Now that we are doing up the new place, I'm toying with the idea of using Mac as a home entertainment media centre. Wanted to try out Front Row, but apparently Front Row is being shipped with the new Mac mini, iMac G5 etc and there's no available version for the older Macs.

Well, with the help of the internet I managed to find and install Front Row on my 12" G4 Powerbook. It's easy. No Apple Remote? No worries. With this software called Sailing Clicker I was able to use my Nokia 6680 mobile as a remote controller via bluetooth connection. ( It's a cool piece of software. With it I can actually use the phone for Powerpoint presentations!) I've not paid for it yet, so I'm limited to 30 clicks before the software terminates itself. I'm still checking around to see if there's other alternative freewares I could use.

I saved most of my DVD movies on a 200GB external HD. By creating a folder containing aliases of the movies, I could watch movies from the external HD without having to transfer them over into the powerbook. (My 200GB is filling up and I'm not even halfway through my DVDs. Need to get another HD really soon.)

So how's Front Row? It's fun to use.. very stylish.. very Apple. In fact it looks a lot like an oversized iPod menu. I could play DVD, iTunes, photo slideshows, movies etc. The only problem I have is that I keep getting a "movie trailer server is not responding" when I try to watch movie trailers. Other than that, the rest worked fine.

I haven't tried Windows XP Media Centre Edition yet. I was told it has more functions than Front Row and a better choice as home entertainment media centre. Will check it out later. But I'm kind of partial to Mac... the (white) light beckons!

Labels: Tech