Accessing DVDpedia's via FrontRow!

July 16, 2008   134 Comments
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.

Labels: FrontRow, Plug-Ins, Software

PyeTv, EyeTV FrontRow Plug-In

June 9, 2008   1 Comments

So... we've been looking for someone to develop a Plug-In to bring EyeTV into FrontRow, and PyeTV does just that. We were hoping just to see a simple launcher, but Jon Christopher took it a step further with access to EyeTV's recordings, previews, metadata and even channel jumping. The project is a GoogleCode project, and was recently updated to version 1.1

The installation of the plug-in is straight forward with the convenient installer and requires the admin password. In the background it moves over the plugin into FrontRow's Application Plug-in folder, and turns on Universal Access for assistive devices. We had a little problem with the download, but resolved it by adding the .dmg extension.



The plug-in is great, and we recommend it for all you EyeTV users out there. The translation between FrontRow and EyeTV is still a bit clumbsy, but really thats EyeTV's fault. We hope to see this plug-in continue to be supported and improved, after all thats why Apple gave us the plugin directory, right?

PyeTV is a free download from Google Code. While your at it, also check out ETVComskip. Also developed by Jon Christopher, it integrates with PyeTV and allows for you to quickly skip commercials from EyeTV.

Labels: EyeTV, FrontRow, Plug-Ins

Improved Perian 1.1 released

February 10, 2008   0 Comments
Perian, The Swiss Army Knife of Quicktime Components (just look at the logo) has release version 1.1. The popular QuickTime component allows you to play most popular video formats in the QuickTime player and FrontRow. Specifically Perian adds support for: AVI, FLV, MKV, MS-MPEG4 v1 & v2, DivX, 3ivX, H.264, FLV1, FSV1, VP6, H263I, VP3, HuffYUV, FFVHuff, MPEG1 & MPEG2 Video, Fraps, Windows Media Audio v1 & v2, Flash ADPCM, Xiph Vorbis (in Matroska), and MPEG Layer II Audio.

Additional improvements include:

• Major performance improvements
  
• TrueAudio, MP1, and DTS audio support
  
• Slice-based multithreaded decoding for MPEG-1/2/H.264
  
• Apple H.264 now handles AVCHD/interlaced video
  
• Compatibility fixes for QuickTime 7.4 and Leopard
  
• Objective-C GC compatibility
  
• Fixed a crash in Toast
  
• Better subtitle rendering
  
• Subtitles play during MKV loading
  
• Snow support
  
• Miscellaneous bug fixes

Version 1.1 requirements: Mac OS X 10.4.7, and you may download it for free from their website.

Labels: codec, FrontRow, QuickTime

iTunes, FrontRow, QT, iMovie Updates

January 15, 2008   0 Comments
Following the MacWorld Keynote today, Apple has released several software updates. We assume the majority of the updates have to do with iTunes Movie Rentals and HD Content. Here are the details that are provided by Apple.:

iTunes 7.6 (44.7MB)

QuickTime 7.4 (57.9)

iMovie 7.1.1 (16.9)

FrontRow 2.1.2 (17.4MB)

Labels: FrontRow, iMovie, iTunes, QuickTime, Software Update

Hello World & MythFront Plugins

January 7, 2008   0 Comments EntertainMac has been waiting for some developers to start developing some FrontRow 2 Plug-Ins. Sapphire was the first one, and with it recently being released as an OpenSource project, another developer, Garion911, has created a basic "Hello World" plug in and a MythTV Launcher. Both of the Plugin's are written completely in Python

Hello World
Start off by downloading the Hello World Application from garion.tzo.com.


MythFrontEnd
This application will launch your MythFrontend Application, assuming it lives in your Applications Directory. When launched, MythFrontend is launched, and when you exit, it returns back to FrontRow. This application has already been updated and version 0.2 can be downloaded here.

