DVDPedia now has a FrontRow Plug-In that allows you to take full advantage of your movie collection stored in the cataloging application. You can browse your collection by Title, Director, Actor, Year, Genre, Country, and even get a list of recently added movies.

DVDPedia is a Library tool for your Mac HTPC. It catalogs your DVD and VHS (yikes) collection, and utilizes Amazon, IMDb and other sites to gather movie information such as Actors, Genre, Directors, Art Work , Ratting, etc. If your movies are linked (video_ts, file, etc), FrontRow can also launch these flicks for you to watch. One of the nicest parts is the information is displayed the same way as Movies stored in iTunes, making a seamless addition to FrontRow.



The DVDpedia PlugIn does duplicate the function of iTunes Movies without the rental abilities. However, iTunes won't provide you with all the fantastic meta data, without spending a good amount of time organizing it and manually adding it yourself. Using DVDpedia would also prevent futher bloating of your iTunes Library. We could almost say take it a step further and replace your remove the Movies plug-in, since your really won't be needing it!

The only negatives that we can see is the movie description is way to long for the space provided in FrontRow. Take 'Gladiator' for example, the long description, present information about Ridley Scott and the movie itself, while the plot summary is hidden. A short and long summary would be nice. If found IMDB's Plot summary to generally be the perfect length for information such as this.

The DVDpedia FrontRow Plug-On (1.1) is a free download, and DVDpedia has a 25 movie free demo. The full version is $18.

In addition to the AppStore roll out today, the AppleTV gets version 2.1 for the set-top box. This update was expected to include support for the new MobileMe service, but what was unexpected was Apple Remote application support for the iPhone and iPhone Touch.

The MobileMe stuff functions the same way .Mac did on the AppleTV. We suspect that it was just an upgrade in graphics.

The Remote Application can be configured similarly to the way iTunes is configured. Select Remotes from the General Menu and select add remote. Enter the 4 digit code and your done. Your iPhone will now be able to select music, tv shows, movies, etc from its Remote App interface.

The Software Update for AppleTV 2.1 is available through Software Update.

As promised, Apple has released the iPhone/iPod Touch Remote application. This app allows you to control, navigate your iTunes library on your local wireless network. After playing with it for a while, all we can say is that its freaking amazing.

The application mimics the iPod interface currently found on the iPhone/iPodTouch where you can quickly navigate Playlists, Artists, Albums, Search, and More (Audiobooks, Video, Music Videos, TV Shows and Movies) For those of you with multiple libraries on multiple computers, don't worry, you can associate more then one with this app.

To set up your Remote App:

1. Ensure 'Look for iPhone & iPhone touch Remotes' is checked in the Advanced System preferences.
2. Downloand and install the Remote Application from the iTunes AppStore.
3. From the Remote App, select Add Library
4. Enter the 4 digit code into your iTunes 7.7 application.

From there you should be all set to navigate and take control of your iTunes Library. We hope that Apple ads further support for FrontRow, as many of us that use the Mini and AppleTV as a Macintosh HTPC would love to have this feature. Currently Remote Buddy and Telekinesis are the only polished methods of doing this.