Observio 20.5.1

Observio 20.5.1

Everything from 20.4 and 20.5, now delivered correctly. (A build-numbering mix-up meant those two updates weren't being offered; this release supersedes them.)

Fixes

• Anamorphic SD channels now display at the correct aspect ratio. Standard-definition channels carrying widescreen content in a 720×576 frame (common on European IPTV) were shown squished into a narrow box on the Native engine. They now honor the stream's pixel aspect ratio and fill the correct 16:9 (or 4:3) shape.
• Cleaner channel changes on the Native engine. Switching channels no longer briefly flashes a garbled or black frame before the new stream settles — the picture holds the previous frame until the first clean frame is ready, then cuts straight to it.
• Fixed a major memory leak on the Native engine. Every channel change leaked its whole video render stack, so memory climbed until the app became unresponsive over a long session; the leaked render loops also caused the intermittent picture freeze with the audio briefly looping. Channel changes now release the previous renderer cleanly.
• More reliable audio on low-bitrate channels. Channels using HE-AAC audio now play consistently through the compatible engine instead of occasionally failing.

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Requires macOS 14 or later. Universal build (Apple Silicon + Intel).

Observio 20.5

Observio 20.5

Native-engine picture-quality fixes on top of 20.4.

Fixes

• Anamorphic SD channels now display at the correct aspect ratio. Standard-definition channels that carry widescreen content in a 720×576 frame (very common on European IPTV) were shown squished into a narrow 5:4 box on the Native engine. They now honor the stream's pixel aspect ratio and fill the correct 16:9 (or 4:3) shape, matching what other players show.
• Cleaner channel changes on the Native engine. Switching channels no longer briefly flashes a garbled or black frame before the new stream settles — the picture now holds the previous frame until the first clean frame of the new channel is ready, then cuts straight to it.

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Requires macOS 14 or later. Universal build (Apple Silicon + Intel).

Observio 20.4

Observio 20.4

A stability hotfix on top of 20.3.

Fixes

• Fixed a major memory leak on the Native engine. Every channel change on the Native engine leaked its entire video render stack instead of tearing it down — memory climbed without bound over a long session until the app became unresponsive ("Not Responding"). Each leaked render loop also kept running in the background, contending for the GPU and causing the intermittent picture freeze with the audio briefly looping before it resynced. Channel changes now release the previous renderer cleanly.

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Requires macOS 14 or later. Universal build (Apple Silicon + Intel).

Observio 20.3.1

Immersive mode overhaul (keyboard/remote nav across grid + guide, browse-before-tune surfing, two-stage number entry, full-width bottom bar with a Recent Channels rail), live-channel card polish, Settings integrations centralized (Trakt + TMDB), one-click Trakt sign-in, and the Beta channel is now shown in version info.

Observio 20.3

Observio 20.3

A big interface release — a redesigned, more immersive TV experience with full keyboard & remote control — plus fixes on top of 20.2.

Immersive interface

• Redesigned immersive UI built on a unified design system — consistent color grammar (white focus highlight, red LIVE indicator), refined typography, and coherent spacing throughout.
• Full keyboard & remote navigation. Drive the channel grid and the program guide entirely from the keyboard or a remote — arrow-key movement, horizontal (time) navigation across the EPG, and two-stage channel-number entry.
• Browse while you watch — surf channels and explore the grid without interrupting playback.
• Redesigned on-screen display — a full-width bottom scrim showing the channel number, and a cleaner zap banner with the channel group and time remaining.
• New Recents rail replaces "Up Next For You" for quicker access to what you were just watching.
• Polished throughout — unified toasts, pills, and empty states; live-channel cards adopt the immersive tile look; refined sidebar and VOD poster fallbacks.

Settings

• Consolidated Integrations tab — Trakt and TMDB now live together in one place.
• Version info now shows your update channel (Beta / Stable).

Fixes

• Per-episode resume for Plex series now works — every episode of a season was sharing one resume time; each now tracks its own position independently.
• Correct version shown in About / Settings on development builds.

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Requires macOS 14 or later. Universal build (Apple Silicon + Intel).

Observio 20.2

Observio 20.2

A feature release. This one adds profiles, a big push on discovery and metadata (trailers, trending, ratings), Trakt sync improvements, and cross‑device resume on iPhone — plus two fixes for issues found in 20.1.

Profiles

• User profiles. Add separate profiles, each with its own watchlist, watch progress, and hidden channels/groups, while your playlists, settings, and favorites stay shared. Optionally lock a profile with a 4‑digit PIN.

Discovery & metadata

• Trailers now match the title's language. A foreign‑language movie or series plays its own‑language trailer instead of always defaulting to the English one.
• "Trending This Week" — a new discovery row that surfaces what's trending and resolves it into titles you can actually play from your own catalog.
• Featured carousel on Home (iPhone) highlighting your recent picks.
• Trailer button and TMDB ratings on the iPhone movie/series detail pages.

