Filed under: Bugs/Recalls, Mac mini, Snow Leopard
Front Row performance on the mini takes a dive with Snow Leopard
Here's an interesting feature of Snow Leopard that you may or may not (probably not) find particularly useful. Apparently after upgrading to 10.6 several users at the Apple Discussion Forums -- mostly owners of Mac mini or MacBook models with the GMA950 graphics subsystem -- are reporting poor performance with Front Row. The performance issue seems to effect navigation as well as playback, resulting in jerky video/audio in the menu and when watching a movie. This is also not limited to pesky DiVx files or QuickTime plug-ins either, as some users are reporting seeing the problem with iTunes purchases and others are even running a completely stock installation. Interestingly enough, some of the same users with Front Row issues are not seeing the same problems when playing back with QuickTime X.
In my opinion, this is not much of a surprise following such a major upgrade to many of the OS's underpinnings -- including an overhaul to QuickTime on which Front Row is largely based. This is the reason I did not upgrade the Mac mini in my living room. Aside from being a full-time webserver, I also rely on it for multimedia functionality as well.
Some folks with complaints have found solace in either Plex or Boxee as these fine media players do not rely on QuickTime or iTunes. For most though, a working Front Row would be ideal. Personally, I have not checked for problems with Front Row since my multimedia Mac hasn't been upgraded. However, I did note some wonkiness on another machine when using QuickLook to playback some video files through Finder. I have a sneaking suspicion there is something going on related to QuickTime X being used by other programs (i.e. FrontRow or QuickLook). What say you dear readers? Is your Front Row experience causing you grief or are you simply smirking because you haven't
Thanks to Ivey for sending this in via Twitter.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
burnhamd said 10:15AM on 9-01-2009
Front row has gotten very slow for my MacBook with intel gma 950. However iTunes playback is still running at the same speed. I tried both with a HD movie bought from iTunes.
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bob said 1:01PM on 9-01-2009
I have a mac pro with 8800gt and have noticed dropped frames and slightly choppy playback on HD in front row (only a bit) but i assume is also due to the new quicktime x 'engine' hopefully a .1 fix.
LD said 10:17AM on 9-01-2009
Good lord could you be more of an apologist? TUAW has lauded the ease of the upgrade and how everything just worked! Of course, most of the readers have had one issue or another. And now here you are stating you expect the upgrade to kill performance and somehow you had the clairvoyance not to upgrade your Mini? You somehow knew you should expect problems with your GMA Mac Mini as any major update will have problems, but you knew it wouldn't affect other machines?
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Aron Trimble said 10:39AM on 9-01-2009
My point was simply that I rely too much on my Mac mini for certain tasks that I am not willing to sacrifice any outage. It simply does not make sense to be FIRST to upgrade a machine that I have to have running a certain way. I follow this same bit of cautionary wisdom every time Software Update fires up informing me of new updates.
It is just not responsible computing to jump on the upgrade bandwagon as soon as possible and then expect their to be no problems.
LD said 10:41AM on 9-01-2009
But TUAW has told us there are no problems, that it was the smoothest upgrade EVAR!
Ryan Trevisol said 10:17AM on 9-01-2009
Well this is a blunder. Front Row to me always seemed to be tied to the Mac Mini-as-a-HTPC, because no other Mac would ostensibly be hooked up to your TV, and no other Mac would likely have a big enough screen to actually sub for a TV (Sure, a 30" Cinema Display COULD, but who'd have a Mac Pro NOT at a desk? )
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alex_dlc said 10:20AM on 9-01-2009
alright, im not installing snow leopard on my mini untill they fix it. thanx for the heads up
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Cybernetica said 10:21AM on 9-01-2009
I'm also experiencing poor Front Row DVD playback on my 2007 MacBook. I almost got seasick!. Playbay with DVD Player is working fine.
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Travis said 10:22AM on 9-01-2009
As an owner of a MacBook (and someone who is still waiting on his pre-order from Amazon, coincidence?) I am not concerned since I have not launched Front Row in nearly two years. Maybe I should get the wife to try and use it and then sell her on one of the new MacBook Pro's after she gets frustrated..... hmmmm.
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mentalsticks said 10:30AM on 9-01-2009
How would that help *you* to get your hands on a new MacBook Pro? Think, man!
Mystic said 10:28AM on 9-01-2009
This is exactly why I didn't update my MacMini. Why update when everything is working fine the way it is?
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mentalsticks said 10:31AM on 9-01-2009
Agreed. WP 4.2 never gives me any grief.
oakie said 10:32AM on 9-01-2009
to get new features.
shawndc said 10:31AM on 9-01-2009
Thanks for the Head's up! Boxee and Plex are great, but they don't beat the simplicity of Front Row for just watching a DVD or iTunes content.
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decycled said 10:42AM on 9-01-2009
TUAW staffers, please, let's not resort to being Apple apologists. Why would you expect performance hits? Apple claimed this release was all about performance!
An UPGRADE should be just that. So far I've not experienced any value in "upgrading" to Snow Leopard. It killed my HP multifunction printer (only 2 years old), as it's drivers are not supported. And Frontrow/Quicktime are suffering too? Ugh.
How is this an upgrade?
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ben said 10:47AM on 9-01-2009
It's not just FrontRow. I've seen benchmarks that show major regressions for graphics performance even on the new Macs. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=macosx_106_benchmarks&num=4
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Jared said 10:48AM on 9-01-2009
Strangely enough, I've found that iTunes is absolutely choking! I store all of my media on a network share, and iTunes has worked great with it. That is, until the Snow Kitty. I'm hoping 9/9/09 brings a new iTunes, and some smooth operation.
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Bloobie said 3:16PM on 9-01-2009
That's probably because iTunes is still a bloated, 32-bit, kitchen-sink approach to software. Do we really need that much space up top just for playback buttons and a status display? A UI slimming, ala Quicktime X player, in a 64-bit version would probably be helpful.
Patrick said 10:55AM on 9-01-2009
I can verify the problems with the Mac Mini. I upgraded my 1.5 Core Solo w/ 1 GB RAM and while the upgrade went just fine (a little slower than expected) Front Row is fairly choppy. All the video files play despite a 5+ second period where the screen is just black before it tries to play the file. That seems to happen with every file I try to watch.
I also have had a really strange issue with my 1st Gen 500GB Time Capsule where the Mac Mini mounts the drive yet keeps giving me an error (?) window asking me to fix the alias. I have to click on the drive a couple of separate times to be able to view the files/folders. I kind of fixed this issue by creating an Automator application to mount the Time Capsule via SMB instead of the standard AFP. I've set the app to run on login and it seems to work.
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TheGadgets.net said 11:05AM on 9-01-2009
Small bugs are usually seen when you have a major release.
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