[Request] Prebuilt macOS demonstrator app

[DrHurt]

Not a priority, but if not too much trouble would be nice to have at some point to play with the engine on macOS!

Just a super simple wrapper app, no menus, no nothing.

One window -> drop file on top -> play

(Not sure if you can use the UIViewController from Sodalite)

Maybe one day this will become the base of Sodalite for macOS or maybe even a powerful multipurpose media player!

Ideally needs to support intel too (but I appreciate that may not be trivial).

[superuser404notfound]

Hi DrHurt, this is ready. AetherEngine 2.0.0 now ships a DemoPlayerMac.dmg as a release asset:

Download: https://github.com/superuser404notfound/AetherEngine/releases/download/2.0.0/AetherEngine-Demo-2.0.0.dmg

Universal binary (arm64 + x86_64, so Intel Macs are covered), notarized + stapled, runs cleanly through Gatekeeper without the "unidentified developer" warning. macOS 14.0 minimum.

Scope landed exactly where your spec asked: one window, no menus, no transport bar. Drop a video file onto the window, playback starts. Controls:

• Click on the video or press Space: toggle play / pause
• Escape: stop and return to the drop zone
• Drop a different file: loads it (the current session tears down first)

A tiny corner badge shows native or sw so when you spot something weird and report it, the path is already attributed.

Source is at Examples/DemoPlayerMac/ if you want to read it or try local changes.

Closing this when you confirm the .dmg works for you. If anything is off (Gatekeeper warning, playback failure on a specific source, etc.), reopen and I will dig in.

[DrHurt]

You are coding faster than I can test :)

I'll test it in a day or 2. Sorry drowning in work again.

Unrelated, but I've shared aether with 2 devs that I've known previously.

Let me know if you'd rather I don't share yet.

[superuser404notfound]

Thats totally fine! With 2.0 i made AetherEngine ready for devs to use it.

[DrHurt]

Tested it on my 2018 Intel Mac Mini connected to an SDR monitor!

It works EXTREMELY well. I'm mind blown.

Tested with 200mbps Dolby reference files.
HEVC: DV5, 8.1, 8.4 -> native & SDR tone mapping works
AV1: DV10.1 (HDR10), DV10.4 (HLG) -> super smooth software playback including tone mapping to SDR.

What surprised me most is that the 200mbps HEVC severely lagged in QuickTime player, but played very smoothly in Aether!

And CPU & RAM usage is impressively low (with native).

I know this is just a demonstrator app, but it's now gonna be my default macOS video player.

You should really consider turning this into a simple Aether Media Player for macOS. All it needs is an icon & a UI for track selection.

Feel free to close this issue now.

Thanks

[superuser404notfound]

Wow appreciate it and thanks again for the testing on older intel macs! Maybe i will make a dedicated media player for macos with aetherengine some day... ;)