Recommend an Home Media Setup Using AppleTV

Perhaps someone could point me in the right direction--an article or discussion that might give me some direction regarding setting up an "ideal" iTunes media server/client setup in my home.
Right now, I have a MacBook Pro with a 320GB hard drive that holds my iTunes media. I've got an AppleTV with a 160GB hard drive that syncs to the MacBook Pro.
My iTunes media collection is growing quite large (143GB), and it is starting to make less and less sense to keep my entire iTunes media collection on my primary laptop (as HD content becomes more standard, I see myself losing even more laptop hard disk space to iTunes media--especially purchased movies).
I'm beginning to think I need to move to more a "media server" model (perhaps based on a Mac Mini), but I'm not sure if this is the way to go. Does anyone know of an article or posting somewhere that overviews various configurations for a home media set-up based on Macs and iTunes. I'm just looking for some recommendations to guide me as I think this through.
+(I'm going to cross post this on the iTunes forum ... sorry for the redundant post.)+

can't offer any articles, but i have a mac mini set up as a 24/7 "always on" media server.
!http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3377/3241794934_94ce9df9a8.jpg?v=1233422140!
Mac Mini G4
Western Digital 1TB MyBook Studio Edition
works flawlessly. appletv is connected via ethernet and i just stream everything. no need to sync really.
the mac mini runs in a "head-less" mode (no monitor). i just administer the mini remotely via screen sharing or when i'm not at home via LogMeIn.

Similar Messages

Recommend an Home Media Setup Using iTunes

Perhaps someone could point me in the right direction--an article or discussion that might give me some direction regarding setting up an "ideal" iTunes media server/client setup in my home.
Right now, I have a MacBook Pro with a 320GB hard drive that holds my iTunes media. I've got an AppleTV with a 160GB hard drive that syncs to the MacBook Pro.
My iTunes media collection is growing quite large (143GB), and it is starting to make less and less sense to keep my entire iTunes media collection on my primary laptop (as HD content becomes more standard, I see myself losing even more laptop hard disk space to iTunes media--especially purchased movies).
I'm beginning to think I need to move to more a "media server" model (perhaps based on a Mac Mini), but I'm not sure if this is the way to go. Does anyone know of an article or posting somewhere that overviews various configurations for a home media set-up based on Macs and iTunes. I'm just looking for some recommendations to guide me as I think this through.
+(I'm going to cross post this on the AppleTV forum ... sorry for the redundant post.)+

can't offer any articles, but i have a mac mini set up as a 24/7 "always on" media server.
!http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3377/3241794934_94ce9df9a8.jpg?v=1233422140!
Mac Mini G4
Western Digital 1TB MyBook Studio Edition
works flawlessly. appletv is connected via ethernet and i just stream everything. no need to sync really.
the mac mini runs in a "head-less" mode (no monitor). i just administer the mini remotely via screen sharing or when i'm not at home via LogMeIn.

How to use iMac as remotely accessible home media server

First time poster, and thanks in advance for any help that any of you might be able to provide. -- Josh
I have a mid-2007 iMac, several AppleTVs and Apple mobile devices, and a 2014 Macbook Pro coming at the end of the week (more detailed info below). I have a roughly 1 TB library of movies, which are currently housed in an external hard drive attached to the iMac. When I'm on my home network, I'm able to stream all the movies to all of the AppleTVs, iPhones, and iPads, using iTunes and home sharing, with almost no problem. But, my family would like to access our movie library remotely, when at the airport, visiting family, etc.
I've researched various options, and am having a hard time parsing through some of the more technical information and figuring out what setup would work best. It seems to me that although I can't use my iMac as a second display for the new MacbookPro because of technical limitations on the iMac, I might still be able to use the iMac as a remotely accessible home media server. Running Plex on the iMac has been suggested, but I keep hearing conflicting information on whether the AppleTVs are compatible with Plex, and I've had trouble successfully forwarding ports several years ago when I played with Plex briefly. iTunes/home sharing is just so easy in terms of setup and reliability between Apple devices, in my experience. I looked into buying an AirPort Time Capsule, since I was looking into upgrading my router to support 802.11ac anyway (advice on that too?), but was told that neither the Time Capsule drive nor any drive attached to it would be remotely accessible. Back to my Mac seems like it might work for me to access my library remotely when using the MacbookPro, but not any of the mobile devices (which are more important to the kids), and I'm not sure what advantage a NAS drive would have over using the iMac (although this is where it starts getting a bit technical for me). Looked at OSX Server also, but not sure how that would interface with whatever additional components I need to get.
Thank you in advance for any help. I'm sure people have figured out a way to access their media libraries remotely, but for some reason I can't find a straight answer on how. I've included additional technical details about my setup below. Thanks again!!
iMac, 20-in, Mid 2007, 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, OS X 10.9.4, 250 GB storage
Macbook Pro w. Retina, 13-in, 2014, 2.6 GHz Dual-core Intel Core i5, 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3L SDRAM, 128 GB PCle-based Flash Storage
Iomega HDD, 2 TB
Netgear N600 Wireless Dual Band Router, Model No. WNDR3400v2
AppleTV, 3rd generation (x3)
iPhone 5, iPhone 4s, iPad (2nd gen), iPad mini w. Retina