This latest application can really be modified to launch whatever app you would like, including EyeTV. For developers out there looking to learn more, a Google Code Project has been established for the project.

Labels: FrontRow, Plug-Ins

Sapphire goes Open-Source

January 1, 2008   0 Comments
Sapphire, our favorite and only plug in for the new FrontRow 2 / AppleTV has opted to open up their project finally and allow for others to start tinkering with it. When the Sapphire project was first started Graham and Parick had decided that they would open the project up under GNU Public License, once the foundation was estabilished and solid. This occurred last month with the latest release.

Opening the code on a project such as this will hopefully inspire additional tweaks and changes to Sapphire, improving its interface, adding more options, or debugging. The code could also inspire the release of additional media browser like plug-ins for AppleTV or FrontRow. Or perhaps an EyeTV based Plug-In?

With the latest release of Sapphire, it was open-sourced. You can now browse the code on the Sapphire Trac or use the Subversion Repository to checkout a copy. Distribution and use is restricted to the terms of the GNU Public License (v3).

Labels: AppleTV, FrontRow, Plug-Ins

Sapphire: Media Browser for FrontRow

December 4, 2007   1 Comments
I'm proud to point out that Sapphire is the first FrontRow 2.0 plug-in that we have successfully installed. For those unfamiliar with Sapphire, its a media browser plug in for FrontRow. Sapphire will identify TV Shows and Movies based on the files names, and assign metadata and cover art based on TV Rage, IMDB, and IMPAwards. But like most applications, we tested it out to get a personal look into the plug-in.

We installed Sapphire on our Mini HTPC to give it a good test run. The installation was straight forward and identical to installing AppleTV plug-ins. It instantly appears in your FrontRow menu, and will list the common media storage locations, such as external drives, ~movies directory, etc. We had it scan our iTunes Library and movies where we have several different types of movie formats. The scanning process is extensive and takes a considerable amount of time, but this should be anticipated. Our first run resulted in a crash, but the next scan ran flawlessly. Through its easy to navigate menu's we were able to assign the proper album art and meta data to our TV shows and movies. The Artwork pulled from these sources is good, but no the highest of resolutions. We also noticed if you want to add new media, you have to scan the directory again, as it does not automatically find new files. The IMDB Top-250 and Academy Award movie listings were some our favorite features.

Overall we have had a very positive experience with Sapphire. It does however duplicate the Movies and TV Show functionality of FrontRow, so we figure Sapphire is for more diehard media collectors.

Sapphire is a free download, and is still in a beta version, so don't expect a finished product, although we found it to be very polished.

Labels: FrontRow, Plug-Ins

EyesFront 2.0 - Leopard Themed

November 14, 2007   0 Comments
EyesFront is back with version 2.0. The EyeTV Theme originally recreated a FrontRow feel to EyeTV 2.3.1 and later. With the latest release of Leopard and FrontRow 2.0, the theme has been simplified and updated to reflect the new look FrontRow 2.0. EyesFront includes a Quartz Background file, and five graphics, which replace components in the EyeTV application.

Earlier last year EyeTV switched to a Window MCE blue background for their on-screen menus, thanks to Apple saying 2.3.0 was too similar to FrontRow. But after 2.3.1 they gave the users the option to modify the Quarts background, to whatever you would like.



The theme again is being hosted on MegaUpload, for your downloading pleasure. It includes the quartz background, selector graphics and program guide graphics, as well as instructions on how to modify your EyeTV Application.

EntertainMac has tested it on 2.5.1, but never checked it out on older versions. Install at your own risk and always back-up your application before trying anything. If you forget, you can always get the latest EyeTV application from ElGato.

Labels: EyeTV, FrontRow, Tips and Tricks

FrontRow 2 Review: TV Shows

November 6, 2007   0 Comments
Leopard is hear, and it brings FrontRow 2.0. Most of us are familiar with this interface on the AppleTV. With the menu too one side and a carousel of icons on the other, it picks up where FrontRow 1.x left off.

