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sigamy

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Mar 7, 2003
1,401
187
NJ USA
Is anyone here using a Mac as a media center computer? I picked up a G4 Cube for this purpose. I'll have content on my iMac upstairs, the Cube will be in the basement. I want to pull the content off the iMac and use the Cube to play it on my TV.

The content will be iMovies in MOV and DV, DivX files, .MPG, VIDEO_TS folders from archived DVDs (that I own), iPhoto slideshows and iTunes. The iPhoto and iTunes stuff is handled but I'm looking for a good way to catalog, organize and play video files.

I've found these apps. Basically these try to be "iTunes or iPhoto for movies". They play most media formats but I think only Matinee can mount and play VIDEO_TS folders directly.

Anyone have any opinions on these? Or any alternative solutions?

Movie Gallery, very iTunes like. $30:
http://moviegallery.bitfield.se/static/en/20/

iFlicks, another iApp for videos. $30
http://www.helixent.com/iflicks

iVideo, takes more of an iPhoto approach. $20:
http://waterfallsw.com/ivideo/

Cellulo. iTunes-like. Donationware
http://www.cellulo.info/overview.php

MiTheater. Not sure about this one. Beta
http://homepage.mac.com/imlucid/iblog/B1109896250/C959093037/index.html

Matinee. Nice interface to VIDEO_TS folders (ripped DVDs). You could do all this with AppleScript and folder actions or just manually with DVD Player, but this is a nice UI. Shareware.
http://matinee.dizandat.com/download.php

Someone is using the Finder with DVD jackets as icons attached to AppleScripts:
http://www2.enights.net:5505/htmac.html
 
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