TVTaggr for this hidden meta-tags

November 19, 2007   1 Comments
When Apple introduced TV shows management to iTunes last year, there have been several attempts to build a solid tagging application, to properly name and identify tv shows. Apple responded giving ups TV Show Name, Episode, Episode ID, and Season number, but other tags are still missing, but appear in iTunes purchased shows. Enter TvTaggr.

TVTaggr is a new Leopard based atom tagging application, based on Atomic Parsley. This little application allows you to make batch changes to mv4 and mp4 files within iTunes. The main advantage however is having access to the hidden and seemingly non-editable meta data. Description, Network Name, Release Date, Movie/TV Ratings are all available to be edited. You can also access the 'Short Film' movie type used for Pixar Shorts and other short films.

EntertainMac has covered other AtomicParsley based movie taggers before in the past. TVTaggr blows these out of the water, with some of the quickest tagging times we've seen. The application is also more stable, and easier to use, when tagging multiple files.

Its great to have a utility to tag the tv shows not purchase from iTunes, but with only a little of metadata displayed in iTunes/FrontRow its a little difficult for us to spend the time to fully tag all of our TV Shows.

Labels: Software, Tips and Tricks

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

Leopard Review: Screen Sharing

November 3, 2007   0 Comments
HTPC Media Management is tough if you don't utilize a blue tooth keyboard or mouse, and the Apple Remote can only go so far. In the past we suggested utilizing Chicken of the VNC, an free VNC tool, which set up properly gives you access to your HTPC from another system. With Leopards release with over 350 new features, Apple has provided an alternative to Chicken of the VNC, in Screen Sharing. The more popular new features been documented over and over again, while Screen Sharing has seemed to slip under the radar.

Since Tiger, the Apple Remote Desktop service was available through your Sharing Preferences. With a Password you were able to connect and control the system with a VNC Application such as Chicken of the VNC or Apple's Remote Desktop. The results were good, but there was a lot of room for improvement. Little things such as refresh rate, screen scaling and a right mouse click, made the VNC interface challenging. Chicken of the VNC was also a very old application, with the last update coming in January of 2004. But for being an open-source free application it was great! Apple Remote Desktop can run all sorts of reports, but was really designed for IT Systems Management.


Leopard's Screen Sharing addresses those issues, and integrates a light weight, viewer right into the operating system. The response time and screen's refresh rate are extremely smooth. I could easily perform a days work through the Screen Sharing window without any issues. A few shortcuts such as screen captures and expose will trigger your local machine. Additionally Screen Sharing is backward compatible with Tiger. If you have the Remote Desktop service running in Tiger, Leopard can control it with Screen Sharing. The best part is that its extremely easy to set up, needing only a few clicks.

How To in 2 Steps

• Enable Remote Desktop / Screen Sharing
  On your remote computer open your sharing preferences. In OS-X Tiger you will enable 'Apple Remote Desktop'. We added a password in the Access Privileges for extra safety. In Leopard you have two options, you can enable Screen Sharing or Remote Management. Remote Management is specifically designed to work with Apple's Remote Desktop, while Screen Sharing is the slimmer version.


• Connecting
  From the 'Shared' panel in an Open Finder window, select your HTPC. A 'Share Screen...' button will now be available under the Connect As button. This will open your remote system in a new window. This window can be scaled smaller to conserve desktop space.

Labels: Leopard, Tips and Tricks

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

Dupin Eliminates Duplicate Tracks

October 2, 2007   0 Comments
Doug's AppleScripts has a new method to eliminate those duplicate track from your iTunes Library. Dupin is the first of its kind an iTunes Duplicate Manager.

The 'Show Duplicates' goes as far as matching Artists and Track names, but that doesn't help, if your collection contains several studio and live albums. AppleScripts do their best, but collecting duplicated in play lists just makes more clutter.

Dupin works because you can locate duplicate tracks based on your criteria. Simply adding album name dramatically cut down on the number of false duplicates. You may take further steps by selected keeper tracks, and immediately purging duplicate tracks from iTunes. The application also works with multiple libraries and libraries on remote computers. And if none of this helps, you may preview each track to determine if it really is the same thing.

At $15 and 1.8MB Dupin is available for immediate download from Doug's Scripts.

Labels: Software, Tips and Tricks

AppleTV with External Drive - Solved.

