Front Row on any Mac

[mollipen]

Notes about my experience below.

STEP 1.
Download JacksonBrown's patched Front Row STW.

rapidshare.de/files/6669514/Front_Row__k_.zip.html

His brilliant patching work makes Front Row run under 10.4.2 without having the iMac's remote present.
There are three files inside this .ZIP
- Readme.txt you may now ignore, as it is out of date.
- Front Row.app copy to the Applications folder
- BezelServices.framework copy to /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/
At this point you will need to reboot your computer.


STEP 2.
Open Script Editor.app (located in Applications/AppleScript) and paste in the following code.

tell application "System Events"
tell application "Front Row" to activate
key code 53 using {command down}
end tell

Once you have done this, save it as an application named openfrontrow.app in your applications folder.


STEP 3.
Now go to macupdate and download the program named Xkeys. It is freeware.
Once you have the file downloaded, install it and then open it up. Inside the program, configure your F8 key to run your openfrontrow.app file you created in STEP2.


STEP 4.
Now go into System Preferences. In the Accounts preference tab set up front row.app (the one you downloaded, NOT to be confused with openfrontrow.app that you created in STEP2) to be a login item.


STEP 5.
Reboot your computer. When it turns back on, press the F8 key and hopefully you will be experiencing Front Row! Pressing F8 again (or a lot of other keys on the keyboard) will close Front Row.
Let me know if it works!


*END*

First time I tried to bring it up, nothing. Second time... woohoo! From that time on, works like a charm. Apple really, really should have known that everybody was going to want to play around with this, especially Mac Mini owners.

Overall, everything works great, save two problems. First is the DVD problem mentioned below. Second is that the remote's Menu button currently has no (known) equivalent on the keyboard. I've read about some people having Front Row run slow on their machines, but I'm on a 2GHz iMac G5 with 1GB of RAM, so I've got an advantage being in the upper tier of machines.

DVD
Doesn't work, at all. DVD Player must need an updated version or something to get things to click. For now, though, if you set DVD Player to play DVDs automatically when inserted, play in fullscreen by default, and to stay fullscreen when inactive, you can use DVD Player to get around this.

Photos
As with all sections, the first time you select something, it takes a while to sync up with what is in that folder / album / whatever. Transition between photos seems abrupt, and I haven't checked yet if slideshot settings for an album translate over to Front Row. Otherwise, works fine.

Music
Works just fine. One thing that you have to get used to at first is that music keeps playing, ever after you leave the Front Row interface.

Movies
Works just fine. Front Row will pick up on all of your movies in your home Movie folder, displaying they in their proper folders, which is nice. Plays anything QuickTime Player can play, so make sure you have all of the latest codecs - which you should have anyhow. No subtitle support, of course, which sucks for folks like me with a lot of Asian stuff. VOBs play as expected if you have the MPEG2 component, meaning video but no audio. I doubt Apple will give support to playing DVDs dumped to a hard drive, but man one can wish. Movie trailers also worked just fine.

[Revoltor]

I saw this on Digg last night. Apparently you can use your bluetooth cellphone as a remote.

I'll wait for something more official. Then again, I'd never use it for DVDs as the slotdrives are prone to scratching discs.

[Wildkat]

I have been messing with HTPCs for a while now, and though it was fun and all, and its cool there is a Mac option out there..

I have come to the rationalization, that there is no need at all to use anything but a modded xbox and XBMC. Its quiet, cheap, compact, has excellent tv output, and works damn well.


Plus your screwing Microsoft in the process.

[mollipen]

I have come to the rationalization, that there is no need at all to use anything but a modded xbox and XBMC. Its quiet, cheap, compact, has excellent tv output, and works damn well.

* Not easy to mod into a media center by your average person
* Not easy to expand HD storage by your average person
* Subtitle support is iffy, at least from my experience on my friend's machine.
* No H.264 support that I know of, and isn't powerful enough to support HD H.264.
* No support for online video stores like iTMS.
* No support for recording video straight to the Xbox (that I know of)

Modded Xbox is a great solution, but not an end-all solution.

[Wildkat]

* Not easy to mod into a media center by your average person
* Not easy to expand HD storage by your average person
* Subtitle support is iffy, at least from my experience on my friend's machine.
* No H.264 support that I know of, and isn't powerful enough to support HD H.264.
* No support for online video stores like iTMS.
* No support for recording video straight to the Xbox (that I know of)

Modded Xbox is a great solution, but not an end-all solution.

1) After playing with server HTPC front ends, Im sure the mac setup is easier, but if a person can't handle softmodding an xbox, they likely wont know what an HTPC is in the first place.

2) No need. Share your media on your PC/Mac across your network, no need to even unscrew the case to the xbox.

3) Granted, but Im am sure it is being worked on, new versions of XBMC are out like 3 times a month.

4) http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bi...ST;f=8;t=13786 Its doable, new, but still evolving. HD will be a stretch, but its not exactly a common format.

5) Much, much wider selection of stuff on bitorrent anyways, and in higher res formats than the 480x276 (seems to be an lot of opnion of what the res actualy is, some say as low as 320x240) of iTunes video.. Many TV shows are captured from HDTV sources as well so you get the letterboxed versions instead of 4x3 Cropped ones.

6) No, but anything that is shared can be viewed by the xbox, record to PC, share, play on XBMC.

For example, I can take stuff from my Dish Network PVR in raw MPEG2-DVB (544x480) rip it to my PC, stick it on a shared drive and play the stuff back via XBMC. It would be cool if the Xbox could record video, but id have that Digital to Analog back to digital conversion I don't want messing up my video.

It isnt an end all, like you said, but its so easy and cheap to set up, and so well suited for on-TV use unlike most PCs, its the best solution for most of us.

