This is a little Applescript applet I put together to integrate VIDEO_TS folder playback into Front Row.

The current version is 1.4.7. Please read the docs with each new revision. Additional help and clarifications are made to the docs with each revision of the program.

http://www.moonlightmac.com/Projects.html

Let me know what you think of this, and what improvements could be made.

This is a little Applescript applet I put together to allow Front Row to seemlessly play VIDEO_TS folders from inside of Front Row. Please read the docs that come with it.

There is still a lot more that can be done, but I think this fleshes out the idea pretty well.

I don't have a good place to host this, so I'll put it on rapidshare.de to start with.

http://rapidshare.de/files/30614932/DVD_Assist.dmg.html

Hopefully noone will have problems figuring out how to download from rapidshare. Scroll down the page, and click the "free" button. Then you have to wait a few seconds and then you can click the download link.

Let me know what you think of this, and what improvements could be made.

Dude! That is so cool! Thanks very much! Only thing I did (since I'm such a dense dunce) was try to watch a DVD in Front Row :o ... no joy, but there they are in the Movies section of Front Row!!!! That is absolutely the best free deal I've ever taken advantage of. At least one person out here thanks you profusely for your efforts!!!

Dude! That is so cool! Thanks very much! Only thing I did (since I'm such a dense dunce) was try to watch a DVD in Front Row :o ... no joy, but there they are in the Movies section of Front Row!!!! That is absolutely the best free deal I've ever taken advantage of. At least one person out here thanks you profusely for your efforts!!!

I'm a little confused... what didn't work? Watching a real DVD, or watching a VIDEO_TS folder?

I did find one bug with watching real DVD's... I think I got that sorted. I'll put up a revised version.

It sounds like he was trying to use your script to actually play a VIDEO_TS within the Front Row application. Here's a quote from the readme file that addresses that topic:

"...it instructs DVD player to open that VIDEO_TS folder in DVD Player, and shuts down Front Row."

Is there a way for Front Row to re-launch via the Assist App after watching a movie through DVD Player or VLC? That would seem to complete the integration with Front Row.

Is there a way for Front Row to re-launch via the Assist App after watching a movie through DVD Player or VLC? That would seem to complete the integration with Front Row.

Technically, yes. DVD Assist could keep an eye on Apple DVD player, and fire up front row if it saw DVD Player stop. I'm not sure it would work with VLC... I don't think VLC supports reporting of playback status via Applescript.

In any case, when the VIDEO_TS folder is done playing, you should be able to hit the menu button on the remote and return to Front Row.

In any case, when the VIDEO_TS folder is done playing, you should be able to hit the menu button on the remote and return to Front Row.

Excellent point...I forgot that button re-activates it. :D

Thanks!

This works exactly as advertised.

Thanks very much!

To avoid having to navigate down into the VIDEO_TS files:

- Give the "StartTheMovie.mov" file a more descriptive name (e.g., Finding Nemo.mov)
- Move an alias of the file into the ~/Movies folder

Now, selecting the alias file via FrontRow will start the movie.

I'm a little confused... what didn't work? Watching a real DVD, or watching a VIDEO_TS folder?

I did find one bug with watching real DVD's... I think I got that sorted. I'll put up a revised version.

Hi, Sorry about that... I had to leave for a few hours.
There's no problem (except for me). What I meant was that the _ts folders don't show up in Front Row when you pick "DVD" in the opening menu. They show up in "VIDEOS" (or something like that, this computer doesn't have front row installed...). Anyway,it works perfectly.
Thanks again!!!

To avoid having to navigate down into the VIDEO_TS files:

- Give the "StartTheMovie.mov" file a more descriptive name (e.g., Finding Nemo.mov)
- Move an alias of the file into the ~/Movies folder

Now, selecting the alias file via FrontRow will start the movie.

That was my original intent, but I couldn't find any way to determine if Front Row was in preview mode, or playback mode.

Notice that if you just let Front Row sit on the preview, DVD Assist will kick in... and that may not be the movie you intended to play.

I wish I could figure out a way to determine if Front Row was showing the preview or in full screen mode... until I do, I'll still recommend the layout I've suggested in the docs.

Can someone supply screenshots of how this works? I am still on the fence with a mac mini for HTPC and would like to see the integration, how the menu looks when browsing DVD's? Also, does DD5.1 pass through?

Thanks.

Can someone supply screenshots of how this works? I am still on the fence with a mac mini for HTPC and would like to see the integration, how the menu looks when browsing DVD's? Also, does DD5.1 pass through?

Thanks.

I wouldn't base your decision on buying a Mac mini for an HTPC on this program. It is a bit of a hack... pretty well integrated, but a hack none-the-less.

If you buy a Mini, and you don't like Front Row, you always have other options... Center Stage, Media Central, etc.

If you can't find something you like on the Mac side, You can always install any one of a zillion PC media center packages, including Windows MCE (With help from the forums here.)

Ohh, since this uses DVD Player for playback, and not Front Row, it should honor your DVD Player digital audio settings.

I've put up a new version (v1.2).

VIDEO_TS folders didn't always play full screen. That shouldn't happen as often.

If you were using the VLC version of DVD Assist, and went back to Front Row after playing a movie, VLC continued to play in the background. Now it should stop.

Processor usage has been reduced a tiny bit more.

The download link is in the first post.

First of all, thank you very much for spending your time on this. Ever since I got a Mac Mini running Front Row, this topic has been on my mind. I've tried all the known 'solutions' available, and none of them have done it for me.

This is the closest anyone has come to making this happen in Front Row. One point I'd like to make is that it appears that you are looking at what files Front Row has open and seeing if any of them contain '/VIDEO_TS/' in their name. Would it be possible to get the path you are on in Front Row and append '/VIDEO_TS/' to that path, and then check to see if this path exists in Finder? My thinking is that you could prevent users from actually having to select the VIDEO_TS folder at all as your script would know if the path actually existed and simply play it in DVD Player/VLC. Does this make sense?

The only other issue and its really to do with the remote/Front Row integration, is that we cannot get back to the DVD menu by hitting the 'menu' button on the remote. In any event, this is a HUGE step forward.

Congratulations and thanks again.

Best,
Joseph

One point I'd like to make is that it appears that you are looking at what files Front Row has open and seeing if any of them contain '/VIDEO_TS/' in their name. Would it be possible to get the path you are on in Front Row and append '/VIDEO_TS/' to that path, and then check to see if this path exists in Finder? My thinking is that you could prevent users from actually having to select the VIDEO_TS folder at all as your script would know if the path actually existed and simply play it in DVD Player/VLC. Does this make sense?

Best,
Joseph
Unfortunately, no. There is no sure-fire way to tell what path Front Row is looking in, unless it is playing or previewing a file. I could look at all the files Front Row has open in the "~/Movies/" path, and possibly predict where it is looking, but it would still require that a movie be placed at the same level as the VIDEO_TS folder... and it might not get it right 100% of the time.

The ultimate solution will come when I can determine if Front Row is playing a preview, or if it is playing in full screen. If I can crack that nut, then DVD Assist will be much better integrated. At that point, you would just need a .mov placeholder for each movie (Which DVD Assist could generate for you.) and when the placeholder was selected to play full screen, it would switch over to DVD player. But... I can't seem to find any way to determine what mode Front Row is in... especially a way that is not easily broken by Apple in future revisions to Front Row.

Just downloaded your little program. Pretty cool. I can only play movies that are sitting in the Movies folder of OSX. Is their a way to get this to work with movies sitting on a NAS?

^^
create an alias of your NAS into the Movies folder? i don't have front row on my imac, so i can't test that.

Thanks, I thought about that as soon as I hit the send button for reply. There is a program called distantDVD that does a very good job of DVD Management. It costs $15US. It displays all the cover art of the movies. Another program as well is Media Central 2.0. In my opinion, MC will be much superior to Front Row IF, and I do mean IF, they ever figure out how to have 5.1 Audio work. Other than that, it is just as user friendly, plus it has some great added features, like streaming IP Radio, TV recordings, Skype, etc.

As much as it is cool that we can now watch movies in Front Row, it would be fantastic if this little program could be polished a little bit. Some suggestions would be:
1. When you select the movie, you don't see the audio & video ts files, rather, it would just jump to the movie. Seeing these files looks a little industrial. Check out how distantDVD & Media Central works and you will see the difference.
2. Cover Art. When scrolling thru your selection, having the cover art displayed would be a very nice feature. Once again, see the way these other 2 software programs do it if you are interested.

Other than that, this little Applescript is definitely headed in the right direction.

As much as it is cool that we can now watch movies in Front Row, it would be fantastic if this little program could be polished a little bit. Some suggestions would be:
1. When you select the movie, you don't see the audio & video ts files, rather, it would just jump to the movie. Seeing these files looks a little industrial. Check out how distantDVD & Media Central works and you will see the difference.
2. Cover Art. When scrolling thru your selection, having the cover art displayed would be a very nice feature. Once again, see the way these other 2 software programs do it if you are interested.

Other than that, this little Applescript is definitely headed in the right direction.

The problem is, I have no control over Front Row at all. The best I can do is look over its shoulder and see what it has open. This severely limits how much I can do to affect how the interface looks. If the Apple MPEG2 codec is removed (Not a real good option) then the VOB files are no longer listed.

Cover Art is a possibility by creating customized movie placeholders, however until other problems are solved first, it will have to wait.

Thanks for the great script. This works great. I finally got rid of my Windows XP bootcamp partition on my Mac Mini since I can now play back all my archived DVD's.

For our Macs, all we have to worry about now, is improving picture quality (TheaterTek +ffdshow) . That of course is a different topic.

I can't thank you enough for this great feature. I read your notes about possibly implementing Aspect Ratio Zoom capabilities while in DVD Player. I would really love to figure this out. It would be nice to toggle through with keyboard shortcuts similar to Zoom Player or TheaterTek and have it remember per-movie basis.

I finally got rid of my Windows XP bootcamp partition on my Mac Mini since I can now play back all my archived DVD's. Wow! What a testimonial... it's gotta make you feel good.

One more thing. Can the custom Starthemovie.mov file you created be modified by Quicktime Pro? Where I am going with this, is to see if I can add jpg files (cover art of movie) to the begining of that file. That way, when you browse the movies by name, you will see the cover art on the left side in Front Row (similar to movie preview). Don't get me wrong, I love the clip you put together where it shows the countdown to the movie, but would love some kind of cover art. :)

Right now, I have created folder names in my Movies folder with the name of the feature. Inside each folder, I have an alias file pointing to the Starthemovie.mov file. In this case, a network drive that has all the movies with VIDEO_TS folders.

I also renamed the Starthemovie.movie file to Now Starting (without an extension), that way when I browse at each folder in Front Row and click on it, it goes to the next screen where the file Now Starting is. The hack then starts the movie after a couple of seconds.

What I would like to do, is to just copy alias files to Movies directory and rename them to movie name. The problem when this is done, is that when you go to Movies directory, the first alias file will start playing automatically. The cool thing would be to disable the auto play function the hack provides. Maybe start the movie when you click on the actual file. Does that make sense? Let me know what you think.

Thanks again!

Wow! What a testimonial... it's gotta make you feel good.

Yep ;-)

One more thing. Can the custom Starthemovie.mov file you created be modified by Quicktime Pro? Where I am going with this, is to see if I can add jpg files (cover art of movie) to the begining of that file. That way, when you browse the movies by name, you will see the cover art on the left side in Front Row (similar to movie preview). Don't get me wrong, I love the clip you put together where it shows the countdown to the movie, but would love some kind of cover art. :)

Right now, I have created folder names in my Movies folder with the name of the feature. Inside each folder, I have an alias file pointing to the Starthemovie.mov file. In this case, a network drive that has all the movies with VIDEO_TS folders.

I also renamed the Starthemovie.movie file to Now Starting (without an extension), that way when I browse at each folder in Front Row and click on it, it goes to the next screen where the file Now Starting is. The hack then starts the movie after a couple of seconds.

What I would like to do, is to just copy alias files to Movies directory and rename them to movie name. The problem when this is done, is that when you go to Movies directory, the first alias file will start playing automatically. The cool thing would be to disable the auto play function the hack provides. Maybe start the movie when you click on the actual file. Does that make sense? Let me know what you think.

Thanks again!

The custom movie can be anything at all. It is just necessary for those who don't have the Apple MPEG2 codec, so that there is *something* in the VIDEO_TS folder that Front Row can play.

Yep... the playback starting while in preview mode is killing me. I'm looking anywhere I can to find something that is different between preview mode and playback mode.

I thought I had it solved with Live Stage Pro. It lets you embed scripts into a Quicktime movie. The scripts have the ability to determine the window size that the movie is currently playing in... So I thought: Problem solved! But no... when the movie plays in Front Row, the movie thinks it is playing in a 64*48 pixel window, even when playing back full screen. Drat that Apple!

I can't thank you enough for this great feature. I read your notes about possibly implementing Aspect Ratio Zoom capabilities while in DVD Player. I would really love to figure this out. It would be nice to toggle through with keyboard shortcuts similar to Zoom Player or TheaterTek and have it remember per-movie basis.

What I had in mind was to look at the filename of the movie placeholder, and based on something in that filename, DVD Assist would then tell DVD Player to use one of the Zoom presets. I have a "Fill" preset for 4:3 movies to fill a 16:9 screen (Stretches horizontally), as well as a zoom preset to fix movies that were encoded 16:9 in a 4:3 (black bars on all sides.) And one final preset to zoom 2.35:1 movies out to 16:9 (cropping the sides slightly.)

You can create your own Zoom presets in DVD Player, although you can't toggle through them with the Apple Remote.

edit: I was loopy. It appears you can't change zoom presets from Applescript. However, the presets appear to be on a disc by disc basis. So, that is even better.

Thanks for the follow-up. That gives me a lot of information to see what I can do to help out some more.

I think I may have found a way to determine if Front Row is in preview mode or Playback mode. Problem is, my C skills are a little rusty, so I'm having to plunk away at this line by line.

I hope people understand what a huge step forward this is for Front Row users...people have been complaining about the unreliability of QT's MPEG2 plugin forever. And it was the only option for people who had backed-up DVD folders. This changes everything for a lot of Mac users trying to put together a cohesive HTPC. Accessing VIDEO_TS folders was the last bridge to create in FR.

This thread is going to get looooong with accolades as people discover DVD Assist! :D

And the StartMovie file is a lot more elegant than anyone had the right to wish for...I would have been ecstatic with just the functionality. But now everything is beautiful and seamless!

I hope people understand what a huge step forward this is for Front Row users...people have been complaining about the unreliability of QT's MPEG2 plugin forever. And it was the only option for people who had backed-up DVD folders. This changes everything for a lot of Mac users trying to put together a cohesive HTPC. Accessing VIDEO_TS folders was the last bridge to create in FR.

This thread is going to get looooong with accolades as people discover DVD Assist! :D

And the StartMovie file is a lot more elegant than anyone had the right to wish for...I would have been ecstatic with just the functionality. But now everything is beautiful and seamless!

Thanks for the praise.

Just made a BIG step forward today. Made a little C command line program that can tell me if front row is in preview mode, or actually playing the movie. With this fix in place, we can just put aliases of the movie placeholders into the Movies folder. Neat... clean... you don't even have to see the VIDEO_TS folder or its structure.

I need a while longer to bundle this all up and test a bit more.

And as long as DVD Assist is sitting in your dock, I added the ability to just drag any folder on its icon, and it will play the first VIDEO_TS folder it finds.

