Using 8 Apple TVs

Question

Hi guys,
I have just recently had a look at a configuration and was hoping for some advice...
He has, himself, installed 8 Apple TVs and is having issues connecting some of them at times.  I have very quickly identified that only 5 devices can use home sharing to his iMac to access his iTunes.
For example, here was my tests:
I rebooted the iMac, then started up each Apple TV and began streaming media.  5 performed absolutely fine, then the 6th one simply wouldn't connect to the iMac, BUT, Internet was fine, ping tests were 100% reliable throughout this whole time and everything else Network wise was fine.  Even IF we unplugged one of the initial 5 TVs, then tried the 6th again after a hard reset, it still wouldn't work.
I would assume, that when each device accesses media, it registers it's mac address or serial number on the iMac to prevent more than 5 devices streaming, not only for licensing reasons, but for quality of service..?  The only way I have found to 'cure' this is to simply reboot the iMac or stop and start the home sharing service, power off all the Apple TVs (sometimes requires even a reset of the device from the menu!) and then begin powering up the TVs that are required.  This seems to be quite a common occurance across the boards here with even less than 5 devices however..
Feel free to correct me on any of the points above.  I'm almost certain i've got a grasp of what is happening here, but the client will simply not acknowledge that he is exceeding the limitations of home sharing and the number of devices supported.  Thanks for taking the time to read this and hopefully providing some official response that I can hand over.
Thanks,
Luke

Answer 1

I have to admit I'm thoroughly confused these days between cloud access, itunes Match, Home Sharing and allowable number of computers for iTunes.
AFAIK - you can still have 5 computers authorised for iTunes use of a particular account.
5 computer limit for Home Sharing between them:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3819
That Home Sharing article also suggests you can Home Share to multiple iOS devices but does not specify a limit - provided it was sharing for streaming purposes only I can't see a reason they'd limit it, after all AppleTVs now have no onboard permanent storage.
There used to be a 5 AppleTV device limit for a single iTunes library in AppleTV1 days - this did not use Home Sharing at all.  Maybe this still holds true for Home Sharing.
Clearly network bandwidth issues might be a consideration for streaming to multiple devices simultaneously.
Can you set up a second itunes library on a separate computer and see if it allows more than 5 to connect provided connections are shared between the two libraries?  Last time I checked I could not have another user running iTunes on the computer for streaming whilst logged in to a second account with iTunes - only the logged in iTunes was available to AppleTV - no harm trying this though as things may have changed.
AC