Back Row

So, I was hoping that there was a seamless solution to this problem that didn't require transcoding ripped DVDs to H.264, and I'm happy to report that there is. You can use this application, DVD Assist, which is basically an AppleScript with some extre glue. When you play regular movies in Front Row, it looks for a VIDEO_TS directory or ISO file in the location of the movie, and if it finds one, it launches DVD Player.app or VLC in full-screen mode. This actually works pretty well, as Front Row will relinquish control of the screen pretty easily.

This is a really good solution because it saves tons of extra time and avoids the possible loss of quality inherent in transcoding the DVDs, and there are really only two things preventing it from being the perfect solution. The first is that you have to hold down the menu button on the Apple Remote in order to access the DVD menu. Pressing the menu button quickly will cause Front Row to take over again, and you might lose your place on the DVD, depending on your DVD Player.app preferences. However, the fact that you can use the menu button at all while both Front Row and DVD Player.app are running is certainly better than nothing.

The other thing is that you have to use an unrelated stand-in QuickTime movie in order for Front Row to have something in the Movies list, and so DVD Assist can hook the playback of that movie. The movie that ships with DVD Assist is a typical start pattern, but I'd like to replace it with a 5-second clip from the menu title of the disc. And of course, it would also be ideal if the meta-data of the video file matched the DVD. I could do this pretty easily using HandBrake, but since I've nicely automated the rest of the process using trivial shell scripts, I'd like a more automatic solution. I've started playing with FFmpeg to see if I can procure the right options to do this. I'll let you know how it works out later.