Front Row behaviour changed

Hi.
I am using my mac mini as a media station and to watch TV a lot. To bring Front Row and eyetv together, I used this tip of elgato: http://forums.elgato.com/viewtopic.php?f=96&t=1360
Despite the performance issues of Front Row (http://www.tuaw.com/2009/09/01/front-row-performance-takes-a-dive-with-newest-ki tty/) the configuration of Front Row changed after the Snow Leopard Update.
It is not possible to access Front Row with a long press of the menu button from eyetv anymore. Does anybody know how to get back the default behaviour of the eyetv tip?

Hey,
as someone earlier said it seems to be an issue with the screen saver.
However i didn´t have to turn mine off alltogether. If you go to the settings pane in Front Row and turn the screen saver off it is just inactive when Front Row is enabled. Why would you want a screen saver then anyways?
This fixed the problem for me.

Similar Messages

Front Row 2 - Why a standalone application?

Perhaps this thread can consolidate some of the various other complaints against Front Row 2 that seem to stem from the same issue that I, at least, perceive as being a big part of the problem: that FR2 is a standalone application in Leopard rather than a front-end interface for media-handling applications in the background, as it was in Tiger.
So I'm just curious and would like to hear from those who may be more "in the know" why Apple made this move? Why is Front Row "better" as a standalone application? When in Front Row in Tiger, if you watched a movie, QuickTime would be handling it in the background. If you listened to music, it was iTunes that was handling it. If you watched a slideshow, iPhoto was responsible. If you were watching a DVD, DVD Player was doing the work. In Leopard, however, Front Row handles all these media files/types by itself, and I've only seen that as a negative so far.
For example: in Tiger, a custom slideshow I had created in iPhoto would be displayed exactly as I had specified (including custom timings, photo framing, etc.) when viewing that slideshow in Front Row. In Leopard, not all those settings are carried over and the slideshow doesn't display as I've set it up (although it continues to display perfectly in iPhoto). In Tiger, all my album artwork in iTunes was displayed correctly in Front Row. In Leopard, the artwork of several albums will not display even though the album art is visible in iTunes (and via CoverFlow and QuickLook in Finder). And, of course, there's the issue that many report that music playing in FR2 will stop if FR2 is exited, or even when you just exit the music section of FR2. Why the disconnect? By having Front Row be a standalone application, it just opens the door for issues where the files/media isn't being correctly handed over from its proper application to what we see in Front Row.
While I do mostly love the new interface of Front Row (although I miss the desktop fading into the background effect upon launch of FR2), I've seen it take a pretty significant performance hit. Some HD movie trailers that played flawlessly in Front Row on Tiger are sluggish and choppy on FR2 on the same hardware. These same trailers play just fine by themselves in QuickTime, however. Tiger's Front Row properly showed previews for all my slideshows and movies almost instantly, while FR2 takes quite awhile to create previews for everything - and isn't able to create previews at all for some files (Apple's own HD movie trailers, for example).
Since FR2 is trying to handle all the media and filetypes by itself, rather than handing off the tasks to the proper applications in the background that can handle them more efficiently, it seems to become a bloated system hog. After spending about 15 minutes in FR2 going through various media, I noticed it seemed to slow down more and more. I exited to check Activity Monitor, and even though Front Row wasn't even running anymore, it was using almost 1GB of RAM. Evidently, all those previews it has to create (starting over each time you get into FR2, I might add) really start to take a toll over time with heavy use. For someone with a HTPC-Mac who wasn't accustomed to ever having to exit Front Row in Tiger - much less actually restart the machine because of it - it seems like a horrible step backwards.
So again, I'm hoping someone can offer some insights into why Front Row was changed to a standalone application instead of being further enhanced as a front-end UI for the proper media applications running in the background. I understand why they wanted to change the interface to be AppleTV-like, but I don't understand the loss of features and the backwards step in performance.

