Does FR simply not let me have digital output on my DVDs?

I use MTR and DD 5.1 and DTS are no problem in FR for me. Are you playing back VIDEO_TS? When you try a full disc rip with its menu structure intact--and select DD 5.1 or DTS with the Apple remote--do you still have a problem?

Have you messed with AudioMIDI at all, have EyeTV or installed anything else, like Plex or boxee?

I'll give a VIDEO_TS a try, but right now I'm just trying to play an actual DVD disk. That's much simpler for the family when a new Netflix shows up.

Other than the Perian and Flip4Mac codecs the Mini is pure Apple installed and updated earlier today. I've not messed with any settings other than to confirm that the digital output was set in System Prefs and the DVD Player apps.

Digital output works great from the DVD Player app, just not from FR.

Thanks.

An update...

Dolby Digital works fine if I rip to a VIDEO_TS folder first. It only doesn't work when playing an actual DVD disk.

I've filed a bug with Apple.

Thanks,
Macshome

It only doesn't work when playing an actual DVD disk.

It should work, it's not a bug, and there shouldn't be any difference playing back a VIDEO_TS or commercial dvd--just remember the little trick to switch to DD 5.1/DTS audio in FR: if you're using the Apple remote in FR, select "DVD" and it'll just start playing without AC-3/DTS--at this point press "menu" to back out--it should then give you a few options, you want the one called "DVD menu"--select that, then go into the actual language/audio menu of the dvd, select DTS or DD 5.1, and resume the movie. You'll get it.

The only case you won't be able to get it within FR is if the actual menu structure of the commercial dvd itself is screwed up--and some are--then the Apple remote commands won't work and won't allow you to navigate between selections. Then you're better off w/ Apple dvd player or ripping that disk exactly the way you want it, removing the menus.

Oh, and now it's working with no explanation as to why. The only other change I made to the system was to change the output to 48000Hz so that I can play QuickTime with AC3. Thinking that was the trick I changed it back to 44100Hz to regress, but it continues to function.

Thinking it was a disk mastering issue I put in a different DVD and the digital output was fine. Now every DVD I put in defaults to the proper digital format, even the original Pixar Shorts disk that I was testing with.

I'm not crazy/clueless, I work with Macs for a living, and while I'm happy that it is working now the inconsistency is troubling.

Thanks to those who chimed in.

It's not inconsistency...

The only other change I made to the system was to change the output to 48000Hz so that I can play QuickTime with AC3.

well, that was it, you don't need to go into AudioMIDI to change anything if you're just sticking with a first option of FR and a second option of Apple dvd player, it'll switch automatically to "encoded digital output" when it's needed and pass AC-3 or DTS through. Glad you got it working.

What can happen when you make a change within AudioMIDI--is any application that is open at the time remembers the previous setting. When you make a change, you have to close and reopen the app (or reboot) for the new MIDI setting to take effect--if you don't, you may end up with two audio conversions, the app will follow the first/old setting, then when it hands it off to CoreAudio (to leave your Mac) CoreAudio will follow the second/new setting. Since AC-3 and DTS can't be touched at all, that might have been the hang-up. (Usually this pops up when trying to play back hi res music versus redbook cd--you move MIDI off 44.1--but if iTunes is open at the time you do it, iTunes won't detect the change and first resample those high-res tracks down to 44.1, then CoreAudio upsamples to 24/96. I haven't checked that this is still the case in 10.5.6...)

well, that was it, you don't need to go into AudioMIDI to change anything if you're just sticking with a first option of FR and a second option of Apple dvd player, it'll switch automatically to "encoded digital output" when it's needed and pass AC-3 or DTS through. Glad you got it working.


I thought that was it too, but it continues to work for DVDs no matter what I set the sample rate to. I've been making my changes one at a time so that I could regress them to verify the fix. This fixed it, but I can't regress it and that is frustrating.

Not complaining that it's working, but still...

Does anyone have details on what the latest Frontrow update brings?

Last week I defected. I purchased a PS3 to handle my media, but I'm keeping my eye on FrontRow.

Do you mean the one that just came out yesterday? or do you mean the one that came with leopard?

