Front row integration

[Nora]

We just received a great plug-in from DVDpedia user Mathieu - it integrates DVDpedia with Front Row so you can browse and play your movies along with all the rest of your media.
Watch the video and download the plug-in from our Extras page or for a larger version of the video, go to our videos.

Any comments, questions, suggestions for future versions of the plug-in - post them right here in this thread.

[DreamStatic]

I am getting "Page Not Found" when trying to download this plugin.

From the Extras page the link to the plugin works: http://www.bruji.com/extras/dvdpediafrontrow.zip

From the plugin detail page linked above it hits 404: http://www.bruji.com/download/extras/dv ... ontrow.zip

Appears to be a directory error. Just watching your back. :)

Thanks for sharing it, looks super cool. :)

[Nora]

Thanks for pointing that out. Link is fixed now.

We updated our entire site today to take a step towards resolution independence and especially to make it accessible for people who use larger fonts to view websites. So if you come across any other links that don't work, let us know!

[TheMatador]

Very cool. Big Thanks to Mathieu Guindon. Works great.
But it would be nice if you could also select the collection you want to browse. Another thing is, when you browse by e.g. genre, he lists every kind of genre, like "action", "action, thriller", "action, drama" and so on. would be better if he lists "action", "drama" , "thriller". But this probably comes from dvdpedia database structure.

[Conor]

Browsing by collection would be a nice feature. The genre issue is really our issue and not Mathieu as we list the genre as a regular sentence and make no separation between the different genres for simplicity and speed.

[-LD]

I fixed my genre issues by only importing data from Amazon. IMDb seems to give a LOT of genre info...like way more than is necessary. Perhaps a more granular ability to choose what you get from certain sites would help.

This plugin is fantastic! Simple and to the point and integrates perfectly.

Think it would be possible to do similar with AppleTV? Can you point me in the direction of how to develop Front Row plugins?

Thanks!

[foogy]

hi!

first thanks to everyone for this positive feedback about the plug-in!

The browse by collection feature would be nice and will make is way in the next release for sure.

About an AppleTV version, this is possible since the Front Row and AppleTV API are almost the same, I will have to get an AppleTV first :)
The thing is that in Canada we dont have access to the movie Rental feature yet, it's a shame and a turn off at the same time ;)

[-LD]

I have a dilemma. AppleTV is nice, simple, gets the job done. It has rentals but can't play DVDs remotely (even through a hack). A Mac Mini has Front Row as well, but not the Take 2 version. It doesn't have rentals. But it can play local DVDs and now, apparently, can play anything linked through my DVDPedia collection.

So if the Leopard Front Row got rentals, I'm golden even if the investment is a little more up front for the Mini. If I could hack the AppleTV to play DVDs (complicated) I would be golden. As it is, I have two solutions that each offer a piece but neither can offer the whole. Bummer.

[keving]

Hi guys,

Love the Front Row plugin, totally cool. Have been running it a treat on my Mac book pro, without any problems. In fact I loved it so much I've downloaded for my 3 networked mac minis that I've hooked up to TV's around the house.

Unfortunately the plugin does not work on the Mac minis. It installs fine, open up Front Row and it's there, but when you select it (DVDpedia) Front Row "hangs". Nothing else to do except reboot.

All machines, mac book pro and the mac minis run DVDpedia without any problems.
All machines are on a gigabit network
All point to a single DVDpedia database on ab elderly G5.

The only thing that springs to mind is the Mac Book pro is a Leopard upgrade
The Mac minis are "pure" factory installed Leopard.

Any help solving this mystery greatly appreciated. If you need any more info me please ask.

Best regards

Kevin

[foogy]

Hi,

the plug-in dont have support for DVDpedia database outside of the default path for now, I will post a fix for this issue by the end of the week.

ps: If Front Row hang for any reason, you can always force quit by using: cmd-option-esc.

[keving]

Foogy, many thanks for the quick reply .... and the helpful keyboard shortcut for force quit. I'm new to this brave new mac world, having spent my formative years on the IBM AS/400 and laterly Windows, so hints and tips like that are gratefully received.

Look forward to the fix for the plugin.

Cheers

Kevin

[-LD]

From the Unix commandline you could probably create a symbolic link to fool the plugin into thinking it's going to the default path.

[d2photo]

I have the plug-in installed but when using on my iMac (intel) I get nothing but a blank screen.

Thought it maybe due to size of database (currently hovering around 1436) but nothing but the title of what im trying to browse.

For example, if i went to plug-in in front row - select dvdpedia and movie. Only the word movie and a black screen show - no rotating titles of list..

[DreamStatic]

@d2photo: Just to confirm it works with larger databases, I currently have tested this with over 2800 entries and it did still work. Sorry I am unable to assist in shedding some light on what is wrong. But at least I can confirm the size is not the issue (at least in my testing).

I am sure the author, Mathieu, will be along to assist a bit more. You can also find his Web site at http://www.para9.com/. Good luck on a resolution, I hope it gets sorted quickly for you.

[keving]

Hi -Ld

Thanks for the tip about the command line, as a relative mac newbie, any further tips on that idea would be greatfully received. Best regards Kevin