That sounds sweet - talk about total integration.

Thanks again...can't wait to try the new version out!

:D

A software fix for an Apple oversight, and upgrade support too! Yeehaaa!
and did I mention FREE??? This is really great! Thanks again, and again, and so on...

I took a little different approach to viewing archived DVDs in Front Row. I'd learned that a mounted Toast image would look like a DVD to FrontRow. Creating a single file .toast image of an archived DVD only takes a few minutes, so I converted all of my VIDEO_TS to Toast images. I didn't lose anything since mounting them gives me the same directory and file structure.

Then, using ToastMount ( from SourceForge ) I'm able to double click on any of these toast images to mount them as a DVD. In System Preferences I changed the "On DVD insert" app to the AppleScript I use to start Front Row on my MacMini. As soon as the image is mounted the OS treats that like a DVD insert.

End result: I have a single file for each archived DVD that I can double click on which will mount the DVD and then switch to Front Row. After watching the movie if I eject the DVD it causes the .toast file to unmount and I'm still inside Front Row

Now I'm looking at DVD assist. I like the idea of a faux .MOV file triggering an application. If I were to tweak it so that opening Superman.mov triggered Superman.toast, then I would only need to create a placeholder MOV file for each image file. I've created a couple Quicktime files as image sequences with a single image: the movie poster from IMDB. When you scroll through the movie listings it shows up like all the other movie's small previews on the left.

So, if I'm understanding the way the DVD assist script works If I were to change it so that playing 1234.mov calls 1234.toast then I'd be able to mount the archived DVDs, watch them and eject when done, all while staying inside Front Row.

Does this sound right?

Now I'm looking at DVD assist. I like the idea of a faux .MOV file triggering an application. If I were to tweak it so that opening Superman.mov triggered Superman.toast, then I would only need to create a placeholder MOV file for each image file. I've created a couple Quicktime files as image sequences with a single image: the movie poster from IMDB. When you scroll through the movie listings it shows up like all the other movie's small previews on the left.

So, if I'm understanding the way the DVD assist script works If I were to change it so that playing 1234.mov calls 1234.toast then I'd be able to mount the archived DVDs, watch them and eject when done, all while staying inside Front Row.

Does this sound right?

Yes, it could be modified to handle Toast images. There has to be something common to all the placeholder (faux) movies. Either they have to be in a specifically named folder, or have something that is part of the movies filename... say they all end with ".toast.mov"

In that case, the script would trigger anytime it saw a file open with ".toast.mov" in the name, and know to take that file, trim .mov off the end and fire up toast image mounter using the shell.

Because this runs in the background while Front Row is running, try to keep CPU usage down to reduce the chance of causing movie pauses. Probably best to "grep" for only one thing. In my case '/VIDEO_TS/' in your case '.toast.mov'. Ohh... it is case sensitive, I didn't tell grep to ignore case.

I'm doing the same with covers. I paste them with the "Add to Selection & Scale" command in QuickTime Player to a .mov file that already has 10 seconds of silence. That way, when you select it, it doesn't immediately quit back to the Front Row menu... this becomes more important with 1.3. I use covers that I have scanned. That gives me an HD rez cover that can actually be read on an HDTV... or if I'm too lazy to scan the cover, bop on over to cdcovers.cc

Still working on 1.3. Realized that I didn't compile the little C util as Universal, so I did that. Now I gotta find an Intel Mac to test it on. Somehow I just know some byte endian thing will screw it up.

I don't think Fry's would appreciate me installing X-Code on their demo station so I could fix problems there ;-)

If anyone wants to take this Applescript and do it entirely in C, be my guest! I'm only using Applescript because I know it... and it is not *quite* as shameful as using FutureBasic ;-)

Then, using ToastMount ( from SourceForge ) I'm able to double click on any of these toast images to mount them as a DVD. In System Preferences I changed the "On DVD insert" app to the AppleScript I use to start Front Row on my MacMini. As soon as the image is mounted the OS treats that like a DVD insert.
Idearat, I had been storing most of my DVDs as .iso files and haven't had time to monkey with ToastMount yet. Does ToastMount mount .iso as DVDs?

Idearat, I had been storing most of my DVDs as .iso files and haven't had time to monkey with ToastMount yet. Does ToastMount mount .iso as DVDs?

Don't know. I hadn't saved any as an .iso file. But if they're mountable you should be able to script it. The .toast files look like a DVD when mounted which is why Front Row is able to play them normally. Do the .iso files look the same way? Can you script the mechanism you use to mount them now?

At the moment I have to pop out of Front Row to mount the file. It will automatically put me back into Front Row as soon as it's mounted. It's only a few clicks of the remote to do it, but I'd rather have the cover art in FR and stay inside. That's why I'm going to try to adapt the DVD Assist scheme mount the file when I select the faux .mov file.

Still working on 1.3. Realized that I didn't compile the little C util as Universal, so I did that. Now I gotta find an Intel Mac to test it on. Somehow I just know some byte endian thing will screw it up.


Just downloaded last night. Thanks for the great app! Running DVD assist on my MacBook Pro 2.16 with no problems. I originally misunderstood how the app operates, and presumed I could open the VIDEO_TS files thru Front Row - as I'm opening the DVD files via the Apple DVD player.

As a mac noob - once I figure out how to place an alias to my external drive - I'll be set!!
Thanks again!!!!

I say go to Fry's this weekend, most of the time they're too busy to notice!! :)

As a mac noob - once I figure out how to place an alias to my external drive...

Right-click the file you want to create an alias for and choose "Make Alias". The file name will be the same with "alias" added to the end. Change the name to whatever you want it to be ("alias" is not required for the link to work).

And there's your alias...put it wherever you want on your network and clicking it will open the original file.

Welcome to Apple...you will be happy here! :D

Right-click the file you want to create an alias for and choose "Make Alias". The file name will be the same with "alias" added to the end. Change the name to whatever you want it to be ("alias" is not required for the link to work).

And there's your alias...put it wherever you want on your network and clicking it will open the original file.

Welcome to Apple...you will be happy here! :D

Rockin! - thanks so much!! yep - I'm a lot happier with the MBP and mini duo than I ever was with Sony and Alienware!!!

Thanks for a great piece of software. Can't wait to try the new version. Maybe I can stop using Handbrake to burn a H264 copy for every movies that I want to watch more than once.

Version 1.3 is up.

The way I am testing for preview/playing may not work on all Macs. I went to Fry's, and for some bizarre reason, the 17" iMac core duo was displaying Front Row differently than the others, so DVD Assist started playing the VIDEO_TS folder while still in the Front Row preview. All the rest worked fine (MacBook, MacBook Pro, Mini, iMac 20".)

I've included a little test application to help diagnose those machines that don't wait properly.

There is still a nagging problem that will probably only be an issue to slower single processor G4 Macs. The script uses enough CPU power on those machines to cause some pauses during playback of quicktime movies in Front Row. Oddly, H.264 movies play smooth on my PB G4, but MPEG4 movies sometime pause briefly. I'll keep tinkering and see if I can eliminate those issues.

Just installed v 1.3. When I launch it (I believe it must be launched before you start FR), I get a message stating "Process not found" with two options 'OK' or 'Edit'. If I hit edit, Script Editor launches and another window opens with

'Unable to read the dictionary of the application or extension because it is not scriptable.'

Which leads to another window stating that 'The document "droplet.rsrc" could not be opened. Script Editor cannot open files in the "Resorcerer document" format.

If I just hit "OK", DVDAssist stays launched in the dock.

If I then start FR, I can go to my VIDEO_TS folders and start the files. It does show preview of the vob I am looking at (I have the mpeg2 codec installed) but it doesn't launch the movie unless I select it.

I don't know if this is due to the fact that I am running FR on a PM Dual G5 (i.e. installed FR using Andrew Escobar's hack).

One last question and sorry for me not getting it, but in the release notes you mention being able to not have to see the VIDEO_TS folders. I've read your sentence several times, but don't understand how the layout should look with the line:

"It still must be a real file, not an alias, although you CAN put an alias to this placeholder in your Movies directory so you don't have to see the VIDEO_TS hierarchy."

Thanks again for all your efforts! This is the kind of implementation I have been waiting for.

Gilbert

Just installed v 1.3. When I launch it (I believe it must be launched before you start FR), I get a message stating "Process not found" with two options 'OK' or 'Edit'. If I hit edit, Script Editor launches and another window opens with

'Unable to read the dictionary of the application or extension because it is not scriptable.'

"It still must be a real file, not an alias, although you CAN put an alias to this placeholder in your Movies directory so you don't have to see the VIDEO_TS hierarchy."

Thanks again for all your efforts! This is the kind of implementation I have been waiting for.

Gilbert

Yeah, you can't hit the "edit" button on an Applet when it has a problem. It doesn't fire up the Applescript editor properly.

Let me think on this a bit and see if I can guess at what process it is not finding. I'm using the Andrew Escobar Front Row Enabler with Front Row 1.2.2.

On the alias stuff... yeah, that was tough to explain. What I was getting at is that you can do something like:


~/Movies/
Wonderful Movie 1.mov (an alias to the file below)

Somewhere else on your system you would have:

/Some Movie folder name/
Wonderful Movie 1/
VIDEO_TS/
Wonderfule Movie 1.mov (The real file)
VIDEO_TS.BUP
VIDEO_TS.IFO
VIDEO_TS.VOB

Just installed v 1.3. When I launch it (I believe it must be launched before you start FR), I get a message stating "Process not found" with two options 'OK' or 'Edit'. If I hit edit, Script Editor launches and another window opens with

'Unable to read the dictionary of the application or extension because it is not scriptable.'

Which leads to another window stating that 'The document "droplet.rsrc" could not be opened. Script Editor cannot open files in the "Resorcerer document" format.

If I just hit "OK", DVDAssist stays launched in the dock.

If I then start FR, I can go to my VIDEO_TS folders and start the files.

same here - with my MBP 2.16..

I'm gonna retract 1.3 until I figure out what is going on.

I also receive the dialog box when starting version 1.3 on my MacMini.

Nonetheless, the program works as advertised within FrontRow. I am able to select aliases of the "StartMovieNow" file that are located within each VIDEO_TS folder.

This is tremendous. For me, only two tiny issues separate this solution from home theater Nirvana:

- When I start to play a VIDEO_TS file via FrontRow and DVD Assist, I am unable to use the "menu" option on my apple remote to bring up the DVD menu. Instead, this returns me to FrontRow. Is there any way around this?

- We would ideally have an automated method for creating the alias files for each VIDEO_TS folder, perhaps even integrating a clip from the movie or DVD cover art.

I would also like to thank and congratulate Squished Squirrel for pulling this off. This is a very clever piece of work.

Still scratching my head on what process it is not finding. I imagine it is when it tries to hide itself on launch... Before I was just telling the finder to activate. Maybe I'll go back to that.

For those that grabbed 1.3 before I nixed it, can you try this....

Launch it, get past the error and then drag an empty folder to the DVD Assist icon in your dock. Does it give the error again?

Yep, I get the error dropping an empty folder on it.

Yep, I get the error dropping an empty folder on it.

OK, that tells me what line is causing the problem, since I reuse it when doing a drag and drop. I'll replace it with something else.

If someone wants to give this a shot and see if the error on launch is gone. Frustrating that it doesn't do it on my mac....

http://rapidshare.de/files/31632076/DVD_Assist_1.3.1.dmg.html

Downloaded, upgraded, installed, running without problems. I gave the preview 20 seconds of playing before pressing play on my mini duo.

Thanks again!

Downloaded, upgraded, installed, running without problems. I gave the preview 20 seconds of playing before pressing play on my mini duo.

Thanks again!

Phew... Glad it worked!

- When I start to play a VIDEO_TS file via FrontRow and DVD Assist, I am unable to use the "menu" option on my apple remote to bring up the DVD menu. Instead, this returns me to FrontRow. Is there any way around this?

- We would ideally have an automated method for creating the alias files for each VIDEO_TS folder, perhaps even integrating a clip from the movie or DVD cover art.

I would also like to thank and congratulate Squished Squirrel for pulling this off. This is a very clever piece of work.

I still don't have a Mac with an official Apple Remote, so I can't see if there is a way around that. I did get budget approval for both a MacBook Pro and a Mini, so not toooo much longer.

I've thought about an automated way to create the thumbnail movies and aliases. Actually, all the Applescript to do it is already there, I just need to see if I can compile ffmpeg on the Mac to generate the 10-20 second thumbnail movies. I don't think it would be nice to just nab the ffmpeg binary from ffmpeg-X, I'd prefer to see if I can compile it for myself.

Great job. It is working great. I pasted cover art image so it is displayed on the preview screen. You can then click on the movie name to start playing. I really appreciate all of your efforts. Next thing is DVD Player and zoom presets.....there has to be a way.

For some reason with developer preview of dvd player 5.0, you can save presets on media video_ts media, not just DVD's....a sign of what is to come maybe? This is now the last piece missing...I can live without though if needed...:)

Great job. It is working great. I pasted cover art image so it is displayed on the preview screen. You can then click on the movie name to start playing.

also d/l 1.3.1 on a MBP - no problems..

would like to know how you pasted the images so it can be previewed. So I don't hijack the thread - please let me know via PM if poss..

Thanks again SS for a great program!

also d/l 1.3.1 on a MBP - no problems..

would like to know how you pasted the images so it can be previewed. So I don't hijack the thread - please let me know via PM if poss..

Thanks again SS for a great program!

No problem, glad you like it. If you look in the "Other Stuff" folder, there are also brief instructions on how to create still image (ex: DVD Cover) movies.

BTW, Has anyone noticed brief pauses when playing non DVD movies, say MPEG4 or H.264 movies in Front Row?

I'm Figuring dual cpu machines won't glitch, but slower G4's might when DVD Assist hogs a bit of CPU time to check to see what Front Row is doing.

I have noticed the small pauses. I have some H.264 HD Trailers in Movies mixed in with DVD movies.

Also, some of you may notice that cover art gets stretched in preview window. To avoid this and have it show up correctly, I setup a black background of about 320x240 and pasted the cover art on top in the middle of it. I then pasted it to new Quicktime window and saved it as .mov file. What you get is a very nice cover art at the correct scale.

I'm tinkering with rewriting the main part of the program as a shell script. So far, it appears to avoid the glitches (Although the bizarre thing is the activity monitor shows this version as using a bit more CPU time.)

I still don't have a Mac with an official Apple Remote, so I can't see if there is a way around that. I did get budget approval for both a MacBook Pro and a Mini, so not toooo much longer.
It's not clear whether you mean *budget* approval, or _budget_ approval, but if you are waiting on a work machine, then just based on what I've seen so far, I'd make a donation to get you a personal mini...

Dan "Lurker - oops" Smart

It's not clear whether you mean *budget* approval, or _budget_ approval, but if you are waiting on a work machine, then just based on what I've seen so far, I'd make a donation to get you a personal mini...

Dan "Lurker - oops" Smart

The office is finally getting a couple Intel Macs. Won't be able to hook one up to a TV at home, but at least I'll be able to test. Still, I'd love to have a Mini at home...

The office is finally getting a couple Intel Macs. Won't be able to hook one up to a TV at home, but at least I'll be able to test. Still, I'd love to have a Mini at home...

count me in for a donation - if you're so inclined..

count me in for a donation - if you're so inclined..

Me too...this is easily a piece of shareware as far as I'm concerned.

