when the current network appears to block the playback/control connection.
Remote address lookup is refreshed per connection attempt so clients are less likely to reuse stale connection details after reconnects, network changes, or redeemed invite flows.
Remote diagnostics are surfaced more clearly in the Server Status area and client connection alerts, helping separate local network problems, server availability, and remote access service health.
Remote invite redemption is more reliable. A consumed invite no longer prevents later address lookup when the device already has valid remote access credentials.
Bug Fixes & Reliability
Local location settings are preserved across path changes. Display names, icons, and media types for local library locations now key off stable bookmark identifiers rather than resolved filesystem paths, preventing metadata loss after bookmark or path changes.
tvOS Settings builds again after the shared Install ID view stopped using a text-selection modifier unavailable on tvOS.
tvOS welcome messages render on the standard app background instead of appearing transparent over the previous screen.
Server list focus and row behavior is more predictable across tvOS, touch platforms, and macOS.
Post-update Server startup no longer depends on a fragile external plugin scanner path, reducing the chance of a partially initialized Server after an app update.
Live channel reconnects keep navigation stacks alive on macOS and iPad instead of clearing the current path during automatic reconnect.