Not really recommended to do what you want as the perfomance will be undesirable and make the experience lousy at best. If you have content you want to watch remotely then simply copy it to a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro and then bring one of the AppleTV's with you. Then you can stream directly from the MBA or MBP to the AppleTV on a remote TV. We did this on our last vacation, loaded a bunch of movies on my MBA, threw one of the ATV's in the suitcase and when we got to our hotel simply connected it using the hotels Wi-Fi and connected the ATV via HDMI to the TV and we were in business.

Home media server for mac, that you can also get to remotely. Any ideas? I am out of space on my macbook pro hard drive and appletv. Need some sort of media server for delivery to macs, ipods, ipads, etc. Any suggestions?

Hi,
I have been using my macbook pro as a home media server, hosting most content on the macbook with ipod touch, ipads, and appletv streaming/sharing content. I have run out of space on both the macbook pro and the apple tv and am looking to moving the content to a home media server. Any thoughts/suggestions? I'd like something that I can access remotely too. I have an old slingbox and also have a static IP address.
Any thoughts/suggestions would be most welcome!

Don't worry I've sorted it! I just had to turn off Reminders as well in iCloud. Calendar then worked fine, even when I turned Calendar and Reminders back on.

Home network setup - including media

Hello! Here is my family's current set up:
Apple TV 3rd Gen (qty 2)
iPhone 6 (qty 2)
MacBook Air (qty 2)
iPad Air
iPad 1st Gen
Mac Mini (2.6ghz i7, 8GB RAM, 1TB HD)
2TB Airport Time Capsule
My ultimate goal is to fully cut the cable TV cord in the next month or two and work exclusively through Apple TV. We basically watch several shows; Modern Family, The Middle, Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, and football. We will of course browse through other channels if bored, but usually if those aren't on we'll just hop over to Netflix. Between a digital antenna to get ABC and the other network channels and probably just getting a season subscription for Walking Dead and GoT, we should be all set with the other options available on Apple TV (possibly HULU Plus, haven't decided). My wife's only concern is we will no longer have DVR's, which is a valid concern so I'm still on the fence with that. I'd hate to get TiVO or something like it for just the network stations we'll bring in with the digital antenna, but I believe HULU Plus has Modern Family and The Middle so I may just get that to do away with any concern. Basically any shows or movies we watch are on the TV's throughout the house, we very rarely watch it on our laptops or devices. Only exception is our son who "owns" (ha) the old 1st Gen iPad. He likes to watch youtube videos on it before bed, but I'm in the process of teaching him how to see his Toy Story and Polar Express movies in the Videos section (through home sharing). He's 3, so it's taking a while haha.
Anyway, that covering the TV portion of things, I'm left with my iTunes library. Right now I keep the files and all physical downloads (music and movies) on the Mac Mini, and then it is accessed through Home Sharing by the Apple TV's (and devices if we choose). I copied my entire DVD collection to iTunes so essentially anything entertainment wise in my house is digital....no DVDs, CDs, etc.
Here's my question I guess....what is your recommendation for how I should set everything up based on what you've seen above? Below are a couple preferences/concerns I have:
