Guess Front Row isn’t really the software on everyones lips anymore? Well not only is it only available with new Macs (unless you grab some “enablers” and stuff), it’s also slow. Sluggish. Well, Equinux has just the solution. Meet MediaCentral. It looks very much like Front Row. It’s a tiny download (less than a megabyte unpacked). It’s wicked fast and responsive, even on my bloated PowerBook. It lacks some things that Front Row has, that I’m sure will make it into version 1.1 or something. Like, it’s very light on graphics. No cover art for music. No icons in the menus. Oh, and there is no way to watch your photos. BUT, it makes up for all this by adding some other features. Not only does it play DVD disks. It also plays VIDEO_TS folders (and finds them automagically on your connected disks). It plays divx/xvid and basically every other format you can think of (using mPlayer libraries). It can show your EyeTV recordings, and even live TV on select EyeTV models (or so I got the impression of. Didn’t work with my original EyeTV USB though). It can show several webtv stations, sorted by language. Yes, that is streaming TV, in either QuickTime, WMV or Real format.

Front Row main menu	MediaCentral main menu
Front Row DVD menu	MediaCentral DVD menu
Front Row movie trailers	MediaCentral movie trailers
Front Row music	MediaCentral music
Front Row photos	MediaCentral web tv

You should check it out, if this sorta thing interest you.

Oh, and try out Sandbox if you haven’t. It is to iWeb what a turkey is to a british breakfast.