I just got an error message from DVD Assist. I saw the same thing yesterday but forgot to write it down before clicking 'OK'.

The window is titled "DVD Assist" along with a pic of the icon and the error states:

NSReceiverEvaluationScriptError: 4

It has an 'Edit' and 'OK' button with the 'OK' button being the default.

Both times the error appeared, I was not using FR, it just appeared on the desktop.

I just got an error message from DVD Assist. I saw the same thing yesterday but forgot to write it down before clicking 'OK'.

The window is titled "DVD Assist" along with a pic of the icon and the error states:

NSReceiverEvaluationScriptError: 4

It has an 'Edit' and 'OK' button with the 'OK' button being the default.

Both times the error appeared, I was not using FR, it just appeared on the desktop.

Searching on random occurances of that error brought me to this:

http://bbs.applescript.net/viewtopic.php?pid=57731

Are you using Megazoomer? It is reported to cause these errors randomly with Applescript applets.

If that is not it, I'm not sure how to replicate. The next version gets rid of most of the Applescript idle loop... and will most likley get rid of the error.

If the next version works smoothly, I might set up a paypal donate account. If it helps get me a Mini at home... I'm all for it ;-)

When I start to play a VIDEO_TS file via FrontRow and DVD Assist, I am unable to use the "menu" option on my apple remote to bring up the DVD menu. Instead, this returns me to FrontRow. Is there any way around this?

Hold down the Menu button instead of just clicking it (which leads to Front Row)...that should take you back to the DVD menu.

Just figured this out myself! :)

Hi SS,

No, I don't run Megazoomer (never heard of it before). I'll let you know if it happens again and if I notice if anything is the trigger. Both times, I came back to my computer and the error message was there (I don't put the computer to sleep if that makes a difference).

I think a PayPal donate button would be well deserved and received for your efforts!

My next challenge is trying to get the script to work with 10.5 developer...As I mentioned before it has dvd player 5, which saves zoom presets per movie. The script only works when you drag a video_ts folder and not via Front Row. It looks like 10.5 has a new version of applescript, maybe that is the problem.

Hold down the Menu button instead of just clicking it (which leads to Front Row)...that should take you back to the DVD menu.

Perfect! Thanks.

I also think this is supportable shareware. PayPal away!

I setup a black background of about 320x240 and pasted the cover art on top in the middle of it. I then pasted it to new Quicktime window and saved it as .mov file. What you get is a very nice cover art at the correct scale.

Are you using consistantly-sized cover art? I'm not and cannot for the life of me get the cover art to scale down to the 320x240 black background I created. Assuming the sizing isn't a problem, please point out my mistake (if it's visible)

1. Create 320x240 black background, copy it to clipboard, open "Blank Movie", choose "Add to selection & scale" from the Edit menu.

2. Now I have a ten second movie of black screen that will play without problems.

3. Open cover art in Preview, Copy from the Edit menu, then choose "Add to selectoin & scale in QT" in the black bg movie.

4. The resulting movie contains the cover art, but doesn't show the black background.

5. Hence, the preview is stretched in FR.

So many people are doing this successfully that I know I'm making an easy mistake...thanks if anyone can help.

jwcrash, here is the best way to do this:

Open up Start the Movie.mov file supplied in DVDAssist with Quicktime. Scan until you get to a black background, which is about just before hitting the 1 second mark and pause it.

Open up cover art you want to use, using Preview application. Go to Preview Preferences and change window background color to Black.

Put cover art preview window on top of quicktime window (Start the Movie.mov one).

Expand the window so it matches the size of the Start the Movie.mov movie (the black part only, and not the whole Quicktime Window).

Open up Grab under Applications/Utilities.

Go to Capture and then Selection from the menu.

Form a square around the Start the Movie.mov window where the cover art is.

This will bring up a new Grab window with the cover art and black background.

Do a Copy from menu.

Open up Quicktime Pro and open new window.

Do a paste from menu. This will paste Preview cover art window with the black background.

Save as whatever name you want to give it. In my case, Toy Story.mov.

(I had to remove .mov from the actual file name after saving it. For some reason Quicktime still puts extension there even if you tell it not to.)

I must admit that this is probably not the best way to do this, but it worked for me. I only had about 25 movies to do this for. Mostly kid's movies that they watch over and over. It did not take me that long. For someone that has a lot more movies with cover art, it will take a while.

Let me know if that works for you.

My next challenge is trying to get the script to work with 10.5 developer...As I mentioned before it has dvd player 5, which saves zoom presets per movie. The script only works when you drag a video_ts folder and not via Front Row. It looks like 10.5 has a new version of applescript, maybe that is the problem.

No errors? It just doesn't activate? Odd... how in 'ell could they be hiding what files Front Row has open... then again, they may have changed the name of Front Row, or integrated it into another process.

If you just Fire up Front Row on 10.5, and then exit with the escape key, do you see a Front Row process in the Activity Monitor?

No errors at all. It just does not activate at all. I know the script works because I can drag folder and it will work. I looked at the process name in Activity Monitor and it is called Front Row and has not changed. Very strange.

Since I could not get it to work, I tried installing DVD Player 5.0 on 10.4.7, but no luck at all. I even tried copying all files using Pacifist and it will not work. I also tried changing Systemversion files in CoreServices to trick it, but no luck at all. :) I would love this feature. Unfortunetly VLC does not allow you to zoom while in fullscreen. Oh well! :(

Forgot to mention that version 5 also remembers last played setting for video_ts folders too. Man, I wish I could get this to work!

jwcrash, here is the best way to do this...

Thanks, Vertigo...that's an amazingly comprehensive set of instructions. I very much appreciate your time. While I'm surprised there isn't an easier middle ground between the ReadMe file and your method, I'll take whatever works!

As an aside, while searching for cool cover art I found IMDB has amazing links to foreign and rare verisons of movie posters. On the left side of the screen, "Posters" is available under almost any movie title. Taking the time to check out the resulting links can be very rewarding! :cool:

I don't have the Apple MPEG2 codec for Quicktime. For the purposes of DVD Assist am I better off having it or not having it? I understand having it would save me the trouble of copying the dummy .mov file to my numerous video_ts folders. Is there a downside?

It does not really matter if you have it or not. The dummy file will start the movie as long as it is in the same folder. You can then just create an alias to it and put it in your movies folder.

I'm with Squished Squire,

getting .iso images working is VERY important. The problem seems to be that you can't make an alias of the ts folder that resides inside the .iso image. And I can't find an equivalent mounting utility like Daemon Tools. Reason this is so important is because I've got a network inwhich I use both pcs and macs. Thus I ripped all my iso files before I got into the mac world.

While the vlc program is the only thing that I've found to play my vob files (once I open the directory directly from vlc) I also need Front Row as the front end.

Part 2...
To be more clear to Vertigo, you can't copy startthemovie.mov to the ts directory that's inside the iso image

Part 2...
To be more clear to Vertigo, you can't copy startthemovie.mov to the ts directory that's inside the iso image

Have you tried making iso image read and write, instead of read only? I would think you could copy the start the movie.mov afterwards?

Have you tried making iso image read and write, instead of read only? I would think you could copy the start the movie.mov afterwards?

OSX refuses to let you write to a UDF formatted volume or disk image without additional software like "Write UDF."

The solution is to re-write DVD Assist to support ISO images. If it doesn't chew up too much CPU time adding in the check, I could take care of it in a future version. Basically I'd search for files open in /VIDEO_TS/ folders, or files that end in .iso.mov.

If they end in .iso.mov, the matching .iso in the same folder will get handed off to the toast mounter, and then to DVD Player. Figuring out what other ISO's might already be mounted and dismounting them before starting DVD Player might be the toughest part. (DVD Player appears to play whatever DVD/Toast mounted ISO it wants.)

First off I want to say HOW unbelievablly valuable this discussion is. So thanks so much Squished. Just a bit OT I'm coming from the PC side where it was either rip files to .ifo and have to fool with trying to string chapters together and the like. Thus .iso images and mounting them like a DVD and using a bat file to do the mounting and the (Zoomplayer) dvd software initiation. Now I'm converting over to mac and since I've got a pretty good sized network in my home and trying to mix harware platforms, my need, and I think many other new converts is to use the mac and all its strengths while keeping some of that key functionality that it took months of sleepless nights trying to figure out over in the PC world. ...Now that you know my life history.

I don't quite understand why .iso.mov files, did you mean .iso or .mov files? I'm interested because 1 I) believe you on the brink of solving a major problem of mine, and 2) I'd love to help in any way with the development. No credits or anything else needed, just to be able to work on this with someone else who gets it is compensation enough.

Keep it up. You're just about to give me all the pleasure without having to experience any of the pain!!!!!

I don't quite understand why .iso.mov files, did you mean .iso or .mov files? I'm interested because 1 I) believe you on the brink of solving a major problem of mine, and 2) I'd love to help in any way with the development. No credits or anything else needed, just to be able to work on this with someone else who gets it is compensation enough.

Keep it up. You're just about to give me all the pleasure without having to experience any of the pain!!!!!

All I can do is look at what files Front Row is playing, and if I see a certain pattern in the pathname, then I can take action on it. So, say I see a file open that is in a path that contains /VIDEO_TS/ well, then I know I should process that and have DVD Player play it.

In the case of ISO images, we need something that Front Row can play AND that I can key in on. So, say you have an ISO called "WONDERFULMOVIE.ISO" then you place a short quicktime movie in that same folder and call it "Wonderfulmovie.iso.mov". When fron't row goes to play that .mov file, I can make the assumption that since Front Row is playing a file that contains ".iso.mov" in the name, that I should look for an ISO image at the same path, mount it, and fire up Apple DVD Player.

There is a LOT of work that needs to be done to make that all work. I have to figure out what UDF volumes are currently mounted and dismount them (including real DVD's) Then I have to mount the correct ISO, and then start up DVD Player.... and if everything goes right, it will play from the ISO. (I can't tell Front Row to play it internally, I have to use DVD Player.)

Right now, I'm trying to figure out how to sort through all the crap that the command line "mount" command spits out to parse out what volumes are UDF, and what aren't. I thought it was going to be easy with the "umount -t UDF" command, but the Finder gets a wee bit annoyed when you dismount volumes that way.

Here is version 1.4. It is the first stab at DVD image support. I went with the image suffix of .iso, but if .toast is really the preferred suffix, it can be easily changed to that.

(Link removed, see first post for current version.)

From the release notes:
Rearranged the code yet again to try and get rid of pauses while non-DVD movies are playing in Front Row. A 640*480 H.264 trailer plays smoothly in Front Row while DVD Assist is in the background now.

Added support for HD movies created with DVDSP (HVDVD_TS).

VLC support is gone for now. Too much trouble to keep up the two versions, and VLC's AppleScript support sucked anyway.

Added support for DVD images. This is very experimental. As such, the notes for it will go down here until it has had a bit more testing. One thing of note: If any UDF volumes have to be dismounted before a new disc image is mounted, the whole process can take longer than the Start the Movie.mov movie. Front Row may fall back into the preview mode before playback begins. It can take 15-20 seconds to get everything sorted out if volumes have to be dismounted first. The new Start the Movie.mov file is 20 seconds long now, and the quality on it was bumped up.

Disc image support requires Toast Titanium. It has an image mounting component that fools the OS into thinking a real DVD is in the drive. This allows for DVD Player's zoom video function to work on disc images. Maybe in another version, I'll allow mounting disc images with the Apple image mounter (Without zoom video support, at least in Tiger.)

Here is an example with a mix of VIDEO_TS folders and disc images:

~/Movies/
DVD Collection/
Wonderful Movie 1.mov (an alias of the file below)
Wonderful Movie 2.mov (an alias of the file below)
Wonderful Movie 3.mov (an alias of the file below)

Elsewhere on your system you might have:

Big Fat Drive 1/
DVD Images/ (The name MUST be "DVD Images")
Wonderful Movie 1.mov (A playable .mov)
Wonderful Movie 1.iso (MUST end in .iso)
Wonderful Movie 2.mov (A playable .mov)
Wonderful Movie 2.iso (MUST end in .iso)
...
Big Fat Drive 2/
WONDERFUL_MOVIE_3/
VIDEO_TS/
Wonderful Movie 3.mov (A playable .mov)
VIDEO_TS.BUP
VIDEO_TS.IFO
VIDEO_TS.VOB
...

I am running an intel mini 1.66 and having little to no luck running either 1.3.1 or 1.4. Basically it finds the movies and plays them for the 10 seconds and goes back to front row. However I downgraded to 1.3.1 and got it to work twice before it stopped working. Any suggestions? Thanks for the hard work!

I am running an intel mini 1.66 and having little to no luck running either 1.3.1 or 1.4. Basically it finds the movies and plays them for the 10 seconds and goes back to front row. However I downgraded to 1.3.1 and got it to work twice before it stopped working. Any suggestions? Thanks for the hard work!

DVD Assist must be running anytime you want to use Front Row to play VIDEO_TS folders. I assume it was?

Did you place a "Start the Movie.mov" file into a VIDEO_TS folder of a movie on your hard drive? It was a real file, not an alias, correct?

If you quit out of front row after trying to play the Start the Movie.mov file that was in the VIDEO_TS folder, were there any error messages? Was DVD Player open (but not playing the movie obviously)?

There are just three things that would make DVD assist perfect to me (it's already nearly there in my eyes - many thanks Squished Squirre):

1. The ability to go back to the last Front Row dvd menu when you press the menu button on your remote when you're playing a movie, instead of having to go back to the root Front Row menu.

2. Instead of having an icon in the dock, the ability to have an icon in the menu bar and no icon in the dock - I don't know but I just prefer an icon in the menu bar to an icon in the dock.

3. And this is not related to DVD Assist but I'd like zoom-presets in DVD Player. Hopefully this might be fixed in the forthcoming 10.4.8. update at the end of Sept/beginning of October.

I don't know how hard the first two things on this list would be to implement - my programming skills don't go beyond beginners Java - but these two things would make, an already great app, perfect in my eyes. And also stick me on the list willing to donate as I think you've done a great job already.

There are just three things that would make DVD assist perfect to me (it's already nearly there in my eyes - many thanks Squished Squirre):

1. The ability to go back to the last Front Row dvd menu when you press the menu button on your remote when you're playing a movie, instead of having to go back to the root Front Row menu.

2. Instead of having an icon in the dock, the ability to have an icon in the menu bar and no icon in the dock - I don't know but I just prefer an icon in the menu bar to an icon in the dock.

3. And this is not related to DVD Assist but I'd like zoom-presets in DVD Player. Hopefully this might be fixed in the forthcoming 10.4.8. update at the end of Sept/beginning of October.

I don't know how hard the first two things on this list would be to implement - my programming skills don't go beyond beginners Java - but these two things would make, an already great app, perfect in my eyes. And also stick me on the list willing to donate as I think you've done a great job already.

I don't have any control over Front Row, all I can do is see what it has open. Unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to return to a specific place in Front Row.

DVD Assist is a dropplet... meaning you can also drop a folder on it to have it play a VIDEO_TS folder. To be able to do that, it needs to be a standard application that shows up in the dock.

DVD Player 5 apparently has zoom presets for VIDEO_TS folders as well as real DVD's. I don't know if we will see DVD Player 5 prior to Leopard or not.

I appreciate the suggestions. This is basically a work-around for VIDEO_TS support in Front Row, and as such it will never be as polished as a solution like MediaCentral or one of the other HTPC solutions.

DVD Assist must be running anytime you want to use Front Row to play VIDEO_TS folders. I assume it was?

