Frontrow on TV

Hi I have an Intel Imac. Id like to view my frontrow on my TV as an extended desktop with the miniDVi to Svideo adapter.
Is this possible? will it work?
Will it work with extended desktop or mirror mode only?

Yes that will work. You'll need the mini-DVI to Video adapter, an s-video or composite video cable and (if you want) a minijack to RCA "Y" cable for the audio. (The video adapter is video only and won't carry the audio.)
Front Row will only display on the "main" screen. This is the screen that has the Dock and the menubar. You can mirror the two screens or use the Displays System Preferences to move the main display to the TV when you want. Then you can move it back to the iMac when you want to use the computer itself.
-Doug

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Frontrow left running @ 100% after returning to Desktop - bugfix required

Tonight my wife and I were watching iTunes TV Show Videos on our living room TV using her black Macbook with lid closed for about 4-1/2 hrs. I had downloaded these TV videos with iTunes on my PowerMac G5 and shared them to the Macbook. The Macbook was connected to the TV using the Mini DVI to video adapter and a sound connection from headphone jack on Macbook to the TV sound L/R inputs. The Magsafe power was connected all the time. The TV videos played just fine and we paused the Front Row periodically.
When we were done watching the videos I powered off the TV and disconnected the Mini DVI and the sound connections and removed the Magsafe power. I the opened the Macbook lid and the fans started to pick up and make a fair amount of noise.
I launched Terminal.app and launched top to see what was running and found Frontrow was running at around 100% cpu with its resident memory growing at an alarming rate. I watched this for about 5 mins and Frontrow climbed to just over 500 MB with the cpu use still at around 100% all this time.
I used the remote to see if I could get the attention of the Frontrow process that was using 100% cpu and memory bloating but to no avail. The rcd (remote control daemon) process did launch when pressing the remote's Menu button but it did nothing.
I then decided enough was enough and I quit the top display and issued a 'kill 508' where 508 was the Frontrow PID. Frontrow was killed and when using the Remote the Frontrow restarted as it should.
Thought I should post this Frontrow anomaly in case others may be wondering why their Frontrow doesn't quit as it should when returning to the Desktop mode.
I will also send feedback to Apple about this mis-behaving Frontrow.
Anyone else experience this Frontrow behaviour ?

I forgot to mention a couple of things.
The communication for sharing the iTunes TV Videos between the PowerMac G5 and the Macbook was via Airport Express which was located some 25 feet away from the MacBook and the signal strength was at max.
I was also running 10.4.7 on both the PowerMac G5 and the Macbook.
The Macbook is equipped with 2gig RAM also.
No other Apps were running with Frontrow on the Macbook other than iTunes for accessing the PowerMac's shared iTune's Video files.
There was one moment during watching the videos on the TV when sharing stopped. This was because the PowerMac was set to sleep via Energy Saver at 1 hour of zero activity. THis was resolved by waking the PowerMac G5 up and configuring it to never sleep.

FrontRow leaves inactive Apps around - why ?

I've notice that after using FrontRow and returning to normal Desktop mode that the various Apps such as iTunes, iTunes and iMovie are left around as inactive Apps rather than being properly terminated. Also the FrontRow App is left around and not terminated. This seems wrong to me. Normally when you complete or terminate an App it goes away and doesn't occupy RAM space.
This isn't a big deal as the FrontRow Apps are dormant. However, it irks me that they lay around for no good reason, other than to be, presumably, quickly used if FrontRow were to be used again in a short while. RAM is precious and this may cause uneccessary page outs to disk and slow things down.
I aslo notice that after terminating FrontRow with the Remote the Wired memory jump up some 80MB and back down in short bursts. Anyone know what this is all about? This 80MB up/down in quick succession continued until I rebooted. After this it stopped. Strange to say the least.
What is going on I wonder ?

