Filed under: Software, Mac mini, Leopard, Apple TV
24 Hours of Leopard: Front Row
How it works: To tell the truth, I kind of liked the spinning icons of Front Row (and so did this kitten), but the Apple TV interface is nice, too. You can play all of your content (and even content streaming from other computers) straight through the interface, and obviously, DVDs, Podcasts, and Photos are all included in there as well. It's all built right in to every copy of Leopard, ready to operate from across the room with the still awesome Apple Remote.
Who will use it: Anyone watching movies or playing media from a distance on their Mac. And especially those of us planning on picking up a mini-- hook up a video out to the TV, and you've now got an Apple TV that does so, so much more.
Get a WordPress.com Blog
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
tv said 3:03PM on 10-26-2007
How does VIDEO_TS folders work? Is it indeed native in Front Row?
Reply
krasi said 3:22PM on 10-26-2007
Front Rows nice if you have an IR equipped Mac but if not you don't get Front Row which I think is still a bad move from Apple. Hacking it just to get it to work is a pain. I haven't tried 10.5 Front Row yet but I used to use Tiger's Front Row on my iMac G5.
Reply
Paolo said 3:27PM on 10-26-2007
I've been trying to find out if it will work on a secondary displa! I mean work on my iMac and leave fonrt row open on the TV? Since it has an icon and is treated like an app and all!!!
Reply
Duane said 3:25PM on 10-26-2007
To #1:
Yep, already tested it this morning. Just drop the entire VIDEO_TS folder in the "Movies" folder (even within another folder or folder structure), and you can navigate to it in Front Row, and play it.
Reply
Matt said 3:32PM on 10-26-2007
Is there a way to connect to an external hard drive that holds movies without doing the whole "Alias" thing which makes you have to click 3 times on a folder named "Movies"?
Also, it doesn't seem to remember where I left off in a movie like the old front row did (I can't resume, it just always starts from the beginning)...what's up with that???
Reply
Some Dude said 3:33PM on 10-26-2007
Hellooooo ?, Mac Pro users deserve Front Row too. I would even go for a very small IR sensor for the USB port on the front of the tower. Most of these sensors shipping now are way too big and ugly. Don't count on Apple to do anything about it, they don't give a rats $** about backwards compatibility.
Reply
Jimmie said 3:34PM on 10-26-2007
I can confirm that Front Row installs on non-IR Macs. I have it up and running on my Rev A Mac Mini G4, 1.42. Obviously the remote would be ideal, but the interface is still functional with keyboard controls. BTW, 10.5 is blazing quick on this G4 Mac, I'm impressed.
Reply
Andrew Escobar said 3:50PM on 10-26-2007
Mac Pro users and those without an Apple Remote can still use Front Row in Leopard:
Front Row 2.0: What’s New & What’s Changed
http://andrewescobar.com/archive/2007/10/26/front-row-2/
Reply
Konstantino said 3:43PM on 10-26-2007
Is the old Tiger Front Row transition still there?
Reply
tv said 3:43PM on 10-26-2007
@Duane
Thanks for that confirmation.
OS X Noob Alert!!!!!
Does it support Cover Art as well? This (alone) might get me to buy a second mac (mini), and then a Macbook..
Reply
Stack said 3:44PM on 10-26-2007
Although the spinning icons are missed, as well as the neat fade in effect, the new Front Row is very nice. I have it running on an Intel Mac Mini connected to a 1080p LCD.
The best part is that navigating the Movies folder doesn't take 1-2 minutes to start. I have two aliases in my ~/Movies folder. In Tiger's Front Row, I would get the spinning status indicator when accessing the Movies section.
Now with Leopard, it's instantaneous.
Also, since people have been hacking the Apple TV for a while, how long will it take for people to write plugins for FrontRow? I can do almost everything from FrontRow except launch games.
Reply
Jared said 3:44PM on 10-26-2007
Yeah, now we just need a way to get a USB IR receiver to let the Apple Remote communicate with the older G4s and all will be well. C'mon Apple. Do you expect me to put down another $700 for an IR sensor? *sheesh*
Reply
Zisho said 3:46PM on 10-26-2007
To #6:
I used Remote Buddy to add a remote to my Mac Pro: http://www.iospirit.com/remotebuddy/
It supports many IR and Bluetooth remotes. I use it with a Wiimote. And as it turned out today it works great with Leopard and the new Front Row, too :-)
Reply
G74 said 3:48PM on 10-26-2007
Does a non-hacked Apple TV support DVD VIDEO_TS folders the same way Front Row does?
Thanks for your reply
Reply
stephen said 4:02PM on 10-26-2007
how are tv shows and series organized in the new front row? they were organized by show and then season before, but in apple tv all episodes of a series are on one page with newest at the top. kind of annoying if you have a lot of tv shows.
Reply
magin said 4:04PM on 10-26-2007
The big question for me is, does Front Row sort music by artist name, or by the iTunes "sort by" names?
I'd have to have spent all that time updating my sort fields only to have Front Row completely ignore them.
Reply
eugene said 4:06PM on 10-26-2007
2 questions to people that have already tested it:
- Is there a way to make it run on the second monitor (TV)?
- Does it recognize video playlists from iTunes?
Reply
Radical Bender said 4:12PM on 10-26-2007
Have they finally fixed that problem where the TV shows were displayed in some random order instead of alphabetical order as God intended?
I don't know if that bug alone is worth the $100 upgrade, but it wears heavily on my mind.
Reply
brandon said 4:42PM on 10-26-2007
I am not too pleased with the new Front Row. First of all it doesn't play the music through iTunes so if you start something in iTunes then open Front Row the song stops and you have to start it again. This works the other way around as well. My MBP is my source of music, so if I'm studying and start a song in Front Row then 10 minutes later realize I need to look something up on the computer -- there goes the music. I have to go back to iTunes and start the music again.
I think the way front row handled music before (plays through itunes in the background) was much better.
So far this is my biggest complaint about Leopard. Other than that it is quite nice so far!
Reply
eyestosky said 4:44PM on 10-26-2007
Oh one more thing about FR is that the font is too small to read across the room on a computer screen. It would be terrible if I had bad eyesight.
Reply