Large Font iTunes Front-End for HDTV – Billboard
Polls
Loading ...
How often you have struggled with iTunes’ small font size when using it on your HDTV in the living room? We have been discussing iTunes font size issue earlier and concluded that iTunes was lacking a proper front-end for using it from a longer distance, i.e on the sofa. This brief preview will introduce an alternative front-end for iTunes that is suitable for viewing your iTunes library from a distance.
The challenge with the existing iTunes interface
iTunes interface is designed for a traditional desktop or laptop computer use, not for home theater PCs. The font size is simply not large enough even on the “large” setting to be viewed from a distance. iTunes version 9 improved this challenge slightly as the user interface feels more suitable than before, but still we are quite far from the optimal solution. Apple’s alternative solutions are to offer FrontRow application on Mac or Apple TV product that are designed to be used from a distance. However, this kind of media center approach limits the activities you can do while listening to the music as you cannot e.g. browse internet while listening to the music.
Billboard front-end for iTunes on Mac OSX
I have been searching for a proper user interface for iTunes quite some time now and have not been really satisfied with the software I have come across so far. Recently, I discovered an alternative iTunes front-end called Billboard. Currently this software is only available for Mac OSX. Billboard is a front-end for your local iTunes library designed to be viewed from a distance. It can be used to control your music and playlists on a sofa or showcasing your album art when hanging out with friends.
Large enough font size
Getting started with the Billboard application is easy and it immediately recognizes all the content in the existing iTunes library. The front-end supports both fullscreen and window views and scales the font and album art sizes according to the window size. The text is very readable from a distance making it a good alternative for browsing your music collection from a distance. I use the front-end with a mouse which seems to work well, but I have not tried with a remote control yet.
Good for music not for video
Browsing my music collection and playlists seems to work well and smoothly. Both list and grid views are available, although I find the list view far more practical to use. The real shortfall of this application is that it does not support video playback directly within the front-end. It starts to play the video, but you need manually change the window to iTunes and switch onto the fullscreen mode. Ideally, the application would automatically switch to the fullscreen view in iTunes when pressing play and then returning to the Billboard screen after quitting the fullscreen playback. So with this limitation in mind, I think this front-end is mostly suitable for browsing and playing your music collection rather than watching videos and movies.
There is a free 30-days trial available for this iTunes front-end so have a try yourself to decide if it fits to your needs or not. Check and download this alternative iTunes front-end at Billboard’s official website.
Copyright protected by Digiprove © 2010 My Media Experience