XYPHER  Just love the interface, this has come a really long way. A few caveats;

It stutters along and still has a few bugs that need to be ironed out.

Why no support for Daily Motion?

Apart from that there is no other software like it.(Puts the iTV interface to shame).  
(Version 2.7)

JEFF H.  I'm surprised this thing is still out there...is anyone buying it?

Equinox has SO dropped the ball with it's US support. They rarely respond to emails (if ever, wrote 2...nothing), and if they do they give the standard install/replace app...I'm a seasoned Mac user, I know how to install software and I know when that software is running poorly!

Their software may very well be running fine in Europe (I'm assuming so because I think that most of its bad marks are coming from the US), but if they're going to continue snubbing the US market as they have, simply pull your lousy software.

BTW, The Tube seems to be getting very bad ratings, and that seems to be coming from everywhere.

I'm VERY happy with Front Row and EyeTV anyway!  
(Version 2.7)

GEOMACUPDATE  DANGER!!!!!!!!

Beware of upgrading this APP! I had just installed the update when I started to notice some apps acting odd.

After some detective work, I found most of my ~/Library in Trash/MediaCentral inside of the application package.

Unfort I had started a delete on the trash, so a good deal of my library is now gone.

If you bother with this, keep a VERY close eye on what the installer does and DON'T trash ANYTHING until you have examined the package.  
(Version 2.6.3)

JEFF H.  There are two things that are holding me back from getting this app.

I should say that the look, functionality, and ability to customize are just great!

The 2 things are:

1. The lack of being able to adjust the amount of seconds/minutes it jumps to when you rewind/FF. It jumps forward like 3 minutes...I would want it to FF like 30 seconds, or better yet just scrub through quickly 1 second at a time.

and

2. Any video content that I play, QT, avi, DIVX, stutters every few seconds. Unacceptable.

This may be due to the size of the monitor (30"), but I don't see that entering into the equation here...video NEVER stutters under any other apps, so, a bit puzzled.

Any ideas?

Thank you.  
(Version 2.6.3)

CASTLE  Is this thing still wiping hard disks? The developer never did acknowledge the issue officially, so I wonder if he ever fixed it? If you run MediaCentral from a folder inside your Applications folder, BEWARE!  
(Version 2.6.3)

JEFF H.  is there any way to make this thing rewind/fast forward say a minute or two instead of like 8 or 9 minutes?

Also, having a bit of trouble making it recognize my ATI Remote Wonder...is there a profile out there?  
(Version 2.5)

JEFF H.  Create an alias of the folder that your movies are in (can be on an external), and drop it into your home/movies folder.

Simple as that...  
(Version 2.5)

MEDIA FREAK  Houston we have a problem with Front Row and Media Central!!!

I am video archiving all my home movies. BEWARE on Front Row if you do not store your movies folder in the MOVIES file Front Row will not work. Did Apple ever consider that you cant get over 500 gigs of movies on a MacMini?

Media Central, solves this problem by creating ALIAS and placing into the MOVIE folder. However, some of the movies WILL NOT HAVE SOUND, Some of the Movies are SCRAMBLED EGGS! How can you take a perfectly good movie file, make an alias and lose Sound or Video Quality.....

Front Row...How could you not allow Alias' to work in th MOVIE folder?

Media Central....Why dont you fix your bugs everybody is complaining about? I paid for the whole enchilada and I'm tired of eatn rice!!!!  
(Version 2.5)

JEFF H.  Well, jerky, stuttering video is back!

Sticking withFrontRow...  
(Version 2.5)

SHLOMO  Really solid product! The only part I have not used is the TV section.

If you take the time to setup this program right, it will be like a dream! I'm using an older PowerBook G4 (PPC) hooked up to my TV and paying $30 is WAY better than paying for something this is ten times the price (Apple TV).

I really love being able to hook up MediaCentral to my Flickr account, AND also being able to play a wide variety of codecs. There is also a lot of room for customability (is that a word?).

After trying every program that shows up if you search MacUpdate for "media center," MediaCentral wins!  
(Version 2.5)

CYANN  When I see all the problems you have with new Media Central, I'm very happy with my old """FREE""" version ( 1.2.1).

I don't mind to donate, but when developers go free to sharewhare, I don't like, especially if it's worth working.  
(Version 2.4)

ORGANIK  I cannot read the names of MANY of my files because the font size is just too big. Many PC home theater apps have the file name scroll if it is too large to be displayed.

I can't play my media if I don't know what I'm playing!

Front Row also suffers from this problem.

Any solutions out there?

