How can I get Front Row to play on second monitor

Question

I've got a Macbook Pro running the current version of OS X (10.5.7) and I'd like to be able to plug it into my TV and control movie playing etc with the Apple remote, unfortunately I can't work out how to get Front Row to output to the second screen.

Screen mirroring is what I'm doing at the moment, but it seems like there should be a better option.

I'm not absolutely married to the idea of getting Front Row to behave if there is other software than can do the same job, but being able to use the remote to select movies as well as control playback is a necessity.

Answer 1

VLC works well with a remote, and it can "select" movies by skipping back and forth through a playlist. I use it at home, and it allows you to select a monitor from its menus.

As far as Front Row is concerned, it may help to set your primary screen to your TV. This can be done in the monitor settings by dragging the white bar at the top of current monitor and over to the secondary monitor (I had no idea it could be dragged at first). Try that and see if it pulls Front Row over with it.

If you don't mind getting down and dirty with 3rd-party utilities/AppleScript, check this out too!

Answer 2

It is possible to redirect Front Row, without changing the primary screen by moving the menu bar.

See references to "FrontRowUsePreferredDisplayID" in http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=6934593

Answer 3

I use Plex to cover this. Its everything Front Row should have been and more and works beautifully with my big TV as a second screen.