Leopard Upgrade - Front Row 2.0 Video Playback Choppy

Hi Everyone,
I just upgraded from Tiger to Leopard and all is well except for video playback via Front Row. I'm playing video_ts files - which play back fine if I use the Apple DVD player application. In the new version of Front Row they tend to 'studder' and are choppy from time to time. I have 1GB of RAM installed, and I'm wondering if that is enough??
Another note about video playback... I was watching the Dallas vs. Greenbay game last night via a live stream on the Internet using my Mini on a hard wired connection. Unfortunately, it was choppy for both audio and video. My G4 Powerbook did a perfect job. It also has 1GB of RAM, it's running Leopard - and I was watching the game over a wireless connection. Audio and video were almost perfect.
Do you think that Leopard requires more memory than Tiger on my dual core Mini? I'm wondering if I should upgrade to 2GB's of RAM - or maybe re-install Leopard from scratch. (I did an upgrade install the first time.)
(Also - My Mini is connected to a 37" 1080p Sharp LCD display via DVI.)
Thanks for the help and advice!

Thanks for the response Boece...
My startup drive has 15GB of free space. The files are playing from an external Lacie HD (via USB 2.0) that has 20GB of free space.
It's odd that all files will play perfectly when using the DVD app to view the movies. Front Row 2.0 will have intermittent problems when viewing the same file.
Nothing else is running on the Mini when I am using Front Row.
The only other time that I have seen choppy video playback is with the screen saver. I really like the new 'Mosiac' option for pictures - but with this display the Mini can't zoom from one picture to the next at all without being all choppy. It's almost like the graphics card is having trouble. The other options for 'Collage' and 'Slideshow' work fine - with smooth flowing playback.
I'm planning on hooking the Mini up to a 19" monitor today to see if the problems go away.
I'll report back with the results.

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Detect if Leopard's Front Row is running?

Is there some way to detect if Leopard's Front Row is active/running? I know in Tiger I could do a
tell application "Front Row"
if frontmost then
do something
end if
end tell
But that seems to not work properly now.

But Front Row runs even if it isn't displayed. Sorta like QuickSilver. It runs in the background, even though it isn't being used.
AND Front Row doesn't report if it is visible or front most. Therefor, trying to see if it is "visible" or "frontmost" does not do anything.
Trying this code
delay 10
set TheName to "Front Row" -- whatever the application name is
tell application "System Events"
set TheAppList to (name of application processes)
if TheName is in TheAppList then -- it is running
if visible of application process TheName then
beep
end if
if frontmost of application process TheName then
beep
delay 0.4
beep
end if
end if
end tell
delay 3
beep
delay 0.4
beep
delay 0.4
beep
When you run this, and activate Front Row, and wait, it only beeps 3 times at the end. There are no beeps before that. And I know it isn't both visible and frontmost (which could cause 3 beeps there).

Any way to get Front Row to show video playlists such as TV shows?

I can get AppleTV now to show the TV show playlists in iTunes as their own menu items. However, I can't seem to get Front Row in 10.6 to do the same thing.
I currently have iTunes 8.2.1 in 10.6.0. Is this something either upgrading to 10.6.1 or iTunes 9 will enable?

Front Row users have been waiting for this option since video playlists first appeared in iTunes quite some time ago. Unfortunately, I've never been able to make it work. Why Apple can't enable what seems like a simple options is beyond me. My iPod nano can do it but Front Row on my Mac can't. I'd advise you to send Apple some Mac OS X feedback since there's no specific form for Front Row itself:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html
-Doug

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I tried several dvds in front row and I can't get any sound from them. I can play avi type movies, music and on but I get no sound from dvd's. I can play them on dvd player and get sound but not front row. been running into alot of quirks since the leopard upgrade. hope they patch it soon.

try to isolate the issue to front row by playing it in dvd player. you may get an error message saying that dvd player cannot run because it is being used by another program in which case you have to go to applications/utilities/activity monitor.app find the front row process and control-click quit process or highlight click quit in the upper left hand corner of activity monitor then select quit. run the dvd in dvd player.app and see if it repeats the problem. if not then most likely it's a front row issue. if it happens again try another dvd player software. if you find that it happens on both dvd player.app and front row but not a third then it would most likely be be a dvd player.app issue in which you locate the plist file in library/preferences/ quit out both front row and dvd player.app to ensure it doesn't recreate a duplicate plist file then move the original to trash then open dvd player.app and try again. if all of this fails and it seems hopeless before going to a fresh install or archive and install I recommend update install. I have used this to fix what seemed to be broken and incurable apps on several macs now with success. but try the other stuff first to save you some time if possible. as of now all of my apps other than those non-compatible with Leopard are functioning just fine with the occasional bump in the road. Fixes are necessary as there are quite a few needed but I ran into the same thing with Tiger when it first came out and Tiger was a great OS.

