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FrontRow is the media center software that comes on every Mac - it’s pretty basic, but this makes for a great platform to build a great, customized media center. Below, are a few essential plugins (or “Appliances”) that you can add to FrontRow to give it some really powerful capabilities.

UNDERSTUDY

http://code.google.com/p/understudy/

Understudy is a quick and dirty way to get Hulu feeds in FrontRow. It’s simple but if you have HuluDesktop installed there’s an ever better solution:

HULU DESKTOP LAUNCHER

http://www.nullweb.com/?p=7

The beauty of FrontRow might be it’s ease of use with the remote control. Hulu does a good job with this in Hulu Desktop. Adding this plugin will allow you to access Hulu Desktop quickly and easily.

BOXEE

http://www.holeintheceiling.com/blog/2008/12/12/front-row-boxee/

In a similar fashion, using Front Row as a starting point makes a lot of sense of a Mac media center. Boxee is a great way to explore your videos, pictures, media… and pretty much everything. Adding this to FrontRow gives you another easy way to pick up the remote and start surfin’

HONORABLE MENTIONS

In addition, EyeTV, NetFlix, YouTube and other popular media center items can be integrated into FrontRow. Depending on your needs there’s FrontRow extensions for almost anything media-center related!

My set up is a Mac Mini. I automatically boot to FrontRow, and use a universal remote to access FrontRow which is the starting point to my video, music, photos, and internet TV.

Here are some updates, changes, and additions to past technobabble articles.

Media Center

I stand corrected, the Mac version of the logitech keyboard is CHEAPER than the windows version. I guess I was just lazy and they had the Windows version at Target! Also, check out the remote management hack - being able to quickly control your media center from your laptop comes in handy too. It’s also fun to confuse people trying to watch TV.

Windows Disk Cleanup

I’ve recently installed XP on my Eee PC and have had to really slim down my installation. There are tools desgined to shrink Windows down by removing non-essential parts - but I like to look for less destructive, better ways. Another solution I’ve come up with is deleting temporary and backup files left behind by Windows Update. In your Windows directory, look for folders like $NtUninstallxxxx$ - usually with the dollar symbol. You’ll see hot fixes, security updates, and even the service packs if you update Windows from sp2 to sp3… this can easily eat up a gig or so. These are not the updates, they are actually the backups of what was there before hand - so if you need to uninstall and update - you can. I’ve never had a problem with a Windows update breaking something. If it did, I think I would know within a day or so. Again, do your own backups.

Eee PC

Like I mentioned, I put Windows on my Eee PC  - mostly just to see how it handled. Just as when installing Linux on the Eee PC it’s important to minimize disk activity to the SSD with Windows as well. My machine has a few gigs of RAM so it’s not a problem to disable swapping. I don’t know how XP would behave with 512mb and no swap, you might run into problems running larger apps. You could consider implementing “poor man’s readyboost” in other words, dedicate space on an SD card for swapping. (Granted the whole issue is swapping on flash memory) But if possible, don’t use virtual memory on it. And System Restore needs to go.

The Basics

You’ll need a computer and a TV. My TV made it easy because it has VGA output. But ideally you could even run HDMI if your PC had it. The machine I used for the job was my old Mac Mini. Not only was it small and unobtrusive, but it has infrared for remote-control and frontrow - apple’s media center software that comes with pretty much every mac now.

Along with this machine I brought along a spacious external hard drive with my music collection, movies, and other stuff. The thing is on all the time and shares it’s filesystem so I can get at it from my laptop.

Oh and if you’re not into Macs, check out Windows Media Center or Myth TV for Windows and Linux respectfully.

Universal Remote

I have a “learning” remote which I can point a remote to it and it learns the commands automatically. This made it very easy to have my Mac respond to my universal remote commands. For example, hit menu for front row, volume, next tracks, arrows, etc. Again I think you’d have to have a learning remote for this to work… but it works PERFECTLY

Keyboard/Mouse - or lack thereof

The last thing I wanted was a wired keyboard and mouse running across the floor. You can get a wireless keyboard and mouse for around $30 at Target, but I was kind of a chump and sprung for the Logitech diNovo edge. It has an integrated touchpad and all the media buttons, plus it’s small and rechargeable. It’s pricey but it’s the best thing out there. They made a smaller version just for this purpose. http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/keyboards/keyboard/devices/192&cl=US,EN

Oh yeah, they make a mac and a pc version… but the pc version is cheaper and works on the mac anyways

Recording Video

You’ll need either a video capture card or a similar usb device if you want to have your media center perform dvr functions. I’m not the person to ask about this because this wasn’t one of my goals with the project - verizon already provides a multi-room dvr so the pc doesn’t worry about this.

Next Steps

This is the fun part, you can set up your machine to behave however you want. See what goodies are available for your platform. I made a “TV” guest login with just the essential icons - web browser, tv listings (widget), games, and links to watching shows on iTunes, Hulu, and other TV stations. I also have all of my games ready to play full screen and on the nice surround sound setup. This part just takes some creativity.