Lifehacker’s Download of the Day is an app called Drive-in which at first glace seems like it’s pretty slick – and don’t get me wrong visually it is. The idea is not new, archive your DVD collection to enable ease of access on your computer. Longtime readers here will recall Matinee which is still a very simple way to access your archived DVD (video_ts) folders.
My beef with Drive-in is three-fold. First, it cannot import existing files you’ve already archived. At roughly 30min per DVD I can’t see running the archival process again for all but the slickest of upgrades. Second, they claim Front Row support, but it’s better to simply just open the damn Apple DVD player based on their instructions for getting it to work:
- Eject all DVDs and mounted DVD images by selecting them in the Finder, and dragging them to the Trash icon in the dock.
- Launch Drive-in.
- Choose File->Open DVD Case… to open the desired movie.
- Select the DVD image that you would like to play from the list on the right, and press the Play button in the toolbar. This will insert the DVD image, launch DVD Player, and begin playing your movie.
- Bring up Front Row by using the Apple Remote Control, or by holding down the Command key and pressing the Escape key. You can now navigate to your DVD and play it.
If you choose to even try this, realize it will run $50 when released from beta. No thanks. Matinee is $10 shareware and works with standard (and existing) archival files. I can easily pass on Front Row support…
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