I haven't really had a Mac long enough to be posting questions, but I am stuck on a (probably very simple) problem that I have surfed high and low for with no luck - either that or I am not recognizing the answer when I see it. My Missing Manual book (recommended by the Apple rep that gave the demo that got me started) doesn't even mention the app I want to use.
I have a new Mini bought for the purpose of being a video/dvd server. It will replace a Linux/MythTV box that works ok, but has nowhere near the polish and simplicity of Front Row. That and the fact that a Linux geek (me) can take from an hour to a weekend configuring MythTV. User friendly it is most definitely not. On the other hand, I have proved that a new Mac user with a whole 10 minutes of experience can be watching a DVD on a big screen TV before the little box even warms up.
Here is the setup. I have a very large Linux server with 4 one t-byte drives filled with videos. My new Mini can see the shared folders and videos on the server just fine (and every other shared folder on the network). I can drag and drop a movie over the network to the Mini and play it. So the connections work ok.
I want to browse the server for a movie from the Mac, click with the remote, and start watching. Plain ordinary movie server setup that Front Row does very well, locally. But Front Row (apparently) will not look outside of it's hard coded movie folder, or the DVD drive, for media. However, the very small help section on Front Row seems to indicate that playing from an external source is no problem - it just doesn't discuss how.
The hits I got googling, indicate that I need to make an alias for the shared drive and drop it into the imovies folder that FR defaults to. I have done that but FR doesn't see it. The alias is there and when I click on it I get the remote contents.
Another says to drop an alias of the /volume folder into imovie and that /volume has icons for all drives - local and shared. However, mine only has the Mac hard drive. The shared icons are somewhere else.
Anybody got any hints for a hard core Linux geek who is becoming very impressed with this Mini/Leopard thingie?
Thanks anyone
Konan
I have a new Mini bought for the purpose of being a video/dvd server. It will replace a Linux/MythTV box that works ok, but has nowhere near the polish and simplicity of Front Row. That and the fact that a Linux geek (me) can take from an hour to a weekend configuring MythTV. User friendly it is most definitely not. On the other hand, I have proved that a new Mac user with a whole 10 minutes of experience can be watching a DVD on a big screen TV before the little box even warms up.
Here is the setup. I have a very large Linux server with 4 one t-byte drives filled with videos. My new Mini can see the shared folders and videos on the server just fine (and every other shared folder on the network). I can drag and drop a movie over the network to the Mini and play it. So the connections work ok.
I want to browse the server for a movie from the Mac, click with the remote, and start watching. Plain ordinary movie server setup that Front Row does very well, locally. But Front Row (apparently) will not look outside of it's hard coded movie folder, or the DVD drive, for media. However, the very small help section on Front Row seems to indicate that playing from an external source is no problem - it just doesn't discuss how.
The hits I got googling, indicate that I need to make an alias for the shared drive and drop it into the imovies folder that FR defaults to. I have done that but FR doesn't see it. The alias is there and when I click on it I get the remote contents.
Another says to drop an alias of the /volume folder into imovie and that /volume has icons for all drives - local and shared. However, mine only has the Mac hard drive. The shared icons are somewhere else.
Anybody got any hints for a hard core Linux geek who is becoming very impressed with this Mini/Leopard thingie?
Thanks anyone
Konan