I don't think much changed with the one that came out yesterday -- just better compatibility with itunes, whatever that means.

And the leopard update was pretty uneventful as well.

I would say you're better off with your ps3, boxee or plex until we see the changes they make to video playback and front row in snow leopard. They're promising better compatibility with popular video codecs so hopefully we'll finally see some xvid, mkv love without the use of perian.

Still, the rate at which those xbmc guys, like boxee and plex, are moving I'd say front row will never catch up....but those are just my thoughts.

The latest version of Front Row in Leopard is allegedly supposed to be able to play Video_TS folders as DVDs. However, I haven't been able to get it to work.

When I put a Video_TS folder in my "Movies" folder on my Mac, Front Row recognizes it and lets me play it like a DVD. However, when the DVD loads, all I get is a gray screen. Sometimes I heard sound, and I see the progress bar at the bottom of the screen progressing as if the DVD were functioning properly.

I have tried re-ripping a number of DVDs (using Mac The Ripper) and I get the same results. I want to keep my DVDs as Video_TS so I have all the DVD functionality, otherwise I would convert to MP4 with Handbrake.

Anyone else had this problem?

The latest version of Front Row in Leopard is allegedly supposed to be able to play Video_TS folders as DVDs. However, I haven't been able to get it to work.

I haven't had that problem. A question: have you tested your rips by playing them back with Apple dvdplayer.app?

Why don't you tell us a little about your setup?

A couple of Front Row recommendations: Rowmote is an excellent iPhone/iPod Touch remote control app for Front Row and various other programs. I have found Rowmote to be more responsive than the little white Apple IR remote.

For importing DVDs, I recommend using RipIt instead of MTR. In my use so far, it has been 100% trouble free. Just make sure that you uncheck the .dvdmedia extension in preferences as Front Row does not *yet* recognize .dvdmedia -- it wants a folder containing a VIDEO_TS folder. Also I find the company selling/supporting RipIt to be far more professional and easy to deal with than the MTR people.

A couple of Front Row recommendations: Rowmote is an excellent iPhone/iPod Touch remote control app for Front Row and various other programs. I have found Rowmote to be more responsive than the little white Apple IR remote.

For importing DVDs, I recommend using RipIt instead of MTR. In my use so far, it has been 100% trouble free. Just make sure that you uncheck the .dvdmedia extension in preferences as Front Row does not *yet* recognize .dvdmedia -- it wants a folder containing a VIDEO_TS folder. Also I find the company selling/supporting RipIt to be far more professional and easy to deal with than the MTR people.

are you able to import movies mtr can't? wherej can i get ripit?

are you able to import movies mtr can't?

Yes, I still use MTR 99% of the time, but like having RipIt for the remaining 1% that give MTR a problem.

There have only been a few dvds that a skilled MTR user would really have trouble with--Dark Knight, WALL*E, Prince Caspian, Leatherheads et al--and with some the best you can do with MTR is the main feature, which requires DTOX to remove zero cells.

Like Ted said, RipIt can handle these, and though less customizable and full-featured than MTR, which is why I don't choose to use it that often, it's well worth the $18.99 to keep as a last resort app because it is actively supported. If you're a newbie, go with RipIt.

where can i get ripit?

Google "ripit" and this will come up first:

http://ripitapp.com/

whats dtox?

whats dtox?

My guess would be http://www.dvd2one.com

Like Ted said, RipIt can handle these, and though less customizable and full-featured than MTR, which is why I don't choose to use it that often, it's well worth the $18.99 to keep as a last resort app because it is actively supported. If you're a newbie, go with RipIt.
Or if you are an oldie like me who considers their time to be valuable -- RipIt Just Works™.

I wish Leopard had a way to control more applications for your HTPC with the Apple Remote. I found Remote Buddy and Mira to help launch programs and change settings that I otherwise couldn't change with the remote. They are both are good applications but I think Remote Buddy has more features. You can check out my write up to see the details.

www.cuttingthecord.tv/?p=49

Also, does anyone know of any media center software that can control EyeTV? I would like one piece of software that I can get to all my movies and still can watch live TV. Thanks.