Right now my Mac Mini basically acts as the "server." It is hooked up to the TV in our living room right now. I hardly ever use it as a "computer" since we both have our Macbook Air's, but I do use it from time to time if I need to copy a DVD or CD over to iTunes. Otherwise, it's basically the "server". I have read several things that talked about using the Time Capsule as a shared drive that would allow you to access it from any location as long as you're connected to internet (I set it up that way and tested it, and it does work). Should I possibly move my entire iTunes library (music, movies, etc) onto the Time Capsule that way, just in case, I could access all our movies from any location (I know I can already with the music through iTunes match, but that doesn't work for movies). It's really not a HUGE concern for me right now, but it would just be nice to have. How would that affect my home sharing setup though? Would all my devices (including Apple TV's) be able to access the music and movies through the Time Capsule? Also, would it be slower streaming from the TC rather than the Mac Mini?
This may be off topic, but if I continue to use the Mac Mini as my "server", would I benefit from upgrading the RAM from 8GB to 16GB? Not sure that affect much, but just a thought.
Right now I don't do the constant time machine backup to the Time Capsule. I do it about once a month manually. I guess subconsciously I'm just trying to keep some space free on it in case I want to use it as a shared drive.
Like I said, I have no problem keeping everything on the Mac Mini and using it as the "server", I just want to confirm I'm doing things the most efficient way possible with the set up I have above.
If anyone has any recommendations about the best way I should set everything up (I'm also not against buying anything additional that might make it a more efficient set up) please feel free to comment. Basically I just want a seamless Apple household where all I have to do is "think it" and then it happens. Haha. Thanks in advance for your comments!

Thank you lordstag!! worked perfectly
Linksys
Setup > Basic Setup >
Local IP Address
Before: 192.168.1.1
After: 192.168.0.100
DHCP Server: Disable
Connected network cable from Motorola LAN port 4 ---> Linksys LAN port 1, left the Internet port on the Linksys empty
Motorola
Basic > DHCP >
DHCP Server: Yes
Starting Local Address: 192.168.0.100
Renewed the IP's of the clients
'ipconfig /release' to let go of the address.
'ipconfig /renew' to obtain a new IP address
This is how my network now looks and works
One last question, could this have been done using the Internet port on the Linksys Router?
I appreciate all the help, Thanks again !

Problems using TimeMachine from two Macs to IOMega Home Media Drive

Hi,
This has been driving me crazy for a couple of weeks now, so I'm hoping that someone here can point me in the right direction.
I have a PPC G5 and my wife uses an iMac. I recently bought an IOMega Home Media Drive and wanted to use it with TimeMachine. I set up the G5 and got that working, but when I tried to add my wife's iMac I've had nothing but problems.
I tried resetting the IOMega back to factory defaults, deleting and then re-creating the backups folder, using usernames and passwords or a guest account, and nothing seems to work. I occasionally do something that breaks it on the G5 (running 10.5.8) but I have been able, for the most part, to get it working again, but it's never worked from my wife's iMac (running 10.6.2).
I even tried creating the sparsebundles by hand and copying them in which seemed to work on the G5 but not on the iMac. I thought that the problem might be trying to back up two systems to the same share, but I'm not sure how to split them. Is there a way to create separate backup shares on the IOMega (which seems to connect using AFP even though I've seen references to SMB in some of the forums) so that each system would use its own? Is there a general problem when trying to back up two Macs to the same network share?
The error that I tend to get is that the "backup volume is read only". On the iMac the current error I'm getting, after creating the hostname.sparsebundle image (oddly enough when TimeMachine tried creating it yesterday it dropped the MAC address...not sure why), is: "/Volumes/backups-1/hostname.sparsebundle could not be created (error 45)."
Any help would be greatly appreciated, this has been very frustrating.
Thanks,
Rob