We installed leopard on a 1.6GHz MacMini which has been set up as a HTPC. Music was store on an external harddrive, along with tv shows and some movies, all managed by iTunes. A healthy sized iPhoto Library lives on the internal drive. On another external we stored other movies, all aliased in folders in the user/~movies folder.

Here are review of TV Shows Section:

TV Shows is now its own top-level menu item, after all they are the iTunes Store's top-selling video items. Previously they were all tucked away under the movies category.

Our test machine contained over 5GB of TV shows. Most were captured through our EyeTV Hybrid, while others were purchased directly from iTunes Store. They are all managed and organized through iTunes, and given the proper meta-data when necessary.

The TV Shows area is extremely simple. Displaying the iTunes Top TV Episodes, in a familiar carrousel rotation, followed by a listing of each show in your collection. Each TV Show grouping is presented with the artwork included in iTunes. For items imported from other sources, the preview is a snapshot from the first frame. Not purchasing all of our shows, we went back and added artwork for consistency. The biggest change we have found here is that FrontRow 2 now knows how to sort TV Shows alphabetically, unlike FrontRow 1.x where the order seemed to be randomly selected by a keno machine.

Entering the TV Show listing, will pull up a complete list of episodes available. These are all sorted by season and episode number in descending order, meaning your most recent episode will be on top. Notably the season subfolders are now missing, which we think is a mistake. Most tv shows will have a run of 2-5 years, resulting in potentially +120 episodes. Everything seems to be loading fine from our library, but when you have that many episodes, you have to wonder if the load times will increase and how difficult will it be to locate individual episodes.

The artwork continues to appear along the left, with aired date, length, episode, season, and description all pulled from iTunes. We also noticed that if a description is not available, it will use the comments section instead. This is important for those of you that rip your TV shows from DVD's and want to get as much metadata in there as possible. TV.com is an excellent source for descriptions, episode numbers etc. The date aired field only seems to appear in iTunes purchased episodes, and we were unable to add this meta data through iTunes.

The one unique feature we found in the TV show area is the ability to change the listing between the show title and the date added. This feature is not very well executed. Sorting my date, brings up a mile long listing of episode titles, from all the different TV shows. They are listed by show name making locating an episode extremely difficult. If Apple allowed us to sort by TV show it would help tame this messy listing.

The TV Show section has taken a predominant position in FrontRow finally. Apple has tackled this section well, providing instant access to your TV Shows. The metadata is the highlight of the experience, allowing you to quickly identify episodes. This is a major step above FrontRow's TV Show management, but there are some areas which need improvement. Not grouping episodes by season, and the top level listing by date should be addressed. Overall we are pleased with the way the TV Show section has been presented.

Labels: FrontRow, Leopard

Internet Radio in FrontRow 2

October 29, 2007   0 Comments
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

FrontRow 2 Review: Photos

October 27, 2007   2 Comments
Leopard is hear, and it brings FrontRow 2.0. Most of us are familiar with this interface on the AppleTV. With the menu too one side and a carousel of icons on the other, it picks up where FrontRow 1.x left off.

We installed leopard on a 1.6GHz MacMini which has been set up as a HTPC. Music was store on an external harddrive, along with tv shows and some movies, all managed by iTunes. A healthy sized iPhoto Library lives on the internal drive. On another external we stored other movies, all aliased in folders in the user/~movies folder.

Here are review of Photos Section:

With most HTPC applications out there, Photo managment is always seems to get the shaft. Here we get to see the most uninspiring designs and layouts. FrontRow 2 is no exception, but it does take steps to boost itself above most HTPC applications.

We gave our test a health collection of photos, spanning many years and over 5GB of images to browse. These are all located and managed by iPhoto 7.0. We have several events, several Smart Albums, and dumb Albums to test with.