Okay, I've not posted on this in a long time but, I wanted to update what I do here to get all the content I use on Front Row for anyone who is looking to do it similarly.

1. Go to your ~/Movies folder, (the one in your account,) and put a link there from the drive you're using for obtaining your movie media. I have linked here both iTunes movies and DVD's. Both of these drives I have hooked up using a USB hub to my Airport Extreme. iTunes movies is in the iTunes movies folder on a drive I set up to be the iTunes media folder, instead of the one in my ~/Music folder. I point iTunes to it by opening it using [option]+[click] on the iTunes icon in the Dock. Don't Adjust the folder in your iTunes Preferences/Advanced settings, it should point to your local drive and when you import it keeps the music on the iTunes drive not in your user folder. Only new content you purchase goes in your user folder, good thing to use when your renting movies. Until Screen Sharing did away with the Bonjour browser hack, we'd just log into the Mini to place those rental purchases through it, if we found something on iTunes on the iMac we'd like to rent instead of purchase. This keeps people from being able to make rentals on our Mini without one of us being there to actually do it, since the Mini has no keyboard/Mouse. Not efficient but, effective, I'd rather have the option to make those purchases from within Front Row, Apple really loses a lot of money, at least from us, by not having this ability there.

2. Once I have this done, I go and tell iTunes to import all the content from that drive giving me a playlist to work with. This gives me all the content from the drive on the Mini without having the content actually on that drive. I do not make my purchases from there, I actually use another iMac to do that, (I'll explain this further later.) This way I can control better what is actually accessed by the Mini hooked to the main TV in the house.

3. I then went and downloaded Frulu, Hulu, and FrontTV. I use an EyeTV with my Elgato 250+ HD on this and want access to it from within Front Row. Frulu and FrontTV are plugins for Front Row that simply go into it's plugins folder and work perfectly as is. With EyeTV, I had to download from it's forums the Front Row plugin for it and install it. Frulu simply opens the Hulu beta app for the Mac, which is installed in Applications and configured prior to using in Front Row the first time. Don't forget the all mighty Perian and Flip4Mac codecs, as you'll most likely need them.

4. Now I had to make sure everything opens when I boot the Mini, so I went to my user account I'm using, (a non-admin account without parental controls setup on it, though you could, I just don't have a need for this anymore,) and set it up so it would open all three folders in the ~/Music and ~/Movies folders, (DVD, iTunes, iTunes Movies,) and hide them upon opening. (I even have links to these in my Dock next to the trash so they'll give me a nice little folder/grid if I need to gain access to them right away. This is placed right next to my "Favorite Items" tweak. I also have it open iTunes minimized, iPhoto minimized, and Front Row from the boot. I also make sure I have the password set to open to this account from boot, you can also use the Guest account for this instead if you have kids or are security conscious.

5. Next I tweaked the security settings to lock this computer down but, still give me access via MobileME/Screen Sharing/Internet Browsing/Downloading. I have this account set up with filevault and secure virtual memory as well as tight firewall settings. This way I can still access iTunes store, Hulu, etc from it but, I don't have to worry as much about hackers gaining access to it. On the Airport Extreme, I have my drives connected and the password for the Airport is needed to access the drives, Guests have no access to it but, if your using a guest account, you'll need to allow them read only access. Updates are set to be done manually, so I can do them on my schedule, and not have it interfere with the EyeTV PVR functionality at inopportune moments.