Hi,
You don't want to hear this, but Time Machine does not back up to network drives, except Time Capsules or a shared drive on another Mac running Leopard or Snow Leopard on the same local network. It will often back-up to a USB drive connected to an Airport Extreme, but even that is, technically, unsupported, and may require running a special Terminal command to make it work.
Here's the official word: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1733
You may find some hardware or "hacks" that might make it work, in some cases, to a degree. But use them at your own risk.
First, since this is *unsupported by Apple,* there's nowhere to go when there's trouble.
Second, you're risking a future update preventing it from working, and perhaps rendering your backups useless.
No guarantees, of course, but this might help: https://iomega-na-en.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/iomegana_en.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=22012&p_created=1246919828&p_sid=KBbtj nNj&p_accessibility=&p_redirect=&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PWRmbHQmcF9 ncmlkc29ydD0mcF9yb3dfY250PTEwLDEwJnBfcHJvZHM9MTAzMSwxMDQzJnBfY2F0cz0mcF9wdj0yLjE wNDMmcF9jdj0mcF9zZWFyY2hfdHlwZT1hbnN3ZXJzLnNlYXJjaF9ubCZwX3BhZ2U9MSZwX3NlYXJjaF9 0ZXh0PXRpbWUgbWFjaGluZQ**&p_li=&ptopview=1

Problems with Zen Vision M Series Media Explorer using 32-bit Vista Home Prem

I'm currently experiences problems with Zen Vision M Series Media Explorer using 32-bit Vista Home Premium. When i'm trying?to burn CD's onto my Zen after?I burn the first one then click to burn another it freezes. Is there any patches i should be downloading to solve this problem??Can anyone help? Please!!!!!!!!
?Message Edited by studandydon on 07-29-20070:38 AM

I have the same problem. It all started yesterday when I was installing the cd drivers in my new computer. I have searched numerous forums and some people had to return the product. Please admins help on this issue as I understand it is very serious.

HT4864 I'm using Comcast email, how do I setup iCloud with Comcast? I have an iPhone and iPad 2, my home computer is using Windows XP, so I guess I'm out of luck using iCloud with XP.

I'm using Comcast email, how do I setup iCloud with Comcast? I have an iPhone and iPad 2, my home computer is using Windows XP, so I guess I'm out of luck using iCloud with XP.

Forwarding email from comcast to icloud is different than icloud managing comcast email. One disadvantage of forwarding is that when you respond to an email originally sent to the comcast address and forwarded to icloud, your reply will have the icloud address as the source, not your comcast. That is a problem for many users.
If your comcast account is IMAP, then there's no reason to forward. Just define two accounts in your mail app, one for comcast and one for icloud. Once done, you don't have to worry about dealing with two services, it's all done in a unified way.
And.... you are not talking to Apple here, we're just users like you. Apple doesn't participate in these forums.

Suggestions consolidating iTunes accounts, home media network

Hello, I am not exactly sure where to post this, but much may revolve around iTunes store, etc, so I thought I would try here first. Really looking for advice, sorry for the long entry.
I am in the process of trying to reorganize, simplify and set up a nice home media/storage network for my wife and I (and kids as they get older) the opportunity to basically use and sync any of our devices/computers so that we all have access to a main music library, movies, etc. Here are my main questions, and the scenario ...
I have my own iMac
Wife has Mac Air
Have Apple TV2
Will each be getting our own iPod Touch
Airport Extreme currently used for home wifi network
External drive connected to Airport Extreme to store all/everyone's media?
My initial thought is this could function well as a media storage hub that all our networked devices could pull from? Or maybe there is a better option, setup that I'm not thinking of?
Consolidating two individual iTunes Libraries/accounts to one main one?
What is the best/cleanest approach? My wife and I each have our own, but are find merging if it is recommended. Is it recommended that my wife or I change one of our accounts/ids so we both now purchase off the same apple id? Then just combine our two separate libraries onto an external drive hooked to our Airport Extreme, and use that as a main media collection? Can that external drive then be accessed by the Apple TV as well as our personal computers? Or what if the kids down the road want their own account, if you don't use a single apple id to purchase content, is it difficult to have a central media driver with everyone's content?
For eventual syncing into iCloud?
Is it recommended that we put all devices (whether hers, mine, or kids) to the same Apple ID so all devices have access to all the same material? I'll admit I don't know much about iCloud yet, so this might be a basic question. Or maybe there are still ways to sync all devices even if through different ID accounts so the family doesn't feel I'm 'in complete control' ? Is media stored on an external drive for the network able to sync or be used in the same way by the iCloud service?
I'll probably have more questions, I hope these made sense, and again, sorry for the wordiness. Maybe its a simple setup, but if anyone has the interest or time to lend some advice on what has worked well for them, I'm all ears. Thank you!
Mark