First entering the Photos area, you are presented with several menu options. The first option was shared, followed by photos, and two standard filters, "Last Month", and "Last Import." The two filters display their images quickly, as if all 1253 pictures were already preloaded. This was incredibly impressive considering how it was to display pictures in Tiger's FrontRow. The Shared option quickly connects to shared albums out there as well, and we are on a G network. The Photos, we expected to be an unfiltered list of all the photos, but we were surprised to find the list of events to browse through. Following those menu options you have your Smart Albums and Dumb Albums, listed in the same order as in iPhoto. Once again the images appeared almost immediately. Playing the album brings up the familiar music and fading transitions from one photo to another.

Its certain that FrontRow 2 has improved its interaction with iPhoto. The quickness in the photo access is simply amazing, and the high-res images are stunning. We would of like to see an alternative way of viewing photos, perhaps in a grid view. Skipping from picture to picture in the slide show is still slow, which makes finding single photos in large albums a daunting task. Our only other request would be instead of listing all the Albums on the main screen use a sub menu, and bring Events to the main menu.

Labels: FrontRow, Leopard

Oct 26th - Leopard Release Day

October 16, 2007   0 Comments
Apple has announced that Leopard will infact be released on October 26th at 6:00PM. Within the last week there have been rumors flying that leopard would hit the selves soon, just nobody could confirm it. You may already pre-order leopard from Amazon and now you may do it through Apple as well. $129 for a single user license and $199 for the family pack.

Ten days and counting...
We hate waiting to, so here are a few suggestions to kill the 10 days until OS-X Leopard's release.

• Day 1: Qualify your system requirements. Make sure you meet the new 10.5 Standard.
• Day 2: Rip DVD's - FrontRow2 will play video_ts folders, meaning you don't need to rip your movies as mp4 anymore!
• Day 3: Backup... This is going to be a huge update, so make sure you have everything backed up or run the risk of loss.
• Day 4: Devise a way to get Leopard installed on a G3 B&W... you would be ubercool.
• Day 5: Break out your camping gear. Shop for non-perishable food.
• Day 6: Purchase an external harddrive. TimeMachine requires an additional drive if you want to make backups.
• Day 7: Find yourself a comfy spot on the sidewalk infront of the Apple Store. Set up camp.
• Day 8: Start making excuses to why your missing a halloween party to install an operating system.
• Day 9: Invite the local new to video you infront of the Apple Store. Tell him you've been a die hard fan since 2005, and show off bounty from the last time you waited in an Apple line.
• Day 10: Buy OS-X, Cheer, Turn Cartwheels, and Go home to be the first to install it. Spend the next 24 hrs writing reviews and complaining about 'missing features'

With 350+ new features, this will be one of the most anticipated releases in Apple OS history. We'll see you inline!

Labels: Apple, FrontRow, Leopard

FrontRow Update 1.3.1

August 7, 2007   0 Comments
In the mix with the new iMacs, refreshed Minis, and iLife update, Apple slipped in a FrontRow update. This update claims to have 'improved iPhoto compatibility'. I never new FrontRow had iPhoto compatibility issues. We assume this is to take advantage of iPhoto '08 upgrades.

Labels: FrontRow, iPhoto, Software Update

Amazon's taking Leopard Pre-Orders

July 30, 2007   0 Comments
This may not be new to you, but it was news to us. Despite not having a concrete release date, nor a final developers build, Amazon is one of the few retailers where you can reserve your copy of OS-X 10.5, Leopard. Remember this is the one that contains the AppleTV like FrontRow 2! While it slipped under our radar is climbed to the #33 Best Selling Software.

Pre-orders of OS-X Leopard for $129.00, and are protected by their lower price guarantee. This means if the price drops for some reason between now and October, you'll guaranteed the lowest price. Pretty nifty if you ask me.

Support EntertainMac by purchasing OS-X Leopard with this link. It won't save you any money but it helps us keep this site running.