6. Once I have all those settings made, I went to putting my DVD Rips on the DVD drive, (I recently posted using a file structure to include genres but, have since moved away from that.) What I do, prior to doing the DVD Rips, is go to iGoogle/Images and search for "Poster" + Movie Title Name, looking for the largest size poster available to download that closely matches the DVD cover and use it. I then use Img2Icns to convert it to both a folder using the "Movie Title Name.jpg" file I have downloaded, (if it's a name such as poster1234.jpg, I convert the name to Movie Title Name.jpg first,) and a .icns file. I place both the .jpg and .icns in this folder and rename the .jpg to "Preview.jpg". Once done with that, I put a copy of these files into the DVD drive and the iTunes drive Movie folder, if I am going to create a iTunes copy of it. (Once you use Img2Icns to create the folder, you really don't need the rest on the DVD drive, I just put them there for backups, file sizes aren't that large.) Then when you rip the DVD to that folder you just created, (I use FairMount, Handbrake, and have been trying RipIt as well but, YMMV with RipIt. I also send the Handbrake files to MetaX to fill in the rest of the info using what's on the back of the DVD and what I can find on the net. I use several sources here, Yahoo Movies, Flixter, Redbox, IMDB, RottenTomatoes, etc. to get other info not listed on DVDs. For the iTunes conversions.) When using Handbrake, I convert to the iMac then transfer the movies to the iTunes Drive Movies folder after using MetaX as I don't want to tie up the Mini for this.

7. I now have all my DVD rips on one drive and iTunes stuff on another, (need to upgrade this one to a larger drive now though...) If I want to watch the DVD's in Front Row, I simply select "Movies" then my local movies folder then "DVD" to find all of them, they all have their own Posters visible and by doing it this way Front Row doesn't even show the internal VIDEO_TS/AUDIO_TS files in there and one click on the folder and it plays the movie. Cover Flow also only shows the Poster and name in the Dock when viewing it as a Grid, looks professional imho. (I've even done the TV shows I've recorded/converted via EyeTV as well this way.) Oh, both Mini and iMac are connected to Airport via Gigabit Ethernet so I don't have to worry about speeds or throughput and other wirelessly connected devices using the Wi-Fi "n" connectivity don't have any problems either, not sure about lesser speeds.

8. Now, there are a couple of questions at this point, Why use the iMac to put purchases on the iTunes drive and to create the conversions. Well as everyone knows the Mini doesn't have that much power and I don't want to slow it down by doing conversions on there. The iMac is better suited for this since it's also in my bedroom and not in the TV room where everyone will be watching TV on the Mini. I also make all purchases on the iMac to make things more simplified and if anyone makes a purchase on the Mini then it will save it there, (such as rentals,) and the Mini will have better control over it. If it's a purchase that was made other than rentals, I transfer them over to the iTunes drive via Screen Sharing to assure that anyone who connects can view them, within reason. Or transfer them to other devices, (computers,) as necessary, without interrupting viewing pleasures of those whom are watching the Mini. I also have a Elgato Hybrid tuner on the iMac as well to do the encodes/other recordings/etc on it as well as conversions to iTunes via Handbrake. The mini also only uses the remote that come with it, no keyboard/mouse. By keeping the iMac as the only one that actually uses the iTunes drive, it's the only one that keeps it maintained as well, this is not something that is possible with the Mini and it's also the best option in my house. If I put something on the iTunes drive via the iMac and it's not yet been imported into iTunes on the Mini, then I can still view it via iTunes sharing so no loss there.

9. I hooked the Mini up to my home theater sound system via optical out and have the cable running directly into it instead of through a box, I get plenty of channels this way and lowered my cable bill at the same time. If I want to watch channels I can't get via the tuners, I can always just go down to Redbox at the end of the street to rent it on DVD or purchase it either using iTunes, Amazon, Wal-Mart or some other source. I also don't worry about not being able to view the shows I can no longer get on it, I have hulu for them, and iTunes fills in for the rest if I really want to go that route. I only wish that iTunes would improve their HD offerings for Front Row. I do have a few caveats with doing it this way, I can't watch live content if I can't receive the content on my tuners, which sucks, I have no control over what, when, or if, it's going to be released or the quality of those releases, and I miss the odd show due to this setup that I would otherwise not have missed had I had a way to view cablecard content on my Mac. When I convert the DVD's to iTunes, I use the "Movie Title Name.itns" files I created and placed in the folder for the icon for the movie, you have to [control]+[click] on the movie file, [click] on "Get Info" and then [click] on the icon at the top of the info screen that pops up, then [click] on [edit] and [paste] to change it. Though it may not show up all the time right away, be assured it took and when you go back to it later it will show up, also looks professional in Cover Flow as well. Once you've done this you can safely delete the .icns file but, not the .jpg file in the iTunes folder, if you want for the movie to have a picture in Front Row. You wont see the .jpg file except in finder, which unless your using a keyboard your not going to see the finder anyways.

