Due to popular demand I thought I would take a few minutes to describe my current situation with Boxee, Front Row, and my HDTV. Over the past 6 months I’ve been working very hard to set up the perfect media center in my living room, while spending close to $0. First off, to answer probably the golden question, no, you can’t install Boxee in Front Row like you can with the Apple TV (at least I’ve never found a way to do this). As it is, I’ve connected my Mac Pro to my HDTV to use it as my media hub for everything using a DVI to HDMI cable. Here is what you’ll need to set up the best possible media experience:

1: A Mac :p  - You don’t have to have a Mac to have a media center, but this is what I’m using, so sue me.
2: Boxee – Boxee has now opened their software for everyone. I think anyone who’s used Boxee will agree on how amazing this software, and its team, really is.
3: Mira Software ($16) – Honestly, I’m hesitant to even recommend this. It still doesn’t work 100% with Leopard. Mira allows you to assign buttons on your Apple Remote to launch applications (e.g. Front Row, Boxee), however, I’ve run into problems when the applications don’t launch sometimes. I would even say consider getting Remote Buddy instead.
4: IR Receiver – This of course is only if you have a Mac Pro, and if you purchase the whole package from Mira it includes the Receiver.
5: Netflix  - $8.99/mo. You don’t have to have this, but it’s a nice touch. The $4.99 plan won’t allow you to stream movies online, you have to have at least the $8.99.

There’s one last little trick that you’ll have to do, and that’s making your Mac open Front Row on your secondary display. Now, there isn’t a simple option to do this, so you’ll have to do a little work-around. Download DisplaysInfo from RapidShare.com. Plug in your secondary display (make sure it’s on), and run DisplaysInfo. This will give you a string of numbers that represent this secondary screen.

Once you’ve retrieved this ID number, launch Terminal from your Utilities folder, and paste this:
defaults write com.apple.frontrow FrontRowUsePreferredDisplayID 69681665

Replace the last 8 numbers with your secondary Display ID. Once you’ve run that, you’ve told your mac to always launch Font Row on your secondary display. To reverse this, get the ID for your primary screen, and paste that again into Terminal with the original ID.

Next, launch Boxee, and in the display settings you’ll be able to simply tell it to always launch in full screen on you secondary display. 

Once you’ve got all this, using your Apple Remote you’ll be able to launch Front Row pressing the Menu button. I’ve assigned the Play button to launch Boxee. Boxee of course now streams from Netflix, so you can see how perfect this all turns out to be. If you’re feeling a little crazy though, and something tells me you might be, there is a way to replace Front Row with the Apple TV OS. Read this post over at the Hackint0sh forums for more info.

Keep in mind that you will not be able to use your computer while running Front Row because your primary screen will go black. I believe you CAN use your computer while running Boxee, because you’ll still see your desktop on your primary, but I can’t guarantee it because Boxee remains as the active application on your computer. Good luck, and let me know if you’ve got a more badass setup!

Related Posts
1. Add Boxee To Front Row
2. My media setup with Boxee and Front Row
3. My life is over: Netflix now on Boxee! (Warning)
4. Understudy: Life After Boxee? Not Quite
5. iPhone App Rowmote Beats Boxee At Its Own Game

Tags: Boxee, Front Row, Netflix, OS X, TV