Labels: FrontRow

Is Leopard's FrontRow2, AppleTV's Backrow?

June 24, 2007   0 Comments Brightcove is hosting a plethora of Leopard demo videos, captured from the latest leopard demo released at WWDC. When we saw this we immediately looked into 'FrontRow2' which is the AppleTV like interface replacing FrontRow packaged within most Intel Macs.

The demos walks us through the TV Shows, Movies, Music, Podcast, and Photo areas of the application. Noticeably the DVD option seems to be missing. Perhaps this was not ready to be released within the Leopard preview. But looking closer, it is our belief that FrontRow2 was brought over from AppleTV.

[VIDEO REMOVED]

About 16 seconds into the video, an Error Message appears: Wait a second... i thought this was on a Mac and not an AppleTV? Whoops... Apple... Whoops... All the rest of the error messages read properly, indicating the lack of music or movies in iTunes.

I would still like to see if those AppleTV hacks will apply to FrontRow2. We've got a gut feeling that they will to some degree.

Labels: FrontRow

Will Leopard FrontRow allow plug-ins?

June 12, 2007   0 Comments With Leopard adopting AppleTV's Backrow as its new FrontRow media center application it opens the door to its ability to handle plug-in. Since AppleTv's release the application has been sliced and dices to all plug-ins. Plug-ins such as a RSS-Reader, Sports Scores, and of course YouTube, which Apple has already adapted for AppleTV.

Since released in 2004, Apple FrontRow application has been nothing more then a skin for iTunes, DVD Player and iPhoto. It performed its duties well, allowing users with the largest libraries to quickly access photos and movies. However when you compare the user experience to Microsoft's Media Center Edition, MythTV, iTheater, or MediaCentral it was falling far behind.

Recognizing this El Gato built a FrontRow launcher into EyeTV, matching the looks and feel of front row. But it didn't take long before Apple had them switch it up. Other tricks such as getting Internet Radio into FrontRow and DVD Assist have helped but it still not all it can be. Which leads us to Leopard's FrontRow.

If Leopard's FrontRow application is based on BackRow, we could see this as a serious bonus for FrontRow. The ability to fill in functions that other media center applications take advantage of.

Here are some of our ideas:

• EyeTV/TheTube - Watch live cable/satellite tv
• Internet TV - Jump into Joost's wide assortment of channels or other provider
• Internet Radio - Is it really that hard to do?
  
• VideoConf - Use that iSight/iChat and do some instant video conferencing
• Widgets - Just a quick dashboard launcher to quickly get your scores, news, etc
• YouTube - Maybe already coming but not shown right now
Perhaps we are getting our hopes up, but Apple needs to do something if they want to keep up with MCE.

Keeping with the optimistic look on things. What plug-ins or features would you like to see? That is the ones Apple will allow...

Labels: FrontRow, Internet Radio

Leopard sports AppleTV like FrontRow....

June 11, 2007   0 Comments
Just after the Keynote, where Steve revealed the latest features of OS-X Leopard, the apple website was relaunched with a new inspired look. One thing EntertainMac took notice of is Leopard's version of FrontRow.

Only armed with screen shots it appears that Backrow, the mediacenter application running on AppleTV is essentially FrontRow 2.0. There are a few noticeable differences. FrontRow 2 has a DVD feature, previously not found in Backrow. But missing from the menus are YouTube, Setting and Sources. One must believe all this is controlled through iPhoto, iTunes and System Preference.

One can only assume FrontRow 2.0 will run quicker then FrontRow as it does not preview movies. Adding the descriptions DVD covers is just another added bonus. I can't wait to see this live and in person.

Labels: FrontRow

Movie Chapters in FrontRow

April 21, 2007   0 Comments With the latest release of HandBrake, you can now quickly and easily add Chapter markers in your movies in FrontRow. Prior to the latest HandBrake adding Chapter markers would require some extensive work within Quicktime, and another export to a MOV file.

