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Alternatives to Apple's Front RowAccess More Media Content with iTheatre, XHub and Media Central
Unlike Apple´s Front Row, iTheatre, XHub and MediaCentral are offering compatibility with older machines and more choice for playing media content on a Macintosh.
Apple´s Front Row is a program for navigating and playing media content on the Mac via a remote control device. Front Row is bundled free with new Macs but has been criticized by some users for limiting playback to just i-Life content and for being incompatible with Macs more than a year or two old. In response to such criticisms, 3 new applications now offer an enhanced interface and access to a far wider range of content. 1. iTheatre iTheater is a free, open source alternative to Front Row that works on both PowerPC and Intel Macs. It will play video files, DVDs and audio content, but as the program is still in development, some parts - such as the photo viewer - do not yet work. However iTheatre boots up very fast and when a music file is selected, it will run i-Tunes from its XML (backend) file rather than the full i-Tunes program itself. Similarly, iTheatre uses the Quicktime backend to play movies which enables it to run fast and with little drain on memory. Although still in development stage, iTheatre is a good free option for older Macs that cannot run Front Row. 2. XHub XHub is a commercial and somewhat more sophisticated product than iTheatre offering Internet radio, TV and news feeds. XHub employs cover flow to browse albums and tracks, whilst in the Photos selection, a mini slide show displays a sneak preview of the folders content. For film fans, there is the option of searching through movie trailers and reviews. The news feeds category picks up on selected news items from Internet sites and offers summaries of stories as well as access to the original on-line articles. Sadly, there are a few configuration limitations with XHub. There is little choice over which news feeds are gathered, and in the photo selection, slide show transitions there is only one choice for both the slide transitions and the accompanying music. 3. MediaCentral MediaCentral is similar to x-hub in offering Internet TV, radio and movie trailers but with a few additions such as Skype access and a gaming section that includes classic games such as Alien Invaders and Ping. Like iTheatre, MediaCentral works on the backend of i-Tunes so cuts down on heavy memory usage whilst playing songs. The Music section also offers net access to several web music sites such as Madonna.com, in the the photo section there is access to pre-selected on-line galleries such as Flickr. However, like XHub, there appears to be no options to change these presets, neither in the slideshow music nor transitions. For non intel Mac users or Front Row users that want a wider media experience for their machine, iTheatre works well for what it offers: Speed and quick access to films and music without drawing heavily on the computer´s resources. But it is limited in not showing photos nor any other on-line media. The commercial offerings of XHub and MediaCentral offer a much wider selection of material with radio and Internet TV, news, web connectivity and more, to really turn the desktop computer into a fully functional media centre.
The copyright of the article Alternatives to Apple's Front Row in Mac Software/OS is owned by Paul Read. Permission to republish Alternatives to Apple's Front Row in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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