If you have a Mac with Front Row and a fast internet connection, today’s hint will let you watch high-definition trailers in Front Row. It does require a brief trip to the Terminal, but it’s really not that complex of a commmand (though it may look long and ugly).
Note that you’ll only really be able to appreciate the higher-quality trailers with a nice large monitor—they may look somewhat sharper on smaller screens, but it’s on the large displays where you’ll really see the differences.
First, launch Front Row (press Command-Escape) and then exit it—this may not be essential, but in my testing, if I hadn’t launched Front Row prior to trying the remainder of the hint, it seemed I didn’t get the high definition trailers. Next launch Terminal, and enter this command (copy and paste will work):
defaults write com.apple.frontrow TrailerBypass http://www.apple.com/trailers/home/xml/current_720p.xml && killall "Front Row"
You’ve basically just told Front Row to use a different source—the 720p high definition trailers page—in place of its usual source, and then restarted the Front Row application. Launch Front Row and browse the trailers. You’ll probably see a smaller selection, as there aren’t as many high definition trailers. Select one, though, and you should be rewarded with a very sharp picture.
If you ever want to undo what you’ve done, just use this command:
defaults delete com.apple.frontrow TrailerBypass && killall "Front Row"
That will remove the preference that points to the high defintion trailers, letting Front Row return to its usual source.
And now that you’ve learned the hard way, I’ll let you in on a secret: you can get a free app to do this easily for you. Front Row Trailers will enable HD trailers, as well as the viewing of foreign language trailers. So why did I bother with the Terminal commands? So in case the app ever goes away, you’ll know how to do it yourself.