One more thing - the interface for media central is just, well, ugly. Many of the competing mac home theater apps just look much nicer (even if they are feature limited).  
(Version 2.2)

CASTLE  Does this app still delete your hard drive if you install it into a subfolder of Applications? I'd rather not have that happen to me again...  
(Version 2.2)

ROB  Simply does not work. That is it. Integration is a problem.  
(Version 2.1.1)

MCREATIONS  This app is a shame for the whole Mac application universum. Every update of version 2 gets more and more buggy. It crashed my whole system or launched and after that it didn't react at all.

Don't install that app on your Mac!

I can't bevlieve what the developers have done since the free version 1.

now they added many features, require users paying a bunch of money but it doesn't work.

'good' jobs, folks.  
(Version 2.1)

JEFF H.  Just a follow-up to my previous review...

For some reason my mp4 files that were encoded with Handbrake from DVDs play jerky like there are frames being lost. This happens in both versions of MediaCentral...this does not happen in FrontRow...any idea why?

They play flawlessly in every other compatible app.

This would be the other reason why I wouldn't buy, as this would be the main use of MediaCentral for me.   
(Version 2.0.1)

STEVEN JAY COHEN  I guess this developer does not read MacUpdate! Anyone looking at this feedback would have done something about it by now.

Please repost a link to the v1.x installer. It will go a long way toward fixing your reputation around here.  
(Version 2.0.1)

MICHAEL BOSTON  NOT A FREE PROGRAM WHEN UPGRADED!!

Note to people with the old version of 1.2 - DO NOT upgrade unless you will be buying a license, as it is only a 5 minute demo now.

I now have to try and find the old version and re-install it! Genius......  
(Version 2.0)

DJINIBABY  Nothing more to say. Thank you for all the time I had to spend to reinstall version 1.* ... Nice try to bring out a good software, but the way is wrong.  
(Version 2.0)

JEFF H.  Just downloaded and installed the "demo" just to see, and was fully prepaired to buy version 2, but found out that it only let me "demo" for 5 minutes (5 minutes is NOT long enough for me, or anyone, to check this out!), and it completely over-wrote my version 1! Just for that I got my backup of version 1.2.1 (remember, backup!), reinstalled, and on principal won't buy version2!  
(Version 2.0)

STEVEN JAY COHEN  Still waiting guys!

I have an email where you PROMISED a bug fix to the free version.

Where's the link?  
(Version 2.0)

JUSTIN MEYER  I just bought this piece of cr@p...

Software frequently crashes, IPTV channels Real and Quicktime work, Windows Media nogo :(

Radio list retrieval takes to long.

Divx with subtitles crashes all the time.

Hope version 2.1 appears very soon!

If this works FrontRow will not be used ever again.   
(Version 2.0)

GRYPHONENT  I too feel that the guys at Equinox have nice apps, but all of them somewhat buggy and WAYYY overpriced! Whether it’s iSale or MediaCentral or their iTunes Artwork thing with the cowoby theme (name escapes me at the moment). Thirty bucks for MediaCentral is too much... get a grip.  
(Version 2.0)

UMIJIN  Didn't this app used to be free?

What happened?  
(Version 2.0)

RICK EAMES  I will say "eh" to this so far. Playing VIDEO_TS files from my network server works better than MPEG files in a local folder!

All video played from local is jerky. No clue what that is all about.

Also, though they say you can have jpegs for your on disk dvd's, they never show up in the UX. Kinda weird.  
(Version 2.0)

MAGICHAT  A 30 day demo with no time limit is the ONLY acceptable way to offer this software. Equinix clearly staffs a bunch of super geeky programmers but no one with any common sense.  
(Version 2.0)

MAGICHAT  Are you kidding? 5 minutes?! I like this app, and would probably pay for it... but I refuse to support a company that only allows its software to be demoed in 5 minute increments. A media center software program, no less! This is absurd, and I refuse to buy ANY Equinix product EVER. I suggest everyone else do the same.  
(Version 2.0)

STEVEN JAY COHEN  So, when are you going to release the FREE v1.2.2 that you promised in the email where I reported the RealPlayer problem?

I have no problem if you make v2 shareware. But I do have a problem if you decide to end v1 without fixing that bug.

Hoping to see v1.2.2 posted this week...  
(Version 2.0)

DJINIBABY  BACK TO FRONT ROW !!!!!  
(Version 2.0)

DJINIBABY  $29 ? 5min Demo ? What´s that? First free, now $29 To funny. Nice joke. I say NO NO NO.   
(Version 2.0)

G3P0  I really wish that you changed the price from free to $29.95 BEFORE I updated the software. Now it will only work for 5 minutes at a time. Not cool at all.

Back to front row for me...  
(Version 2.0)

BOMBADIL  Love it more than Front Row! This would be perfect if I could just watch my avi and other movies on my intel mac. Can't wait to see how this develops.   
(Version 1.2.1)

STEVEN JAY COHEN  WebTV stations stopped working after upgrading RealPlayer to the current version. Downgrading to v10.0 brought back functionality.