That's a benefit to the PPC users, of course, but I can't imagine that was a major influence on Apple's decision to do it. Would they really remove features and hinder overall performance just to cater to old hardware? That doesn't seem very Apple-like. Nor does it make much sense to handicap Front Row for everyone who does have a capable Intel Mac just so others can run it on old PPC machines (which likely can't get the best performance out of Front Row anyway, given the way it gobbles up system resources by bearing the burden of dealing with so many forms of media/files by itself all at once).
Maybe the bigger picture - which is harder to see now only a few days after the launch of Leopard - involves better long-term development of Front Row features that will be easier to implement with it being a standalone application rather than a front-end UI. So while it will be great when/if the performance is improved and new features are added, it's little consolation to those who upgraded to Leopard (and I do love most of the rest of 10.5, really) but think we took a major step back with Front Row.
Front Row isn't a big deal to those who use it infrequently, but for those who were somewhat dependent on it as a vital component of HTPC, these "little" issues add up and are pretty frustrating.

Is there any way to change the screen resolution in Front Row?

Hi all,
I've got a Mac Mini plugged in to my TV, and I want to be able to change the screen resolution depending on the content I'm watching (as some content is in 4:3 aspect ratio, some is in 16:9, and I'd prefer to have the picture filling the screen completely). Unfortunately, the TV doesn't have a "stretch" mode for making an 4:3 picture fit a 16:9 aspect ratio. If I know what I want to watch in advance, I can set the resolution accordingly using system prefs on the mac, but if I'm just sitting back choosing what to watch with the Apple Remote, it's annoying to have to leave front row, walk over to the computer and change resolution once I've decided what to watch, open system prefs, change resolution, re-launch Front Row and find what I wanted to watch again.
So I was wondering if anyone had figured a way to allow the screen resolution to be switched from within the FrontRow UI. I've seen that people have written python based plug-ins such as PyeTV and Understudy that allow different types of content to be added to FrontRow, but I've not found any utility plug-ins such as what I'm looking for on the net (nor could I find SDK documentation on this API in the stuff that comes with XCode).
I guess the other approach might be quick keys: has anyone had any success hooking up quick keys macros alongside front row in response to apple remote events? (seems too few events to be able to choose from, but I've never tried it, so I won't assume!) Or how about is there a way to trigger an AppleScript from within Front Row? And, of course, I'm very open to any other ideas you might have!
Thanks very much in advance for any ideas on this.
Andy
Message was edited by: Andy__D

Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), set a good rez there.

Setting slide show music in iPhoto doesn't change slide music in Front Row

When I try and view slide shows in Front Row, I always get the same classical music.
I have searched the internet and most suggestions tell you to change the settings in iPhoto and this will be mirrored in Front Row - but this isnt working?
Does anyone have a simple way of changing the Front Row slide show settings?
Thanks

MidwestPaul :
Welcome to the Apple Discussions. You might try exporting to Quicktime and then add the resulting QT movie to iDVD and see if the timing remains intact.
Are you using the KB effect or multiple transitions in the slideshow? If not I find that I get better quality slideshows by building them in iDVD from the stills. That way I can add titles and/or comments to each slide if so desired, get the music to sync as it should (I like to add a blank, black slide a the end so the music ends in that slide). Downside: no KB effect and only one transition. Upside, better forward and backward control of the slideshow, better quality of the slides and all slides can be scaled to the TV Safe area so none of the image is lost to the TV Over-scan.

Changing Front Row settings

Does anyone know if it is possible to change the dissolve settings for slide changes in Front Row, similar to what you can in iPhoto?
It seems odd that you have to watch 'moving' still pictures if you don't wish to!

Welcome to the Apple Discussions!
Yes, it's possible to change the general settings. Open iPhoto and select the entire library. Press the "play" button and configure the slideshow settings there. Where the "play" button appears depends on which version of iPhoto you're using. These settings will stick if you choose a roll or event through the "Photos" section inside the "Photos" module of Front Row. If you've created individual albums, the albums will have to be configured individually with the same settings.
-Doug

Changing Front Row font size

Any way to change the font size in Front Row? Or prevent it from displaying file extensions?

