Home Sharing vs regular iTunes sharing

We've got a home network where one Mac Mini has all of our music and videos, which are shared to other computers such as Mac Book Pros. This is done by turning on Sharing in iTunes on the Mini, and then accessing that shared library from any other computer's iTunes. Simple.
I'm wondering how this is different from Home Sharing. From reading the description, it looks identical apart from the fact that on Home Sharing, you need to register your various client computers whereas on iTunes sharing you don't. Therefore, iTunes sharing is better and I can't imagine why someone would go through the effort of using Home Sharing.
What am I missing? What does Home Sharing do that regular iTunes sharing does not?

What am I missing? What does Home Sharing do that regular iTunes sharing does not?
You can transfer content via home sharing to other computers on the Share (as opposed to just streaming the content), and can also stream content to iOS devices via Home Sharing. (I mostly use it for the former purpose, but if Beloved really does buy an new iPhone to replace the 1st gen Touch, we may fiddle with the streaming-to-iOS-device stuff in due course.)

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HT3819 My new Apple TV works fine but turns off Home sharing at regular intervals. This requires me to re-enter my itunes password and start over again. It is not my computer. I've checked and home share is still on in itunes. Any advice on where I should

I just installed Apple TV. Works fine but turrns itself off at regular intervals of about 30 minutes. This requires me to re-enter my Apple ID and re-start all over again. Wjen I check iTunes on my computer, home sharing is still turned on. THis leads me to think the problem is in how I configured Apple TV on my HDTV. Any advice on where I should look?
THanks in advance.

I have had no luck. After an hour with phone tech support I have re-installed the current Apple TV software update., re-booted the entire system three times., checked each of my two Airport Express's.,unplugged and re[plugged in every cable, ad infinitum, ad nauseum and still no luck. I have also decided iTunes 11 *****. Not near as intuitive especially with regard to moving stuff around between my playlists, etc.
Alright guys, is this a problem because of iTunes 11? Is Apple releasing stuff before adequate debugging? Did Steve take his high standards with him?

Weird itunes home sharing

I have been using this successfully for a while with no problem.
Now I am having an issue with movies and tv shows (music works).
When I compare Movies, it no longer show the latest movies I have added on my second computer for the last couple months - but it shows the earlier ones I added.
When I compare tv shows, it shows the latest tv shows I have added when I choose show "all items." However, when I choose "items not in my library" it shows nothing (meaning they are both synced) even though I have not synced them yet.
Any ideas?

It appears that itunes does not show my latest movies on my second computer on both Home Sharing and the regular sharing panel.
Why would itunes not show the latest additions?

HT4527 do i download itunes on my new computer before I transfer music from home sharing?

Do I download itunes on my new computer before trying to home share with my old itunes account from my old computer?

Install iTunes.
Copy the ENTIRE iTunes folder from the old computer to the new computer.
Using Home Sharing will only cause problems. Search the forums, people regularly post here regarding problems with moving media using Home Sharing, it simply is not reliable.

ITunes/Music Home sharing does not work on my iPad Air

No matter what I do I cannot use Music.app on my iPad Air to play music from my iTunes Library with Home-Sharing switched on. The Library name correctly appears in the Music.app source list after the loading symbol takes an age to complete. When it appears to have connected to the Library on my Mac, contents of my Library are shown in the app but I cannot play anything. If I select an albumn and press Play the Music.app merely cycles rapidly through all the track titles of the Album and then stops. Nothing plays. I've tried dozens of times to get this to work, even rebuilding my iTunes Library. Nothing seems to cure the problem. I can connect and play via Plex which is just plain daft seeing Apple designed all the software/hardware but they, themselves, cannot correctly code for this basic functionality.
Also, not all Album cover artwork is displayed correctly.
It seems many of the things I bought the iPad for are non-functional and the tablet is virtually useless. I can't beleive Apple would produce software and hardware which is specifically made to work harmoniously but obviously doesn't.
Any help, here, please?
I'm also having problems with Bluetooth connecting to my Mac Pro (2008)... Namly, it will not.

Understanding Home Sharing
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3819
Setup Home Sharing on iPad
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4557
Troubleshooting Home Sharing
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2972

Should we share itunes store account if we use home sharing?

Right now, my children and I share an itunes store account, but it is getting hard to manage their itunes gift cards this way. Should I just bite the bullet and have them each get their own account? How will this affect home sharing? Do we just have to authorize multiple itunes store accounts on all the computers or does that even matter now that the content is no longer copy-protected. I only have some copy-protected items on the one original account and it is quite a bit of money to upgrade them so I would rather not do that. How would this work with syncing devices?