Hopefully, 1.2.2 will address this.

Aside from that, incredible app!  
(Version 1.2.1)

QUINTINHA  I would like to have the option of seeing image at its normal size and not filling the screen.

Better resolution and quality is sometimes necessary when film / DVD is not good enough.

Thank you and congratulations for this otherwise very good piece of software.  
(Version 1.2.1)

JEFF H.  I love this software...much better than Front Row and itheater.

This may be exclusive to the ATI Remote Wonder, but the only thing I would would want to see changed is the FF and Rew. Instead of it going ahead either smoothly or at a few second increments, it jumps ahead/back minutes...  
(Version 1.2.1)

KEILJANSEN  I'll admit, I'm using this on some less than supported Intel hardware, but I was hoping it would work as a Universal binary. I can watch trailers and listen to iTunes, but none of the movies from my extensive Divx collection work; They all cause MediaCentral to unexpectedly quit. Just thought I would let other people who might be in my situation know about it.   
(Version 1.2.1)

MICHAEL PIPOLO  First, for the good points. It is amazing how fast this program interacts with iTunes, and in particular, iPhoto. Why Apple cannot make Front Row this snappy is beyond me.

A question though... why don't the songs in iTunes playlists (or even the Library) appear in the order in which they are arranged in iTunes? I don't have shuffle turned on. This is quite odd.

Overall, this looks like a promising product... but there are several things I believe should be changed.

1. Take away the silly sound effects (power off, etc.). Replace the more sedate sound effects (scroll, volume change, etc.) with quiter, less harsh sounds.

2. Make scrolling smoother... more like Front Row.

3. The spotlight texture in the background is not smooth. It looks like it needs a little smoothing in gradient.

4. Is is possible to change the interface with iTunes so that the music does not stop when MediaCentral is quit? Like Front Row, more like a front-end than a standalone app?

5. Stability is really needed. When I quit MC with the Command-Q command, my system hangs with no menubar or dock until I force quit MC with Activity Monitor. This is on a 1.33 GHz iBook with 1 GB of RAM.

6. Remove the long splash screen. This is an annoyance.

7. Finally, remove the background music. I don't think anyone enjoys it.

Thank you, and I hope to see new and improved versions of this in the future.  
(Version 1.2.1)

CASTLE  So, is this version safe to install, or is it still trashing numerous people's files? The update makes no mention of fixing this issue. Or is deleting people's hard disks counted as one of the "various minor bugs"?  
(Version 1.2.1)

OCHYMING  Lovely

Thankx.  
(Version 1.2.1)

LEXY  Version 1.2 played my AVI's with shaded colors. In 1.2.1 I only get a green screen with sound.  
(Version 1.2.1)

ANGVEN  Installed version 1.2, seems great however crashes in some avi files, after some tweaking I discovered that the problem are some srt files (subtitles). But I'm still don't know why some srt work and others don't. They have the same weight, permissions, creator and type.

Someone have a clue?  
(Version 1.2)

CASTLE  I actually find it quite staggering that this program is available for download still. One case of massive data loss and I'd be worried, but thinking that there might have been another cause than my program. By the second I'd be taking the program offline until I was sure it was fixed rather than risking anyone else losing so much data.  
(Version 1.2)

JKT  Thankfully I didn't suffer the deletion issue that others have reported (it sounds as though the developers have made a similar foobar as Apple did with that iTunes 4.x installer that wiped some people's drives!).

As I haven't had this (incredibly serious) problem and the app successfully installed, I'll review it on the merits of the actual app rather than its installer (0 stars!!).

I tried the 1.1 version but found it too annoying as I was continuously having to jiggle my mouse to avoid my screensaver kicking into action or to prevent the screen going to sleep, but this has been fixed.

The addition of iPhoto viewing is great, as is the album art to the iTunes viewing and this is shaping up to become a worthy Front Row for the rest of us.

I'm unable to give it 5 stars out of 5 though as there are some annoyances and the execution of some things could be improved:

1. Lack of mouse cursor when you are using the mouse. Granted that this is meant to be a long distance media viewer, where you aren't supposed to be on your keyboard or mouse to use it, but it would be nice if you could use the mouse when you are!

2. The iTunes feature:

• could desperately do with a Shuffle feature on all playlists other than just the Album ones!

• The title display gets truncated if the song title is too long to fit on the screen. It'd be better if the title wrapped onto the screen or the font size decreased to allow it to fit.

• Add something like the JewelCase iTunes plug-in as the iTunes front end and this would be a huge improvement. Even better - allow the use of the iTunes Visualiser instead!!

3. For the media playing - it isn't obvious which media player is being used for what. E.g. I think I am right in saying that WiMP appears to be used in preference to RealPlayer for e.g. the BBC streams. WiMP's quality of playback is awful so I'd rather have the ability to select which media players are preferred if there is a choice.

