I want Front Row Back

There is some fantastic advise in this thread. Front Row can be resurrected. But it never ran perfect for me on Lion. I will also point out here about Movist (google it). So far, it's the closest thing to Front Row I've seen. In full screen it looks almost exactly like Front Row. It's all about Movies though. I have never used Front Row for music though anyway.

Give it a try. I'm very pleased with it.

Alternatives to FR are fine but what we miss are functions that are now found in Apple TV like access to the music libary, photos, theatre trailers, movies rentals etc. These were all features of Front Row b4 Lion.

I couldn't agree more. And I would still be using FR right now except that it is so broken. I am only meaning to point out an alternative if it should help somebody. Front Row would be my one and only, if it was functional & simple on my system. I really wish Apple would bring it back. But until that happens, I'm looking for something that fits my needs. 99% of HTPC software is just too busy or complicated for my taste. That was the beauty of Front Row.

Using the info posted here I successfully got FR to work on my new Mac Mini (ML 10.8.2) and got it playing iTunes music by indexing my music library with iTunes 10.3. PyeTV, the EyeTV plugin for FR, also works great.

The main problem is that Apple dropped the "listening code" for Front Row in ML, so my infrared remote won't work with FR. I'm controlling FR with my keyboard which is a PITA. Has anybody figured out a fix for this? It seems there should be a way to set up Remote Buddy to mimic the remote/FR behavior that's in Lion/SL. But Remote Buddy crashed repeatedly when I try to tinker with it. Maybe there's a system component in Lion/SL that could be copied? If anybody has a solution for the Apple remote/FR please post! Thanks!

I wish they'd bring it back. I have Mountain Lion on my MacBook for months now and Front Row still isn't here. I think Apple wants us to purchase an Apple TV and not use the Mac mini with our TVs anymore. I still have my Mac mini on Snow Leopard because of that. Well, all the new Macs have Air play and you can video mirror all your content with a click and that's really great but I have a 2007 Mac mini.

Replying to my own post a a follow-up. Turns out the shareware 'Mira' solves the problem with the Apple Remote. You have to manually add the /System/Library/CoreServices/Front Row.app to the list of apps in the Mira control panel. Then set the actions of the menu and forward buttons of the remote to keystroke 'escape' and keystroke 'return' respectively.

Front Row is now working very well on a Mac Mini with 10.8.2.

The only lingering issue is the inconvenience of using an iTunes 1.3 library file 'iTunes Library.itl'. Keep a copy of it in the same folder with a different name! If I accidentally launch iTunes 11, it overwrites the file, and I have to manually restore the 10.3 version. There's no workaround, but there might be an Applescript that can help deal with the issue.

I never used Front Row but now I want to use a Mac Mini as a media computer so I can stop using my iMac on home sharing from another room.

I completly get how Front Row was the perfect application and agree with those who find 3d party applications like PLEX over the top complicated. Many of us became Apple fans because of their commitment to simplicity. That was Front Row.

Put doesn't iTunes 11 work very well in this roll even if it's not quit as simple to use with a remote?

What are the drawbacks to just operating my Mac Mini in iTunes on my TV to play movies, downloaded TV shows and everything else?

I don't want to buy the Mac Mini if it's not going to work well. I car about crisp 1080p and dolby multi-chanel sound.

Install Front Row on ML but it's not show Movie trailers, how can fix this?

Snow Leopard is the last OSX to show movie trailers in Front Row

Same here. Works fine in 10.8.3, not showing movie trailers, when it does show iTunes trailers!! Weird, right?

There are many alternatives however including XMBC, Plex and Boxee. Though frontrow was useful it was basic. Let it go.

Its like when Appleworks came out and then was discontinued it was always Inferior to other alternatives out there. 

PS

my other half still uses it on the 10.6 mac mini server cause she thinks that Frontrow gives her a simplier layout. Even though XBMC is available to be used.

As wonderful and well intentioned as all the great advice to use XBMC, Plex or Boxee is, it's not.

I think most people here know XBMC, Plex and Boxee exist. Most of those have probably tried them. Myself, I have tried all three and I've opted to just not use them. I can't get my family to use them. They are too much. Too busy. I don't know why, but they just won't adopt any of them. So they just get removed. As great as they are (I personally like Plex), they require work and maintenance. Even if it is hardly any at all. Front Row was really simple. Akin to using a brand name DVR from a cable company, these things should just be simple, as in turn it on and use it. And when you are done, just turn it off 'til next time. That's not Plex or Boxee or XBMC. Boxee comes closest I think in this regard though.

In our house we've opted to just use Movist for watching videos. And for everything else it's just easier to use something else (insert favorite app of the day here).

I've always been interested in Front Row. I'm loath to do it, but I may break down this year and get Apple TV 3. It's one more chink in my Mac Mini (which is BEGGING to be a full blown HTPC), but isn't in our house.

Best of luck to this forum. I miss Front Row and wish Apple would resurrect it. But I'm not hopeful. In the meantime I'll continue to watch this thread.

Cheers

http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/06/10/apple-announces-os-x-mavericks-with-fi nder-tabs-tags-multiple-displays

"Mavericks also adds support for Apple TV, making it a full-powered OS X display. Users can view their menu bar, dock, and launch new applications on their television set."

This looks like will bring back some functionality that is (was) available in Front Row - but via an Apple TV which means my ancient VGA projector will not be any use.

Grrr

Plex or xbmc are not alternatives to Frontrow. Glad it works for some, but not for me. Frontrow allowed me to easily view movies not in itunes simply by pointing to a folder. Plex and the likes are a hassle in this respect as they demand files to be named in a certain way or your media simply won't show up. Which is very hit and miss and generally means that if you watch anything that's not the most popular american tv shows/movies you're in for a lot of manual fiddling with files.

This is not really the whole story with Plex...Yes, if you want your Movie and TV show metadata scraped from the web for you, then you will have to name the files accurately. This is really powerful BTW as you will get great posters/cover art, synopsis, soundtrack, etc. Otherwise you can just add a "Home Movies" section which uses the generic Video Files Scanner and it will display all videos in the directory by file name.