What is the Model no of the NAS..?
Might be you need to do some settings on NAS..Try resetting the NAS and try to reconfigure again.

How to connect MBAir to home media player?

Hi,
I have a Western Digital home media player linked to my router, I’m trying to connect it to my MBAir via wifi so I can stream movies.
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=330
However, I can’t find out how to set up the connection on the MBAir. Can somebody please give me some instructions? This is the 1st time I’m tring to do this on OS X.
Thanks

Here are the steps i did to enable file shearing after reading posts from WD forum:
Went into System Preferences | Sharing and ticked the 'File Sharing' box, from there clicked 'Options', and subsequently ticked 'Share files and folders using SMB (Windows).
The external hard drive connected to the media player should appear in Finder side bar.
How to setup the media player for network can be found in the user manual here:
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=330

Movie Storage using AppleTV

I am thinking about an ATV or actually two of them (one in the theater and one in the family room). I have a couple of questions. First a little background, I have an Imac and macbook with a Time Capsule I use just for backing up the computers. I have ethernet at both the locations I am interested in putting an ATV.
First questions is simple, can I have two ATV's on the same network?
Second, while I am probably not interested in ripping old stuff, if I start buying movies via Itunes, I would like to store them on another external hard drive and be able to access to both ATV's, is this practical? I guess I ask about external hard drives because I assume I will eventually fill up the ATV's.
Third, can one ATV access a movie on another ATV?
Finally, I am not interested in a real elaborate setup just something easy to use. Will ATV meet that objective?
Thanks in advance

MGD80 wrote:
First questions is simple, can I have two ATV's on the same network?
yes, no problems with that.
Second, while I am probably not interested in ripping old stuff, if I start buying movies via Itunes, I would like to store them on another external hard drive and be able to access to both ATV's, is this practical? I guess I ask about external hard drives because I assume I will eventually fill up the ATV's.
the appletv cannot (and should not) be used as a primary storage device. it should only ever have copied of your media (not the only copy). anything you purchase on the appletv will auto sync back to your primary itunes library.
Third, can one ATV access a movie on another ATV?
no, appletv can only take stored content from your itunes library on a pc/mac.
Finally, I am not interested in a real elaborate setup just something easy to use. Will ATV meet that objective?
i'm sure it will assuming that you don't try to use it for something it wasn't designed to be.. ie a storage device or media server. the appletv is a client device and should be looked at as an ipod your tv.

Using AppleTV and MacMini Together

I am new to mac with the recent purchase of a mini intended to be used as a home media server based in the living room.
However, after a few weeks with it "online", have been made aware that it may not be the most family friendly method of accessing all of our media.
In our house, music is our life. Movies are a second, and TV, well isn't important.
That said, I believe after reviewing the discussions that putting an AppleTV in the living room as an access point to the media stored on the mini's external drives may be the best solution.
Can anyone share their experiences with a similar set up? Will this work? What should I be aware of?
The mini will be moved to the master bedroom, external drives attached. Display 32" LCD. BT Keyboard.
The appleTV will be in the living room to a 50" plasma. (Media will be playing most of the day, display off except when needed)
Thanks!