4. The sound effects:

They use a Garageband loop for the background music when navigating menus which is fine, but it is too short and becomes immensely repetitious after a very short while. For the particular loop they are using there are at least 2 or 3 others that are similar that they could add in to make it more flavoursome, but it would be better if they commissioned a few ambient tracks or from e.g. the Garageband user sites. I'm sure some Mac fans would be willing to do it for no fee.

5. Navigating the menus:

Painfully slow! They need some sort of iPod like acceleration where the start of scrolling is normal pace, but if scrolling exceeds a certain period, it accelerates.

Tip. To avoid the slow scrolling, you can tap a letter on the keyboard to jump to that part of the listing. However, that requires you to be near your keyboard which half defeats the purpose of the application.

6. Movie trailers:

• Some means of starting the download and then being able to go view something else until it is finished would be nice - those HD trailers take forever to download and you can't do anything else until they have finished otherwise the download is aborted. An ability to duck out of the interface to e.g. other apps or your desktop, but have it left running in the background would be one way to do this.

• Some means of saving already downloaded trailers - it is a bit dumb that you have to re-download a trailer again if you have already viewed it in a prior session (however, this is probably a limitation imposed by Apple's stream that the app may not be able to overcome).

There are a few other things, but I can't recall them at the moment.

Having said that, this is a sterling effort - it's really good now and it can only get better.  
(Version 1.2)

JEFF H.  Verrrrry cool!

I have Front Row enabled, but it doesn't like my remote at all (ATI Wonder), so I never use it...

MediaCentral is actually as cool, and my remote works wonderfully!!!

The sound effects are cool, too!

The TV section doesn't seem to work much...a little, and once in a while it will, but for the most part, no.

My Plextor ConvertX isn't supported, even though it runs the EyeTV S.W., I'd very much like to see this supported in future updates.

All in all, this is very cool freeware!!!  
(Version 1.2)

JOE99  I had previously installed all prior versions of Mediacentral without issues.

However, the 1.2 edition deleted almost everything in my "Applications" folder and would have taken everything if I had not force quit while still running the "Installation Script."

It was set to install in a sub directory of my Applications folder. The same place it had installed 1.1. Instead it just started deleting everything in Applications folder.

There is zero reason for an installer for this application or others in OS X. Screwups like this cost us significant time and may require me to call Adobe as well on Monday thanks to their "activation" system and my Adobe CS2.app needing to be reinstalled without deactivating the now trashed version.

I have sent them email and tried to call the 1-888 number. No email response and the 1-888 number hangs up on you. What a disaster. All I wanted was to see if they finally supported EyeTV 500 units.  
(Version 1.2)

ECASTLE  This app's installer deleted my entire Applications folder! I'm not kidding! It even deleted Mail, so I can't even email the developers to complain! This is a complete joke! I cannot believe this! There were apps in there that just can't be downloaded any more! I've never seen anything like this on the Mac! BE VERY CAREFUL!  
(Version 1.1)

BOZOCLOWN  MediaCentral is a great app for building a Mac based media center. It can update itself with new media plugins as they become available (or as you need them) which makes the initial download refreshingly small. It can download movie trailers (like Front Row) and much more. Shared iTunes music libraries are supported. Highly recommended!  
(Version 1.0)

GROSOWIEC  There is version 1.0 already and this is real deal. Like FrontRow but use less resources and doesn't need to run iTunes/DVD Player in the background. Simply Great!  
(Version 0.1)

68KMLA  works great on a Dual 450 G4 w/2GB RAM, though a bit chunky. Tons of potential.

I really need a romeo plugin for this app.  
(Version 0.1)

ANONYMOUS  I think that this program will become the Mac HTPC software we're been waiting for. The DVD Jukebox is brilliant and works perfectly on my machine. I only hope that future releases will have the option to view items by cover (like Cover Flow) instead of a purely text-based UI, as graphics are more interesting on larger displaty screens (HDTVs, etc). Many thanks to the developer for this great effort, and I'm really looking forward to future releases.  
(Version 0.1)

ANONYMOUS  WHAT A PROMISING SOFTWARE!!!Keep taking initiatives like that!

I just tested it... very good for a 0.1 version!

Just one problem: unlike FrontRow, the screensaver is still active. So is tha Dashboard. Quite annoying though.

After that, I bet there'll be new features... I like Apple & its software but it'd be soooooooo funny to see this software beat them on their ground?!... & CenterStage!  
(Version 0.1)

ANONYMOUS  Checked it out for a couple of minutes and it does what it claims to do. Divx, VIDEO_TS, mpgs etc.

Great start. Now add photos, and mp3s and this will be a very viable front row replacement.  
(Version 0.1)