Unfortunately, I think the font size is built-in to Front Row. Since there's no "preferences" to access, you won't be able to change it.
This previous topic might help you with the second question:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3682375
-Doug

Change Front Row player

Has anybody changed Front Row to use a player OTHER than Quicktime ?
DjoPlayer for example ?
Any help in doing this will be appreciated.
Thank you.
MBP 2.0 Mac OS 10.4.5 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

This will work.
http://www.popwire.com/productinfo.php?cPath=1&productsid=7
Its a universal binary wmv palyer. Codec is free. Prog is 49.95.

Change default Remote settings to open a different app than Front Row?

Hello!
Forgive me if this is not the right board for this post, but I'm not sure where it should go exactly - this seemed best.
I have a fairly new MacBook Pro running Leopard, a rather large video library on an external drive, and a 24" display attached. I've been using Front Row to view these files, but have run into several file types that play back perfectly fine in Quicktime, but not Front Row (such as MKVs...), even with Perian. I discovered a solution however - Plex - which is what amounts to a much more feature rich, third-party version of Front Row. After some use, I've discovered that for my setup, it's a much better way to view things. It's still a beta, but it works fine on my system.
What I'd love to do, however, is to reconfigure the included Apple Remote so that when I press the menu button, it opens Plex instead of Front Row. Is this possible? Apple certainly doesn't seem to have included an easy way of this.
Thanks,
-Dan

This little piece of software will do what you want:
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/22279/mira
I use it just to enable my older mini to use an Apple Remote and it works well.

Some TV Shows appearing under Movies within Front Row

I've started experiencing this particular behaviour since installing the recent updates (10.6.1 & iTunes 9). Within iTunes, I've checked the 'media kind' and it is set correctly.
All the content was purchased from iTunes. I'd be grateful for any advice.
Thanks,
Andy.

The problem happened again to me - I was fiddling with my music videos (some 664) and did a mass tidy up - selected all and then checked the box to make sure they weren't skipped or resumed half way through. Also ticked the box that they were music video.
Back in Front Row suddenly all my movies were swamped with hundreds of music videos. And they were clearly marked as "music video" when displayed in Front Row Movies.
I did the following: selected all the music videos, changed the type to TV shows, exited iTunes. Checked in FR - all gone from Movies. Back into iTunes and then changed them all back to Music Video. Exited iTunes. Checked FR - still gone!
So maybe try changing them to something else (music video or movie in your case?) and then back again - make sure you exit iTunes after though (maybe it commits changes to the iTunes database or something ... ?).

Three front row gripes

While the new front certainly is sexy and smooth (no more several seconds transitions between menu alternatives), I've three annoyances to which I've managed to find no solution. Perhaps you fellas, the very heart and brain of the Apple fanbase, can help me out, or at least explain to me why these very important features have been removed or changed.
1. No resume function in movies: While watching iTunes music videos give me the option to resume the video from where I left off before, watching anything in my movies folder does not. This is incredibly confounding, if Apple configured the new front row to work in this way. Why would I want the option to resume watching a music video from where I left off, but not a movie?
2. The fast forward/rewind behaviour: is just terrible. The single click-and-hold forwards/rewinds far too slowly for most rewinding needs, the click-and-hold-and-click-again seems bugged (while the forward/rewind bar shows the movie position moving, the actual picture and the actual position in the movie only changes every half minute of rewinded/forwarded time, or so), and the click-and-hold-and-click twice and the single click (to jump) are both only useable for quickly skipping ahead for several minutes or more.
3. No moving previews: Not much to say besides the obvious. Whatever happened to moving previews?
So, if anyone knows of any solutions for any of these problems, I'll be a happy frontrower. If no solutions exist, then it would be interesting to know the rationale behind these implementations.

