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Mountain Lion hostile to Front Row?

Mounting Lion seems hostile to Front Row, which would still work under Lion, with some persuasion.

It's all well and good to say it's been discontinued…

Why sell Mac Mini with HDMI and discontinue Front Row ? What are Apple customers expected to use?
Mounting Lion upgrade process lets Front Row application through.
Front Row doesn't even attempt to launch, as if it's being blocked deliberately.

If there a fix or terminal option to get Front Row working again, could someone please let us know. It's not like there's any Apple replacement.

Or any other company for that matter. And no, Plex is hopless, it ignores folder structure, it's useless to me. Put an alias in your Movie's folder and you can see anything you want in Front Row.

Simple, just works, just abandoned.

Off to apple.com/feedback, now.

Posted on Aug 15, 2012 7:07 PM

35 replies

Mar 15, 2013 12:01 AM in response to stokhosUrsus

One other question about MediaCentral. Do you know if it can also access files on an external hard drive like Front Row does? That's where I store most of my movies and TV shows. Front Row is flawless when it comes to that.

Mar 15, 2013 9:00 PM in response to Mike Thornbury

"Make an effort - pick up the manual."

In one sentence you encapsulate everything that is wrong with Front Row's replacements like Plex and XBMC -- Front Row was usable to its fullest without any manual. Any software, doing the simple things that Front Row did, that requires a manual has failed miserably...

Mar 16, 2013 5:47 AM in response to Mike Thornbury

My sentiments exactly Mike. In the words of Victor Frankl, “When we are no longer able to change a situation - we are challenged to change ourselves.” Apparently, most in this forum aren't up to that task. Just as the 1.44 MB floppy disk, or the unpretentious and utilitarian MacPaint & MacDraw…… Front Row's time has come and gone. Whine away or move forward……the choice is yours.

Plex is a beautiful thing, and with MyPlex, you can now access all your media on your iPad or iPhone from anywhere in the world. The best part is, it's free.

On a difficulty scale, I would give Plex a 4. There is a plethora of hand-holding tutorials on YouTube that make setup as easy as pie.

Mar 16, 2013 6:25 PM in response to Grafton Reed

I appreciate your efforts to help, here, and if there was ANY app that met the minimum requirements—there wouldn't even be this discussion. Plex does not - eg doesn't play DRM protected movies.

Front Row does the job simply, without needless features (which make Plex a constant annoyance), and it worked in Lion. A work-around kind-of worked in Mountain Lion for a while, and was broken by an "Update".

If Apple put a fraction of the effort into fixing Front Row, that it's wasted in the Podcasts app on iOS, we'd have a solution.

Believe me, we've changed, and it doesn't actually work.

-no offence intended to those that work on Podcasts, it seems to be fatally under-resourced, considering its goal is to eliminate iTunes!

martbr

Level 1

11 points

Dec 9, 2013 12:56 PM in response to KoshAlwaysHere

If you ask Apple to give us a new version of Front Row - forget it:

1.) They want to sell Apple TV.

2.) Font Row was based on QuickTime (32 bit). And now they prefer "AV Foundation" which must convert most of the movie formats before playing it.

If you say that Plex and XBMC is not Mac-like as Front Row used to be: I would like to agree. I tried to explain my family that DVDs are displayed as folder... and that they have to open the subfolders (VIDEO_TS)

and select one file... They just said: trash it!

If you are searching for a media center which can access your picture / movie folder and start iTunes DRM (protected) movies: try nessMediaCenter.

But please do not expect that this media is displayed within this application. These kind of media can only be played by Apple products - so what nessMediaCenter is doing is to launch iTunes and start the movie. Sometimes it works, sometimes iTunes starts the movie and ... well, I would call it "fails"? But you can then control iTunes with the Apple remote control... I do not now any other (better) solution. Not a beef, but...

I know that many people like Plex and XBMX, but I would like to mention other disadvantage:

1.) There is a background thread which is observing the folders (local "computer speed") and trying to get metadata ("internet speed" if you are browsing at the same time).

2.) Plex might rename you movies if the metadata is wrong. I was surprised about the movies I saw ... until I recognized that it was just caused by wrong metadata.

And last but not least: all you file names will be cataloged over the internet, because Plex is sending these informations to its own server. Which means: if you have videos and you would not like to tell someone else, then using Plex might be a bad idea.

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Finally I would like to say that there are several solution. Which one you choose is up to you.

Mountain Lion hostile to Front Row?