Setting up iTunes on a Windows computer to use movie files on Time Machine?

Question

I posted this question in the TC Forum, too, but upon reflection thought that I should do so here, too.
I have succeeded in mapping my TC’s hard drive to my desktop Windows (XP Professional) computer. I have also changed the iTunes Music folder location on that computer to the folder on the TC’s hard drive that contains my MP4 movie files. I want to be able to leave iTunes open in the XP desktop at all times so that I can stream movies from iTunes to my Apple TV whenever I want. Currently, I am using iTunes on my MBP with Apple TV. The problem with that is that the MBP has to be awake and iTunes open. That’s a problem because I like to close the MBP when I am not using it.
My problem is that I don’t know how to make movie files on the TC show up in iTunes on the XP desktop. I assume, but don’t know that, because my iTunes Music folder is now designated as being on the TC, whatever I do will not use a lot of hard drive space on the XP desktop. Nevertheless, I need to know before I try it because my movie files are exponentially larger than the available disk space on the XP. In short, what do I do to get the movie files that reside on the TC to show up in iTunes on the XP desktop without taking up a bunch of the XP’s disk space? Any help will be much appreciated.

Answer 1

Winston – Thanks for your advice. Thanks to you, I seem to be pretty close to having this thing under control. After I designated the movies folder on the TC as my Music folder in iTunes, I double clicked on a couple of the files and each immediately showed up in my iTunes movies folder. They also streamed to my Apple TV without incident. So far so good.
My original movies folder on the TC is named M4V Movies. Somehow, iTunes created a subfolder in my M4V Movies folder, named it Movies, and moved the two movie files I had double clicked on there. From this I inferred that any movie I moved into the M4V Movies\Movies folder would show up in iTunes. Unfortunately, it didn’t work that way, as I moved another movie file from M4V Movies to the Movies subfolder and the file I had moved there didn’t appear in iTunes.
Finally, I simply dragged the remaining movie files’ icons into iTunes and, Voila!, they showed up both there and in my Shared Movies folder on Apple TV. Thus, it looks like the worst is over. The only remaining problem is that three of my movie files in iTunes are in the Movies subfolder but all of the others remain in the M4V Movies folder, although all are in the iTunes apps Movies folder. But that’s a problem for another day. By the way, dragging the movie files into the iTunes Movies folder did not cause them to be copied to the C: drive, the only full version of each is still on the TC.
Thanks for your help, I couldn’t have done it without you.