ATV and Sharing an iTunes Library

FluJunkie said:

I'm buying a new TV, and I'm considering an Apple TV setup to share media onto the big screen. Right now, the household's setup is:

- A Mac Pro
- A Macbook Pro
- A Windows laptop or two
- Hypothetical Apple TV

The problem is sharing the library for my account. Is it possible to share a library when the account is logged in, but someone else is on a different user account? Other people occasionally use the Mac Pro, and I'd prefer them having access to my machine not disable the ability to pipe things to the TV.

Click to expand...

If you enable fast user switching, then you'll be able to have multiple user accounts logged-in at the same time on your Mac Pro. I believe that iTunes libraries remain available over Home Sharing when doing this. I vaguely remember testing this and having success, but I'm not 100% sure.

I wanted to set up something like this myself on my iMac. I currently have just one iTunes library (set up on the UK store) which I use on my own user account. However, I've been given a gift card for the Italian iTunes store, and so my plan was to set up a second user account, create an iTunes library registered to the Italian store, buy some films and then keep both accounts logged-in at the same time with fast user switching, and have both libraries available to my ATV. Now that I see somebody else is interested in using the same method, I will actually go ahead and set this up, test it and report back (probably tomorrow evening).

I gave it a bash yesterday evening as promised an, by Jove, it works!

To recap, enable fast user switching, and then when other people log into their own accounts on your Mac, your user account will continue running in the background, and will continue serving your iTunes library over Home Share.

I'm actually really pleased with this set-up, as I can now download Italian films and TV programmes, and be able to have them available at all times alongside my main library.

Happy to do it