I second your gripes, but without your restraint; Front Row is a freakin' mess!
Okay, this really isn't an answer because only Apple can tell us why they all got stoopid and screwed up a perfectly lovely piece of software (I suspect it has something to do with the fact that FR now looks and acts suspiciously like the Apple TV interface and they probably use similar code so the programmers only update one code set).
However, it is important that we tell Apple, so: http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html
You should just send them your thoughtful and very well written post.
In the meantime, I have stumbled upon another thread that suggests replacing Front Row version 2 with Front Row version 1.3.1. Now, let me be clear: I HAVEN'T TRIED IT YET, but it looks like it might be worth a try.
Here's the thread: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1251292&tstart=0
Super important: Before you do this, read the ENTIRE thread through and practice safe computer hacking. Locate the Front Row 2 app in System>Library>Core Services and copy it to a safe place (desktop always seems a good place) before you try replacing it with version 1.3.1. That way, if the hack doesn't work, you can put version 2 back and restart.
If you're not the hacking type, which I admit can be scary, please send Apple your feedback. If enough of us suggest the changes, they might fix it. It worked with the semi-transparent menu bar, which, now that I've seen it, I wonder what all the fuss was about.

Front Row dis-integration

Front Row in Tiger was integrated and linked to iTunes - if iTunes was not open, it would take a while to browse your music / videos while iTunes opened.
Front Row in Leopard is not integrated or linked to iTunes in this manner.
Whilst this does seem to have performance and speed improvements when browsing the library, now, with it not being integrated into iTunes any more also displays a very irritating behaviour: If you are listening to music on iTunes you used to be able to open Front Row and browse the music collection and change the song / album etc. without the music stopping. Likewise you could open Front Row, chose some music and then exit Front Row without the music stopping.
In my working context this was very useful - I could use my Apple Remote to navigate my music from across the room then return to my dashboard screen with my clock on.
Now, I can't do that - as soon as I open Front Row, my song stops and if I start a song in Front Row, then navigate out of Front Row again, the music stops.
I'm a bit disappointed about this, is there any way I can get the link between Front Row and iTunes back?

I'm a bit disappointed about this, is there any way I can get the link between Front Row and iTunes back?
Not without hacking the Tiger version of Front Row into your Leopard computer. Even then, quite a few parts of Front Row will no longer work. If all you want to do is play your music, you'd probably be fine. But, if you want to watch videos or DVDs you'll be out of luck.
Personally, I don't really understand this problem. Why not just open iTunes if all you want to do is play music from iTunes? If you asked me, it was much more of a hassle going through all the steps to open Front Row, choose "Music" and browse through all of the Music options to just play a song. When I want to play music, I just open iTunes and play music and it continues to play music even if I move to another application. I realize that other people have other "workflows" for getting things done, and I apologize for not being sympathetic to your issue, but if all you want to do is play music with iTunes you should just open iTunes.
-Doug

How can I move Front Row to a different display?

I love using Front Row with my MacBook, but I'd love it even more if I could move Front Row from my main display on my laptop onto my second display--a TV screen. I own a Apple mini-DVI to RCA & S-video adapter, and I use this to connect to my TV screen. Obviously, I can get Front Row on my TV screen by turning on Mirror Displays or setting the TV screen as my main screen (dragging the menu bar icon to the second display in the Displays system preference), but both these methods require me to sacrifice use of my desktop on my laptop while I use Front Row.
Simply put, can I possibly (even sneakily) move Front Row to my second display? Thanks for any help.