Welcome to the  Discussion Forums.
The tv will do what you want but you won't be able to turn the tv off or you won't be able to select your music. You could also consider using an airport express to stream music from your mini to your hifi or other audio device(s)

Iomega Home media network drive & Time machine backups

First timer guys, so go easy. :-)
I have macbook pro. Upgraded from Snow Leopard to Lion couple of days ago. I have Iomega Home media network drive NAS box which I had setup for Leopard and my backups via time machine were working perfectly. I could also mount the shares on the Iomega box on my macbook. Post upgrade to Lion, I can access the shares on my MAC (over smb) but backups not working anymore. Apparently Lion requires shares to be accessible over afp only. I have confirmed Iomega box is compatible with smb as well as afp shares and I even tried manually mounting those shares using command, still no luck.
Command I'm trying to mount afp shares & the error -
bash-3.2# mkdir -p /mnt/backups
bash-3.2# mount_afp afp://username:[email protected]/backups /mnt/backups
mount_afp: AFPMountURL returned error -5019, errno is -5019
bash-3.2# echo $?
101
bash-3.2#
Can't see any references to this error. I see few links that ask to carry out some clumsy steps to sort this out. That's not working either for me.
On a sidenote, why mac doesn't have /etc/fstab? Any alternatives?
Appreciate any kind of help here.
Cheers.
soulcurry

Hi,
Have you fixed your problem?
I have the same configuration, and I can't finish a backup. Every time, I have the message, "Try again a new backup".
Thanks
MacBook pro lion 10.7
iomega Home media network cloud firmeware: 3.2.3.15290

Home Media for MAC

When will the Home Media software be available for MAC users?
Thanks!

What would you use a Mac Mini for?
Movies: You can insert DVD discs into the combo or superdrive and watch DVDs or maybe even burn your own!
Music: You can play music from iTunes or play your own CDs from it!
Pictures: You could have family album slideshows from iPhoto!
Videos: You could download videos and watch them on the display!
TV: You could buy a TV tuner(e.g. Elgato is the only tv tuner company i know which specialising for macs)
So basically, you can use the Mac mini as a media centre hub! I would recommend hooking it up to a large Cinema Display or LCD screen! That'll look so cool! Make sure your display has a DVI port if you want to use that or you could connect your old monitor with a VGA port as Apple provide a DVI-VGA adapter along with the mac mini in the box.
You could also get a specialised remote control for the Mac like this:
http://store.apple.com/Apple/WebObjects/ukstore.woa/90901/wo/tU5XbQaVhE6u3hnpfzM 1cHvpKo8/3.0.19.1.0.8.25.7.11.0.3
ATI Remote Wonder remote control
You could also get a wireless keyboard and mouse!
You'd have a great media centre there! And it'd be much more flexible than Windows XP Media Centre Edition(in my opinion its a load of rubbish).
You've actually inspired me to do my own media centre now! Thanks!

Iomega Home Media Network Hard Drive network access problem

Hello all Having trouble accessing Iomega media drive ce,web interface is not responding.Iam able to ping ,map and access shares using win7 and winxp systems.Read and writie to shares.Earlier in 2012-13 experienced similar problem,but reimaging using reimager software, fixed the problem.Reimaging didnt destroy data it just reset the user accounts.(atleast in my case).Few days back the problem reoccured.I noticed from my experience, the web interface becomes unresponsive only after enabling cloud with medium or high security.I tried resetting. Also tried to connect drive to pc directly and ran ARP utility.Drive respond to ping(arp provided ip address).,but web interface is still unresponsive.Also cloud invitation email not working.But device status monitor or reporitng email works. I periodically receive email alerts about new firmware,time synching.Please help me restore my drive. Drive details:Home media network CE(shipped firmware 3.2.3.15290 ).Current firmware:3.2.8.30031.Storage manager ver. 1.4.4.14439Router infoSL-2750u (tried using port forwarding/DHCP and port forwarding/Static ip).TZO remote access status:Expired.FTPisabledCloud :enabledWarranty status:Active.(13/12/2015). Thank u

Hello dhanse_k,
For something like this, there really isn't much that I can help with here.
I'm limited to giving advice and that isn't going to help if you have a verified IP that's not granting access to the UI.
I recommend starting a support ticket here:
https://lenovo-ap-en.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/18133/session/L3RpbWUvMTM2NjU5MDgxMS9zaWQvSEtSbjZqb2w%3D#phone
It sounds like your NAS is having issues with Apache and starting a support ticket will enable an agent to assist you with that.

Recommend an Home Media Setup Using AppleTV

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