I aslo notice that after terminating FrontRow
the Wired memory jump up some 80MB and back down in
short bursts. Anyone know what this is all
about?
"Wired" memory is in use by the operating system, not
regular applications. Front Row must be being treated
as a part of the operating system, not a regular
application. I'm not seeing the wired memory use
changing up or down after force quitting Front Row.
It's staying pretty steady.
-Doug
Understand about "wired". The up/down 80MB of wired memory was after quitting FrontRow with the remote. I didn't do anything to "force quitting" FrontRow - anyways, how would you do that ?

FrontRow leaves its Apps laying around when finished - why is this ?

I've notice that after using FrontRow and returning to normal desktop that the various Apps such as iTunes, iTunes and iMovie are left around as inactive Apps rather than being properly terminated. Also the FrontRow App is left around and not terminated. This seems wrong to me. Normally when you complete or terminate an App it goes away and doesn't occupy RAM space.
This isn't a big deal as the FrontRow Apps are dormant. However, it irks me that they lay around for no good reason, other than to be presumably quickly used if FrontRow were to be used again in a short while. RAM is precious and this may cause uneccessary page outs to disk and slow things down.
I aslo notice that after terminating FrontRow the Wired memory jump up some 80MB and back down in short bursts. Anyone know what this is all about?

I aslo notice that after terminating FrontRow
the Wired memory jump up some 80MB and back down in
short bursts. Anyone know what this is all
about?
"Wired" memory is in use by the operating system, not
regular applications. Front Row must be being treated
as a part of the operating system, not a regular
application. I'm not seeing the wired memory use
changing up or down after force quitting Front Row.
It's staying pretty steady.
-Doug
Understand about "wired". The up/down 80MB of wired memory was after quitting FrontRow with the remote. I didn't do anything to "force quitting" FrontRow - anyways, how would you do that ?

MB Operation w/lid closed using FrontRow, BT keyboard & Mini-DVI to Video

Ok - after some tribulations here's how FrontRow works using a Bluetooth Keyboard and no mouse for your Living room TV enjoyment.
Ensure MagSafe attached to MB and plugged into wall electrical socket
1. Pair the Bluetooth keyboard to the MacBook
2. Close lid and wait for it to sleep
3. Connect Mini-DVI adapter to MB
4. Connect Mini-DVI to TV's video input and MB sound output to the TV's audio L/R sockets if you want TV sound, otherwise your sound will come from the MB speakers
5. Wait a few seconds and then press the Keyboard space bar (this is what I did but you may also be able to press any key)
6. After a few moments the MacBook will wakeup
7. Now use the remote and press Menu to launch FrontRow - it may take a few moments for things to happen on the TV screen - but hang in there as FrontRow will eventually show on the TV screen.
8. Now you can navigate FrontRow and play iTunes (and it shows playlist and tune info data - cool), DVD movie, Slide shows from iPhoto, etc.
Hey - it does work with a BT keyboard and there's no need to plug a mouse in either.
Remember that the MagSafe must stay connected otherwise you will lose your video feed to the TV.
You can also dispense with Bluetooth keyboard once you have things rolling. I did so, as I needed it for operating my PowerMac G5 which has only the Bluetooth keyboard feature for operating it - have no USB keyboard in the house.
This is all very very cool and my wife will love this setup.
Enjoy your FrontRow in the LR now.

A followup...
After playing some with FrontRow while MacBook connected to my TV I decide to revert back to normal operations and disconnected it from TV. Using the MacBook (Black with 1gig RAM) as normal I took a look at Top.app to see what resources had been used or were still in use. I found all the FrontRow Apps - iPhoto, iTunes, iMovie etc were still active and my RAM had been paged out furiously during the time it had been connected to the TV. Some 73,000 pageouts had occured and it had been zero before connecting to the TV.
This tells me that my 1gig was being over subscribed and that 2gig might serve me better and could explain why FrontRow stuttered a few time and appeared unresponsive.
I would say at this time that if you are going to be using FrontRow as I did then having as much RAM as you can afford in this little Black beauty will help things run more smoothly. I'm up for adding another 1gig to our MacBook.

