Streaming iTunes (shared library) video over ethernet...

I'm hoping someone with combined iTunes and networking savvy might be willing to help me out here. Here's the setup,
I have an Intel iMac hooked up to Fantom 1TB drive via USB 2.0 (iTunes library on external). The iTunes library is shared to an iBook G4 over ethernet via a Linksys Wireless B router (but both comps are wired in for max speed). (To be clear, when I say 'shared' I mean that I open iTunes on the iBook with it's own library and select the shared iMac library from within the iTunes GUI). When I go to play videos over the shared library on the iBook they are quite choppy and slow and I'm wondering where the bottleneck is.
I'm using Cat5e cable (1000Mbs+ so far as I can gather), but the router ports are 10/100 as is the ethernet port on the iBook (max 100Mbs). Further, the iBook has only 32MB of VRAM (although I've upgraded the RAM to 1.12GB). The iMac is running Leopard 10.5.5, iBook running Tiger 10.4.11, both machines running iTunes 8.0.1. I'm presuming that the read and transfer rates of the external are not the issue here because there are no problems viewing on the iMac, but I could be wrong.
So is the bottleneck the 10/100 ethernet ports on the router/iBook, the iBook VRAM, or is there something inherent in iTunes library sharing itself that is causing the delays? I also have an Xbox 360 which reads the same shared library via Rivet/Connect360 over the same network and router and videos are fine on the Xbox which makes me think the problem is with the iBook or iTunes.
I ask because I'm considering upgrading the router, and even replacing the iBook, but if it's something to do with iTunes itself, then there's not much point.
Thanks to any and all who can offer advice.

This evening I tried to narrow down the problem further and I think it boils down to the iBook not being able to process the video data fast enough rather than the transfer rate over the network or something inherent in iTunes.
To do this I shared my library folder on the network and copied a file from it to the iBook's HDD, adding it also to iTunes locally on the iBook. The quality is the same whether I view it:
1) Through the iTunes GUI 'SHARED' library over the network
2) By opening it directly (using Quicktime) over the network through the mounted shared folder in finder
3) Viewing it in Quicktime directly from the iBook's internal HDD
4) Viewing it locally in iTunes from the iBook's HDD
Now the question is whether the iBook should be able to view this video smoothly given its hardware, or do I have the logic board VRAM problem that I've been reading about...I guess an issue for another post/topic.
Thanks for trying to help Tom.

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Itunes Shared Library between Mac and Windows isn't sharing videos properly

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Here you go:
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Below is pasted from my post:
"Apple techs, I've posted this topic before and no one has been able to solve - I believe it's a bug in the program.......
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Timerift wrote:
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Same issue being discussed here --> http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=9222742#9222742
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I have spent hours reading forums and trying many different settings and am about to return my AppleTV. I have tons of movies converted for viewing on the AppleTV but I feel I have wasted to many hours of my life and am about to give up.
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I too have not been getting any sleep because of this. The main reason why I bought ATV2 is because everyone told me it's plug and play, always works. That is bull !!! I hope you can help me out, and that I can get some decent sleep for once, long hours troubleshooting this !!!
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Bump. Same issue. Help please.

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thanks, i've only just installed and copied the files over so this would seem not to apply.
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Cheers for your help.

If I'm sitting at my laptop in my living room
accessing the shared library will I be able to stream
this to my Airport Express?
Yes.
I will be streaming
lossless files from PC to laptop, then onto the
Airport Express - will my 802.11g network be able to
handle this amount of traffic?
Yes
What I want to know though is when iTunes streams it
to the Airport Express does it re-encode it on the
fly
It does to Apple's lossless format.
As your files are already in Lossless format there is not need to decode first before encoding.
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Can an iTunes shared library be 'loaded' using applescript

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This script illustrates and the open statement doesnt work but was my attempt to load the source
set shared_library to "iBook Music"
tell application "iTunes"
set source_list to (get every source)
set source_names to (get name of every source)
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Message was edited by: Guy Facius

Yes, although there are a couple of things to check and do.
First of all, when the iPod is connected to iTunes, look on the Device/iTunes U pane and make sure that Sync iTunes U is ticked ON and that the options below the tick-box are set as you want them. (Mine are automatically include all items of all collections.)
After the Sync has finished, look on the iPod:
audio - under Playlists/iTunes U. (No, I've no idea why they should be only there...)
video - under Video Playlists/iTunes U or Video/Video Playlists/iTunes U. (Still no idea why...)
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TS2972 I can see the song titles in itunes shared library on my new imac but songs will not play. I have a pc with wifi network that the main music library is on. tried saving songs from pc to an external drive then to new mac but thats not working eithe

attempted to transfer itunes music from pc to new imac. didn't work. apple suggest using sharing method. main library of music is on pc. did those steps and shared library shows up on mac but when you click on the song to play it doesn't play or maybe ther is no content? any suggestions?

Hi there,
It sounds like your purchased content is not transfering via a flash drive. It may be easier to re-download this contnet directly from iTunes. Take a look at the article below for mor information.
Downloading past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2519
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When I am logged in and enter the 'netstat' command, I see the following entry under foreign address:
NAS:3689 Established
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- disabled (not uninstalling) tcpip v6.
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- uninstalled Bonjour but once I do that, I cannot see the shared library anymore.
- upgraded Bonjour to the latest version but still no success.
If anybody reading this has other suggestions, please respond.

I actually followed this, but I still had problems that I listed above. Is there any way that when you make changes to one account (even if there is only one main account where changes are made), the changes are automatically (or at least easily) applied to the other user accounts?

Spotty iTunes Shared Library Connection

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I have the same problem. Very inconsistent sharing, I have tried it between 3 computers. An old Dell laptop running XP, a 15" MBP running leopard, and an old 15" Powerbook G4 also running leopard. Sharing works fine between the Macs, but I can't get anything to work reliably between the PC and either Mac. I'm using iTunes 8.2.1 on all 3 machines. I tried reinstalling bonjour and iTunes on the PC with no luck. Also checked the firewalls, etc. and everything should be open for iTunes sharing. I've had this issue for about 6 months and I keep hoping the next iTunes release will fix it. My faith in Apple's "it just works" mantra is beginning to wear thin...

Streaming iTunes (shared library) video over ethernet...

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