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arbogast777

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 4, 2010
240
24
2 quick ones for you...

If I had my iTunes movies backed up on an external HD, can I access them from my Apple TV?

and

I know that with iTunes music files another program such as Amazon or Google Music is able to read your files to enable you to transfer them to their services - am I correct in saying that the same is not true for movie files? So say 10 years down the road if I wanted to use another service to watch my collection I would have to stay with iTunes?
 
2 quick ones for you...

If I had my iTunes movies backed up on an external HD, can I access them from my Apple TV?

and

I know that with iTunes music files another program such as Amazon or Google Music is able to read your files to enable you to transfer them to their services - am I correct in saying that the same is not true for movie files? So say 10 years down the road if I wanted to use another service to watch my collection I would have to stay with iTunes?

To your first question, yes it will work just fine. That's how my setup is. I don't know the answer to your second question though.
 
And I can do this how? Can the HD be plugged right into the Apple TV?

Thanks so much for the help!
 
No. The drive has to be plugged either in to your computer or the USB port of a router.

Also, the library cannot be accessed directly by AppleTV. You have to have a computer running iTunes mapped to the library on that drive because the connection only works using home sharing in iTunes.

The only time I really use that connection is for music, but since most of my movies are in the iTunes cloud I don't need a computer connected when watching movies. This would be different, though, for people who have either third party or pirated content.
 
I see thank you very much guys for the replies. I was looking at what it would take to go all digital with my movies and i wanted both to backup the files in case a movie was dropped from iTunes and a way to stream offline, but although i love the convience of it it seems like having blu-rays is almost easier. Getting a new HD is one thing but then I'd also have to upgrade my Airport Express to Extreme, and then the computer would also have to be on... bah we'll see...

Does anybody know if it would be easier to use Ultraviolet, keep the files on a HD, hook that to a Roku, then use the Roku USB channel to stream? A computer wouldnt need to be on for that, right?
 
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Remember your movie files have to be in mp4 or m4v to stream to the Apple TV

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I see thank you very much guys for the replies. I was looking at what it would take to go all digital with my movies and i wanted both to backup the files in case a movie was dropped from iTunes and a way to stream offline, but although i love the convience of it it seems like having blu-rays is almost easier. Getting a new HD is one thing but then I'd also have to upgrade my Airport Express to Extreme, and then the computer would also have to be on... bah we'll see...

Does anybody know if it would be easier to use Ultraviolet, keep the files on a HD, hook that to a Roku, then use the Roku USB channel to stream? A computer wouldnt need to be on for that, right?

You should get a WD TV PLAYER , connect the external drive to that and you would be all set
No computer required
 
2 quick ones for you...

If I had my iTunes movies backed up on an external HD, can I access them from my Apple TV?

and

I know that with iTunes music files another program such as Amazon or Google Music is able to read your files to enable you to transfer them to their services - am I correct in saying that the same is not true for movie files? So say 10 years down the road if I wanted to use another service to watch my collection I would have to stay with iTunes?

(1)
if the movies were bought in the iTunes Store, you can access them in the purchased section in your Apple TV.
[same goes for digital copies]

(2)
iTunes Music files are DRM-free and can be read with any compatible service/player. Movies, however, right now are not.
10years is a long time, Times may change (like how it did for Music)

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Does anybody know if it would be easier to use Ultraviolet, keep the files on a HD, hook that to a Roku, then use the Roku USB channel to stream? A computer wouldnt need to be on for that, right?

It's a personal opinion about the ease.
Regarding your question, you cannot keep the files on the computer and play it on a Roku. The Movie files also have DRM.
However, Roku have the VUDU player(or any other compatible UV player) for you to play your UV titles.
No computer required.
 
^thanks for the reply. I was asking about streaming from a hard drive because I wanted to be able to access my movies offline so I could 1) play them all I wanted without fear of going over data caps and 2) in the event they were taken off the iTunes Store
 
^thanks for the reply. I was asking about streaming from a hard drive because I wanted to be able to access my movies offline so I could 1) play them all I wanted without fear of going over data caps and 2) in the event they were taken off the iTunes Store

Wd TV player

Don't know if it will play movies you buy from iTunes
 
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