Did you place a "Start the Movie.mov" file into a VIDEO_TS folder of a movie on your hard drive? It was a real file, not an alias, correct?

If you quit out of front row after trying to play the Start the Movie.mov file that was in the VIDEO_TS folder, were there any error messages? Was DVD Player open (but not playing the movie obviously)?

Yes, I have a movie placed in the folder and an alias in my movies folder. There is no error messages after quiting front row. The DVD player was not open after I quit out of front row...

Yes, I have a movie placed in the folder and an alias in my movies folder. There is no error messages after quiting front row. The DVD player was not open after I quit out of front row...

I'm at a bit of a loss and can only guess....

What is the full path to your VIDEO_TS folder?

If you are comfortable using the Terminal, I can suggest a few other tests.

Never mind... late night last night :rolleyes: Just realized I wasn't putting the movies in the Video_TS folder! Thanks for everything, works great...

Never mind... late night last night :rolleyes: Just realized I wasn't putting the movies in the Video_TS folder! Thanks for everything, works great...

Excellent! That was going to drive me nuts. I don't have an Intel Mac to test on yet, so I was going to drag everything over to Fry's come Monday to make sure it worked.

I'd like to get a little better feel on how stable it is before I set up a web page for it... and... gulp... announce it on Versiontracker and Macupdate.

One thing... I am not sure if this is the intent or not but when I hit menu again it goes to frontrow and doesn't quit dvd player. Is that how it is suppose to work?

BTW I would say this is worthy of versiontracker. Also I would post it on 123macmini.com in there HTPC section and get some feedback.

One thing... I am not sure if this is the intent or not but when I hit menu again it goes to frontrow and doesn't quit dvd player. Is that how it is suppose to work?

BTW I would say this is worthy of versiontracker. Also I would post it on 123macmini.com in there HTPC section and get some feedback.

Unfortunately, not quitting DVD player is intended. The problem I run into is that the more that is done in the background, the more likely playback of non-DVD movies (like MPEG4, Divx, H.264) will have pauses while playing. So, I do the absolute minimum possible... check to see if Front Row has one of our placeholder movies open.

I think I have seen an article on 123macmini... but I don't know how much attention it got.

Just wanted to say a heartfelt thank you to Squished Squirre. I've gone from wanting to use my Mac Mini as headless iTunes server ASAP, to never wanting to detach it from the monitor again.

Between DVD Assist and the brilliant French Maids Video Podcast (just check out Episode 1), Front Row is now a priceless app.

Going back to DVD assist, it seems to me the logical thing to replace Start the Movie.mov with is the actual preview of the DVD in question in .MOV format. (Probably a short teaser-trailer would be better). With a little work on the user's part this could be a majorly cool thing.

I wonder if DVD Assist will push Apple into rolling out their own built in solution for front row...

Just wanted to say a heartfelt thank you to Squished Squirre.

I'd like to reiterate how much I also appreciate this app's availability. It can be frustrating to see new posters adding comment after comment that start with "Nice app, but you know what would make it perfect for me..."

SS fixed a MAJOR omission in Front Row's development that people have been rightfully complaining about since FR was first introduced. Yet there seems to be a constant pressure to refine this piece of freeware to the personal tastes of each individual user. It seems like a chronic case of looking into the gifthorse's mouth.

IMO, SS has been amazingly patient with people bascially telling him his hard work has resulted in an app that falls short of their expectations.

The title of thread says it all: "VIDEO_TS playback for Front Row". Aside from stability issues, this mission has been accomplished. If you're forced into developing support for ISO files, other disk images, perfecting cover art, individual trailers for each preview(?!?!?!), just develop it as a second, premium feature-enhanced app.

And the last stable versionof DVD Assist (before the disk image introduction) is DEFINITELY ready for VersionTracker and MacUpdate for at least $5...I'd lean towards $10 since you literally have no competition. Enhaced with all of the gilding mentioned above, the premium standalone sounds like a $15-$20 bargain to a guy who buys shareware from indie developers like you on a regular basis. Consider Leopard will have a new version of FR that could fix this omission...reward your hard work while you can.

At this point, it sounds like I'm working on commision. But the reailty is, this program completes my Mac HD PVR set-up and I'm very grateful for someone finally stepping up.

On behalf of all the guys in the same spot before your arrival, Cheers! :D

I'd like to reiterate how much I also appreciate this app's availability. It can be frustrating to see new posters adding comment after comment that start with "Nice app, but you know what would make it perfect for me..."

SS fixed a MAJOR omission in Front Row's development that people have been rightfully complaining about since FR was first introduced. Yet there seems to be a constant pressure to refine this piece of freeware to the personal tastes of each individual user. It seems like a chronic case of looking into the gifthorse's mouth.

IMO, SS has been amazingly patient with people bascially telling him his hard work has resulted in an app that falls short of their expectations.

The title of thread says it all: "VIDEO_TS playback for Front Row". Aside from stability issues, this mission has been accomplished. If you're forced into developing support for ISO files, other disk images, perfecting cover art, individual trailers for each preview(?!?!?!), just develop it as a second, premium feature-enhanced app.

And the last stable versionof DVD Assist (before the disk image introduction) is DEFINITELY ready for VersionTracker and MacUpdate for at least $5...I'd lean towards $10 since you literally have no competition. Enhaced with all of the gilding mentioned above, the premium standalone sounds like a $15-$20 bargain to a guy who buys shareware from indie developers like you on a regular basis. Consider Leopard will have a new version of FR that could fix this omission...reward your hard work while you can.

At this point, it sounds like I'm working on commision. But the reailty is, this program completes my Mac HD PVR set-up and I'm very grateful for someone finally stepping up.

On behalf of all the guys in the same spot before your arrival, Cheers! :D

100% agree with the evaluation of DVD Assist. SS, if you go shareware, I'll Paypal you for sure!

I posted a quick notice about DVD Assist on my blog and threw a video up on YouTube showing the transition from EyeTV 2.3 -> Front Row -> Apple DVD Player running a VIDEO_TS folder and back to EyeTV. Hopefully, it will demonstrate how useful this little app can be in a Mac Media Center set-up!

Here it is. (http://www.mrobsession.com/mac-front-row-video_ts/)

@jwcrash

As one of those new posters, I have to say I agree with you. I feel I was too harsh asking for new features when, before this program came out, I wouldn't have been able to play video_ts files in Front Row. I suppose it's just coming from a MCE2005 and My Movies (which DVD Assist feels a bit like) background that made me want something approaching that level of integration. I realise that we're all dependent on Squished Squirre's goodwill, effort and coding for what is, in essence, an oversight by Apple. So I apologise for my harsh previous post.

It also sure beats paying $29 for Media-central for something that's not much more polished and with this solution at least you get a dedicated DVD player which, in some ways, is more flexible. So, to reiterate part of my first post, I'd be more then willing to pay $5-10 for a basic version like jwcrash wrote.

Hats-off to you, Squished. A beacon of the Mac community. ;) And to you, jwcrash for the well-worded and illustrated blog entry.

http://digg.com/apple/How_to_Play_Ripped_DVD_s_in_Front_Row

Getting the Digg listing is pushing my weak Dreamhost server to the limit (not that I'm complaining, of course).

Here's a direct YouTube link so you can bypass any loading waits at my site:

DVD Assist @ YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1L2Err1s7U)

Version 1.4.1 is almost ready for general consumption, along with a new homepage for it.

It fixes the slow switching of ISO images, and adds some other error checking to play better with Front Row 1.3.

Great. Thanks for the update SS. Looking forward to it. I actually converted all my folders to iso images. It took a while, but I can now enjoy zoom presets for all movies. Very nice! We really do appreciate all that you do for this community.

Page is up...

http://www.moonlightmac.com/Projects.html

Page is up...

http://www.moonlightmac.com/Projects.html

I'm probably one of the first (and hopefully not the last!!!) to donate! Congrats and many thanks!!!!

That's a nice simply web page. Looks good. Did you make the icon yourself?

I've heard that the latest Front Row update allowed playback of VIDEO_TS? I assume this person was mistaken?


/marketing hat on/
By the way, you should submit this thread and links to the AVS Admin people so they put on the front page. It's certainly AVS Forum news-worthy and the Mac guy from AVS Radio would love this. :)

Might also consider adding a quick walkthrough on the website or at least link to the Mr. Obsession blog as a "testimonial" or something. http://www.mrobsession.com/mac-front-row-video_ts/

/marketing hat off/

I'm probably one of the first (and hopefully not the last!!!) to donate!

I'm either right in front or right behind you at Paypal...either way, happy to finally be contributing towards a Mini for SS!

Hey SS! Are you a member of ADC? Put DVD Assist up on the Apple Downloads page... you'll be able to buy a Mac Pro w/30" cinema display!! ;)

I'm probably one of the first (and hopefully not the last!!!) to donate! Congrats and many thanks!!!!

Many thanks for your donation! If version 1.4.1 has been stable for everyone, I'll go ahead and open the floodgates and put it on MacUpdate... and eventually Versiontracker (although I am still a bit mad at them.)

Hey SS! Are you a member of ADC? Put DVD Assist up on the Apple Downloads page... you'll be able to buy a Mac Pro w/30" cinema display!! ;)

Just a free member. My buddy is an ADC dev... HE is the one who got the stinkin G5 and 30" display earlier this year.... the butthead ;-)

I'm either right in front or right behind you at Paypal...either way, happy to finally be contributing towards a Mini for SS!

Thanks, much appreciated! I can link to your blog if you like.

That's a nice simply web page. Looks good. Did you make the icon yourself?

I've heard that the latest Front Row update allowed playback of VIDEO_TS? I assume this person was mistaken?


/marketing hat on/
By the way, you should submit this thread and links to the AVS Admin people so they put on the front page. It's certainly AVS Forum news-worthy and the Mac guy from AVS Radio would love this. :)

Might also consider adding a quick walkthrough on the website or at least link to the Mr. Obsession blog as a "testimonial" or something. http://www.mrobsession.com/mac-front-row-video_ts/

/marketing hat off/

The icon was made from a stock photo and turned into an icon with Iconographer.

I don't see any VIDEO_TS support in Front Row 1.3, other than what all the other versions of Front Row had... namely if you had the Apple MPEG2 plugin installed, you could play the VOB files, but you wouldn't get audio, no menus, and it wouldn't play the VOBs sequentially.

I would think with the hit count on the thread growing at the rate it is, AVS admins will judge for themselves if it is worthy ;-)

A link to the blog is a possibility if jwc wants it.

Can't get to the download. Do you need a bigger server t handle all the good traffic???

On moonlightmac.com, the download link seems to be broken! I just donated as well through PayPal. Excellent work on this script.

Unfortunately, not quitting DVD player is intended. The problem I run into is that the more that is done in the background, the more likely playback of non-DVD movies (like MPEG4, Divx, H.264) will have pauses while playing. So, I do the absolute minimum possible... check to see if Front Row has one of our placeholder movies open.

I think I have seen an article on 123macmini... but I don't know how much attention it got.

Hi , first of all let me say what a neat app this is - I have one problem though with DVD player not quitting when front row is active. If you are using this in conjunction with EyeTV in full screen mode it does not work properly. When you exit out of front row it goes back to the display of the mini , if the DVD player is not active it will go back to the full screen menu of EyeTV (this is what I want to happen) but as the dvd player is still open it just displays the DVD player on top with the EyeTv window behind it causing a trip to the keyboard to quit DVD player.. any ideas ?

Can't get to the download. Do you need a bigger server t handle all the good traffic???


Nahh... I goofed when I added the link to jwc's page, and broke the link to the download. It is fixed now.

Thanks!

On moonlightmac.com, the download link seems to be broken! I just donated as well through PayPal. Excellent work on this script.


Yep, I broke the link tinkering with the page, thanks for catching it!

It should be fine now.... and many thanks for the donation!

Hi , first of all let me say what a neat app this is - I have one problem though with DVD player not quitting when front row is active. If you are using this in conjunction with EyeTV in full screen mode it does not work properly. When you exit out of front row it goes back to the display of the mini , if the DVD player is not active it will go back to the full screen menu of EyeTV (this is what I want to happen) but as the dvd player is still open it just displays the DVD player on top with the EyeTv window behind it causing a trip to the keyboard to quit DVD player.. any ideas ?


I hate to impose on jwcrash, but since I don't have an EyeTV, maybe he has an idea. In his youtube presentation, he switches back from DVD player to EyeTV (Not from Front Row to EyeTV).

jwcrash, any ideas? Does the same happen for you?

One thing you might try is while you are in Front Row, go to one of your VIDEO_TS movies, and let it play the preview (Don't click on it to start it playing full screen, just let it show you the preview off to the side for a few seconds.) This will quit out of DVD player, since I quit it while it is previewing.

Then, exit out of Front Row from there.

(For reasons somewhat complex to explain, I don't quit out of DVD Player at other times.)

I hate to impose on jwcrash, but since I don't have an EyeTV, maybe he has an idea. In his youtube presentation, he switches back from DVD player to EyeTV (Not from Front Row to EyeTV).

jwcrash, any ideas?

None that are going to make people happy, I'm afraid. I'm manually quitting out of the DVD Player with a macro command on my universal remote that sends the "Quit App" command via a Keyspan IR receiver to my Mini. It's the only time I have to put down the Apple Remote during the process, but couldn't find any other way to move between the DVD player and EyeTV without running into the wall that the DVD app becomes.

Otherwise, it is impossible to move past the inactive DVD Player to re-access EyeTV with a basic Apple Remote. I know adding "Quit DVD Playeer" functionality is mentioned more than once in the posts above, but I definitely heard SS when he expressed the difficulty involved in implimenting it.

So my best advice is trying third-party Apple Remote software (Sofa Control, Remote Buddy, etc.) that opens up the remote's capabilities and could easily be set to send the commands you need.

:)

I have ts movies on my imac...ihave dvd assist on my mini connected to hdtv...for some reason front row does not "see" the shared movies on the imac...am I missing someting...dvd assist is running on both

None that are going to make people happy, I'm afraid. I'm manually quitting out of the DVD Player with a macro command on my universal remote that sends the "Quit App" command via a Keyspan IR receiver to my Mini. It's the only time I have to put down the Apple Remote during the process, but couldn't find any other way to move between the DVD player and EyeTV without running into the wall that the DVD app becomes.

Otherwise, it is impossible to move past the inactive DVD Player to re-access EyeTV with a basic Apple Remote. I know adding "Quit DVD Playeer" functionality is mentioned more than once in the posts above, but I definitely heard SS when he expressed the difficulty involved in implimenting it.

So my best advice is trying third-party Apple Remote software (Sofa Control, Remote Buddy, etc.) that opens up the remote's capabilities and could easily be set to send the commands you need.

:)

I edited the message above with a possible work around.

I have ts movies on my imac...ihave dvd assist on my mini connected to hdtv...for some reason front row does not "see" the shared movies on the imac...am I missing someting...dvd assist is running on both

DVD Assist won't work through shared movies. The iMac's hard drive would have to be mounted as a volume on the desktop of the Mini using personal file sharing. Then you could place aliases of the placeholder movies of the iMac into the Mini's Movies folder.

If this is a wireless connection between them, you may encounter glitching and pauses if your wireless connection can't maintain a constant 1Mbyte (10Mbit) speed. That sounds tiny compared to 54Mbits, but my laptop has problems at times maintaining that speed.

If you have a wired connection, it should be fine.