10. The encoding apps such as FairMount, Handbrake, VLC, MetaX, RipIt, etc., are all only on the iMac, I only keep the most basic of things on the Mini to keep it as "Mini" as possible. All my pictures are on it that I don't care anyone seeing, and for that it's got plenty of room, 100GB holds a ton of pics, (limit on the amount I keep on the Mini, not size of the drive.) EyeTV recordings are also done to it but, at least once a week I convert them to iTunes format so I can play them back on it instead and free up the space on the Mini, for next weeks episodes, and if I forget or get too busy, 120GB is more than plenty of room to hold a couple weeks episodes on it. (Drive is 250GB in case anyone is wondering it's aftermarket upgrade 7200 RPM Hitachi. Only two mods made to my Mini, were the HDD and the upgrade to 2GB of memory.)

I do tweak some other settings in individual apps as well, I wont post them here as each persons tastes are different than mine. I also find that by using the new iTunes 9.x I have a better way to share files over the network and am contemplating on moving the entire DVD and iTunes drives over to one of the computers. Okay so I still have a lot of work to do by doing things this way, I also have the best set up possible for me. I use the Mini for the main viewing TV in the living room and my iMac for viewing in the bedroom, it also doubles as the main iTunes account and provides me with a way to do the conversions to put in the iTunes drive. In the future I want to upgrade both the Mini and the iMac to the latest ones out, (27" Quad Core i7 would make a better fit in my bedroom, only if it used the nVidia graphics instead of AMD/ATI's. Still it will make the encoding faster. Besides the wife is wanting this one for her private use, instead of sharing it like we do now, maybe then I'll get the conversions done a lot quicker.)

I know this was lengthy but, I wanted to make sure I put most everything I did in it so others can benefit from my experience. I also wanted to mention that I have a cable box hooked to the iMac as well for viewing channels that the Hybrid can't get on it, (pre QAM tuner,) and the HD still comes through in SD on all channels I receive on it, not ideal but, still better quality than the SD channel alternative. The audio from it comes via the Optical connections on the cable box and the iMac, which is perfect for playback, I still have to use the RCA connectors for recordings though, except via Firewire. I also hook it up via Firewire and get the HD content that way as well, when I have the time to fool with it. I never did get it 100% working right when encoding this way and the file sizes are way too large that it produces for my usage/tastes. I hope to eventually rectify this issue in the future when I have more time.

Now if I can just figure out why some of the iTunes Movies are showing up as TV Shows and TV Shows and Podcasts are showing up as Movies, even though they are marked as much in the Metadata file and are in their proper folders in the iTunes library. I did find a way to sort all of my movies/tv shows by using the Sort Show option and linking them that way but, that still doesn't help those few that still aren't in the right places in Front Row to begin with. I may try and re-tag them and possibly re-convert them if necessary to see if that fixes it.

I don't use iTunes much for video, but since this is a Front Row thread, you should know Front Row plays .avi just fine thanks to Perian--stick a cover.jpg and the .avi inside a folder and FR will display it as you scroll through titles. If they're on an external drive, drop an alias to them in your Movies folder. (The Quicktime Pro/iTunes reference movie approach just doesn't seem worth it to me...)

How do you create an alias? I just got my mac mini two days ago and I'm on the steep part of the learning curve. Thanks!

easy, just click once on a mounted volume or folder to highlight it, then go up to Finder > File > Make Alias, then drag and drop that into your Movies folder.

oh, and say you have several external or networked drives that you always want to have access to in Front Row, you can add them as log-in items (in System Preferences > Accounts > Log in items) when your Mac boots up, that way they will always mount and be available.

easy, just click once on a mounted volume or folder to highlight it, then go up to Finder > File > Make Alias, then drag and drop that into your Movies folder.

oh, and say you have several external or networked drives that you always want to have access to in Front Row, you can add them as log-in items (in System Preferences > Accounts > Log in items) when your Mac boots up, that way they will always mount and be available.

Thanks! That helps!