Internet Radio in FrontRow 2
October 29, 2007
One of the draw backs from FrontRow 2, remains the missing presence of Internet Radio. Back in
February we discovered a simple trick to access Internet Radio in FrontRow, and we are pleased to report the trick still works.
iTunes has a great collection of Internet Radio stations, but FrontRow will only play the tracks that are locally stored on your HTPC. This also goes for MPEG Audio Streams out there. The trick is to add these tracks into iTunes so they can easily be accessed but Front Row. So, here's how you go about doing this.
- Select Your Internet Radio Stations:
You may add iTunes Radio or MPEG Radio station. iTunes Radio stations are available by clicking the 'Radio' in the side menu. M3U or MPEG Radio stations can be found at Mike's Radio World or other similar sites.
- Add the Tracks to the Library
Click and drag these radio stations to your iTunes Library icon. These will save the m3u reference file in your library as a local iTunes Track. Browsing your library you will see these tracks are now listed along side your other music.
- Isolate the Tracks:
You don't need to perform this step, but it helps to located your tracks in FrontRow. Create a smart playlist based on the track kind being 'Playlist URL' or MPEG Audio Stream. These are the two common kinds for your radio stations. Besure to name the playlist 'Internet Radio' or something catchy.
- Play through FrontRow!
Launch FrontRow, and located your newly created playlist. You will notice all the Internet Radio tracks you have added appear and can be accessed. Unfortunately they don't have all the pretty artwork, and if you do try and add artwork, it gets overwritten, when you play the live tracks.
We still wish that Radio would be an option in FrontRow. It seems like a simple and logical addition to building a complete HTPC application, especially with an extensive list of Internet Radio Stations already available in iTunes.
Labels: FrontRow, Internet Radio, iTunes, Tips and Tricks
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