One thing you might try is while you are in Front Row, go to one of your VIDEO_TS movies, and let it play the preview (Don't click on it to start it playing full screen, just let it show you the preview off to the side for a few seconds.) This will quit out of DVD player, since I quit it while it is previewing.

Then, exit out of Front Row from there.

(For reasons somewhat complex to explain, I don't quit out of DVD Player at other times.)

Okay...I just tried this a couple of different ways and it DOES work just as SS says.

1. Opened a VIDEO_TS via an alias in FR.
2. Start playing DVD, then jump back to FR via click of Menu button (executed from both the DVD menu and during playback of actual film).
3. Navigate to VIDEO_TS aliases, let a preview run for a couple of seconds.
4. Click out of FR to EyeTV
5. DVD App appears briefly, then quits and you're back in EyeTV's Fullscreen menu!

:D

Okay...I just tried this a couple of different ways and it DOES work just as SS says.

1. Opened a VIDEO_TS via an alias in FR.
2. Start playing DVD, then jump back to FR via click of Menu button (executed from both the DVD menu and during playback of actual film).
3. Navigate to VIDEO_TS aliases, let a preview run for a couple of seconds.
4. Click out of FR to EyeTV
5. DVD App appears briefly, then quits and you're back in EyeTV's Fullscreen menu!

:D

I'll tinker around some more and see if I can exit out of DVD Player everytime... just as long as it doesn't eat up too much CPU time and cause glitches with other types of media in Front Row.

I have ts movies on my imac...ihave dvd assist on my mini connected to hdtv...for some reason front row does not "see" the shared movies on the imac...am I missing someting...dvd assist is running on both

Moving past the "sharing" problems...is there a way to launch TS files from DVD Assist? I watch that file type in VLC, not DVD Player but would love to know how this is being approached. Is he using a modified version of an earlier DVD Assist - VLC Build? I assume the app tosses VIDEO_TS and looks for files with ".ts"?

Assume being the key word, of course. :D

Moving past the "sharing" problems...is there a way to launch TS files from DVD Assist? I watch that file type in VLC, not DVD Player but would love to know how this is being approached. Is he using a modified version of an earlier DVD Assist - VLC Build? I assume the app tosses VIDEO_TS and looks for files with ".ts"?

Assume being the key word, of course. :D

I had just assumed that he was talking about video_TS files.

Doing real transport streams would be done much the same as ISO's... except using VLC as the player. I'm cheating... I'm converting them to HDDVD_TS folders and play them with DVD Player. (Not a process for the squeemish.)

I had just assumed that he was talking about video_TS files.


Wow...I feel like an idiot. Talk about overthinking something. :p

I'm cheating... I'm converting them to HDDVD_TS folders and play them with DVD Player.

Gotcha...that is a very serious endeavor I imagine yields beautiful (and well-integrated) results. But waaaay beyond my capabilites!

Thanks for the explanation.

I maybe was unclear in prior post...I have the Video_TS files on my imac. My mac mini is connected to HDTV. When using front Row and DVD Assist, my mini can access the shared vidoes (Music videos) but NOT any of my ripped Video_TS files.
BUT When I use the Imac where the video_TS files are, they work fine with front row and DVD Assist.

Why can't the mini see the TS files on the imac?
Thanks for your help!

Bye the way, Distant DVD does stream the vidoe from the imac to the mini...but I would rather use front row due to easier remote control.

Sorry...disregard this ...I saw your reply...forgive me...i am new at this...I maybe was unclear in prior post...I have the Video_TS files on my imac. My mac mini is connected to HDTV. When using front Row and DVD Assist, my mini can access the shared vidoes (Music videos) but NOT any of my ripped Video_TS files.
BUT When I use the Imac where the video_TS files are, they work fine with front row and DVD Assist.

Why can't the mini see the TS files on the imac?
Thanks for your help!

Bye the way, Distant DVD does stream the vidoe from the imac to the mini...but I would rather use front row due to easier remote control.

OK, I think I found a logic error in DVD Assist that can cause it to play a different VIDEO_TS than you select if you move through the Front Row menu's fast. I'll see if I can fix that quick.

There is one other issue that has cropped up on a few occasions with Front Row 1.3 that I can't get a handle on yet... Occasionally after playing a VIDEO_TS folder, when you try to start up Front Row again, it ignores your request. When this happens, you have two copies of Front Row running. I'm not sure why yet. You can force quit one of the copies with Activity Monitor and then all is well, but that isn't a realistic work around I know. It is annoying in that it doesn't happen predicatably so I can figure out what is causing it.

Until I get this figured out, I'd recommend sticking with Front Row 1.2.2 unless there is some feature of 1.3 you need.

How do you mount as a volume on the desktop of the Mini using personal file sharing and Then you place aliases of the placeholder movies of the iMac into the Mini's Movies folder?
Thansk for your help...kind of new at networking... :)

figured it out...is there now way to get cover art other than quicktime pro method? Thansk again for a great app...now if only i can find a good wireless keybaord/mouse combo for couch control!

I have gotten DVD Assist working in my HT with my DVDs saved on a Mac Mini in the basement spare bedroom hidden away with an external HD attached. The movies are sent wirelessly to the Mac Mini in my Home Theater. I created an Automator workflow that will automatically create the DVD artwork preview video so all I have to do is find the image I like, right-click on it and select the "DVD Artcover" finder plug-in and it is done.

As soon as I make a few more posts here (to prevent the admin restriction), I will post a URL to my Flickr photos of it.

danlynch: The apple Bluetooth Keyboard and the Logitech 270 mouse work great. The mouse will work on the surface of your sofa so you don't have to lean over to use it on a table. This way you can sit back, relax, and reach off to your side to control the cursor on the screen.

Okay, let's try that URL one more time:

http://static.flickr.com/91/245006457_15b694ecc5_o.jpg

Okay, let's try that URL one more time:

http://static.flickr.com/91/245006457_15b694ecc5_o.jpg

cool!

I created an Automator workflow that will automatically create the DVD artwork preview video so all I have to do is find the image I like, right-click on it and select the "DVD Artcover" finder plug-in and it is done.

Care to share that Automator action with the rest of us? ;)

How does your picture show 'DVD's not "Videoes" at top...what plug in are you referring to for artwork? a little confused...

How does your picture show 'DVD's not "Videoes" at top...what plug in are you referring to for artwork? a little confused...

He puts his movie aliases in a subfolder in his movies folder... so, his directory probably looks something like this:

My Home Folder:
Movies:
DVDs:
Wonderful Movie 1 (an alias to the movie.)
Wonderful Movie 2 (an alias to the movie.)

The directory name becomes the title.

Care to share that Automator action with the rest of us? ;)

Does it need Quicktime Pro? I need to write an applescript to do the cover art thing, but I'd like to do it without needing pro.

Still tinkering with the next version... I think I can get it to quit DVD player anytime Front Row is fired up for the EyeTV crowd. Required spending some time making another command line C util.

Got It...thanks Ss

SS: Unfortunately, you do need QT Pro for the cover art Automator Workflow. When I get home from work tonight I will try to post it on here for everyone.

In the meantime, here are some more photos of my Home Theater:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/shieldss44/sets/72157594165801536/

In the meantime, here are some more photos of my Home Theater:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/shieldss44/sets/72157594165801536/

Umm, wow. Can I come over? ;)

really nice...you use a macbook? that's what i have been using to stream over airport to plasma...

Still tinkering with the next version... I think I can get it to quit DVD player anytime Front Row is fired up for the EyeTV crowd. Required spending some time making another command line C util.

Sounds like excellent additional functionality. Your constant refinement is much appreciated!

:D

Okay, here is the workflow. As I mentioned before, you need Quicktime Pro for this to work.

Before you begin, do the following:

- Download and install the "Make Alias" Automator action from Apple's website (it's free: just do a google search).

- Create a folder anywhere on your computer named "DVD covers" and inside that folder, create another folder named "temp". I put it in my "Pictures" folder since this is where I download the album art.

- Make sure your images are square in proportions. For example 480 x 480 is a good size. If not, create a Photoshop droplet to do it for you (I'll post instructions if you really want to know how). Otherwise, your image will appear stretched.

Okay. You are all set. Let's go!!

Here are the steps:

1. New Quicktime Slideshow
- Save as: "temp"
- Where: (in your "DVD covers"/"temp" folder you created)
- Slide duration: 30 seconds (keeps the file size small). Loop is checked.
- Format: self-contained
-------------------------------------------------
2. Get specified finder items
- Click the “+” button and select your “temp” folder
- Make sure this action is NOT connected to the previous step

3. Get Folder Contents
- Link it to the previous step

4. Rename Finder Items
- Replace Text
- Find: (enter the word “temp”) Ignore Case is checked.
- Replace: (leave blank for now)
- Options: Show Action When Run is checked.
- Link it to the previous step
-------------------------------------------------
5. Get specified finder items
- Click the “+” button and select your “temp” folder
- Make sure this action is NOT connected to the previous step

6. Get Folder Contents
- Link it to the previous step

7. Copy Finder Items
- To: (select the TS_Video folder)
- Options: Show Action when run is checked and “To” is checked
- Link it to the previous step

8. Get specified Finder Items
- Link to the previous step and leave blank: the file will be passed automatically

9. Make Alias
- Save the Alias files here: (Select your “DVDs” folder that is linked to your Alias that is in your “Movies” folder to work with DVD Assist.
- Link it to the previous step
------------------------------------------------------
10. Get specified finder items
- Click the “+” button and select your “temp” folder
- Make sure this action is NOT connected to the previous step

11. Get Folder Contents
- Link it to the previous step

12. Move to Trash
- Link it to the previous step
-------------------------------------------------------

When you are done, select “save as plug-in…” and choose “Finder”. Name it whatever you want. I named it “DVD Cover.”

Now, download the album art you want to use to the “DVD covers” folder (Amazon.com or Google images is a good place to look). Right-click on it and select “Automator/DVD Cover”. After a few seconds, you will be asked to rename the file. Enter the name of the movie as you want it to appear in Front Row in the bottom line and leave the top one alone (it should say “temp”). Next, you will be asked where to save it. Select your TS_Video folder for your DVD.

Guess what? You’re done! Take a look in your DVD alias folder: the movie alias is there, the original is in your TS_Video folder, and any other copies have been moved to the trash.

This isn’t perfect, but it’s close. Hope this helps!

Ok, I don't own a MAC yet, and am playing with MCE, but might switch to a mini-mac. I never used a mac, nor have one. So I'm hoping someone here can help me understand what you are doing, because while I get some of how this works. I'd like to know more, before I spend a few hundred bucks just to try something out.

Heres my question/confusion etc.

Right now, to create a backup. I use like DVD shrink, DVD Decryptor. By default they creat the vobs in the video_ts folder and split them into 1gig chunks (for people still using the older file system).

Thats all it does.

I see from some pictures you posted, that in the video_ts file, you have a .mov file, and only a single .vob file.

1)I am assuming that osx supports files greater then 4gb, so your back ups are created as one giant vob (however large the dvd is).

is this correct?

2)What is the .mov file that is in the video_ts folder? is it a complete movie? just parts of it? how large is the file?

2.5) These .mov files can they be created on a pc? I'm looking to store all the dvd's on my pc, then using the mini to play them.

3) I know from reading this thread that hitting the menu button pushes you out to the main front row menu and not the dvd menu, but holding down menu puts you back to the dvd menu?

3.5) Does using this DVD Assist method make the dvd work just like a normal dvd? I.E. Do I get to use the menu's? special features etc? or is the only thing that plays the main movie?


Thanks for helping a mac idiot, but if this lets me play my dvd's with all the bells and wisthles. I'll be buying a mac soon, because so far I haven't found a great solution on the pc.

Ok, I don't own a MAC yet,

It's "Mac" not MAC (that's a networking term).

I'd like to know more, before I spend a few hundred bucks just to try something out.

Don't know where you plan on doing your shopping, but the Apple Store allows returns with a restocking fee that doesn't come anywhere close to a "few hundred bucks" on a Mini. Just an FYI.

I see from some pictures you posted, that in the video_ts file, you have a .mov file, and only a single .vob file.

This is incorrect...the .mov file is being placed inside the VIDEO file of a fully-ripped DVD in the form of a VIDEO_TS file. Inside that VIDEO file are a lot of VOB (and other formats) files. Rarely is there just one when there's a whole DVD backed up.

1)I am assuming that osx supports files greater then 4gb...is this correct?

Yes.

2)What is the .mov file that is in the video_ts folder? is it a complete movie? just parts of it? how large is the file?

Read back through the thread...the MOV file is clearly discussed more than once. It's a crucial part of DVD Assist.

3) I know from reading this thread that hitting the menu button pushes you out to the main front row menu and not the dvd menu, but holding down menu puts you back to the dvd menu?

Yes.

3.5) Does using this DVD Assist method make the dvd work just like a normal dvd? I.E. Do I get to use the menu's? special features etc?

Yes.


And in the future: Please read through the ENTIRE thread before asking questions that have already been discussed. It's very frustrating for those of us trying to provide help when someone ignores past posts we've authored to save themselves the time of searching for an answer. It's common forum courtesy.

And in the future: Please read through the ENTIRE thread before asking questions that have already been discussed.


I honestly did read the entire thread before I posted. and read a few other Mac threads before I did. I'm not a fan of just posting.

I'll read the thread again. one thing I tired but couldn't, was the creater said the instructions are part of the download. The download is a zip, but the zip has .dmg files. Which I can only assume are Mac 'zip' files, or something like that, that on the pc I cannot decode, and get the instructions out of.

but i'll read the thread again...

the zip has .dmg files. Which I can only assume are Mac 'zip' files, or something like that, that on the pc I cannot decode, and get the instructions out of.

but i'll read the thread again...

This thread doesn't define what .dmg files are...that's a general Mac question that falls outside this disucssion.

But Google has you covered. (http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=dmg+windows+xp&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8)

:D

Okay, here is the workflow. As I mentioned before, you need Quicktime Pro for this to work.

This isn’t perfect, but it’s close. Hope this helps!
Thanks forcegoat, that was a big help to me. The only problem I had with this workflow is that the movie files linked to from my Movies-alias-folder had .mov on the end (I know - this is because they are Quicktime movies). So in my Frontrow menu I had something like "Men in Black.mov" instead of "Men in Black". Luckily it was easily fixed by running a simple automator script after your script that removed .mov and replaced it with blank text. But anyway that automator script saved me a big load of time so thanks.

Pbryanw: What automator script did you run? I orginally tried removing the ".mov" during the renaming of the file but it was converting the format of the file (it was no longer a Quicktime movie file). I'll add the script to mine to make it even easier. Thanks!

Hey Opfreak: Don't be put off by your amount of questions: we welcome all new-comers to the Mac platform. The only way you'll learn is by asking.

Hey Opfreak: Don't be put off by your amount of questions: we welcome all new-comers to the Mac platform. The only way you'll learn is by asking.

forcegoat,

With all due respect, why are you encouraging people to ask questions without reading the thread first? For forum members who've done a lot of work helping other folks out, it's insulting to see people asking questions that have already been answered. I could have gone back through this thread and linked up to posts that answered most of Opfreak's questions. Here's an easy example:

I know from reading this thread that hitting the menu button pushes you out to the main front row menu and not the dvd menu, but holding down menu puts you back to the dvd menu?

Here's what I posted on page three of this thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8352781&&#post8352781):

Hold down the Menu button instead of just clicking it (which leads to Front Row)...that should take you back to the DVD menu.