Trakt

• Two‑way sync. Adding or removing a title from your watchlist now pushes to Trakt, and your Trakt watched history imports back into Observio to mark items watched.

Sync & remote

• Cross‑device resume on iPhone. Watch progress syncs over iCloud, so where you stopped on one iPhone/iPad carries to another — with a proper newest‑wins merge, and clearing an item now clears it everywhere instead of coming back.
• QR pairing for the iPhone remote — scan the code shown on the Mac to pair instantly.

Playback

• Load an external subtitle file on macOS (.srt/.ass) directly from the player, matching iPhone.
• Audio passthrough (experimental) — optionally bitstream AC3/E‑AC3/DTS/TrueHD to an AV receiver instead of decoding. Off by default; only enable it with gear that decodes those formats.

Program guide (EPG)

• SQLite guide store (experimental). An optional on‑disk guide database so very large EPG files (100 MB+) stay light on memory. Off by default — enable it under EPG settings if you want to try it.

Fixes

• Per‑episode resume for Plex series. Every episode of a season was sharing a single resume time; each episode now tracks its own position.

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Requires macOS 14 or later. Universal build (Apple Silicon + Intel).

Observio 20.1

Observio 20.1

A big stability and polish release. The headline fix is the iPhone playback freeze on the Native engine, alongside a major overhaul of watch‑progress/resume, media‑server reliability, the program guide, and loading indicators throughout the app.

Playback

• Fixed the periodic video freeze on iPhone. On the Native engine, live channels could freeze for about a second every few minutes while audio kept playing. This was a chain of issues in the streaming buffer and reconnect logic — all addressed. The engine now also recovers automatically when a server drops the connection instead of freezing silently.
• The Native engine works again over plain‑HTTP on iOS 26, so interlaced sports and other channels get the higher‑quality Metal deinterlacer instead of falling back.
• Smoother playback under load: the app now sheds expensive image‑processing when the device gets hot, so a long session is less likely to stutter.
• Fixed several smaller player bugs (volume‑slider drag accidentally moving the window, catch‑up start timing, engine selection for HTTP channels).

Watch progress & resume

• Resume actually works now. Watch progress is saved during playback across movies and series, on IPTV providers and Emby/Plex/Jellyfin alike — previously progress was recorded inconsistently and often lost.
• Continue Watching is sorted by most recently watched, and the "Start from Beginning" button now starts immediately instead of needing a second tap.
• Fixed watch‑progress routing when you have more than one media server connected, and Plex now reports progress mid‑playback.

Media servers (Emby / Plex / Jellyfin)

• Fixed Jellyfin libraries incorrectly opening the Emby view.
• Fixed Emby/Jellyfin library refreshes arriving out of order and occasionally dropping content.
• Per‑library sync failures are now surfaced instead of silently swallowed.

Movies & series artwork

• More accurate posters, using release‑year matching so same‑named titles no longer collide.
• Posters now show a loading shimmer while they fetch, and the VOD tab shows a progress bar during first‑time artwork setup — no more wondering whether it's stuck.

Program guide (EPG)

• Much lighter on the device. Large guides no longer hog CPU or contend with playback, and a guide source that repeatedly fails now backs off instead of retrying endlessly every launch. Guide refreshes pause while you're watching.
• EPG settings now show each source's status, including when auto‑retry is paused.

Interface & loading

• Loading indicators throughout. Channel counts, provider lists, libraries, and the home screen now show a clear loading state on launch instead of appearing blank or empty.
• Full Dynamic Type support pass — the app respects your text‑size setting across the guide, lists, VOD grid, and player.
• iPad gets a proper split‑view browse layout.
• Downloads can be cancelled, and batch downloads are capped so they don't overwhelm the connection.

Privacy & security

• Credentials embedded in stream URLs are now redacted everywhere they used to appear in logs.

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Requires macOS 14 or later. Universal build (Apple Silicon + Intel).

Observio 1.0.0-beta.20

Observio 1.0.0-beta.20

Observio 1.0.0-beta.18

Observio 1.0.0-beta.18 — quality-adaptive MetalFX (eases upscaling on low-bitrate/blocky sources) and motion-faded CAS sharpening to remove shimmer on motion. First release on the public update feed (no token required).

Observio 1.0.0-beta.17

Observio 1.0.0-beta.17

• AI Upscaling simplified to a single on/off toggle (Native engine, Apple Silicon), with a split-screen compare to see the difference.
• Cleaner image: reduced over-sharpening and the bright edge halos that showed on dark backgrounds.
• Fixed a crash when switching player engines.
• Fixed snapshots on the Native engine and channel logos missing in the player side panel.
• Faster in-house fuzzy search. Now requires macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later.

Updates are automatic — you'll be prompted in-app, or check from Settings → Updates.