July 29, 2007   0 Comments
Finally you're AppleTV has the option to utilize an external drive as its primary storage device. A few months ago AppleTVHacks and FatWallet offered a reward for the first person to create a patch to allow you utilize an external USB hard drive. It was apparent that in time, someone would achieve this goal, and that goal has not been achieved.

You can read the instructions on how to apply the patch over at AppleTVHacks. You will need to enable SSH, copy of Intel extension folder and a unmodified mach_kernel.prelink file from your AppleTV.

Labels: AppleTV, Tips and Tricks

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

AppleTV OS for any Mac

0 Comments
As most of us predicted, AppleTV runs a stripped down version of OS-X. Someone ingeniously created a disk image of this operating system, which means you can drop it on your MacMini, MacBook, MacPro, iMac or whatever you'd like. I'd have to assume its Intel only, but whats to stop you G4 guys from trying... right?.

Messing around with the OS just became a lot easier, such as installing XviD container folders and the what not.

Want to give it a shot? Well the OS has appeared on several torrent sites and available through a link here. Unfortunately, nobody has gotten the AppleTV to boot successfully within a mac. But iWould assume its just a matter of time.

Labels: AppleTV, Tips and Tricks

AppleTV Hacks

March 23, 2007   0 Comments Playing XviD Files:
AppleTV has hit the streets and has been officially hacked. Apparently, the standard MPEG4 and H.264 movies weren't enough. An ingenious enthusiasts has been able to get XviD formated video to play on their AppleTV.

The mod wasn't as straight forward as many would like, but takes the shape of a hack you would perform to a Tivo. The AppleTV harddrive was removed and mounted, and then Dropbear was installed. The SSH server application along with Perian and a little script.

120GB Upgrade!
Another genius hacker was able to utilize SuperDuper to clone his AppleTV drive over to a larger 120GB drive. There really could of gone a lot higher too! I must admit this was one of the main reasons I didn't want an AppleTV. But now... perhaps?






Looking forward to more hacks to come out. You know they are coming...

Labels: AppleTV, Tips and Tricks

EyeTV Theme: EyesFront

March 1, 2007   0 Comments Most EyeTV users were not pleased with ElGato's switch to the Blue background in EyeTV 2.3.1. But they offered a solution to those willing to modify the contents of the EyeTv Application. So after some messing around with QuartzComposer and Image Editing a theme has been created called "EyesFront". Its hosted on RapidShare for your downloading pleasure.

The Blue Background animation was replaced with a black to grey gradiant. Other graphics were converted to grey scale and replaced. To get the neat FrontRow highlight bar, you have to borrow the graphics from FrontRow, rename then and insert them in EyeTV. (Instructions are provided)



EntertainMac has tested it on 2.3.2 & 2.3.3, but never checked it out on older versions. Install at your own risk and always back-up your application before trying anything.

The Header colors throughout the menus still needs to be changed. There are also some blue areas which appear behind the channel info and volume. If someone has some more experience with that it would be great to add.

Labels: EyeTV, Software, 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

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

iTunes Script Fun...

January 16, 2007   6 Comments
Managing your iTunes tracks can be truely frustrating. While changing a group of track to the same genre is easy in iTunes, changing multiple files to the same Video Type take forever. What about the various times you've moved your library, or accidentally deleted a file through the finder, and now you have a missing track. How do you hunt all of those down?

Enter Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes. This intensive collection of iTunes specific AppleScripts is a great resouces for organizing and taming your iTunes Library. Here are some of the most popular scripts according to the site:

• Make Bookmarkable: Change file type to make selected AACs bookmarkable files!
• Find Album Artwork with Google: iTunes has quite the collection of CD Art, but they don't have it all. Try this Google Search for the rest of your tracks missing artwork.
• Super Remove Dead Tracks: Remove missing (!) tracks from entire Library. This includes the hiding, deleted and ghosts of tracks that are MIA.
• Import iPod Audio Files: Simply grab those tracks off your iPod and suck them back into your local library.
• Corral iTunes Dupes: Collect duplicate iTunes tracks into a discrete playlist--fast!
• Join Together: Join selected tracks' files as one; optionally create an enhanced AAC audio file with chapter pointers.
• CDDB Safari Kit: Search for info and get track names from CDDB web site using Safari
• Remove Duplicate Tracks From Playlist: Removes duplicate tracks from the selected playlist.
• Google Lyric Search: Search for lyric sites with Google using info from the current or selected track.

Labels: iTunes, Tips and Tricks

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