Simple question: Why does that answer need to be re-posted in the same thread?

There's a huge difference between having questions after doing the appropriate research and simply blasting away with anything you don't immediately comprehend. But you're making them sound as though they're one and the same.

Your statement that "The only way you'll learn is by asking" seems (in the context of this discussion) oblivious to all of the other poster's hard work.

Pbryanw: What automator script did you run? I orginally tried removing the ".mov" during the renaming of the file but it was converting the format of the file (it was no longer a Quicktime movie file). I'll add the script to mine to make it even easier. Thanks!
All I did, and it worked for me, was run this script after yours in my "Movies" folder (the root directory with the Video_ts files in it):

1. Get specified finder items
- Click the “+” button and select your root folder where your movies are stored

2. Get Folder Contents
- Make sure "Repeat for each subfolder found" is ticked
- Link it to the previous step

3. Rename Finder Items
- Click "Don't Add" in the dialog box that pops up
- Replace Text
- Find: Enter the word ".mov" (without speech quotes)
- Replace: Leave this box empty
- Link it to the previous step

All I did then was run this from Automator. Maybe the fact that I ran it after the conversion of the jpeg to Quicktime meant that it didn't convert the file. It's quite a simple workflow and the first time I've constructed my own (after learning the commands with yours). At least, thanks to this thread, I've glimpsed a small peek at Automator's potential and learnt to use it a bit - so thanks for that forcegoat.

@opfreak

This might be useful to you in relation to the question 2.5) that you asked about using your PC to store your DVD's - I take it you mean over a network.

If you share your "Movies" folder on Windows (which contains your stored DVD's in video_ts format), then mount it on OS X, you can then use the same technique you use on a native mac directory to get DVD Assist to work. For more about PC to Mac sharing type joelshoemaker into google and look at the 2nd result down (I'm not allowed to link just yet :) )

So, for example, you can put a Quicktime movie of your artwork in your video_ts folder on your PC, then put an alias to it in your "Movies" folder on your Mac. The Mac will then see this alias in Frontrow, providing the PC folder is mounted, and you should then be able to play the movie using DVD Assist.

The only difference with this method, to the Mac method, is that I was unable to remove the ".mov" filetype on the PC folder. If I did, the file would become an unknown file type and if I linked to it in my "Movies" folder on my Mac it would not show up in Frontrow. Perhaps someone knows a workaround or solution for this?

I've tried this PC to Mac DVD sharing on my own setup and it works fine on a 10Mb home network. You might have difficulties if you're using wireless. On my wireless setup I have difficulties playing Video_TS movies smoothly from PC to Mac. That's on a G network, with Mimo, and my PC and Mac only a metre away. On Mac to Mac sharing though, even at longer distances, I have no problems with stuttering video. So it might depend on your PC setup then.

As for creating .mov files on your PC, again, I'd think that you'd have to use Quicktime Pro for Windows.

HTH

Bryan

My home network consists entirely of WinXP pro machines (no screaming please) with a wired network. One of the machines has a 2TB RAID 5 array that I store DVDs in VIDEO_TS folders (IFO/VOB). I’ve have tried several different ‘media players’ for playback of these archives on my home theater. They have all had significant shortcomings. I’ve considered a Windows media center PC, but it seems potentially glitchy although very versatile. Now I’m considering a Mac mini. I stumbled across this thread and I’m intrigued. The DVD Assist website states ‘any volume accessible from the Finder with adequate throughput’. I also understand that OS X can act as a NFS client. If that is the case, what else would I need to do to make this work? I already have an NFS server running on Windows. It can’t be that easy. The final solution must be wife friendly, thus my reluctance to use a windows based machine. Basically, I will only use the mini to play media. I would prefer that it not even have a mouse/keyboard (after initial setup). Is this possible? These questions may seem basic, but my only Apple experience is iTunes and iPod. Thanks.

Now I’m considering a Mac mini. I stumbled across this thread and I’m intrigued. The DVD Assist website states ‘any volume accessible from the Finder with adequate throughput’. I also understand that OS X can act as a NFS client. If that is the case, what else would I need to do to make this work? I already have an NFS server running on Windows. It can’t be that easy. The final solution must be wife friendly, thus my reluctance to use a windows based machine. Basically, I will only use the mini to play media. I would prefer that it not even have a mouse/keyboard (after initial setup). Is this possible? These questions may seem basic, but my only Apple experience is iTunes and iPod. Thanks.

First up, the disclaimer:
DVD Assist is essentially a work-around. I don't recommend that anyone base a purchase decision on it. Apple could change the way Front Row works and disable DVD Assist (in someways, the latest version of Front Row has introduced complications .)

That said, a Mini can swing both ways as far as OS goes, and can talk smb as well as nfs.

First up, the disclaimer:
DVD Assist is essentially a work-around. I don't recommend that anyone base a purchase decision on it. Apple could change the way Front Row works and disable DVD Assist (in someways, the latest version of Front Row has introduced complications .)

That said, a Mini can swing both ways as far as OS goes, and can talk smb as well as nfs.
No worries about the disclaimer. We all know the risks on the bleeding edge. Would the Mini be able to boot, load DVD Assist, and go directly to Front Row and stay there sans mouse and keyboard or other user intervention? In otherwords, a glorified DVD play.

No worries about the disclaimer. We all know the risks on the bleeding edge. Would the Mini be able to boot, load DVD Assist, and go directly to Front Row and stay there sans mouse and keyboard or other user intervention? In otherwords, a glorified DVD play.

Yes, it can. The remote can always trigger Front Row, no matter what program is currently running. To make it a little more set-top boxish, you could put a simple script in the login items to have front row trigger on startup.

Note that the computer's desktop will come up now and then as new fingers learn to use the remote, but Front Row is just one click away.

I'd recommend a wireless keyboard and mouse and to suggest to your wife that she can also use the Mini as a "I KNOW I have seen this actor in another movie, gimme the keyboard so I can look on IMDB" device. (Or "that eBay auction is closing in an hour" device, or a "Lemme see the weather radar" device.)

jwcrash: I wasn't trying to minimalize the usage of the forums or everyone's hard work - I was merely encouraging Opfreaks interest in the Mac platform. Chances are he is a new comer to these forums (the Mac ones) and I was not trying to scare him away by trying to act like a pompous Mac-head (I'm not saying you were, I'm just saying that if I were visiting a website for the first time and posted a question only to be shot down and told to go "look it up", chances are I would not return). This is a community forum so we should try to help each other out as much as possible. Agreed, we should encourage viewers to do their research but a little bit of geniality can go a long way.

Thanks, PBryanw. I've added that step to my automator workflow and it worked.

Automator is an amazing piece of software not too many people know about. It is like "Applescript for Dummies." You can write full Applications with it. In fact, I wrote a podcasting Automator App I sold to a University recently so you can turn the hobby into a pay day.

Also, I don't think I've said it yet, but THANK YOU Squished Squirrel for taking the time to create DVD Assist. This functionality has sorely been missing from Front Row and your workaround is the best I've seen.

Thanks, PBryanw. I've added that step to my automator workflow and it worked.

Automator is an amazing piece of software not too many people know about. It is like "Applescript for Dummies." You can write full Applications with it. In fact, I wrote a podcasting Automator App I sold to a University recently so you can turn the hobby into a pay day.

Also, I don't think I've said it yet, but THANK YOU Squished Squirrel for taking the time to create DVD Assist. This functionality has sorely been missing from Front Row and your workaround is the best I've seen.


Thank SS via PAYPAL!!!! ;)

I wasn't trying to minimalize the usage of the forums or everyone's hard work - I was merely encouraging Opfreaks interest in the Mac platform ...agreed, we should encourage viewers to do their research but a little bit of geniality can go a long way.

Forcegoat,

We're just on VERY different pages about how to respect others people's time and effort. I can't explain why I was offended by your attitude any more succinctly than I already have.

And since my original frustration came from having to repeat things already clearly stated, I'll just agree to disagree and not bring it up again.

;)

@opfreak
The only difference with this method, to the Mac method, is that I was unable to remove the ".mov" filetype on the PC folder. If I did, the file would become an unknown file type and if I linked to it in my "Movies" folder on my Mac it would not show up in Frontrow. Perhaps someone knows a workaround or solution for this?

Bryan

Yep, the Mac won't see unsuffixed files as movies without the .mov on the end on some volume types (SMB, NFS, etc.). You might be able to get around that by going to the Mac, and using a Filetyper utility to set the type to "MooV" and the creator to "TVOD". OSX is moving away from the type and creator metaphor, but it still honors them.

That should create a hidden file on the SMB volume to hold the type and creator info, and Front Row might honor it (I have not tested that.) So, for this to work, the Mac must have write privs to the smb volume.

Finally got a Mini at the office, and Leopard is installing on it now.

I honestly did read the entire thread before I posted. and read a few other Mac threads before I did. I'm not a fan of just posting.

I'll read the thread again. one thing I tired but couldn't, was the creater said the instructions are part of the download. The download is a zip, but the zip has .dmg files. Which I can only assume are Mac 'zip' files, or something like that, that on the pc I cannot decode, and get the instructions out of.

but i'll read the thread again...

I know I get put off by large threads and don't always read them all the way through, and I don't typically get frustrated by answering the same questions, so don't hesitate to fire away.

.dmg is the Apple disk image format... essentially the same as an .ISO. It is common for Mac apps to be distributed in the .dmg format just to add another layer of verification to the download. I had to zip the file because the server I am using doesn't recognize .dmg as a binary filetype, and would otherwize just spew it out as an HTML page.

I'd host this on my home server, but for various reasons (bandwidth isn't one of them <evil cackle>), I went this route.

"forcegoat"--- great name. It seems to fit your personality??? It would be good if a GREAT tool like this could keep this thread focused and moderated by the Author. If someone has another variant or add-on to DVD Assist you should start your own thread and refrence this one.

As of now this thread seems to be changing tools and Authors, thus making it hard to follow. I seem to recall SS asking 1 other member to help out and do some other tasking for him (jwcrash). And that members extra work and comments have still been "on topic".

We've now got more comments on a new tool and more questions answered about the new tool than we have on the original tool???

There is a new version of DVD Assist on my site. Not much functional change, but this one uses more C code than the previous version. It should always quit out of DVD player if it was the one that launched it. (For EyeTV users.)

The office got me a Mac Mini and a MacBook Pro, so this has been tested (if only for a little while) on a Powerbook Aluminum 1.5Ghz, Intel Mac Mini Dual Core, and Dual G5. Haven't finished setting up the MacBook Pro yet though. It appears to work with Front Row 1.3, although 1.3 does some odd things if you don't keep all your placeholder movie aliases in a subfolder of your Movies folder as described in the docs. It even behaves with Leopard developer preview... even with ISO's.

Great work! If Apple would just update their crappy DVD player I might pick up a Mini. You listening Apple?

"forcegoat"--- great name. It seems to fit your personality???

Wow. How original. Glad to see you yourself are keeping this thread on topic by throwing around insults. Any of the comments/contributions I have made pertain to DVD Assist and improving the user interface (The workflow was listed at the request of several posters including SS). The links to photos were to show how the interface looks.

This has gotta stop.

Let's just try and stay on topic. It's gotten really hot around some posters lately and I think the best way to alleviate bad feelings is by sticking to the thread's subject. Sarcasm, snide comments, and nasty nicknames don't get new readers any closer to having DVD Assist up and running. And they ultimately serve no one.

THAT SAID...everyone go launch your favorite backed-up movie in Front Row. Because (now) we can!!!

:D

Ok, guys, please keep the thread focused and on topic. Let's also keep the personal attacks and snide comments out of the conversation. We are all here to learn and to share knowledge, so it would be a real shame for me to close this thread down because a few people can't play nicely, as most of this thread appears to have some very useful information.

Thanks for understanding.

Hmmmm...... Has anyone played around much with iTunes and movies? I don't know how long iTunes has had this, but if you add a .m4v movie to iTunes, you can assign it cover art, and flip through it with the nifty iTunes cover art animation.

I think in the next version of DVD Assist, I might switch to using an .m4v placeholder movie, and allow triggering VIDEO_TS playback from iTunes as well.

Something tells me that if we ever do see a Front Row 2.0, the interface is going to be berry berry similar to that iTunes cover animation.... and will most likely use the cover art that iTunes does right now.

Something tells me that if we ever do see a Front Row 2.0, the interface is going to be berry berry similar to that iTunes cover animation.... and will most likely use the cover art that iTunes does right now.

It will be interesting to see whether that happens or whether it's made to match iTV...

Is there any way to make this a forum sticky?

This is definitely deserving of that positioning and it has been very helpful. I've d/l it and messed around with it and really enjoy it. Thanks SS. As soon as I get to the office I'll be helping towards that iMac.

;)

I'd heard a couple reports of DVD Assist not kicking in when it should, and I encountered it recently on a G5. Front Row refused to quit, and DVD player fired up behind it.

Anyone else encounter this? I worked around it, just don't know if it is worth another release for that if nobody else has encountered it lately.

SS, your application is fantastic. i've been playing with it for a few versions, but i'm just a beginner with scripts. i'm very close to making front row, eyetv, and DVD's on hard drives work nicely together. i'm using a dual core mac mini. here's what i'm seeing:

with 1.43, if you use subfolders within the movies folder, and the links in those subfolders are to quicktime-compatible files (not related to DVD/VOB), then the QT movie will start, and about 5 seconds later DVD player will kick in, take over, and cause mayhem. it appears that Front Row also quits when DVD player starts, so when you stop DVD player, you end up in Finder. the aliases i've used are for both itunes video content and converted files from eyetv. interestingly, if you put the same file in the main movie folder, the problem does NOT occur. also, if you put the full file (rather than an alias) in the subfolder, DVD Player also starts up and makes a mess.

i could not duplicate the problem in v1.31, but here, DVD player would not quit when i tried to exit out while playing a normal DVD file. only tried once or twice before i gave up.

i looked in the main script for both but could not figure out where the problem was happening - saw a place where i thought it MIGHT, but looked like the code would have ignored these files and not kicked in DVD player and exited Front Row. but i'm not good at scripting, so i really don't know.

Hi,
Since I upgraded in 10.4.8 (MacMini G4), DVD Assist did not work: it plays the placeholder movie, then return to ForntRow. Did someone experiment this ?
Thank you

I'm seeing something similar to but different from my last post the other day. i upgraded to 10.4.8 like MrSpock. right now, if i have subfolders in the movies portion of front row, the folders appear at the very end (of a long list of movies), but this is a minor annoyance, i assume from front row. however, if you select a movie from the subfolder, i'm finding that, instead, a relatively random movie will kick in. i noticed that the "randowm" movie that kicks in seems to be a movie that gets briefly previewed in the original parent list while scrolling on the way to the bottom to the subfolders. movies in the main folder appear to work just fine.

I'm seeing something similar to but different from my last post the other day. i upgraded to 10.4.8 like MrSpock. right now, if i have subfolders in the movies portion of front row, the folders appear at the very end (of a long list of movies), but this is a minor annoyance, i assume from front row. however, if you select a movie from the subfolder, i'm finding that, instead, a relatively random movie will kick in. i noticed that the "randowm" movie that kicks in seems to be a movie that gets briefly previewed in the original parent list while scrolling on the way to the bottom to the subfolders. movies in the main folder appear to work just fine.

Yep, I've seen this. This started happening with Front Row 1.3 (Or at least, that is when I first encountered it.)