[kedawa]

I have no trouble watching movies, listening to music, etc. on my mac as it is, so I see no reason to use front row at all.

I still don't get the whole HTPC interface thing, since it really isn't that much simpler than just using the standard interface.

Besides, I'd rather use wireless trackball than a remote any day.

[mollipen]

I have no trouble watching movies, listening to music, etc. on my mac as it is, so I see no reason to use front row at all.

I still don't get the whole HTPC interface thing, since it really isn't that much simpler than just using the standard interface.

At this point, having it stuck on an iMac, it is pointless. The point comes in when you toss it onto a Mac Mini, or some secret new piece of Apple hardware, and put that machine in your living room.

1) After playing with server HTPC front ends, Im sure the mac setup is easier, but if a person can't handle softmodding an xbox, they likely wont know what an HTPC is in the first place.

That's a BS response. How many people out there know what a VCR is, but have no clue how to program one? A lot.

2) No need. Share your media on your PC/Mac across your network, no need to even unscrew the case to the xbox.

What about for those of us who don't want to have it tethered to a separate PC? What about people who might not even have a PC? I'd rather have all of my media directly on the Xbox, that way where it goes, the media goes.

3) Granted, but Im am sure it is being worked on, new versions of XBMC are out like 3 times a month.

I wouldn't be surprised if the subtitle issue is worked out by this point. At least, I would hope to God it is.

4) http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bi...ST;f=8;t=13786 Its doable, new, but still evolving. HD will be a stretch, but its not exactly a common format.

Uhm, HD is going to quickly become a common format, especially as more and more people buy HDTVs and see how crap current media looks on it. For example, I'm big into Japanese music videos, and now that I've been encoding them direct from DVD in 720x480 H.264, there's no way I want to go back to the "common" 320x240 MPEG1 format that people released them in most of the time. Be it H.264, new, better flavors of Divx, or whatever, I'm not sure the Xbox's processor is up to the task.

5) Much, much wider selection of stuff on bitorrent anyways, and in higher res formats than the 480x276 (seems to be an lot of opnion of what the res actualy is, some say as low as 320x240) of iTunes video.. Many TV shows are captured from HDTV sources as well so you get the letterboxed versions instead of 4x3 Cropped ones.

Being on BitTorrent doesn't make it right. I'm not saying I don't get stuff from there, but I would like the option of which route to go. And getting beyond us here on TNL, and into the more general community, average people don't know or use BitTorrent. They do know stuff like the iTMS.

6) No, but anything that is shared can be viewed by the xbox, record to PC, share, play on XBMC.

Again, you're required to have two machines doing the job of one. That's why I'm not impressed with the Xbox 360's media abilities - I don't WANT to have the machine, and then another machine to do the things the first machine should be doing. My cable connection would be in my living room, where my media machine would be. Under this plan, I'd either have to put the second machine also in the living room, or string a line from the cable input to where my machine is if there isn't a cable input there, not to mention the cable connecting the two machines. That's great if you're living in an apartment by yourself and you don't give a shit about how your place looks, but some people do.

Don't take this as just me trying to argue with you, or knocking the Xbox for what it can do, because I'm really impressed with what it can do. It isn't a great solution, though. The Microsoft way - either the company directly, or the typical user - is to say "have a server machine and a receiver machine," and I'm saying that some of us think that's a crap solution. I shouldn't have to go back to my computer to do things I want the TV to do. If you have a set-up where I can wirelessly stream content from my PC, ADDITIONAL content beyond the main stuff I already have on my media center box, that's fine. I'd prefer not to junk up my computer with content meant for my TV, though, and I don't want wires running everywhere.

Also, don't get me wrong about Apple's Front Row - it's horribly under-powered, and comes of as a bit of a joke when compared to things like the media center solutions for Xbox or whatnot.

[Eirikur]

I'm all over this. Considering my cell phone can be used a remote, it's even better. This will be great for when I plug in my PB to my new HD TV

[Sl1p]

I totally want to do this but I'm still too much of a Mac noob to try it.

My Mac Mini cries for it. Well, at least it will once I finally get a Mini Mate.

[Wildkat]

I still don't get the whole HTPC interface thing, since it really isn't that much simpler than just using the standard interface.

Its so you can jump on your couch and easily surf through your media collection via remote. Or you wife/girlfriend can. Its a lot nicer to watch video on you TV than sitting at a desk.

That's a BS response. How many people out there know what a VCR is, but have no clue how to program one? A lot.

Not really... People are tremendously more savy about these things now as opposed to say, 1984 where everything on a vcr had to be done with tiny buttons and using the VFD screen on the front of the VCR. Someone who would want all these files in the living room is going to be a tad bit more knowledgable.

What about for those of us who don't want to have it tethered to a separate PC? What about people who might not even have a PC? I'd rather have all of my media directly on the Xbox, that way where it goes, the media goes.

Yes, then you can add a bigger HD. its just an option if anyone is scared to open the box up...

Uhm, HD is going to quickly become a common format, especially as more and more people buy HDTVs and see how crap current media looks on it. For example, I'

Well, I meant HD .264 being uncommon. I see more DIvxHD stuff around. Maybe perhaps after blu-ray or HDDVD finaly ships it will become commonplace. Divx at 720x480 looks damn good regardless.

Don't take this as just me trying to argue with you, or knocking the Xbox for what it can do, because I'm really impressed with what it can do.

Not at all. Just kicking in my .02 this is a dicussion board after all.

Im wondering, do most macs have S-Vid out on them? Is it easy to get a TV displayable signal out of them? PCs seem to be hit or miss, a lot of Tv-Out cards downright suck.