Why was FrontRow discarded in Lion? and how can we influence Apple to put it back?

Although FrontRow had it's limitations I used it every day. I very recently bought an iMac and ordered the remote as well. After having updated to Lion the remote appears pretty useless and my usage of the iMac has dropped 50% at least. What can be the reason FronRow was dropped? Is this the right place to let Apple know there are some users that are very dissatisfied with the decision to drop FrontRow?
Best / Goran

http://www.mac-hatter.com/blog/frontrowenablerforlion
https://discussions.apple.com/message/15901610#15901610
https://discussions.apple.com/message/15938331#15938331

New MacBook - Frontrow limitations found at first glance...

I received my Macbook yesterday, ordered a mini-DVI to Video adapator to connect it to my TV to use with Frontrow. Within minutes I discovered the following limitations:
G5 needs to have iTunes open to share music
While music outputs to AirTunes, videos play sound through Macbook (this inconcistency makes the software limiting and amateurish)
Video - Macbook screen resolution drops if I mirror (and part of image missing on TV screen)
Video - in extended desktop mode Frontrow appears on Macbook not on TV (I know dragging the menu bar to the second screen resolves this - but every time?)

If you're looking for a more efficient way to throw front row onto the TV, try the utility cscreen, it allows you to set the primary display from the command line. Right now I'm trying to right a script that will make my TV the primary display when I start Front Row and switch it back when it closes. I can't figure out how to trigger it with the apple remote (I've heard you can do it with third party remotes) but you can assign it to a hotkey with something like iKey. My script is still buggy some I'm not going to post it here, but if you have any experience with scripting on a Mac (unfortunately I don't) then it should be simple.
1.8 GHz intel iMac Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Does Frontrow/Quicktime upscale to 720p on TV?

I have just bought a 42" TV.
It has great reviews - but is apparently lacking in it's ability to de-interlace and upscale. So give it a good HD signal, it will provide a good HD picture.
As I understand it - my mac will be sending a 720p signal (via DVI) anyway, so the strength or weakness of my TV will make no difference.
Does Frontrow automatically upscale my source video? I've read somewhere that the video card might upscale automatically (I'm using a GeForce 8600M GT, on my MBP 2.2)
I know Quicktime automatically de-interlaces. Are there any settings I need to change for upscaling?
Is watching via VLC going to look better than Frontrow does? (I've read VLC upscales really well).
Basically what do I do to get the best picture from rental movies and TV shows from my Mac? (pity we can't rent HD on a Mac!)

you need to put the movie into itunes and it also needs to be in an appletv supported format.
if the movie is 720p and is in appletv format, then yes it will stream as 720p to the appletv.

Aspect Ratio in iTunes different than Qt and FrontRow

On my fully updated G5 with 10.5.1, I have some tv shows which display correctly in Quicktime and FrontRow but the aspect ratio is all wrong when playing in iTunes.
The shows are NTSC recorded off the air on a Tivo and trancoded (and deinterlaced) to mov using the vlc command line. In Quicktime they display correctly with the 4:3 aspect ratio. When I add them to iTunes, iTunes plays them with a 2:3 aspect ratio. If I then play them from the iTunes library with FrontRow, it plays correctly at 4:3.
It's as if iTunes were playing the content with square pixels instead of paying attention to the aspect ratio in the Quicktime file.
I've put an 800KB sample movie on my iDisk at http://idisk.mac.com/colinandlinda-Public which demonstrates the problem. (For some reason, this small movie doesn't show up in FrontRow, possibly because it is small? If anyone needs it, I can provide a larger movie).
Are there any solutions for this oddity other than transforming the movie into a different resolution with square pixels?

For anyone interested...
I've been in contact with Elgato http://www.elgato.com/elgato/int/mainmenu/home.en.html
regarding this as they are part of this issue.
They have confirmed that there is a bug in the latest releases of iTunes that is causing the problem.
They have been communicating their information to Apple but have had little response to date.
Maybe we'll get a fix when Apple could be bothered.