If you have ANY placeholder movies at the main level of your movies folder, this can happen. The placeholder movies need to be in a subfolder to avoid the problem.

Basically what happens is that Front row doesn't always close the movies it previews under some odd circumstances. So far, putting all the dvd placeholders in a subfolder of the movies folder seems to work.

I cannot seem to get the iso support to work properly. I have followed the instructions and have toast 7.1 installed. I am running 10.4.8 and DVDAssist 1.4.3. Basically it will mount the dvd fine, at that point the dvd player will claim that it is an unsupported format. However, FrontRow recognizes it as a DVD. Is there anything I am missing?

I cannot seem to get the iso support to work properly. I have followed the instructions and have toast 7.1 installed. I am running 10.4.8 and DVDAssist 1.4.3. Basically it will mount the dvd fine, at that point the dvd player will claim that it is an unsupported format. However, FrontRow recognizes it as a DVD. Is there anything I am missing?

Most likely a problem that I have encountered before. On some machines, Front Row refuses to quit. Since Front Row doesn't quit, it takes over control of playback of the DVD image, and DVD Player is left in the background wondering what the heck is going on.

I'll put up a 1.4.4 version that is a little more forceful at quitting Front Row.

You can create your own Zoom presets in DVD Player, although you can't toggle through them with the Apple Remote.

I know this is a late entry taken from the first page but I am trying to wrap my head around the zoom controls and find some kind of consistency. What I have found so far is that I can create a preset, save it, and it will only be visible when that particular movie is open that it was created for. Another words, it will not be seen globally. Another thing I have found is that if I open a movie that has zoom applied, close out of it, open a new one that has not been played before, it will default to the previous zoom setting.

Have you found it to work differently? If so, can you let me know how yours is working?

Most likely a problem that I have encountered before. On some machines, Front Row refuses to quit. Since Front Row doesn't quit, it takes over control of playback of the DVD image, and DVD Player is left in the background wondering what the heck is going on.

I'll put up a 1.4.4 version that is a little more forceful at quitting Front Row.

I figured out what I was doing wrong and it had to do with the way I was creating my iso's. They were not UDF format. It is working as expected now...

However I would like to have a version that addresses a stronger implementation of quitting front row. I use Remote Buddy (awesome app BTW), but when I start a dvd it does not quit front row. I have to manually quit front row through remote buddy before I can control DVD Player.

PS Thanks for all the hard work!

Squished Squirre,

Wanted to follow-up after successfully running this for a while now. I noticed that DVD Assist while running in the background causes pans on Apple DVD Player not to be smooth. Playback becomes somewhat choppy. You can test this by playing Star Wars Revenge of the Sith at the very beginning opening sequence with the Jedi Starfighters.

I also noticed that when playing H264 movies I have purchased from iTunes store are also choppy during pans with DVD Assist in the background.

This happens on my MBP, Mac mini and older PowerMac so I know it is not isolated. I was able to solve the problem during DVD playback by modifying your script to quit DVD Assist, right after the quit application "Front Row" entry. This of course, makes DVD Assist quit before DVD Player starts. I then re-launch it after quitting DVD Player and before launching Front Row again via iKey script automation.

I am wondering if I am the only one having this problem? Can someone else test this? Oh yes, by the way, I am using DVD Assist with DVD images.

Thanks.

Squished Squirre,

Wanted to follow-up after successfully running this for a while now. I noticed that DVD Assist while running in the background causes pans on Apple DVD Player not to be smooth. Playback becomes somewhat choppy. You can test this by playing Star Wars Revenge of the Sith at the very beginning opening sequence with the Jedi Starfighters.

I also noticed that when playing H264 movies I have purchased from iTunes store are also choppy during pans with DVD Assist in the background.

This happens on my MBP, Mac mini and older PowerMac so I know it is not isolated. I was able to solve the problem during DVD playback by modifying your script to quit DVD Assist, right after the quit application "Front Row" entry. This of course, makes DVD Assist quit before DVD Player starts. I then re-launch it after quitting DVD Player and before launching Front Row again via iKey script automation.

I am wondering if I am the only one having this problem? Can someone else test this? Oh yes, by the way, I am using DVD Assist with DVD images.

Thanks.

Can you post other examples of dvd's with this problem and where to look for it in the dvd (incase no one has the dvd you are using for example).

Also what are the specs on your mini? I have a 1.66 and am not noticing anything like this.

Thanks for the reply.

I have a 1.66 Dual Core Mac mini, 1GB RAM, 100GB drive.

Here is one a lot of people most likely have:

King Kong (part where the camera pans through ancient city where they first encounter cannibals).

It actually happens on all DVD images I have. Pick a movie on your collection and look for scenes where camera pans from left to right, from right to left, from up to down, and down and up. Are yours smooth?

I noted that I get this not just on Mac mini, but my 2Ghz MBP, 1.5GB RAM, 80GB drive.

The iTunes videos I get choppy pans are:

Dora the Explorer, the opening sequence when camera zooms all over the room towards green computer monitor. My son noticed it too! :)

Little Einsteins opening sequence when they fly their big rocket ship and camera pans from left to right.

Battlestar Galactica Episodes - Again, when camera pans in different directions.

At first I thought maybe it has to do with the fact that I am using iso (UDF) images as opposed to VIDEO_TS folders, but it also happens on those h264 movies that I bought from iTunes store.

As I mentioned, if I quit DVD Assist by modifying the script right after quitting Front Row and before DVD Player starts, I get smooth pans again! No issues at all. Very strange.

I guess I can live with it by doing this on archived DVD's, but I don't know how to fix it on those h264 movies from iTunes. Maybe it's related to that pause issue on previews that was going on before? Not sure?

At 13,000+ views, here's to hoping everyone is remembering the Paypal donation link SS set up.

;)

If everyone contributes only $1, that would be $13K. :)

Squished Squirre,

Wanted to follow-up after successfully running this for a while now. I noticed that DVD Assist while running in the background causes pans on Apple DVD Player not to be smooth. Playback becomes somewhat choppy. You can test this by playing Star Wars Revenge of the Sith at the very beginning opening sequence with the Jedi Starfighters.

Thanks.

The big time hog is the shell command "lsof" (List of Open Files). It hogs the cpu for a bit to gather the info I need to find out what Front Row is doing.

What version are you using? 1.4.3 doesn't even use the lsof check unless front row is in front... it should be very well behaved in the background of DVD Player. My original platform was a 1.5Ghz G4, and I kept tinkering until an H.264, MPEG4 and DVD would all play smooth. (I used a pan in a South Park MPEG4, and playback of a MPEG2 file as a test. At the time they were the pickiest.)

All that is left is to make this entirely a shell script, so that Applescript isn't involved at all in the "check" part. That's what I'm working towards.

I am running 1.4.3......thanks for the update on the "check" part. I am surprised though that nobody else has reported this. The only difference maybe for me is that I use iKey to automate scripts and commands.

For example, to exit out of DVD Player, I have programmed a key on my Harmony Remote Control, which basically presses a key from airboard keyboard to do the following for quitting DVD Player:

press Apple Key + e (to eject DVD Image)
quit application dvd player
lauch application DVD Assist
hide application DVD Assist
press Apple Key + Esc (to launch Front Row)

I don't think that's it though since I have the problem without iKey and just lauching DVD Assist and Frontrow manually.

Here is another version. Not sure it will help you Vertigo, I haven't had time this weekend to switch to a shell driven idle loop rather than a Applescript driven idle loop.

This adds support for transport stream playback with VLC, and trys a little harder to quit out of Front Row, which crops up now and then for some. Also, a background only version for those that don't want an icon in their dock at all.

(Link removed, see first post for current version.)

Try it, and let me know what happens... it isn't linked from the webpage yet.

Wow, thank you so much. I will give it a try. ts playback now, unbelievable. I really appreciate it all your help.

Sweet additions...the .ts support works as advertised for me in VLC! Thanks. Again.

:D

Hmm... I didn't even think about the possibility of someone not having VLC and running this version. So... for those that try and run it without VLC, I know it will ask you where VLC is... I'll fix it.

OK, pans are definetly much better on the new version (about 80% there). I think I can live with it since it only happens on h264 movies (since I modified script to quit DVD Assist), which are less in quanity than my dvd archives.

Yeah, I noticed the VLC prompt, but installed it to make it go away.

jwcrash, how is ts playback on VLC for you? Are you on a mini or other hardware?

jwcrash, how is ts playback on VLC for you? Are you on a mini or other hardware?

Getting excellent playback of my .ts files in VLC launched via DVD Assist. I use a Core Duo Mini and have EyeTV successfully recording two shows behind VLC. The only apps ever running are EyeTV, DVD Assist, and FR when I need it, so that may affect my playback ability.

The only drawback is VLC's WEAK feature set for playing back .ts files when compared to EyeTV's options (jump forward and back, ff/rewind, etc.). It's also a PITA to get VLC to playback Digital Audio, but much better than not being able to play them back at all.

;)

I seem to have a weird problem where vlc will not open in full screen. I have it set to full screen and I assume it is in the script as well. Any ideas as to why?

I seem to have a weird problem where vlc will not open in full screen. I have it set to full screen and I assume it is in the script as well. Any ideas as to why?

I ran into this same problem. Just uncheck Fullscreen Playback in your VLC Preferences...I think having the command in both places (DVD Assist & VLC Preferences) cancels it out. Runs without trouble for me now.

If that doesn't fix it, post back! :D

I ran into this same problem. Just uncheck Fullscreen Playback in your VLC Preferences...I think having the command in both places (DVD Assist & VLC Preferences) cancels it out. Runs without trouble for me now.

If that doesn't fix it, post back! :D

Worked like a charm! Thanks!

Here is another version. Not sure it will help you Vertigo, I haven't had time this weekend to switch to a shell driven idle loop rather than a Applescript driven idle loop.

This adds support for transport stream playback with VLC, and trys a little harder to quit out of Front Row, which crops up now and then for some. Also, a background only version for those that don't want an icon in their dock at all.
Amazing. When I do get my HT reassembled this Fall I can't wait to use this feature. Thanks.

Thanks for the new version Squished Squirre. Now that it runs in the background, it's now perfect for me. I can run it as a login item and not worry about it. Also thanks for keeping the updates coming - this piece of software was well worth a donation.

Regards

Paul W

Worked like a charm! Thanks!

Have I ever told how much I dislike the Applescript support in VLC?

Yep, fullscreen is a toggle in VLC, there is no (easy?) way to tell if it is allready fullscreen or not.

OK, yet another version to tinker with. This one checks to see if you have VLC so as not to get that dreaded "Please locate...." nonsense for those that don't.

Ohh... jwcrash, take a look in the "Other Stuff" folder.

(Link removed, see first post for current version.)

Ohh... jwcrash, take a look in the "Other Stuff" folder.[/url]

Sweet feature that negates about five button clicks...SS added a placeholder movie that launches EyeTV from inside Front Row's Movie Folder.

It's FAST - I didn't even see the movie during the transition. And an awesome side effect (in 2.3.0) is you end back up on the Front Row menu shortcut, just in case you clicked the wrong movie.

I know I'm preaching to the choir, but SS has been updating and refining this app with a lot more frequency than most apps I've paid for. To that end, consider sending a donation SS's way.

Thank you. For the fifth time.

:D

It's FAST - I didn't even see the movie during the transition.


Tee hee... the "Activate EyeTV" movie IS the transition. It is a screenshot of the EyeTV menu with "Loading..." photoshopped on top of it.

Tee hee... the "Activate EyeTV" movie IS the transition. It is a screenshot of the EyeTV menu with "Loading..." photoshopped on top of it.

Sorry...I meant I didn't even see the static image. Just flashed from FR to EyeTV.

Hi,
How do you use Activate EyeTV ? Can it launch an EyeTV record (.eyetv) as Blank Movie launches DVD Player to read the VIDEO_TS ?
Where must I put this file ?

Thank you.

Place the Activate EyeTV movie directly in your Movies Folder (alongside your VIDEO_TS aliases, etc.). Selecting it sends you directly from that Front Row screen into EyeTV.

This is a slightly different than the way we use DVD Assist with VIDEO_TS...you're not creating shortcuts to any content, but to the actual EyeTV app itself.

:)

There is a 1.4.6 available from the first post. Got rid of the requirement for Toast for disk image users. Don't know why I went down the "toastimagemount" path to begin with.

OK, pans are definetly much better on the new version (about 80% there). I think I can live with it since it only happens on h264 movies (since I modified script to quit DVD Assist), which are less in quanity than my dvd archives.

Yeah, I noticed the VLC prompt, but installed it to make it go away.

jwcrash, how is ts playback on VLC for you? Are you on a mini or other hardware?

Are you having pauses with H.264 movies with DVD Assist not running? If so, there might be something else going on. Have you pulled up Activity Monitor to see if something else is gobbling CPU time? (Use CPU History from the Windows Menu, close all windows in Activity Monitor except CPU History, and close all other programs.)

An idle Intel Mac with nothing running except Activity Monitor should show about 1-2 dots for each processor.

Ohh, are these H.264 movies on a local drive, or network drive?

The pauses are gone when DVD Assist is not running. This also happens on my MBP and older PowerMac G4 so I know it is not isolated to Mac mini.

Thanks for the tip on Activity Monitor history. I will take a look at it and see if there is anything else running.

The movies are on local drive. I have cleaned up my machine and installed os from scratch three times (since I was playing with Leopard - :) ) so I know it's not my system.

Squished Squirre,

Is there a possibility of you checking out why when I have Remote Buddy running and I open a iso or go to eyetv, I have to quit frontrow behavior in remote buddy before I can take control of DVD Player or EyeTV. Remote buddy is an awesome program and I would love seamless intergration with DVDAssist.

Maybe it would be possible to check for remote buddy and if found deactivate the current behavior (which would be front row)... or something like that.

PS. Paypal donation sent. Keep up the great work!!!!!

OK, who here, besides psychotwo is running Remote Buddy?

I just downloaded it and fired it up, and it caused mmmmaaaaajjjjjooooorrrr stuttering in the Front Row animations. (DVD Assist not running.)

I took a look at the scripting for Remote Buddy to see what I could do to change behaviors, but their scripting doesn't make sense yet. I'll keep tinkering with it... but if that stuttering doesn't go away....

The pauses are gone when DVD Assist is not running. This also happens on my MBP and older PowerMac G4 so I know it is not isolated to Mac mini.

Thanks for the tip on Activity Monitor history. I will take a look at it and see if there is anything else running.

The movies are on local drive. I have cleaned up my machine and installed os from scratch three times (since I was playing with Leopard - :) ) so I know it's not my system.

Pauses in pans drive me nuts. I've pestered Verizon for the same problem with their HD channels on FIOS. I'll see if I can replicate it.

One day I went through and played all the trailers in Front Row and didn't encounter any pauses on a PB G4 1.5Ghz, but those might be MPEG4 and not H.264. I'm off to grab some 480, 720 and 1080P HD clips from Apple to test with.

OK, who here, besides psychotwo is running Remote Buddy?

I use Remote Buddy as well. There is some slight stuttering on 1.66 CD mac mini, but I am sure its worse on a PPC.

I just downloaded it and fired it up, and it caused mmmmaaaaajjjjjooooorrrr stuttering in the Front Row animations. (DVD Assist not running.)

Just want to clarify what you mean by animation... The actual frontrow menu's? I will report it to the developer if I see it.

Thanks for taking a look at it! Hopefully you can make sense out of it.

