I have a ton of movies and I know I can use plex or XBMC to play them back but I also want to record QAM with my hdhomerun AND have it all available to me in one front end. Is it possible?

Once setup I don't want to have to use a mouse and keyboard. Just sit on my couch and move about with a remote, watch tv, record tv, watch my movies, etc. is there a way to intergrate all of that into a single front end?

Once setup I don't want to have to use a mouse and keyboard. Just sit on my couch and move about with a remote, watch tv, record tv, watch my movies, etc. is there a way to intergrate all of that into a single front end?

I haven't played around too much with alternatives to Front Row, and the only computers we have in the house are Macs running OS X, but the PyeTV plugin puts EyeTV within Front Row, so yes, you can technically do all of the above with just EyeTV, the Apple remote and Front Row. With aliases, Front Row can even pick up multiple archives of EyeTV recordings.

We record QAM in the living room with a pair of EyeTV 500s, and never watch anything live, so as far as being to play back recordings or switch to dvd rips and movies this bare bones "front end" is perfect for us.

But, there are a few caveats, I rip our dvds with Front Row in mind, which means keeping the full VIDEO_TS with menus intact, because that's the only way from within FR with the Apple remote to change audio tracks to DTS, or to turn on subtitles, etc. I tolerate an inability to play back the occasional downloaded .mkv file without its DD 5.1 or DTS because Perian can't overcome what Apple won't fix as far as Quicktime and AC-3 in concerned. (So there are times I don't use FR and switch out of my "front end" to a different software player when the audio of an odd file is particularly important.)

And while it's possible to maintain and schedule EyeTV recordings within Front Row, I don't, I still keep a 12" Powerbook lying around as my real remote, to screen share on occasion, to do DVR housekeeping, to tag in iTunes, etc. and I also have an iPod touch with the iTunes remote app for those times we want to listen to music without turning the TV on. Haven't used the BT mouse or keyboard for ages.