Front Row not marking video as watched properly

I kept hoping that this issue would be resolved with one of the point releases, but here we are at 10.6.3 and it's still the same for me, so here's the problem.
Before installing 10.6 I was running 10.5.8 and when using Front Row to watch a video (say a TV show I downloaded on iTunes) I'd watch it all the way to the end and the status circle next to it would show that it's been watched. iTunes would report the same status.
Since installing 10.6 when I watch a video in Front Row all the way, the status shows up as if it's only partially watched instead of completely watched. I'm sure the video was over since I let it play all the way through until it comes back to Front Row.
This is very annoying. Has anyone else experienced this? Is there some way to fix it? If not, I hope Apple can address this in 10.6.4.

Bump.
I have tried multiple solutions and non have solved this issue. I am rather disappointed that watching content on my AppleTV or via FrontRow does not mark the show as "watched" in iTunes. FrontRow will mark it part watched and AppleTV does not effect the watched status flag at all.
I do believe this is an iTunes 10 issue though as I only saw it after upgrading to iTunes 10.
Can anyone point me to a solution?

10.6.2 Front Row and iTunes video still stutters

I thought this was going to be fixed. What's really odd is Quicktime X no longer stutters.....
Was the FR stuttering "fixed" for anyone?

Further Clarification
Front Row will not play my HD content. Plays the .mp4 content fine, in fact plays it better over my wireless network than iTunes does over wireless but iTunes will not play .mp4 content now (10.6.2) without stutter even when loaded on the MAC HDD.
I have not used Front Row before because I always used iTunes with iPod Touch as the remote so I don't know if this has always been a limitation with Front Row. Still prefer the iTunes method but the bulk of my content is .mp4 format.
I'll probably go back to 10.5 so don't upgrade to Snow Leopard if you have mixed iTunes movie/TV content.

Front row cannot play video on my shared network? not recognized? HELP!

When i launch my front row on my macbook it informs me that there are no videos being shared on my mini. But when i review the mini inside itunes i clearly see all the content and can play it. Any ideas why itunes and front row would not work together? It worked fine in the past, but the last two upgrades knocked it out. Both units are fully updated.

That is strange, it sounds like it should be working. I might try to create a new user with the Accounts System Preferences on the MacBook, log out and log in as the new user. Can the new user find the shared videos in Front Row? If not, then you have some kind of system-wide problem. If they can find the shared videos, then your original user has a preference or configuration issue.
-Doug

Why does front row keep on pausing playback?

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any guesses?

I realized that every time I open front row empty "iTunes Music" folder is created even I have "iTunes Media" folder in use. Anyone have any idea how to solve this? I tried to remove Frontrow.plist files but that does not help. I think this could be related to this issue since it is not happening on my other mac which is not having any front row problems...
-Teemu

Front Row displays a video name thats been deleted...

I've deleted a movie on my mac, I go into Front Row>Videos>Movies and the file name is still there, anyone had the same problem or does anyone know how to get rid of this?
Thanks,
Andy

Oh man... well I backed up my iTunes Library.xml file and the iTunes Music Library.xml file and deleted them, sure enough, the "phantom videos" went away but all my playlist where gone. When I went to restore the xml files I did something wrong and didn't get them back so I went to an older backup (thank God for external USB drives) and pulled that those xml files and after a few minutes of cleaning up the changes I had made since that back up there are now many more "phantom videos' in my FR Movies Section.
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Front Row has ALL video files in "Movies" list. WHY?

This is ridiculous! I have never had this problem before, but now it is out of hand. In Front Row under the "Movies" list, along with the movies that I have purchased from the iTunes store, every single video help file from various applications on my iMac are now in that list. What the heck is going on? Why is that happening? How can I make the list go back to just including movies that I have purchased from the iTunes store? PLEASE HELP! PLEASE!

Front Row looks in three places for movie files: iTunes in your user's account, iTunes libraries that are shared on the network and inside your user's "Movies" folder. If the movies are in your user's "Movies" folder, they'll appear in Front Row. This is the way that Front Row has worked from the beginning, it's not new. Are all the video help files inside your "Movies" folder? If so, I don't think there's a way to make them go away. Your applications may need them to be there, but I've never heard of any video help files like that before.
-Doug

Force front row to play video on 16:9 aspect ratio

Hello, I would like to know if there is a way to force front row to play a 3:4 video in 16:9 aspect ratio.
As you can imagine, I have a 16:9 TV and I would like to see it, better in 16:9.
This can be done very well by Quicktime, I don't know why it seems not to be possible to do on Front Row.
Look forward to reading some answer.
thanks,
pvazquez

No, Front Row just plays them as they are flagged.
Even if you could, the video would be stretched and people would be short and fat!

Using Front Row to access Video, etc. on other networked Macs.