SS,

Since I got Quicktime to work with my purchased iTunes movies in 10.5, I decided to reload Leopard. I now don't get the pauses I used to. Go figure. It is working flawlessly now on all h264 movies. I did however still modified your script for archived DVD's, just before DVD Player is launched, to quit DVD Assist (just in case and to maximize DVD playback performance). If you can replicate the issue, let me know, but I wouldn't spend too much time on this, unless a lot more people are having the problem. I looked at Activity Monitor and saw nothing that was killing my cpu either.

Donation is on the way!

By the way, when you were testing this on 10.5 (I think you mentioned that earlier), did you notice that DVD Player 5 has improved PQ. When this thing is out, I think people here are going to be thrilled about this and some of the other cool stuff! :)

Thanks again for your help!

Just wanted to say thank you to SS for this utility! It does just what I needed. I started looking last week in the AVS forums here for a way to play video_ts folders through front row and came across this thread. This is great!

I just made my donation to your mac mini fund SS. Thanks again.

Scott

Just want to clarify what you mean by animation... The actual frontrow menu's? I will report it to the developer if I see it.

Thanks for taking a look at it! Hopefully you can make sense out of it.

The Front Row zoom-in and zoom-out animations were really stuttery with Remote Buddy. I took that to mean it was gobbling up some resource.

SS,

By the way, when you were testing this on 10.5 (I think you mentioned that earlier), did you notice that DVD Player 5 has improved PQ. When this thing is out, I think people here are going to be thrilled about this and some of the other cool stuff! :)

Thanks again for your help!

I went and grabbed a couple of 1080P H.264 sample movies from the Apple HD demo page, and they all played smoothly on a MBP in Front Row while DVD Assist was running... but, they switch scenes so fast that there isn't a nice long pan or zoom to really see pausing problems. Still, I figured that a 1080P movie would really make pauses stand out. (IMAX Deep Sea, and one of the BBC motion clips.)

I did think the PQ in 10.5 was better, especially with interlaced material. Maybe I'm imagining it, but I think you are right.

Thanks for the donation!

Just wanted to say thank you to SS for this utility! It does just what I needed. I started looking last week in the AVS forums here for a way to play video_ts folders through front row and came across this thread. This is great!

I just made my donation to your mac mini fund SS. Thanks again.

Scott

Thanks! I only hope Apple doesn't do something to screw it up!

I use Remote Buddy as well. There is some slight stuttering on 1.66 CD mac mini, but I am sure its worse on a PPC.

Where do you see the stuttering? Just curious.

thanks

Where do you see the stuttering? Just curious.

As soon as I bring up front row, the animation of the desktop going away and front row coming in is not as smooth as it should be. I also notice a slight delay between remote button presses and the actions within front row.

I am not noticing any significant amount of stuttering with front row...

Any luck with the RemoteBuddy situation?

Any luck with the RemoteBuddy situation?

Sorry, hadn't spent much time on that yet. Help me out a bit...

Does Remote Buddy normally auto-switch behaviors, or is it always a manual task? In other words, does it look to see what program is currently in front, and set the behavior to that program? I would assume not since it isn't catching the DVD Assist program launches.

Would it be better not to have behaviors set for programs that already know how to use the remote?

(Pardon my ignorance about Remote Buddy...)

I just downloaded DVD Assist today, and I'm finding an issue with quitting DVD player that may be different from the ones reported here. After playing the first VIDEO_TS image from Front Row, I'm stuck -- I can't play any more DVDs (or VIDEO_TS images) because DVD Player can't re-launch. If I quit out of Front Row, the DVD Player icon is still in the dock, but if I click on it it doesn't pull up the app. If I try to Force Quit, nothing happens (i.e., the app icon is still in the dock). If I open up Activity Monitor, DVD Player (or anything that appears associated to it) does not even show up. If I try and manually launch DVD Player, I get the error "The application 'DVD Player' cannot be launched. -600." At this point, the only way I can use DVD Player again is if I log off of OS X.

If I go through the steps of playing my VIDEO_TS images manually in DVD Player, without Front Row or DVD Assist, everything is fine. I can open one image, play it, open another, play it, quit DVD Player in between, and I have no problems. So my installation appears solid as far as I can see, apart from DVD Assist.

I'm using the Background version of DVD Assist, on OS X 10.4.8 with all the patches installed. I run EyeTV, although the behavior persists whether or not I have EyeTV running.

Any thoughts from anyone?

Does it behave the same if you use the regular (non-background) version of DVD Assist?

Yeah, I just tried that ... same thing. Next I will investigate a couple other variables:

1. The particular VIDEO_TS image -- the one I'm testing with is currently the only one I have (downloaded off **********), but I'll try ripping one of my own DVDs to see if there's just something about the image that DVD Assist / DVD Player didn't like.
2. My VIDEO_TS image is on an external FireWire drive -- I can't imagine this could be the cause as it would have been reported if it were, but I'll investigate this as well to cover all my bases.

Also, I'm running an Intel MacBook...

Sorry, hadn't spent much time on that yet. Help me out a bit...

Does Remote Buddy normally auto-switch behaviors, or is it always a manual task? In other words, does it look to see what program is currently in front, and set the behavior to that program? I would assume not since it isn't catching the DVD Assist program launches.

Would it be better not to have behaviors set for programs that already know how to use the remote?

(Pardon my ignorance about Remote Buddy...)

I would also assume it does not auto quit behaviors because normally it wouldn't have too. However I am going to post this question on there user forum and see if I can get a better answer...

Yeah, I just tried that ... same thing. Next I will investigate a couple other variables:

1. The particular VIDEO_TS image -- the one I'm testing with is currently the only one I have (downloaded off **********), but I'll try ripping one of my own DVDs to see if there's just something about the image that DVD Assist / DVD Player didn't like.
2. My VIDEO_TS image is on an external FireWire drive -- I can't imagine this could be the cause as it would have been reported if it were, but I'll investigate this as well to cover all my bases.

Also, I'm running an Intel MacBook...

I just ripped one of my own DVDs and got the same behavior. Haven't tried it on my local drive yet, as I'll need to clear some space in order to do that.

So I'm seriously the only person who reports this exact problem? That's a little bit disturbing for me -- wonder what could be wrong with my system.

I just ripped one of my own DVDs and got the same behavior. Haven't tried it on my local drive yet, as I'll need to clear some space in order to do that.

So I'm seriously the only person who reports this exact problem? That's a little bit disturbing for me -- wonder what could be wrong with my system.

I wouldn't assume it is necessarily a problem with your system, but to answer your question, it is the first time I've encountered that specific problem. I've seen a number of problems with the wrong movie being opened, or Front Row not quitting at all, but I haven't seen DVD Player refuse to fire up on the second movie.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of what is going on.

After DVD Assist starts up the first movie, can you start Front Row again (Leave DVD Player open), wait at least 4 seconds and then quit out of front row. When you come back, DVD Player should have quit. If you start DVD Player up again, does it work?

What versions of OS, DVD Player and Front Row are you running? Is this on a Front Row supported Mac, or are you using Front Row Enabler?

Unfortunately that didn't help either, and neither did my idea of putting the VIDEO_TS folder on my local hard drive (rather than the external Firewire drive) inside the Movies folder and accessing the .mov file directly, i.e., without any aliases. Since I'm not able to quit DVD Player myself, even when using Force Quit, it doesn't surprise me that DVD Assist isn't able to quit it either. The problem does seem focused on DVD Player, although I can't explain then why I can play as many VIDEO_TS folders as I want while manually working in DVD Player directly, without Front Row or DVD Assist, and then can quit DVD Player fine. I don't remember -- is there a way I can configure DVD Assist to hook into VLC instead of DVD Player?

One other thing that may be of interest -- even though, as I stated earlier, DVD Player doesn't show up at all in Activity Monitor when I'm unable to quit it (but does show up in the dock), I can't delete my VIDEO_TS folder and then empty the Trash as OS X complains that the VOB files are in use, most certainly by DVD Player. That combined with the DVD Player icon showing in the dock points to some remnant of DVD Player still running, although the fact that it is no longer recognized as a currently running app by Activity monitor might explain why I can't send a command to quit the app at that point.

And to your other point, asking whether DVD Player works when I start it up again, I can't start it up again at all ("The application 'DVD Player' cannot be launched. -600." error when I try).

My stats:
OS X 10.4.8 (Intel) Build 8L2127
DVD Player App Version 4.6.5, Framework Version 4.6.9
Front Row is whatever version comes with my OS X build; it doesn't show up in System Profiler so I'm not sure how to check the version.
It's a Macbook purchased in July, fully Front Row supported (has the IR port, etc.)

Unfortunately that didn't help either...

My stats:
OS X 10.4.8 (Intel) Build 8L2127
DVD Player App Version 4.6.5, Framework Version 4.6.9
Front Row is whatever version comes with my OS X build; it doesn't show up in System Profiler so I'm not sure how to check the version.
It's a Macbook purchased in July, fully Front Row supported (has the IR port, etc.)

OK, try this...

Without DVD Assist running, fire up DVD Player and open a VIDEO_TS folder. Let it play while you do the following...

Open the Script Editor in your Applications:Applescript folder.

Put this line in (copy and paste it to make sure it is identical).

do shell script "/bin/kill `/usr/sbin/lsof -t -c DVD\\ Player` > /dev/null 2>&1"

Then tell it to run it. DVD Player should quit. Then try opening DVD Player and see if it gives you the same error. That is the command I'm using to quit out of DVD Player.

For what it is worth, I am having the exact same problem as roomloo. It works fine for the first movie, but not the second. DVD player gets frozen. It cannot be quitted, it cannot be opened. It does not show up in activity monitor, but has a carrot next to it in the dock. Even a forced quit will not fix it. I end up having to restart my system to get access to the DVD player.

MacBook

Well, Tommy and I are both on MacBooks ... Tommy, have you by any chance installed the latest MacBook firmware update that Apple put out last week? Can't imagine it would have anything to do with our problem, but who knows. I haven't installed it yet, but will once I'm in a position where I can stand to restart my system.

First and foremost I will try Squished Squirre's tip and report back. Tommy, if you get around to trying it before I do, let us know what happens.

SS, the problem is reproducible on my MacBook using just the Applescript you provided. The movie stops, the DVD Player UI goes away, but it remains in the doc and I can't quit it. If I try to re-launch the app I get the same error as described before.

Also, FWIW -- I would guess this is not a surprise -- the same problem occurs when I try it with a real DVD running in DVD Player.

SS, the problem is reproducible on my MacBook using just the Applescript you provided. The movie stops, the DVD Player UI goes away, but it remains in the doc and I can't quit it. If I try to re-launch the app I get the same error as described before.


OK, this is just plain bizarre. I was just looking around on MacFixit as I do every morning, and read the details about the Macbook 1.1 update. Lo and behold, the Macbooks have this odd issue with them locking up when you send output to /dev/null. The new firmware (1.1) was supposed to fix this. This is an INCREDIBLY stupid bug, as /dev/null should ALWAY be safe to dump unwanted output to. I'm guessing that Apple hasn't completely fixed the issue though since you said that you have the 1.1 firmware update. I would have never guessed that a perfectly legit unix syntax would cause problems with programs. That will bite Apple in the ass again... lots of unix utilities dump unwanted output to /dev/null just like I do.

I'll see about changing it so that it dumps the output elsewhere and see if that fixes it!

Try this for me. Fire up DVD Player, and use script editor to send this command instead. Tell me if DVD Player locks up.

do shell script "/bin/kill `/usr/sbin/lsof -t -c DVD\\ Player` > /tmp/DVDAssist.out 2>&1"

My hunch is, it won't lock up.

Will do, once I get home tonight. By the way, I have not installed the firmware update yet, so I will do that first. Based on what you said, that sounds a bit promising as well. I just assumed the update was for the random shutdown problem (of OS X) and nothing else.

EDIT: Actually, I'll try your updated script first, just so we'll know whether that works on pre-1.1 MacBooks or not. Then I'll install the firmware update regardless of the results, and report back.

Will do, once I get home tonight. By the way, I have not installed the firmware update yet, so I will do that first. Based on what you said, that sounds a bit promising as well. I just assumed the update was for the random shutdown problem (of OS X) and nothing else.

EDIT: Actually, I'll try your updated script first, just so we'll know whether that works on pre-1.1 MacBooks or not. Then I'll install the firmware update regardless of the results, and report back.

Cool. I think the results will be interesting. I'd want to put a fix in for pre-1.1 Macbooks, and your setup is the perfect oportunity to test this out.

I would also assume it does not auto quit behaviors because normally it wouldn't have too. However I am going to post this question on there user forum and see if I can get a better answer...

I posted a question right after yours... no reply to either of us yet.

I've looked at the scriptability of Remote Buddy, and it makes no sense at all. It appears to let you put up your own OSD menu's, but I don't see anything to let you change behaviors via Applescript.

I posted a question right after yours... no reply to either of us yet.

I've looked at the scriptability of Remote Buddy, and it makes no sense at all. It appears to let you put up your own OSD menu's, but I don't see anything to let you change behaviors via Applescript.

Yeah, it doesn't make sense to me either. We will see if they even respond to the post. Thanks for looking into it.

SS, I just typed your script command (do shell script "/bin/kill `/usr/sbin/lsof -t -c DVD\\ Player` > /tmp/DVDAssist.out 2>&1") into Script Editor and it did the same things. Movie stopped, UI gone, can't quit or re-launch. A zero-length DVDAssist.out was successfully created in /tmp, however.

I'll wait on that firmware update.

SS, I just typed your script command (do shell script "/bin/kill `/usr/sbin/lsof -t -c DVD\\ Player` > /tmp/DVDAssist.out 2>&1") into Script Editor and it did the same things. Movie stopped, UI gone, can't quit or re-launch. A zero-length DVDAssist.out was successfully created in /tmp, however.

I'll wait on that firmware update.

I guess I'll just have to make a trip over to my favorite testing grounds... Fry's. See if their MacBook does it, and see if I can find a quick way around it.

Thanks for trying it. If you *want* to try one more thing, you could try just:

do shell script "/bin/kill `/usr/sbin/lsof -t -c DVD\\ Player`"

Yeah, that didn't change anything either. It's all right, I'm not in a big hurry so I'll still hold off on the firmware update for a while.

After spending a bit of time at Fry's, it turns out it has nothing to do with the /dev/null issue that is fixed in the ROM update.

Turns out that DVD Player on the MacBook simply can't deal with being killed from the shell. The only way to kill it is with the Applescript Quit event. I'll change how DVD Player is quit and see if that fixes it for MacBook users.

So, regarding Remote Buddy... looks like the developer posted a response... however it makes no sense because if that is the case why is it not switching from front row when DVD player is active? Also, just so I am clear, does that mean I am out of luck until he adds script support. Is it possibly a problem with the way DVDAssist is opening applications?

So, regarding Remote Buddy... looks like the developer posted a response... however it makes no sense because if that is the case why is it not switching from front row when DVD player is active? Also, just so I am clear, does that mean I am out of luck until he adds script support. Is it possibly a problem with the way DVDAssist is opening applications?

My question is... how in heck can you activate Front Row with Remote Buddy running without activating the Front Row behavior? He said that selecting a behavior will disable the auto behavior switching feature of Remote Buddy. Sounds like catch-22 to me.

Here is a test for you. After a fresh restart and fresh launch of Remote Buddy, what happens if you activate Front Row with command-escape instead of using the remote? Will remote buddy then auto switch to the DVD Player behavior when DVD Assist launches DVD Player?