Building a PowerMac Media Center Part 4: What Applications You Need

As we get towards the end of building our PowerMac Media Center, it’s time to gather the applications we need that will drive our downloading, converting, and tagging. Be advised that the final product is still being updated as time goes on and this is more of a work(ing) in progress example that will automate several things.

VisualHub/Quicktime Pro

Frontrow doesn’t play nice with different media types that don’t fall into Apple’s range of supported files. There are plugins that remove the hassle, but that doesn’t fill in the gap for syncing the same content to an iPhone or iPod. Knowing this, we’ll have to rely on a solid converter and for this, two choices are available: VisualHub and Quicktime. I am well aware that people like to dog on the latter, but the point is to offer a choice since both apps are not freeware. It doesn’t make much sense to buy another app when one can do the same, which is converting into an iTunes friendly format that goes beyond the default selection. A free app—iSquint—exists that is basically a lite version of VisualHub. It will be touched on later but won’t be the focus.

Transmission

A very great and lightweight Bittorrent client, Transmission is an optimal choice for our configuration as it’ll always be running in the background. What I like about Transmission is the ability to automatically load up downloaded torrents, then move them when completed. Automated downloading makes it easier, plus it’s very simple to set up, prompting no further tinkering once running.

Automator/Apple Script

Ah, the pinnacle of running tasks without user interface, Apple Script and Automator will play a key role in doing much of what our Media Center will be doing on a daily basis. Although intuitive, Automator just doesn’t hold up to Apple Script, but for users wary of a foreign interface, Apple Script use will be at a minimum. In addition, the Workflows and Apple Scripts in this guide can be altered to fit individual needs.

Hazel

Hazel is like a nanny for your Mac, running applications and scripts during a certain time or cleaning out a folder after a few days. It has a very clean interface and resides on your Mac as a System Preferences pane. New rules can be added to determine what happens to different files or individual folders.

TV Shows

TV Shows is a repository for torrents of television episodes. TV Shows relies on a subscription-like model to handle episode viewing. When new content is available it’s automatically downloaded and the torrent can be handled with your favorite client. Combining this with Transmission already automates half of our workflow in a few mouse clicks.