EnRAGEd about AppleTV's internet requirements

Question

I am deployed on an aircraft carrier for another 6+ months.
I bought the new AppleTV to stream movies/music (over ethernet) from my MacMini to the next compartment, where I have a 46" LCD/home theater. This way we can have movie nights a couple times a week.
I set the whole thing up at home before bring it aboard. It was working fine.
2 days after getting underway, the AppleTV tells me it cannot cannot connect to Home Sharing (for no good reason). So I go to my computer and decide to "reset" it by turning Home Sharing off and back on in iTunes. HUGE MISTAKE. To turn Home Sharing ON, you MUST have internet. The problem is, only Government Dell PCs can access the internet onboard the ship; not personal computers and certainly not my Mac. I will not have internet access for 6 months+
So I decide to do a Time Machine restore, from my Time Capsule. If I restore to 2 days ago, before I turned Home Sharing OFF and the AppleTV was working fine, it should be OK. Well for some reason my MacMini won't even start from that backup. I get the Grey Screen Of Death and my Mac Mini will not start from the hard drive. I had to re-install the OS from the MacMini DVD, which put my OS back to 10.6.3. Now iPhoto won't work because my OS is outdated!!! And I still don't have internet to download the latest update
Fortunately, after this hassle the AppleTV started working again. Until this morning. For no good reason (again), it cannot connect to Home Sharing. When I try to turn on Home Sharing on the AppleTV (it is ON in iTunes on my computer using my own account), the AppleTV asks me if I want to use my SON'S account. NO I used my son's account once, during Christmas, but have since only used my own account. When I try to log-in to my account on the AppleTV, it FAILS, probably because I DON'T HAVE INTERNET ACCESS FOR 6 MONTHS, but the AppleTV does not tell me that lack of internet is why it is failing.
I am enraged for certain. I want to light my AppleTV on fire.

Answer 1

That's a real pain in the neck. I sympathise.
Amazing how reliant we get on our gadgets isn't it, especially when you've gone to the trouble of pre-testing etc. and I bet you spent ages getting everything just right for the arduous time away from home.
The requirement for an internet connection for Home Sharing should only be necessary to authenticate new devices for playing DRM protected material not for setting up shares when you may not even be using protected iTunes store media in the first place - Apple sadly has always tended to assume that people only use media bought from iTunes Store or generated by iLife apps on AppleTV, hence the limited format support for video.
Had a similar experience recently when on holiday - it was only a week in a UK forest getaway complex. I knew I might run into trouble - I took old and new AppleTVs, Macbook, new Macmini and iPad hoping to connect in one shape or another to the villa's TV for the kids to get their Mickey Mouse fix.
New AppleTV and all devices had been set up for home sharing at home.
Villa TV had HDMI so thought I'd be fine.
Internet connection woes - Neither my 3 mi-fi unit or Vodafone laptop dongle had any signal. There was free wi-fi but unfortunately this required a login page so was useless for AppleTV which could not access this, and in any case I doubt the connected devices would have been visible to each other on the free network. The free wi-fi was totally unencrypted so I was wary of it anyway.
I though not to worry and just used the mi-fi unit as a portable wi-fi router. My preconfigured Macbook and AppleTV 2 could see each other, I could browse the iTunes library under computers on AppleTV, I could play non-protected content then big fail - I'd bought Mickey Mouse from itunes Store an it refused due to an authentication issue DESPITE AppleTV2 and the computers being authenticated and having streamed the content to it dozens of times at home.
Not to worry I thought - use the all singing all dancing Airplay from the iPad. No go - AppleTV refused as it could not authenticate.
The DRM material was not on the AppleTV 1, so I couldn't have synced and used that as it would have required internet authentication too.
Considered connecting MAcbook to the free wi-fi and sharing the internet connection over ethernet to the AppleTV 2, but didn't fancy the idea of the unencrypted connection and T&Cs suggested they might just block access to additional devices.
The solution?
The MacMini with HDMI - no idea if I'd actually played the files on it but they had streamed from it in the past and played fine to the TV without need for authentication.
The galling thing about all of this is that Home Sharing authentication issues and DRM issues always affect and limit the consumer who has genuinely paid for the material in the first place.
No harm sending some feedback here though:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/appletv.html
I suspect even if you have latest iTunes with Airplay functionality on an authorised computer AppleTv2 will choke with a need for authentication as it did with my iPad, but might be worth a shot.
AC