How to use Apple TV with no internet?

entropyfl said:

is there a way round this?

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Don't buy content with DRM on it.

entropyfl said:

When this happens my Apple TV can still see my iMacs iTunes library but because it can't get online to authorise my media etc it won't stream them..

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Naturally it won't stream your DRM'd media if your internet connection is down. Would you expect different?

As for authorization, I don't believe an internet connection is needed to play your purchased media. I certainly don't need one. So the easy answer for you is to store your purchased media locally.

all my content is my own, and not purchased through itunes, when internet goes down i can't play anything. only workaround i found was to airplay from within itunes on my mac. this worked for me even though i couldnt access the files through the atv directly.

Have you tried playing the content on your iMac and mirroring the iMac screen to the AppleTV via AirPlay?

Oops... Never mind. If you don't have the internet then your DRM content won't be authorized on the computer either. I think you'll have to wait till your internet comes back. What kind of ISP lets their service go dark for a week at a time? I hope you're not paying for that down time.

I really don't think iTunes checks every time you play media. I can quit iTunes, turn off wifi, then open iTunes and play all of my protected media. Either a computer is authorized or it isn't. I don't think iTunes keeps checking.

As for AppleTV I'm not so sure.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1420
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1389

Longkeg said:

Have you tried playing the content on your iMac and mirroring the iMac screen to the AppleTV via AirPlay?

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don't use mirroring (the setting in the menu bar of the mac)
just use regular airplay in iTunes itself, choose a destination from the top of the app.

That won't work, or it didn't for me... If I tried to go full screen, during a video, it still gave me authorization errors.

So the funny thing is that it needs it authorizes somewhat randomly. I built a new house, and it took about a month to get actual internet into my house. Here's what I did:

1. I bought this TRENDnet Wireless Bridge
2. I set it up to connect to the hotspot on my phone.
3. I plugged the bridge into the Internet port of my router that would normally hook to my modem.
4. I activated the hotspot and restarted my Apple TV.

Because it doesn't authorize every movie. You don't have to have it on all the time. I would turn it on when I wanted to get on the net, but the rest of the time, I left it off. I don't recall having too much trouble out of it.

It's not a perfect solution, but it's a great stop-gap measure for when the internet is down for extended periods of time.

brand said:

Don't buy content with DRM on it.

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It's not a DRM issue for the file, its an issue of Apple devices validating the iTunes account ID in order to negotiate a Home Sharing connection. And since Apple TV is based on Home Sharing, no Internet will damn near completely kill an Apple TV in some (many) situations.

You can still play music on it when this happens, because that does not use the Home Sharing, it uses the older "Shared Library" method.

I experienced this earlier this year when my ISP's DNS blocked Apple for a little while. My fix was to switch to 8.8.8.8.

When I have no internet I can still see content, videos, but it takes a long time to load. Real pain in the butt, I am thinking of getting something else for when the internet is down.