Front Row on my PowerBook
Posted on Wednesday, October 26th, 2005 at 11:55 am under Mac Geekery.
As you might know already, the new iMacs ship with a new application called Front Row that allows you to view all your Digital Life in full screen mode a la TiVo. The thing is, as of today it only comes with the new iMacs. It’s not available for purchase or with any other computer, yet. However, with a little help from the internet, you can download the app and try it on your own Mac. Here’s Front Row running on my 12″ Powerbook. I found it to be very slooooow, like a beta version. But hey, to be fair this is a hack sort of speak, because it’s not optimized for a PowerBook and it might even be missing some necessary files to run properly. To enjoy the full Front Row experience you need to use it with a remote control. For this I used my Bluetooth phone with the free app Romeo and Wise Weasel’s Front Row plugin. I was able to navigate all of it from across the room using my phone as a remote. I really hope Apple releases Front Row for the rest of us. It is just too cool to be left out.
UPDATE: here’s the link
Technorati Tags: apple, front-row, itunes, itunes-tv, mac
One of my my favorite features is the ability to watch movie trailer streamed from the Apple website right into Front Row. And it’s smart enough to pause my iTunes when it plays videos.
The iTunes interaction is extremely slow. Slow enough that I don’t bother to go into it.
And I had to restart the application a few times when I got this error.
This is how it looks when it works.
Oct 26th, 2005 at 12:57 pm
I installed it yesterday and it works! :D It’s so cool :D
Oct 26th, 2005 at 2:32 pm
I’m thinking of trying it out soon, if it gets more stable. But indeed it is so sweet.
Oct 26th, 2005 at 3:41 pm
I too have tried it, running it on a Dual 2.3 GHz PowerMac G5, menu transitions are slick, but it is slow when reading the contents of directories and checking which files are available to play. 1080p HD content in the video preview constantly stutters. It seems to be only able to play .mov, .mp4, and .vob files. It was cool to try it out, but I wont be using it.
Oct 27th, 2005 at 1:03 am
Waiting for a mac mini, with the remote - as an alternative to dvd player for my TV.
Needs these fuctions though:
- Shared Music (for the music on my families 4 other macs)
- Shared Photos (ditto)
- Shared Movies would also be cool
- Be able to pass at least the music audio through the airport express connected to the stereo in the other room.
- Ability to find and play all the movies, music, photos i may one day choose to store on an external hard drive connected to the back of my cool mac mini with all the above features.
And in the near future - recording capabilities on the mac mini to record tv etc (without all the extra hardware i have to use at the mo)
Oct 27th, 2005 at 5:00 am
Almost makes me wonder if this “leaked” version was a pre-release copy of the software posted out there by Apple themselves to give people a look at it and the features of the first version. Get them hooked, then reel them in with an updated version they sell that you can install on anything with no problems…
It’s not like Apple’s never given software away anyway…make a buzz about it being a “leaked version” and the geeks come rolling in to give it a shot…
Oct 28th, 2005 at 11:07 am
I was thinking of sending this to you, but figured you already had it. It works fine on my powerbook, just wish I had a bluetooth keyboard and a 30 in. screen. I guess I know what I want for Christmas.
Oct 29th, 2005 at 2:23 pm
Works pretty well on my PB1.25/Tiger/1gb with BT and Sony Ericsson T610, iPhoto hangs up sometimes but everything else is ok.
Here’s an icon for the Front Row application file from Xicons: http://interfacelift.com/icons-mac/details.php?id=1696
Thanks Melvin!
Nov 18th, 2005 at 2:33 am
Dont get it,
where do i download the software from?
i got a 15inch powerbook
many thanks
clive
Nov 18th, 2005 at 7:08 am
UPDATE: here’s the link
Nov 18th, 2005 at 9:51 am
Thanks,
But its really slow, and doesnt work so well…
How c`n i speed up?
thanks
Nov 21st, 2005 at 2:41 am
Hi, i have my pb with front row and the DVD player is not working it keeps on saying “An error was encountered while communicating with DVD Player. Press the Play/Pause button to go to the desktop”
Dec 2nd, 2005 at 8:59 am
Check the Appleblogs latest post for a version that isn’t buggy and works well.
Also, is the K700i compatible with the bluetooth remote thing, would be ace if it is!!
Dec 3rd, 2005 at 9:57 am
New way of installing Apple’s FrontRoe 1.0.1 through the blog post How To Install Apple’s Front Row
Dec 13th, 2005 at 3:18 pm
Hey where is front row online i download the remote software.
-mikez
Dec 13th, 2005 at 5:25 pm
found it, its working great on my 1.25 ghz 15inch powerbook. this is so COOL!!! ThankS
Dec 21st, 2005 at 1:58 am
the trailer-thing won’t work at all “error in communicating with movie trailers server”
15″ PowerBook … got suggestions? it did work on the above 12″ PowerBook, after all…
Dec 29th, 2005 at 7:41 pm
I used front row on my Powerbook 12″. I first went into the music section and began to search by artist for some songs. It took so long that I just ended up force quiting front row, and looking up the songs up on itunes.
I still am in shock that this happened but when I went to look in itunes, all of my songs were gone. I then decided to restart my computer in hopes that they would all come back after I restarted it, but that was not the case. All that ended up happening was I found more things missing from my computers hardrive, such as pictures movies and my desktop was completely empty.
This has been an exteremely rough day, and I would appreciate it if anyone could help my out, or give me any ideas on how I could fix it.
Thanks
Jun 2nd, 2006 at 2:10 am
hi where can u get this program??
Jan 30th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
hi, I hope somebody can help me.
I followed the instructions of the website exactly as described but my frontrow would not start up pressing apple+esc.
did anybody have the same issue, can somebody give me a hinyt? I have got a powerbook 10.4.8 itunes 7 etc.. all updated.