MacBook Pro DVI-Out and FrontRow Color Anomalies

ok, so i've got one of the first generation MacBook Pros 2.0GHz processor, 2GB RAM, etc. i want to use the DVI-out to connect to my Sharp Notevision projector, which has a DVI-input. i have a standard DVI cable and when i connect, everything is fine. i can display at the projector's 1280x1024 native resolution and finder and other application windows look just fine, color-wise.
however, when i jump into FrontRow (or play any Quicktime movie or use iTunes to play movies), the color shifts and looks horrible. the glow around the icons in FrontRow are oddly red, and other nuetral colors look greenish or otherwise. its almost like you've got a component cable connected with two of the channels swapped.
the same projector works fine and displays accurate color with my AppleTV and if i connect the laptop to one of my Cinema Displays, the colors for movies are all accurate. i thought maybe the DVI cable was bad, and bought a replacement and the new cable produces the same off-color results.
any help or guidance here would be greatly appreciated!
thanks,
scott

Another update, I did some research and it seems that ATI are cagily admitting to the fact that there might be a problem with the X-series;
http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questio nID=26586
http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questio nID=21266
http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questio nID=25682
You'll notice that ATI tell you to contact the manufacturer of your computer if the graphics are integrated into the motherboard. Like with Apple. Much joy to be had there.
I phoned their technical support and got talking with a specialist who was mystified and suggested 'turning off the airport'.
Also, it seems that Apple rather significantly "underclocked" the GPUs in their macbook pros;
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/04/19/applemacbook_pro_gpuspeed/
http://www.maconintel.com/news.php?article=178
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=306024
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=194647
Could be running the GPUs are running on a lower voltage and maybe they're not working right, or the signal isn't stable enough to pick up an EDID? It seems to be quite a mystery. Perhaps the osx86 community will have some tricks up their sleaves for twisting the x1600's arm. Still doesn't explain why the monitor worked that one time.
This probably isn't an issue for anyone who doesn't want to plug their laptop into an external display, but I suspect it's a widespread problem just waiting to rear its ugly head, especially as HDTVs become more ubiquitous.
Anyone else struggling with external display devices, or with solutions, I'd appreciate your input.

DVDs unwatchable (stutter) in Frontrow

If I play a DVD in Front Row from either a disk or a ripped VIDEO_TS folder the DVD suffers from major stutters that happen about every two seconds. Also I am finding that Front Row often defaults to the wrong audio track (for example CARS defaults to Track2 which is DD2.0 rather than Track1 which is DD5.1).
Neither of these problems are apparent in DVD Player. Originally I have similar issues in DVD Player but I eliminated them (tuned out to be the audio setting not using pass-though). Now DVD Player plays back the movie smoothly and with correct audio.
I expected these setting to pass though to Front Row but they do not. To all extents and purposes DVDs are unwatchable in Front Row.
All other video files work fine. It is just DVDs that are messed up. Any ideas?

Bump^
Any ideas as Frontrow still stutters badly on DVDs?

Multiple screens support in iTunes/FrontRow

hello everyone,
can someone tell me a solution for my issue:
I have a second screen attached to my macbook. I can use VLC or Mplayer to watch videos on my second monitor. But I can not do this using iTunes or FrontRow. There are several effects that really do bother me.
First of all, when I switch to fullscreen during video playback, the video is always displayed in full screen on the main monitor. Usually my macbook is set as main monitor.
The solution would be to change the main monitor to my big screen but this would still not fix the second problem. The second monitor will always be black during fullscreen playback.
Furthermore I would like to have the dock and the menu bar still available during playback.
Another solution would be to move the video window to the second screen and use the fit to screen option, but then there is still the title of the window which is annoying me.
It's working fine with VLC and MPlayer. Is there a solution for iTunes and FrontRow?

