Apple and Clear Channel communications are coming together to introduce digital tagging for digital radio manufacturers. The hope is that by tagging the individual songs played over HD radio, listeners will purchase the music later through the iTunes store.

The concept is quite brilliant, and somewhat similar to what Apple is already doing with Starbucks. After purchasing a HD Radio capable of picking up these tagged songs, the listener can press a button to save the song information. Later when you sync your ipod, these songs will appear in your iTunes shopping cart so you may purchase them. It still unclear how the information gets from your radio to your ipod, unless its an OEM stereo designed to work with the iPod.

This concept will allow radio manufacturers and radio stations a fighting chance to compete with the growing MP3 player market. The broadcasters, would also see a percentage of the songs sold through this method.

It would be great if they could extend this method to Internet Radio stations as well. With the way that they have been struggling in the last years, it might give them a fighting chance as well.

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.

Rogue Amoeba has introduce an interesting new application that we took special interest in. Radioshift is a AM/FM/Internet controller for your Mac. Their extensive online guide has over 50,000 radio stations which is fully-searchable. An innovative map feature allows you to search by country or city. With Internet Radio always under constant attack, its great to find a simple application that allows listeners to connect to thousands of stations immediately.

Subscribe to a radio station and Radioshift will record your programs automatically, for later playback, or pass the tracks off to iTunes for safe keeping or transfer to your AppleTV or iPod. Subscribe to your favorite programs just like you would for a pod-cast, except Radioshift knows to turn on and record according to your schedule! Additionally being compatible with RealAudio, Windows Media, QuickTime and MP3 streams you don't need to mess around with 4 separate applications. If you have a Radioshark, AM/FM channels become available through Radioshift as well.



A full-functional demo of Radioshift is available for download from Rogue Amoeba's website (Audio quality is degraded after 20 minutes). Or you can elect to unlock the full version for $32 USD from their online store.

We will be keeping a close eye on Radioshift, for future updates.

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...

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.

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!