1. Handbrake Setup
With v0.8.5, a new set of options appear. I've heard the bst preset is the AppleTV preset. It is a MP4/AAC file @ 2500 kbps. Make any other video and audio preferences you would like. Be sure to select the 'Create Chapter Markers'



2. Change File Extension
By default MP4 files are not identified with the ability to have chapter markers. Change the file extension to .m4v. Without doing this, your chapter markers won't work in FrontRow, QuickTime or iTunes.



3. Add to FrontRow
After the file has been encoded, add it to your ~movies folder or to iTunes. This will make the m4v movie accessable via FrontRow, and that is basically it. Instead of jumping 30 sec forward or back, your movie will jump to the next chapter marker, just like a DVD.

This process should work for movies sent over to your AppleTV, but it would be great to get a confirmation.

Labels: FrontRow, Software, Tips and Tricks

Backrow Themed FrontRow

March 25, 2007   0 Comments Coming from the recent AppleTV OS with Backrow, in the wild, a AppleTV Theme for FrontRow has emerged by spiderroll over at Digg. The theme consists of the AppleTV icons for Music, Photos, Movies, as well as the highlight bar. The theme also includes an option to replace some localized settings to ensure everything appears with the AppleTV header etc.

You can download the theme here: [rapidshare] [megaupload]

Here are a few screen shots of the theme in action:

Labels: AppleTV, FrontRow, Tips and Tricks

10 Must Have FrontRow Tips & Tricks

February 26, 2007   1 Comments FrontRow is over a year old now, and users have discovered many tricks and tips to get the most out of your FrontRow user experience. As iTunes, DVD Player, and iPhoto get updated older tips no longer apply, and new ones sprout up.

Here are my Top-10 Must Have FrontRow Tips & Tricks for the 1st Quarter of 2007.

1. Movies on External Drives
OK so your internal drive can only hold so much, and you have quite the extensive collection on movies for Front Row. The solution is simple. FrontRow accesses your ~Movies folder. Drop aliases of your movies in this folder and FrontRow wouldn’t be wiser to know they are on an external hard drive. Take this one step further, and organize your movies by adding genre bases folder. Front Row won’t have to list all your movies at once, and getting you to your movie at its scheduled start time.

2. Get Music Artwork
This used to be a thorn in most Music collector’s sides. That was until iTunes introduced its “Get Album Artwork” feature. Accessing their online database of iTune Artwork, you can easily add artwork to your tracks. iTunes however doesn’t have all the artwork out there, and that’s why we have a Google Album Artwork Search.


3. Photos By Keyword
The photos module is probably the most undeveloped module in Front Row. But since the dawn of the digital camera, I’ve been storing thousands of photos on my Mac in iPhoto. To organize them I have them sorted by Rolls, and have added Keywords to them all. For Front Row viewing I added Smart Folders based on the keywords I utilize. These are easily accessed through Front Row and beats trying to navigate your library 1 photo at a time.

4. High Definition DVD’s
Music is a front for iTunes, Photos for iPhoto, and DVD for DVD Player. Set your preferences here and they will apply in Front Row. A nice one is the HD option. Now your Mac may not have a HDDVD or BlueRay player but it can play DVD Studio Pro 4 Authored DG videos. With some nice upscaling for 720p and 1080p if you wish.

5. Play Video_TS Folders
Highly documented, Front Row does not play video_ts folders, your DVD Player app can. DVD Assist allows you to do this with an AppleScript that essentially plays the referenced video_ts. You can also add DVD cover movies instead of the previews. Simply Brilliant.


6. Internet Radio
Covered last week, getting Internet Radio in Front Row is easy. Simply drag the Radio Station over to your iTunes Library. These will not appear as Music tracks in Front Row. Add a smart play list to sort out the ‘Kind’ types and you have quick access to your Internet Radio!