Welcome to the Apple Discussions!
Unfortunately, since Front Row has no preferences you can actually change, there's no way to change the screen now. (Besides the work arounds you've already discovered.) I would send Apple some Mac OS X feedback (since Front Row is considered part of OS X, not a stand-alone application) and let them know you'd like to be able specify the screen. You're not the first person here to ask for that option.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/
-Doug

Front row in Lion 10.7 issue (-70012) and video_ts not playing issue -solved

Hi all,
thought I just post my solution to the front row issues in 10.7. I looked for a solution for days, and when I found it, I thought it would make other peoples live easier if I combine everything in one post.
I actually had a couple of issues:
PROBLEM:
first front row stopped playing VIDEO_TS files in 10.6.
the second issue occurred when I thought upgrading to 10.7 would solve the issue; Front row still couldn't play the VIDEO_TS, because FRONT ROW was gone...
SYMPTOMS:
both issues always showed the same symptoms:
when a dvd-back folder was selected, front row would show a black screen, and then, caused by my frantic pushing the ESC button, front row would give me the dvd player not valid -70012 error.
CAUSE:
so what happened? I chose to buy my MBP 17" with the smallest HDD (yep sorry, was cheap-s-ing). Then later that year, I decided to buy the HDD caddy and switch my internal superdrive for a SSD. I ended up placing the original HDD in the hdd caddy, which I then put in the Superdrive's slot, and I placed the SSD in the slot where the original HDD was residing first. I now had a MBP 17" late 2011, with vertex3 SSD. I forgot, I also put in 16 GB, replacing the 8 GB.
So, when I back-upped all my favorite DVDs as VIDEO_TS files, (no I did not download dvds through usenet), grabbed the popcorn, and started Front Row, the disappointment began. No VIDEO_TS file would play, always the same -70012 error message. So after a lot of internet research I stumbled upon a guy who said: yeah, you have to upgrade to 10.7. After the upgrade my FRONT ROW was gone.
SOLUTIONS:
In 10.6:
As Apple's DVD player is always looking for the internal dvd player as a prerequisite to start, Front Row, which uses Apple's DVD player as video player, will throw up the -70012 error. 'Cause it finds the HDD in the HDD Caddy instead of the SuperDrive. So in 10.6 (and in 10.7 also) you can use the following solution:
(I got this solution partial from http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20070591-263.html)
1: modify the DVDPlayback framework that the DVD Player uses so that it will recognize external drive as a valid DVD playback device. (The HDD Caddy came with an external casing for the SuperDrive)
2: download a hex editor (I used Hexedit 220 from http://hexedit.sourceforge.net/ )
3: Go to the folder /System/Library/Frameworks/ and back up the file "DVDPlayback.framework."
4: Open Hexedit_220 and use it to open the following file:/System/Library/Frameworks/DVDPlayback.framework/Versions/A/DVDPlayback.
5: Using the editor's find&replace through COMMAND-F, replace "Internal" with the text "External" and save the file. Note that Hexedit also saves a backup automatically.
6: Close the file once saved, and then run a permissions fix on the boot drive using Disk Utility. Then restart the system and you should now be able to play DVDs off the external drive using DVD Player. That is, If you use an external dvd player (which I don't use).
7: I inserted a very small USB stick in the MBP with no data on it, and Front Row and Apple DVD Player accepted this. I could now play my backupped DVDs.
ofcourse, I still wanted to upgrade to 10.7, so here's the solution to 10.7
10.7:
upgrading was a simple click with the mouse, worked like a charm, Office still worked, and some minor updates installed through software.
Front Row however, gone...
I used the steps outlined in http://osxdaily.com/2011/07/21/front-row-for-mac-os-x-lion/ to get Front Row back:
- first get the package from Madhatter: Download the free package installer by MacHatter
- install, or customize the install
- all done.
Then I used the steps from step 3 through 7 outlined above in solution 10.6.
Catch:
So I did not find a solution to fooling the DVD Player / Front Row with the USB stick. So everytime I watch VIDEO_TS in Front Row the USB stick must be inserted. But, the good news, I can still use my remote control for something.
Hope I helped some guys out there with this solution.
Regards,
Johnno

