Front row integration v 2.0

[faridzadeh]

Thanks
I already have them group into a collection (like Friends season, shown in the video example you have).
Oh well, no real biggie.

Great plug-in by the way. Now if only Apple would give us the option to turn on compilations from within Front Row, then I would have almost no reason to exit it.

[abz]

Let me state my previous question in another way, since I didn't get any responses before. What movie formats are compatible with the front row plugin on the AppleTV? I have m4v files that I've created using handbrake using the appletv setting. My error is "The selected video could not be played. The format was not recognized." I've been able to play these files using the ATV and NitoTV plugin. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Ab

[Conor]

I do not know what formats the AppleTV plug-in supports. I would assume that it supports all the formats that the AppleTV can play. I imagine that ATV and NitoTV might have extended codec support over the standard AppleTV. Mathieu at para9.com would be able to better anwser your question as he is the owner and developer of the AppleTV plug-in.

[Nora]

The latest version, 2.0.3, of the Front Row plug-in is out; you can download it from our extras page. This update includes improved synchronisation with the DVDpedia data base and also fixes a problem with linked files. Thanks Mathieu!

[sitenoise]

Let me state my previous question in another way, since I didn't get any responses before. What movie formats are compatible with the front row plugin on the AppleTV? I have m4v files that I've created using handbrake using the appletv setting. My error is "The selected video could not be played. The format was not recognized." I've been able to play these files using the ATV and NitoTV plugin. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Ab

I've had trouble with Handbrake all over the place, especially with m4v files. There is a note in the help files that says something to the effect that they will only play in iTunes. Don't know why or why/how that would interfere with AppleTV because I don't really know anything about any of this ... just saying.

As an added example, I also couldn't get Handbrake's mp4 to work on YouTube, had to re-export the HB file using QuickTime to the exact same format. Handbrake's a nice tool, but has some quirks and they are ridiculously snobby about helping with anything. I've had much better luck with MPEG Streamclip, and it's way faster even with multi-pass (which you should always use). Having said that, however, I did spring the $20 for QT MPEG-2 codec, which you need for most DVD work. Waaaay worth it for the time I save.

[foogy]

hi,

The plug-in will play everything the AppleTV and Perian (if you have it installed) can play.
So, the problem is something else. If you can post your log file that is located on the AppleTV at /mnt/Scratch/Library/Logs/Console/501/console.log
maybe I will be able to see what's wrong.


thanks.

[DreamStatic]

THANKS SO MUCH FOR THE PLUGIN!!!!!!! LOVE IT!!!!!!!! :)

I was curious how hard it would be to implement a continuous play option. i.e. I have 24 episodes of Smallville linked to one entry, it would be killer to have a play all option at the top of final submenu of an entry. The one where it would list all 24 episodes (or heck at the top of any menu with multiple links found). Just a thought. :) Thanks for all the hard work on both DVDpedia and this plugin.

Oh and as long as I am wishing for features, be cool to implement some type of watched/unwatched system. Be EXTREMELY awesome if it was two way. So if I update DVDpedia as watched, the plugin knows this. However, if I watch an unwatched episode in Front Row it would send back to DVDpedia to update the Last Seen and Play count. :) Just throwing out ideas to chew on. :)

[speters]

Is there anyway to get the dvdpedia front row plug in to work on a non intel mac? I have all of my dvd's and music on 6tb of external storage that is connected to a 8 Core Mac Pro. Then I have a Dual 2ghz G5, non intel, networked to the 8 Core. Both machines are running Leopard. The G5 is connected to my home theater and I have dvdpedia on both machines. I have the dvdpedia database in the public folder of the 8 Core and I have dvdpedia on both machines pointed to this database. So is there anyway for me to be able to use front row and dvdpedia in my setup?

[Conor]

DVDpedia has no problem with Intel or PPC. The Front Row plug-in on the other hand I believe can only be Intel. Front Row itself was Intel only, it was only the last few G5 iMacs like yours that had Front Row included. In any case Mathieu, the plug-in creator, will be able to tell you why that is.

[neoranga]

I have problem, with the front row play video. In my DVDpedia I have the title linked to movie trailers I downloaded. They are in avi, mov and mp4. The play fine through dvdpedia. When I use front row I get an error saying it cannot play the video. Is there anther format I need to save them as?
Also. Right now the info only dsiplays the title, summary, MPA rating, length. Is there a way to get the collection ID to display. The whole point of the DVDpedia is to catalog your dvd's so you can easily find the location. Without the Collection ID it makes no sense to view it through Frontrow since I have to go back to DVDPedia to see which location my movie is in.

Does this make sense?

[Conor]

QuickTime must be able to play your video to use them from Front Row. Try installing Perian that extends the number of formats that QuickTime is able to handle.

[Tamburra]

I have recently installed this plugin and love it. I am in the process of creating a home network and having this run on all the tv's in the house. I have all my movies backed up on dvds plus i have the Main Feature of each dvd ripped to the computer in VIDEO_TS folders on networkable external HD. For Movies this plugin is spectacular, but TV Shows I am having a little trouble with it.

In DVDpedia I have all TV Shows in the Library with one entry such as THE REN & STIMPY HOW [SEASON 1 & 2].

http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/1488/picture2gs0.png

Within this entry in the Library I have links pointing to each episodes individual entry in a Library Excluded Collection.

http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/2867/picture3tr3.png

This is how i organized my whole library within DVD pedia. But when i use this plugin and i locate this show in my Library in Front Row I see all the links but the Links are acting as video links instead of links to the info for the episode. Is there anyway to have these links at the same way in Front Row as they do in the actually DVDpedia software?

I also have Picture links with entries for Full Covers which i also add and when these links are clicked within Front Row they show the image for a split second and then it brings you back to the movie select screen again. It treats every link as a video file instead of what it actually is.

I am really interested in using this Front Row Plugin as a home media center for my home but for TV episodes it seems like a little bit of trouble.

Is there going to be anything down the road to possibly be able to make this work? or am I going to have to make some adjustments to my collection?

Thank you so much!!

~ Tamburra

[mwillis]

Just bought the software for this reason alone, however I am also getting the issue when clicking the video_ts folder to play from front row I get a black screen and nothing plays, was this ever resolved.

[geeji]

Great plugin, makes DVDpedia 100% more interesting !

Suggestion for a future version :
It would be nice to be able to select what informations from DVDpedia get displayed when you browse movies and wait a second on one.
For instance, I would like to get the Director instead of the Producer, and the Movie Theater first show date instead of the DVD release date.

Also it would be nice to have sort options for Actors (the ones with most appearances first, sort by name instead of first name) and also filtering options (the ones appearing only once out).

[DrPaul]

Regarding the displaying of TV series of DVDs...

I have a number of links to VIDEO_TS folders in one entry (an Angel box set with 12 discs in each part) and I am trying to deduce the ordering that is used when the plug-in displays the links. It is not the order I placed them in the links tab which is in episode order.

Initially it looked alphabetical so I tried to override it by giving episode numbers instead of just the title of the episode. That didn't work in fact it made it so that it wasn't even alphabetical any more. Very bizarre.

I tried reversing the insertion order. That also made no difference.

I looked the timestamps of the ripped VIDEO_TS directories and they are all in ascending order of episode number. So no clue there.

It looks like totally random order. Am I missing something obvious?

BTW, thanks for the great application and the great plugin.