7. Play Other Media Types
FrontRow depends on QuickTime to play its video files. It used tobe a struggle to find the QuickTime codecs to play your avi / divx / etc files in FrontRow. Install Pernian and Flip4Mac and you’ve covered the most popular video formats out there! Other 3rd party codecs can be found on QuickTime’s Components page.


8. Hiding Music
Ok, this is one for the parents out there that allows their children to access Front Row. Say you have an ‘inappropriate’ music. Uncheck the boxes associated with these Tracks and they won’t appear in Front Row.


9. Scripting…
This is one of my new favorites. I purchase TV Shows on DVD and like having them readily available through Front Row. Add the 'Set Video Kind Selected' script to your iTunes Script folder and you can tag a set of videos as TV Shows, Movies, and other Metadata such as Show Name, Season, and Episode Number. This doesn’t work on protected video files.

It frustrating navigating to song to only find that its no longer there. Add the Remote Dead Tracks script to your iTunes script folder, and on your action, quickly and cleanly remove tracks that may have been deleted through the Finder.

10. EyeTV jump
EyeTV allows you to view television on your Mac with an ElGato or compatable tuner component. El Gato has made it simply to switch back and forth from EyeTV to FrontRow. Launch EyeTV first and hitting the Menu button the remote will Pause the TV, and launch FrontRow. Exiting FrontRow and EyeTV will jump to the front again. Hold down the menu button in EyeTV and access EyeTV’s full screen menu, including Program Guide, Recordings, and other options.

Labels: FrontRow, Internet Radio, Tips and Tricks

Pernian, Swiss-Army Knife for QT

February 18, 2007   1 Comments FrontRow's video play back is dependent on Quicktime. Which means FrontRow can't play your DIVX or AVI files. Out of the box Quicktime can only handle a handful of movie formats. Enter Perian - The Swiss-army knife of Quicktime® components. Download Pernian 0.5 and plug the many of the holes that QuickTime has in regards to playback of different media.

Specifically Perniam enables Quicktime to play FLV, 3XVID, DIVX, 3ivX, DivX, MS-MPEG4, Sorenson H.263, Truemotion VP6, XVID and more. Installation is quick and simple and then FrontRow will play all these movie types.

Of course WMV is not supported, but for that you can download Flip4Mac. For other strange 3rd Party Codecs check out QuickTime's Components. This includes On2, ZyGoVideo, iPIX, Zoomify, Streambox and more...

Labels: FrontRow, QuickTime, Software

Internet Radio in FrontRow

February 15, 2007   6 Comments FrontRow was released over a year ago. It plays full-length movies, music, pictures, and even trailers off the Internet. Yet with all these great features, it still doesn't have an option to play Internet Radio. iTunes has an extensive list of Internet radio stations to listen to, but FrontRow doesn't see them. This also includes most MPEG Audio Stream Internet radio stations not in included in itunes.

Here's how you can get those Internet Station into FrontRow and start listening to Live Internet Radio in style.

1. Find your Internet Radio Stations: Navigate through the iTunes Radio stations or find any M3U stations out there on the Internet.
   
   
2. Add them to the Library: Simply drag these radio stations to your iTunes Library. This will save the m3u file locally as an iTunes Track.
   
   
3. Organize: Finding these stations in FrontRow can be difficult, especially with larger libraries. Create a Smart Play list, based on 'Kind', and looking for 'MPEG audio stream.'. This will find all your Internet radio stations. Now in FrontRow you simply have to pull up the correct play list.
   

If your looking for some alternates to the iTunes list, I would recommend Mike's Radio World. It is probably the most extensive collection of internet radio links on the net. Look for the WinAmp stations for iTunes compatability.

In future releases of FrontRow, I hope Apple will add the Internet Radio Stations under the Music category in the next release, and adds it to AppleTV, for those going with that route.

UPDATE: Some readers have pointed out a few suggestion refining your Smart Playlist.