No home sharing does not delete anything. It does exactly what it says it does, it shares your music library with others and vise versa. I use it all the time in my home, and works perfectly. All it does is wirelessly adds music to your music library that you are able to play. Do you need help setting up iTunes Home Sharing?
Let me know if there is anything else I can help you with,
Cheers,
Allen

Home Sharing with multiple iTunes accounts

I have set up Home Sharing between our iMac and our AppleTV2 using my wife's Apple ID. The AppleTV sees my wife's iTunes library and plays music from it. However, my wife has songs in her library purchased under both her iTunes account and my iTunes account. Our computer is authorized for both accounts, and all the music plays fine on the computer. However, when AppleTV tries to play a song purchased under my account, it puts up a message that says "Authorization is required" to play that song. Is there any way to get AppleTV to play music purchased under both iTunes accounts? As it is, Home Sharing is useless because anytime it encounters a song purchased under my account, it stops playing music. I would even be happy if it would just skip songs it can't play, as long as it would continue on to the next song that could be played.

I've been trying to thing what might be different about my set up versus yours in case (which may be likely) you are correct and your wife's library is authorised and plays your content in her iTunes application.
I deliberately chose my wife's music to check my set up because she pays for her own iTunes account, whereas my children have their own accounts but I give them an allowance and send them gift vouchers from my account (which I thought might just be relevant). I later realised that my wife's library is also on our homesharing ID (which again might have been relevant), so I've now tried it with my youngests purchased and protected content because his library is using our homesharing ID.
I'll keep thinking.

How do I use home sharing with the new iTunes to put a movie on my iPad

My husband and I each have separate iTunes accounts since we both have iPhones. However we share an apple TV and an iPad, both of which are usually under my account. It used to be that since we had home sharing activated that we could have movies that he purchased with his account on the iPad along with the movies that I purchased with my account. However when we updated to the new iTunes I could not put movies that he purchased with his account (he had a gift card so we used his account instead of mine) onto the iPad. So now we have a movie for our kids that they can only watch on his phone. I want to know what the trick is to "sharing" the movie between our accounts/devices mainly the iPad and Apple TV so that I don't have to wipe the iPad and change accounts on it just for my kids to watch a movie.

If you'd like to see a video on the topic, check out this from the New York Times => Yo Jude: Many iPods; One Computer.

How do I share my iTunes library to an iPad without using "Home Sharing"?

I have set up my iTunes library to be shared with others over our home network. This is the "Share your library" option, and NOT "Home Sharing" since my wife has her own Apple ID and I, unfortunatly, have 2. She was wanting to listen to our music on her iPad but could not figure out how to access the shared library. The "Music" app (click more, select library) only seems to work for Home Shared libraries. (In fact, I had tried Home Sharing first and when I turned it off, all of the buttons at the bottom of the Music app's screen disappeared - note: she has no music stored on the iPad.)
So, how can an iPad access a shared iTunes music library without using Home Sharing?
(iPad 2, iOS 6; Mac 10.8, iTunes 10 because 11 totally inhibits my ability to use my iPod the way I want.)

-> Home Sharing is different than logging into the iTunes store.
You enable Home Sharing using one AppleID. Doesn't matter which you use but all devices must use the same AppleID for Home Sharing.

HT202213 I have 3 users on one computer with 3 unique user accounts. Each have unique ITunes accounts. How do we share our music libraries using home sharing?

I have 3 users on one computer with 3 unique user accounts. Each of us have separate and unique ITunes accounts. How do we share our music libraries using Home Sharing? Everything that I can find talks about sharing between networked computers, but this is all on the same computer. I just want to share between ITunes accounts. Thanks!

Hi b noir, I also have two users on one pc with two different iTunes libraries. But I also want to put them onto an external hard drive so that I can free up some memory on the pc. So I figure I need to consolidate the two users iTunes libraries first before moving to hard drive? But not quite sure how to do that on the iTunes 11? Thanking you in advance!!

No Home Sharing since iTunes 10.6.1 (Windows 7)

I figured I'd start a new thread for people like me who had their Home Sharing BREAK since upgrading to iTunes 10.6.1 (it was working ok with 10.5, but I had that non-alphabetical bug with TV Shows on the AppleTV). I have:
Windows 7 (64-bit)
iTunes 10.6.1
iPhone 4
iPhone 4S
iPad 1 (x2)
iPad 3
AppleTV 2 (x2)
AppleTV 3 (x1)
The problem is across devices. In order to fix, I have to go down to my Windows PC and turn off Home Sharing, then turn it back on.
I've tried turning of IPv6 on my network settings, to no avail. I've tried resetting my AppleTV - no help. The only thing left to do is completely uninstall all Apple products and reinstall from scratch. Anyone have a guide on how to do this? I don't want to lose my playlists or playcounts. HELP APPLE! This needs to be addressed!

