walkah: front row

I was just in the midst of a Sunday morning podcast & RSS catchup stint, when I caught Episode #131 of commandN where Jeff was outlining some Front Row tips and tricks. It reminded me that I came across a great one recently that I thought I'd share.

As Jeff mentioned, Perian is a great (indispensible) tool to allow QuickTime to play non-QT file formats (particularly AVI/DivX). And, while it's true that Front Row will then play any AVI files in your Movies folder, I've long wanted to go one step further - specifically for TV Shows. See, iTunes will keep TV Shows separately and mark ones that are "unwatched", etc.

Enter Movie2iTunes. This droplet allows you to simply drop Movie & TV Shows on it and it will add them to iTunes. In fact, if your TV Show files use the given file naming convention, the TV Show metadata (show name, season, episode) will be completed correctly as well. The script works by creating a QuickTime media link to the original video - which has the nice benefit of having all your movies and TV shows in iTunes (hence front row) but they can still reside on, say, an external HD. I love it!

it's official!

hrm. i may well be moving my mini to the living room. thanks, apple.

update: i jumped the gun a bit. you need to install it using instructions that can be found here. oh well. we're getting closer.

according to mac rumors:

The update appears to only offer stability improvements and no major new features. The newest update reportedly includes checks to make sure that the user is running on the iMac G5, which is presently the only supported configuration. Front Row is only available by purchasing the new iMac G5 with built in iSight.

i'm not sure i understand apple's whole idea behind this. why cripple it on non iMacs? there is clearly a market for this on other systems (i'm not the only one with a mac mini dying for front row).

anyone have any more information about the new version on non imacs?

i was too busy to blog it last week, but the most interesting thing for me from last week's big apple media event was not the video ipod, itunes 6 (now with more video), or the new imac (with built-in isight). I think the coolest announcement was front row - apple's "10ft interface" including the adorable little shuffle-like remote. now *this* is exactly the kind of thing i want from apple. I want to stick my mac mini in my living room, and have an interface to play all my songs through itunes, watch movies (downloaded or otherwise), and maybe even do the odd photo slideshow for guests (or not). I've long thought about building a mythtv box for the purpose but the main limiting factor (aside from the boring old lack of time and money) is aesthetics. anything that goes in the living room has to be "wife approved" - i.e. it needs to not be a big, ugly beige box (with associated fan noise), and it needs to have a simple, elegant interface so that I'm not required to work it. front row sure looks like it fits the bill.

but WAIT! front row is apparently *only* available with a new iMac. WHAT?? that doesn't make any sense. As far as I can tell, the remote is bluetooth (which my mini supports) and the software is just software, no? Dear apple, I'd buy this today if I saw it on apple.com!

it appears i'm not the only one who thinks so. in fact, there's even an online petition - which i signed. please tell me there is a good reason for this besides pushing imac sales?

UPDATE: apparently, according to this page the remote, while available is IR *not* Bluetooth. *sigh*