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User profile for user: Free-Dawg
Free-Dawg Author
User level: Level 1
29 points

Front Row 2: Need Front Row 1 Feature Back (Episode Sorting By Season)

We (Apple faithful) really need Front Row v2 (FR2) to behave a little like Front Row v1 (FR1) did. When you have lots of seasons of TV shows like I do, it is very, very, very, very difficult to find an individual episode from a season because FR2 dumps all episodes into a single list, after navigating to a TV Show that has multiple seasons. Sure, the season name/date of each episode is displayed, in small text on the left side of the screen. However, in FR1, episodes were also grouped by season number and we were able to navigate into specific seasons, once we selected the TV Show desired. Given FR1's approach, we only had about 20 - 24 different episodes to sort through, as opposed to "20 * # seasons" different episodes.

This issue is more problematic when you have TV Shows like "24". Each episode is named based upon the hour they are in for a given season. Given the way that FR2 lists episodes, after I select "24" as my show to watch, I am then presented with a list of about 144 episodes to choose from, since I have 6 seasons of this show and each season produced 24 episodes. This means I might have 4 or 5 episodes with the same name (ex. 9am - 10am from season 1, 9am - 10am from season 3, etc.)

This seems like an easy fix, you already had sorting working just fine in FR1. Can you just turn this back on in FR2?

Mac-Mini (Intel) As Home Theatre Hub, Mac OS X (10.5.1), MacBook Pro C2D; PowerMac G5

Posted on Nov 18, 2007 1:23 AM

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19 replies
User profile for user: Don Flinspach
Don Flinspach
User level: Level 2
225 points

Jan 16, 2008 12:20 AM in response to Tom Z

Well, they half-listened to you with the latest update, but they not only took away the long list of organized TV Shows, they now show up like this:

24
24
24
Scrubs
Scrubs
Scrubs
South Park
South Park
South Park
South Park
South Park

It's more than a little annoying, too, since the seasons are not necessarily in order. For example, my 5 South Park seasons at the end there are in the order 2, 3, 1, 4, 5. What's worse is that I don't have complete seasons of some shows, and I don't remember which season had which show.

Face it, Front Row as everyone liked it is gone. It's gone from an ordered list of episodes, organized by season (which I really actually loved), to a scattered blob of seasons.

I'm looking for whatever controls the behavior, but there doesn't seem to be anything in my preferences files. If you want, you can just re-name your TV Show name to include the Season, but that breaks the presentation in iTunes, which actually still works kind of how I like it, except that Apple has broken that list into seasons, too.
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User profile for user: cmendill
cmendill
User level: Level 1
40 points

Jan 19, 2008 5:35 AM in response to Don Flinspach

I find it even more infuriating that they attempted to address the problem and this was there solution. That's why I have a hard time believing that this isn't just a bug. This is such a common sense fix. Does apple think it can defeat hierarchical menu structure? Do they think people are just watching their $2 episodes once and throwing them away - that they never want to go back and re-watch a season of their favorite show? I hate, hate, hate neglected software. If they aren't going to continue development in a logical progressive way, then they should can the project. After all the time I've wasted writing applescripts and using automator to first get my videos into iTunes and then tag them all correctly...

The mind reels.
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User profile for user: Matt ATL
Matt ATL
User level: Level 1
0 points

Jan 21, 2008 10:31 PM in response to Free-Dawg

YES! I feel your pain! I have several tv shows with every episode of every season and it looks messy like:

South Park
South Park
South Park
South Park
South Park
The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons...etc.

I just want it to be like this:

TV Shows
South Park
Season 1
Episode1

Episode2
Episode3 etc.

Basically exactly like you would browse Artist/Albums/songs... artist=show, album=season, song=episode. The way it is right now makes no sense.
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User profile for user: cmendill
cmendill
User level: Level 1
40 points

Jan 22, 2008 7:34 AM in response to Free-Dawg

This problem of:
Show Name
Show Name
Show Name

Does not happen with all of my TV shows, just a some. The tags are all identical. Maybe its that some were imported with itunes 7.5 and some were with 7.6.

However, when i share my library to my macbook front row, i get no multiple show names!!! FR 2.1.2 iTunes 7.6.

I don't know how to write code this bad.

Message was edited by: cmendill
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User profile for user: Stormstar1
Stormstar1
User level: Level 1
0 points

Mar 7, 2008 7:45 PM in response to Free-Dawg

I am also incredibly frustrated by this! I prefer the Front Row v1 style of TV Shows. I bought a 1TB external hard drive solely for Front Row with the intention of buying an Apple TV. If the interface on the Apple TV is going to be like Front Row v2 I don't know if I want to bother. I want iTunes in my living room not, some quasi-Amazon.com shopping model where my newest crap is plastered at the top.
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Front Row 2: Need Front Row 1 Feature Back (Episode Sorting By Season)

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