chrisruzin.net :: Front Row On My iMac (October 25, 2005)

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Front Row On My iMac

imageThe picture to the right shows Front Row running on my old 800 MHz, 17” iMac. I obviously don’t have Apple’s remote to control it from a distance. I use my keyboard to control it.

Everything that I’ve tested runs pretty smoothly. Music playback is excellent and it’s quite nice to see the huge album artwork on the screen. Photos run a little slow for me, but I think that has to do with my feeble graphics card. Also, I have run into a weirdness with photo slideshows. I couldn’t figure out how to get out of one. I was pressing keys and could hear Front Row in the background, but the slideshow would never stop and go away. Maybe I was pushing the wrong buttons or something?

I’ve made a Quicktime movie of it running on my iMac. I made it with my still camera, so it’s only about a minute long, but it looks decent and has sound. It’s in H.264 and weighs in around 4.8 MB in size. You can download it here.

11/2: Apple’s release of 10.4.3 broke the AppleScript used to start up Front Row. There’s a fix for it though. You can check it out at Forever Geek.

Russ's gravatar Russ United States October 25, 2005

Where did you get Front Row from? I can’t believe you found some cool new program before I did.

Is that your Dad, offering commentary near the end of the video?

Chris's gravatar Chris United States October 25, 2005

I figured out how to get it working by following the instructions given on this page. Scroll down about halfway, and you’ll see a long comment that includes “Ladies and Gentlemen”. Follow those instructions and you should have it working.

And no, that’s me commenting at the end of the video, although Dad was watching it too.

Russ's gravatar Russ United States October 26, 2005

Thanks Chris. I actually found a copy, along with instructions, minutes after I posted here yesterday. Everything looks easy enough, so since my wife would get more use out of it than I would, I think I’ll start by installing it on her Dual 800 MHz tower.

Chris's gravatar Chris United States October 26, 2005

Word of warning. DVD playback is screwed up. It will keep telling you there’s a communication error between it and DVD Player. I’m not sure if anyone has figured out how to fix that yet. I haven’t had time to look around.

Russ's gravatar Russ United States October 26, 2005

Hmmmm. I guess I won’t install it then, since DVD playback is where she would have used it the most.

Thanks for the warning.

Chris's gravatar Chris United States October 26, 2005

Yeah, it’s a major bummer since that’s what I would mainly use it for also. Music playback and Movies are flawless, but the DVD weirdness kind of ruins the whole thing. And Photos also get wonky with me. I can’t quit out of a slideshow. When I finally force my way out, Front Row seems to have crashed and iPhoto is running instead.

In other words, half works great, the other half not so great.

neo's gravatar neo China April 20, 2006

Looks like good, but in the function some is as if unitary

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