• Ed Kohler suggests setting Smart Playlist to find any track over 90 min. This may not be good for Movies, so filter that out accordingly.
• Rodzirra via Digg, suggests adding "Playlist URL" to your Smart Playlist as well.

Thanks! Additional input is always welcome!

Labels: FrontRow, Internet Radio, Tips and Tricks

New Mac Mini with Intel & FrontRow

February 28, 2006   0 Comments Apple released their next intel Macintosh today. The Mini. This thing screams to be placed in a Home Theater. The New Mini includes your standard assortment of Apple Apps. But this Mini also includes Front Row and an Apple Remote to control it. Other extras include a built-in Airport, Bluetooth, 4 USB 2.0 Ports, Firewire 400, and they deleted the modem (who uses dial up any more?).

Right now it appears that the graphics card will be on the motherboard and driven by the processor. This could be a problem if the processors can't keep up with video. I think the Dual Core 1.6GHz should be ample to feed 1080p HD Video, if my 800MHz can handle 480p. But tests will tell!

Labels: Event, FrontRow

FrontRow Tips: Update (already)

February 26, 2006   0 Comments A day after I publish my first tip sheet on FrontRow, I find out that Lostify is not the only GUI interface for AtomicParsley. In fact there are several for the Macintosh and Windows platform. Since we are dealing with FrontRow, I'm only going to review the OS-X Applications.

Here we go!

AtomicParsley
This application that started it all. It was almost a year ago when AtomicParsley first showed up. It has improved its tagging abilities and its opensource code has brought about many interfaces on both PC and Mac platforms. Now, AtomicParsley was not designed with a user interface and it strictly a command line tagging tool. So if you don't mind getting dirty in code its a great utility. Downsides is its non-exisiting batch capabilities and GUI. It is however the only utility to be able to overwrite the original document, so you don't have temp files everywhere and potential duplicates in iTunes.

ID Infiltr8
This application was designed on AtonicParsley's MP3 ID3 tagging abilities. Infiltrate' batch process is great if you want to change individual tags (like track number, song name, etc.) for multiple files. The downside is that you may have to enter common information (such as artist, album) for each. For this reason I would probably recommend iTunes for editing the ID tags, for the common tags. Lastly IDInfiltr8 is designed to work on OS-X 10.4+




vID Infiltr8
Brought to you from the fine makers of IDInfiltr8 comes vID Infiltr8 (the v stands for video). This tagger is the compliment to IDInfilitr8; concentrating on the tagging of video files. Once again this tagger allows for the batch editing of individual files. Common tags will be have to be entered manually, as it doesn't carry common tags from file to file. Another feature missing in other taggers is the artwork. Yes video can have artwork (even though FrontRow ignores it) This application is now my favorite when it comes to tagging files. Its easy to use and I like that I can skip between files, modify their tags, before the actually tagging process begins. This application is also designed for Mac OS X 10.4 +.




Lostify
My previous favorite tagger, is awesome. It gives you all the options available for a video file, including the artist and album fields which are important for Music Videos. The lock cell feature is perfect for carrying common data from one file to the other. The downside, while being able to do a batch of files and carry common data, Losity embeds the files one at a time, which can make tagging files a long process. The latest version of Losity 3.2 is up-to-date with the latest built of AtomicPasley, and it eliminated the Overwrite option which was flakey at best in previous version. Another advantage of Lostify is that it will work with Panther(OS-X 10.3.9) however FrontRow will not, so the advantage is trivial on a FrontRow Tips page.




Parsley Is Atomicly Delicious
The Best GUI interface goes to this application. The no-nonsense clean PAD is great for modifying individual video files. Selecting the video type bring up the relevant tags for that file, so your not inundated with fields. Streamline to only include present relevant tags, PAD's only drawbacks is its inability to do batches. The overwrite original option didn't work for me, but this seems to be a draw back for all the applications.

Labels: FrontRow, iTunes, Software, Tips and Tricks