Hi,
Same as before!
- droppings ot the main screen
- loosing Home Share
now even on iPads !
Frustrating!
I'm now more than convinced that this is caused by the latest iTunes version.
As some others stated in other threads .... it seems that Apple doesn't really take care of this problem. So what if, if we could make them feeling the same pain as we do. ... Just by dropping them a mail as soon as we have the problem again. Not more often, we don't want to be unfair, but everytime it happens.
I found this feedback site http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html
I will start now with this.... maybe this will help to rise a little bit of attention
Hope THIS helps
Tweety
This is the mailbody I always use
Hello all,
Since the last update to iTunes Version 10.6.1 (7) streaming content (Movies and TV shows) to Apple TVs and iPads we have two major problems:
- Home Sharing is lost during streaming (streaming stops even if a large portion of the content is already preloaded)
- streaming stops and the main screen pops up (Home Sharing still available)
This happens sometime after some minutes, sometimes after several hours, but it surely happens.
I followed every advice I could found on this support website. There are now a lot of threads following this issue.
Sometimes it seems getting better, but hours later the same isues occured again. Watching content on this enviroment is a real pain and very frustrating.
As many others I'm now convinced that the latest update of iTunes caused this problem.
Our family enviroment contains the following Apple products:
- iTunes on a Win7 32 bit Noname PC (all content)
- second iTunes on a iMac with OS 10.6.8 (all content)
- third iTunes on a MacBook Pro with OS 10.6.8 (daughter, only selected content)
- fourth iTunes on a Win7 32 Samsung Notebook (son, only selected content)
- all iTunes sharing the same Home Sharing ID
- 2 Apple TV second generation
- 1 Apple TV first generation
- 2 iPod touch (bought last year)
- 2 iPads (second generation)
all firmware or software are on latest available patchlevel.
At this moment, I can not recomend to others to buy this products.
I will drop this feedback everytime my famiily and I facing this problem... just to help you to get a better feeling of the urgency of this issue.
Thanks for every effort in advanced.

Home Sharing is not working following update to iOS 5.1 and iTunes 10.6

First, the problem:
I am not able to see any shared libraries when using the Music and Video apps on my iPhone 4.
Next, the specs:
iTunes 10.6 on MBP running Mac OS X 10.7.3
iPhone 4 runinng iOS 5.1
Wi-Fi connections for both MBP and iPhone 4
Both connect to same network using same SSID with static IP addressing and UPnP enabled.
MBP connects using 5 GHz N-Only anntena.
iPhone 4 connects using 2.4 GHz NG-Mixed antenna. (Hopefully next iteration of iPhone supports 5 GHz.)
Third, what I have tried:
Everything in "Troubleshooting Home Sharing" (KB Article TS2972 - http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2972).
Re-entering my Apple ID credentials for both Music and Movies in iOS Settings.
Re-entering my Apple ID credentials for Home Sharing in iTunes.
Setting up Port Forwarding for both the iPhone 4 and MBP in my router for the relevant TCP and UDP ports (just in case). However, this did not help.
Finally, what I have noticed:
My Remote app on the iPhone 4 works without issue and can control iTunes running on my MBP.
My Air Mouse app on the iPhone 4 works without issue and can control my MBP.
My wireless printer connected to the network via the 2.4 GHz antenna (it only supports 802.11g) is usable - I can print to it and access its embedded web server management tool.
So, in the end, Home Sharing no longer works on my iPhone 4 after updating both IOS and iTunes (all other apps and software updates are current for both the phone and the MBP). I believe I have ruled out any issues with which antenna is being used for which device. I am out of ideas on how to get Home Sharing to work again.
Any suggestions or possible solutions would be greatly appreciated! Thank you gurus in advance!

Spoke to a "senior advisor" in the Apple TV department. Her suggestions: change channel in router to minimize/eliminate wifi interference from other users; move router away from any metal - i.e., DVD player, phone modem, etc.; keep router away from wireless 2.4 gH phones, which are "notorious" for crashing wifi routers. So she confirms that the problem is one of connection to router suddenly dropping out.
My own feeling is that none of these fixes will do the trick, because it seems pretty clear that there is a hardware component here - the timing of the drops seems like an overheating issue. It takes 35-40 minutes for the box to warm up enough for the first drop; then each consecutive drop happens quicker than the one before, as it heats up more. Each time it drops, its tiny brain gets a little more scrambled; last night it finally wouldn't start up again at all.
My suggestion is that everyone who is experiencing this problem, please call Apple tech support and ask to speak to a senior advisor in the Apple TV department. Make them aware of this problem!

HT202213 I have enabled home sharing on both of my computers, however there is no "sharing" option on either device. I tried restarting itunes, turning home sharing on & off, nothing.

Please help! Any suggestions would be great, as the old computer is slowly but surely dying, and I want to put all of my itunes data onto my laptop.

