iTunes Match vs. Home Sharing?

[ctakim]

Quick question, I've got iTunes Match going on my main iMac home computer and it is working great for accessing my music library on my iPad and iPhone. But I have 3 other Macs at home that don't leave the house. If I want to access my music library on the Mac Mini or Apple TV I can now do this via activating the same iTunes Match account or just using Home Sharing. What are the advantages and disadvantages? I can think of a few obvious ones:

1. iTunes Match reaches into the cloud and accesses Apple's internet servers. Home Sharing is only on my local WAN/LAN

2. I can turn off my main iMac with my iTunes library on it using iTunes Match, but it has to be on for Home Sharing.

Others that I have not thought of?

TIA

 

[bushido]

u can download the tracks on the other computer

 

[Tones2]

iTunes Match will syncronize the libraries - Home Share will not.

Home share will stream from the other library - iTunes will not (you have to download, although access is instantaneous).

Home share does video - iTunes Match does not.

Tony

 

[bushido]

iTunes Match will syncronize the libraries - Home Share will not.

Home share will stream from the other library - iTunes will not (you have to download, although access is instantaneous).

Home share does video - iTunes Match does not.

Tony

not true, u can stream with iTunes on iTunes Match and it wont download. to download u have to click the actual cloud icon

 

[PNutts]

I wondered the same thing when iTunes Match came out. I decided to continue using Home Sharing and Air Play primarily to eliminate any bandwidth issues (mine or the cloud's). Secondary was that to access iTunes Match from ATV2 you have to show the entire Internet rental/purchase menus. My kids wanted to watch the new movies displayed that we would have to rent or purchase and I got tired of saying "no" so I hid them.

Also, Home Sharing allows you to drag the contents of one library to another so you don't have to stream. You'll end up with two complete copies of your library if that's what you choose to do. In fact, iTunes can monitor the other shared librarys and automatically download purchases to the others. You could consider it a poor man's backup. I'm a nervous guy so my PC is backed up offsite with Carbonite. Anything the wifey purchases on her MacBook is automatically downloaded to my library and then backed up.

Also, if you have multiple copies of your library then you can choose which computer has to be turned on for Home Sharing (for some reason I hate to see a laptop running unattended but don't think twice about a mini or desktop.)