There have been numerous discussion threads on the same issue. The answer is you do have to drag it over to the second display (the iTunes main window) if that's the display you want the visualizer and/or movies to play full screen in. However, this will make the other display (say, your computer) go dark and you will have no access to any iTunes controls during playback. This is really a problem for me too. QuickTime Pro does do this correctly, however it is impractical for managing and organizing playlists on the fly as when deejaying a party.
You can mirror the displays as you said or just drag the iTunes window to the second display (TV), but either way you will have no access to your iTunes controls.
Again, you can use QuickTime Pro (not in mirror mode) and choose Present Movie, then click on the display you want it on. Apple really needs to adjust this in iTunes... everyone is requesting it!

No audio in Quicktime or Frontrow. Video plays fine in VLC.

Hi,
I have some xvid videos. They play fine in VLC. They don'y play audio in Frontrow or Quicktime. Stream 1 mpga audio codec. I can't find a solution to this. Also have some video off a sony recorder which again will play in VLC but isn't recognised as a movie file has extn .mpg. Audio is a52 and video mpgv. Have looked through forums someone solved this but hasn't given solutions.
Mike

I had the same problem - downloaded Xvid movies play fine in VLC, but have no audio in Front Row.
Try this for a quick free solution: http://www.perian.org/
Fixing this sort of codec issue with Windows Media Centre would usually take me about 3 days. This took 3 minutes now I have a Mac.

The new FrontRow doesn't play radio

I used to play radiostations in the Tiger version of Frontrow, but the Leopard version of FrontRow won't play them. It will display my playlist with the radiostation items but when I choose an item I'm getting an error that says it can't play it...
Does anyone have a solution for this (bug) ?

"Any other ideas?"
Yes, contact Apple. According to their own website...
http://www.apple.com/accessibility/itunes/hearing.html
"Captioned Movies on iPod
iPod models that support video — including iPod classic, iPod nano (3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th generation), and iPod touch — can also display captions when present in the content. Captions display in a high-contrast white-on-black font that’s easy to read."
The 6th generation Nano plays video. Plus the fact that the email their accessibility team has sent in response to my question...
"On your hearing page, closed captioning for videos refers to the newest nano, is this correct?" seems to confirm very clearly...
"Hi,
Thank you for the email. That information is correct, if the video content you have synced from iTunes contains closed caption information you can enable closed captioning. One thing to note, the new iPod Nano (6th Generation) will only sync music video content only.
Apple Accessibility"
Perhaps there is some special format to Apple Music videos that I am not aware of, but it seems as though changing the tag should allow it to sync. Perhaps it's an update away?

Frontrow ignores iTunes EQ settings??

Movies which I have in iTunes seem unaffected by the iTunes equalizer... meaning that I can't choose how they sound in Frontrow either. Does anyone else find this or know a way to change sound settings for movies in Frontrow/iTunes?
Pulling my hair out here!
Thanks,

The EQ settings only affect iTunes playback. They do not modify the file itself, nor do they apply if you burn the file to an audio CD.

IPhoto and Frontrow: can not click and drag after using frontrow slide show

Recently I received my new MacBook Pro, I started using iPhoto and noticed the following problem:
1. Open iPhoto and perform normal tasks, click and drag photos, etc.
2. Close i-Photo
3. Open Frontrow Slide Show(Pictures)- play for a few seconds
4. Close Frontrow
5. Reopen i-Photo and photos will not move(click/drag)
6. Close i-Photo/reopen and all is fine
Anyone else???
Thanks!
MacBook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.9)

I discover that there is no parameter to set slide duration
Using the Finder, drag all the images from the folder containing the images on to the Navigator pane ion Keynote, this will place the images centred on an individual slide
with at least one image selected in the Navigator, select all, (command A)
Inspector > Animate > Start transition: in the drop down menu, select: Automatically
seethe delay to the time you want the image to appear on screen, you can select individual times by selecting one slide at a time
and no choice of slide transition and timing
Inspector > Animate, click Add an Effect
The Inspector is the side panel on the right hand side of the canvas
All Apple applications have a very useful Help system located on the Menu bar > Help

Frontrow on TV

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