Hi there nc999!
I have an article here for you that will help you troubleshoot this issue with Home Sharing:
Troubleshooting Home Sharing
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts2972
Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities!
Cheers,
Braden

Upgrade ATV Gen2 to version 5.0 (4099)- no longer connects to iTunes home sharing

I just upgraded my ATV Gen2 to version 5.0 (4099)- because it was suggested by ATV. After that, I could not connect to my iTunes for music. Before my upgrade to the ATV, all worked fine.
With Apple stuff, I feel like I never have a good understanding of why things break. Here's what I've done so far to see if it would fix the problem:
1) make sure I was up to date on iTunes- I'm at version 10.6.0.40, reboot Windows-> didn't fix it
2) turn off home sharing/ turn back on (both on ATV and computer)-> didn't fix it
3) run trouble shoot network on ATV- is OK- -> didn't fix it
4) deauthorize the Windows computer I have my iTunes on, reauthorize it -> didn't fix it
5) reboot my router and cable modem-> didn't fix it
What else can I try? Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks much!

SOLVED!
Here's what happened- look at your firewall logs if you haven't already done so! See what ports are being blocked that AppleTV needs to do home sharing!
I did not do this initially, because it WAS working fine- the only thing I knew of that changed was the AppleTV upgrade. However, there was either a "gremlin" or Windows Vista update that changed a firewall setting, or Apple using a new port...or...??...since I DID NOT change any of my firewall settings manually!!!!
So...here was the solution: ensure port is open on the Windows firewall (especially if one of your Windows computer works for the library, and the other does not!- it has nothing to do with the version of Windows, but everything to do with the firewall!).
Here's the article on Apple that helps you understand all ports involved in communication for "Home Sharing":
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2463?viewlocale=en_US
Yay for home sharing! Boo for Windows firewall! I just wish there were a little better error messages in Apple (like blocked port or can't communicate on port xxxx), instead of having to search all the logs manually. Yes...I know...network layer doesn't translate easily to the application layer...blah, blah, blah...ick!
Hope this helps someone else!

Home Sharing no longer works between iTunes and Apple TV.

I've been through all the forums, tried all the solutions provided and I have come to the conclusion that Home Sharing just no longer works between iTunes on a PC and my Apple TV. Does anyone know if this issue will be addressed or should I list my Apple TV up on eBay? (along with my iPad, iPod, and iPhone, since all system no longer sync together as before.)
My issue:
My iTunes library is no longer listed under "Computers" on the Apple TV.
The airplay icon no longer shows up in iTunes. (Version 11)
I cannot play music/content from my iPhone or iPad via remote that is stored in my iTunes library through my Apple TV.
I can however play music/content that is stored locally on my iPhone and iPad through my Apple TV.
My firewall settings are allowing access to Apple TV.
After logging into my router, I see no issues there.
I've logged in/out, turned home sharing on/off, de-authorized/authorized, and restarted my PC, Apple TV, and Router.
All devices are logged into the same iTunes account, and are on the same wireless network.
Time for a solution Apple.

If you turn off wifi on your Computer and connect it to the apple tv using an ethernet cable can you see your library under computers in Apple TV.
If yes the issue is with your wifi not the Apple TV
You may want to try the troubleshooting article
I also found this article
iTunes Home Sharing Not Working
Not working and sometimes when it is working, it cuts out in the middle, or when you click on the computer name, the focus goes away from the library. In other words, really weird.
What it is
iTunes has a feature called "Home Sharing" - it basically allows you to share your entire or part of your library with other instances of iTunes in your home network. It requires you to login to your iTunes account on both computers. A typical scenario is to enable Home Sharing on your desktop machine and then access the library from your iPad, Apple TV, iPhone, Mac, etc.
In my case, I have iTunes on my desktop machine running Windows XP in the attic with Home Sharing enabled and then I access the library from my Macbook and Apple TV, depending on what I want. How to use Home Sharing can be found here.
Symptoms
Home Sharing machine not showing up in Apple TV or the Macbook
The Macbook home sharing not showing up on my desktop
Home Sharing working intermittently
Connections getting cut of intermittently
Usually, restarting iTunes or the desktop computer will make things work.
Sometimes, restarting the Macbook or the Apple TV will make things work.
The "working" doesn't last long
The FixOn the desktop computer where the Home Sharing is enabled, I disabled the "QoS Packet Scheduler" from the network connection:
Open Control Panel
Open Network Connections
Right-Click on your connection (in my case, it was "Wireless Network Connection 4"
Select Properties
Uncheck "QoS Packet Scheduler"
Click OK
Restart iTunes if necessary
After doing the above, Home Sharing worked like a charm.

Home Sharing vs regular iTunes sharing

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