3 devices, 1 computer and common external drive for music. How to still keep seprate?

[EC99SS]

Hi all
I'm hoping you can help. I'm still fairly new to itunes and iphones. Here's the situation.

We have 2 iphones (mine and wife) and an Ipod touch (kid) with one computer. My wife and I also have our own itunes accounts. I understand to keep separate libraries I can create separate user accounts on the computer

I'd like to use use an external drive to keep all the music, movies, etc (like a central location) on and have each user account pull from that when launching their itunes. This way everyone can create their own libraries from a central location and have access to all the songs and movies.

1) However I have some MMA videos/movies on my iphone that I don't want in the central location drive for my kids to see and/or sync to their itouch. When I sync my iphone to itunes (within my user account), is there a way to make sure those MMA vids don't make it into the external drive?


2) Now in retrospect, how about songs? If I download a song using my iphone. Or if my wife downloads one using her iphone and her own account, How can I get it into my central location for songs so the other devices can add it to their libraries?

Hope this made sense. I'm probably making it more difficult than it is.

Thanks!

 

[zhenya]

I would suggest that unless you have a real desire to have completely separate libraries on the computer for some reason that you instead have just one library and sync all devices to that single library, choosing a subset of content to be placed on each device according to everyone's own preference. I'd also suggest that you use a single iTunes Store account for purchases as this way everyone will be able to share paid content like apps music and movies rather than having to possibly pay for it twice.

For video content I didn't want my kids to have access to I'd manage it through an alternative video player rather than iTunes. This may also save you the hassle of having to convert content into iTunes compatible formats. I guess this wont work as well if you purchase video content from iTunes though.

Once you buy content on an iOS device it will automatically become available for downloading to iTunes libraries associated with that account.

 

[EC99SS]

I would suggest that unless you have a real desire to have completely separate libraries on the computer for some reason that you instead have just one library and sync all devices to that single library, choosing a subset of content to be placed on each device according to everyone's own preference. I'd also suggest that you use a single iTunes Store account for purchases as this way everyone will be able to share paid content like apps music and movies rather than having to possibly pay for it twice.

For video content I didn't want my kids to have access to I'd manage it through an alternative video player rather than iTunes. This may also save you the hassle of having to convert content into iTunes compatible formats. I guess this wont work as well if you purchase video content from iTunes though.

Once you buy content on an iOS device it will automatically become available for downloading to iTunes libraries associated with that account.

Thank you for the insight and help. Curious on your 2nd paragraph regarding video. If I "managed it through an altnerate video player rather than iTunes", then I would not be able to have them on my phone for viewing later would I?

The reason I have them on my phone is that I like to watch the fights and clips there as opposed to having them on the computer for the kids to potentially sync too.

Thanks again.

 

[zhenya]

Look for any number of alternative media players in the app store. It's Playing is one that I have used. With these apps you can load media directly into the app without having to sync it with iTunes. They behave more like a traditional media player than having to use the iTunes ecosystem to manage your video content.