The ability to use the new version of Front Row and Bonjour to access viedo, photos, and music on other networked Macs seems very interesting, but I have a question.
Suppose for example, I buy the new Mac Mini and set it up with my audiovisual system ... and I have other Macs in my home network (e.g.,a G4, iBook, and G5). Do the other computers have to be able to run Front Row in order for their video/photo/audio files to be accessed by the new Mac Mini and played thru my AV system?
In my case, for example, my G4, G5 (Quad) and iBook (G3) don't have Front Row and at the present time Front Row is not available for these Macs.
G4, G5, iBook Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Phillip,
When I was trying out FrontRow on my computer, I got access to video on my PC by simply creating an alias for the files and dropping them into the Movies folder on the mac. FrontRow will show the aliases fine and when you select them will conect to the server (if not already connected) and start playing. This is totally cool! So... you don't really need the video to be in an iTunes shared library if you dont want to go that way.
Nevermind
PS. Of course ZeroConf is pretty cool too!

Apple TV and Leopard's Front Row 2

Anyone using an AppleTV with Leopard yet? From what I understand, the new Front Row interface in Leopard is basically the aTV, and the new FR natively plays VIDEO_TS folders... Can we hope for the same in aTV?

Front Row in Leopard is actually much better for viewing Photos than an Apple TV, because it shows you your iPhoto 08 Events, complete with a number in brackets showing how many photos are in that Event.

Front row with mpeg2 video

evening board
i have a ppc mini with an "enabler" version of front row.
I have many gigs of mpeg2 streams recorded from an eyetv session that play fine in eyetv, VLC and mplayer however i get horizonal lines appear when I play it in quicktime or frontrow.
It seems to happen most when lost of screen activity is happening e.g. a panning camera or an explosion.
As I alread said this does'nt happen in eyetv or VLC or even mplayer, just frontrow and quicktime.
I can play divx encoded movies in frontrow fine, no problems and things like podcasts are fine also it just seems to be mpeg2.
any ideas?
is it a interlace-deinterlace problem? I have a plasma telly I am using as the display (VGA in) however this is the first time I have ever had an issue (games are fine as are all other apps).
I think its a quicktime codec issue but can't find where to fiddle.
Any help would be great, as I'm not relishing the fact that I may have to divx encode 300Gig of mpeg2 just to view it in frontrow.
cheers
Steve

i have come to the conclusion that it is the mpeg2 codec for QT.
converting the mpeg2 to DV and playing using QT allows the de-interlace option to work as the DV codec seems to support this.
however not for mpeg2
at the moment I am using VLC player, but this has no nice user front end like front row making my mini a less than elegant media centre.
VLC manages de-interlacing fine, various options blend/bob progressive etc etc all produce nice results.
its possibel, so why doesn;t QT do what it says on the tin?
any suggestions from anyone?
very disapointed.........
Steve

ITunes Video Playback Choppy/Laggy?

I am running a 27" 2011 iMac, 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7, 8 GB RAM and AMD Radeon HD 6970M 1025 MB graphics card. I am running the newest editon of Mountain Lion.
This is the first time I have had this, however I am not impressed at all. Video playback becomes laggy/choppy, the sound goes all fuzzy and becomes out of sync. It first started with "Blue Planet", I got it about 3 weeks ago now and I simply cannot finish the series as the play back becomes horrible. I have "Ancient Aliens" and that never done anything like that on the same machine. Even the HD version played perfectly.
Now I have just rented "The Hunger Games" in HD and I'm getting the same **** thing. When I pause the video for a little it stops, then it comes back again. Like watching a video with bad internet connection on YouTube, only it doesn't freeze, it just lags out.
I don't really fancy sitting through a 2 hour film pausing it every 15 mins, if I wanted to do that I'd have just not paid for it.
When I looked at my iStat Menu's CPU and RAM is not being used to much so it's not that. It shouldn't be anything to do with my internet connection, that was the whole point of downloading it? Plus my internet is 60MB (so 6MB/s) and I downloaded the 4.5GB file in 30 mins or so. So even if my internet connection had anything to do with it, it should be fine.
Like I said I've not had problems with this before, but this is stupid. Can this be fixed? If not I need to try and get a refund as this is a joke.

Thanks for your reply.
Ugh. Sorry. It is frustrating and in today's technological marketplace should be one of the easier things for the Mac to handle.
Received another feedback from someone. Have to try when my daughter gets up, but right-clicking on iTunes and doing a Get Info will yield the 'Run in 32bit mode', Checking this box helped another person who was floggedw with this issue
The whole thing is odd. The Choppy playback was an issue oh her machine prior to upgrading to iTunes 11 and me adding another 4GB of RAM. Ran disk utility, did all the normal things to try and solve. She doesn't have an i-device, so WIFI sync was a moot point.
I do not have the issue on my MBPro 15" running the same compliment of software and iTunes. Same movie plays fine. On hers, the issue is there. So this has to be software... settings, conflict, something...
UPDATE
Just tried the 32bit mode on her machine and same choppy results. Back to square zero.

Leopard Upgrade - Front Row 2.0 Video Playback Choppy

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