The issue has previously hit Apple TV owners. I think people came to the conclusion that it was a HDMI handshake problem. Basically the process where the device and TV greet each other, make up some rules about communicationg and what their secret key is and so on.
I haven't tried this yet, but my local service center says that basically I can do one of two things:
- Downgrade to 10.7 and then download the 10.7.1 update from Apples website. To do this without having a Mac OS X Lion disc, you can hold down CMD + R when the computer boots to be able to access the recovery partition on newer Macs that come without the OS disc.
or..
- Put something in between the computer and TV. For example, if you're using an amplifier as a part of your home theather set up, this will probably work. The service guy said he has his Mini connected to the amplifier, which in turn is connected to speakers and a projector. The inverted colors still appear, but only once per night (i.e. after the first problem is reset by resetting the link then it's fine).
For now, I'll do my little dance of changing the source on the TV from HDMI 1 to HDMI 2 and then back again to reset the link... But, I'll probably try downgrading in a few days.

Two problems with Front Row

Hello.
I have all my music on my iMac and I am streaming it to my Mac Mini connected to my TV and stereo. What I have noticed is that the cover art on my music tracks don't show when I play any of the shared tracks or playlists, just the default picture with the two notes. Is there something I can do that will display it? I have tried to start iTunes and connect the shared library there before starting Front Row but that didn't help.
I also have a problem with listing my pictures in Front Row. I have an external drive connected to my Mini that has all my pictures and movies. I have no trouble playing the movies (I created an alias in the Movies catalog to the Movies catalog on the external drive), but if I create an alias in the Pictures catalog to the Pictures catalog on the external drive the catalog isn't shown in Front Row. Do I have to import all the pictures into iPhoto? I don't use iPhoto at all because I always use the program that came with my Nikon camera that shows all the picture information, such as focal length, what lens I used, white balance setting, etc. (or Adobe Photoshop Elements it I want to make some changes). Is there something I can do to fix this too?
Thanks,
Erik Aleksander Moe

Bernd, since your comp is still under warranty you may wish to give the online tech support a try -->HERE<--</a>. Click on the "Chat with a support agent" link.
If you don't want to go that route, then I suggest that you call them over the phone. Hopefully, you have the AppleCare Protection Plan if your 90 day warranty ran out.
Good Luck.
G5 20' iMac w/iSight/Remote, 2.5GB RAM, 250GB HD Mac OS X (10.4) OS 10.4.3

2010 Mac Mini, Front Row and 5.1 Audio

I recently bought one of the new 2010 Mac mini's for my home theater. I have video going to my TV through HDMI. (I do not use the TV for audio.) I'm feeding audio to my receiver via optical. The problem I'm having is with 5.1 audio through Front Row. I've installed Perian and enabled AC3 passthrough. 5.1 audio works great when I play a video in iTunes (it also works with eyeTV). When I try to play the same movies through Front Row, I'm stuck with stereo audio and see no way to change it. Any ideas?
Thanks in advance!

I too have the latest mini, hooked up to a Denon receiver via pass-through HDMI.
I am not an audiophile in terms of setting up this stuff and just want to know what I need to do to get the optimum performance out of this mini, audio wise.
When I go to Audio MIDI Setup app, my receiver (DENON-AVAMP) is listed next to the "source" button. I have no clue about channels, bits, etc. When I click on the "Configure Speakers" button I am presented with different configurations so I selected "Multichannel" versus "Stereo". And I can see where you can test all 5 speakers and subwoofer, but I just don't know which "format" I am supposed to select.
The 5.1 mapping is shown when I select 8 channel/16 bit, 8 channel/20 bit, or 8 channel 24 bit. I can click on each speaker in this map and it tests properly no matter which one of the above combinations I select. Just not sure which one I am supposed to be using.
All I know is my Denon is a 5.1 system and all this works perfectly (getting 5.1 sound) with my Playstation 3 hooked up the same way to the Denon.
Does anybody know the correct settings to output 5.1 sound from this Mac Mini?
Thanks guys!

Front Row behaviour changed

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