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antman2295

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 30, 2010
366
1
Can you put an external Hard Drive on the Apple Tv 2nd Gen? I was wondering if you could plug it in, through the USB port? Also through the new jail breaks, can you record tv shows to it? Thanks for your help, and if you know anything about what you can do with a jail broken Apple Tv 2 please feel free to post :).

Thanks so much for your time!
 

Intell

macrumors P6
Jan 24, 2010
18,955
509
Inside
No, because the USB port on the ATV2 is a "device" USB, not a "host" port like on a computer. And you cannot connect to "device" USB ports together and make it work.
 

pasipple

macrumors 6502a
Jun 12, 2009
859
8
You can plug an External HD into an AirPort Extreme via its USB port. And use it to store your streaming iTunes media.
 

antman2295

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 30, 2010
366
1
Is there anyway to trick it, so you would be able too? Since I don't have an Air Port Extreme :(
 

reiniertc

macrumors newbie
Dec 8, 2010
2
0
You can plug an External HD into an AirPort Extreme via its USB port. And use it to store your streaming iTunes media.

But you'd still need a computer to stream the iTunes media tot the ATV, right?
(USB HDD -> Airport Extreme -> Mac -> ATV)
 

tommylotto

macrumors regular
Jan 7, 2004
203
0
What we need is an external HD running iTunes somehow -- like an old outdated G4 Mac mini. Hmmmm
 

tommylotto

macrumors regular
Jan 7, 2004
203
0
That is not what I am talking about. The G4 mini would just run iTunes to feed content to an ATV2. The ATV2 would play the content for the big screen. The G4 mini is small, quiet and plenty fast for this simple task.
 

slipper

macrumors 68000
Nov 19, 2003
1,561
44
Do you currently own a Mac Mini G4? That should work fine. If you were planning to purchase a used Mac Mini G4, i would just tell you to get a Core2Duo and connect that directly to the TV.
 
Last edited:

Omne666

macrumors 6502a
Sep 16, 2010
503
0
Melbourne, Australia
Do you currently own a Mac Mini G4? That should work fine. If you were planning to purchase a used Mac Mini G4, i would just tell you to get a Core2Duo and connect that directly to the TV.

Comparing the atv interface to front row is a bit miss leading. I have both situations running and I hate front row now. Its just not as sweet to use.

Though getting an early mac mini as the server is a fair suggestion. G4 or otherwise.
 

Markusp

macrumors newbie
Jul 23, 2010
24
0
Needs to be a Core2duo version of mac mini in order to run Itunes 10.0.1. Old G4 models will not run the newer versions of iTunes and as such don't work with the ATV2 since you can't setup homeshare.
 

Intell

macrumors P6
Jan 24, 2010
18,955
509
Inside
Needs to be a Core2duo version of mac mini in order to run Itunes 10.0.1. Old G4 models will not run the newer versions of iTunes and as such don't work with the ATV2 since you can't setup homeshare.

Then how is my G4 iMac running 10.1? As long as the computer is running Leopard, it can run iTunes 10.1.
 

chenks

macrumors 65816
Oct 23, 2007
1,187
489
UK
Needs to be a Core2duo version of mac mini in order to run Itunes 10.0.1. Old G4 models will not run the newer versions of iTunes and as such don't work with the ATV2 since you can't setup homeshare.

you couldn't be more wrong.
i have a G4 mac mini running leopard with itunes 10.1 (with 2 appletv's connected to it).
 

kiranmk2

macrumors 68000
Oct 4, 2008
1,508
1,928
In theory, all we need is a new home-sharing plug-in. In the same way most NAS units have a built-in iTunes server to stream music to iTunes clients from the NAS, there could be a similar Apple Home-Sharing server that you set up with iTunes then, when you save your sharing options, the NAS takes over and can serve up music/video to compatible systems without iTunes running.

It wouldn't surprise me if something like this debuted on the next gen Time-Capsule/Airport Extreme (via an airdisk).
 

Michael Bender

macrumors newbie
Dec 3, 2007
2
0
One thing I'm toying with is to get an old PC running WinXP and run one of the virtualization solutions on it - Virtual Box, or VMWare Player for example, then run multiple XP VMs each with their own iTunes instance running in them, and have them all share the same media library. That way you could have multiple "Home Sharing" servers on your home LAN.
 

TwoBytes

macrumors 68040
Jun 2, 2008
3,086
2,032
Use to be itunes servers runnin which you could have standalone but it's all broke now :(
 
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