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Accessing Imac remotely for photos/movies - realistic?

F

Frznrth

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 2, 2015
50
6
Hi
I need a new computer to store all of my pics and home movies. I think I'd like an Imac instead of a mac book pro - but hate the thought of being chained in the basement - only place it can go. If I get an Imac I know I could accesses the photos/movies apps remotely with an apple laptop - but I don't have any experience with this - would this be fast and easy enough to be realistic? I know I can do all of this through the cloud but would rather have a more "direct" option - not paying cloud fees for the rest of my life sounds nice too.
Thanks for the help.
 
By remote, do you mean miles away on another network or on the same network within the house, just upstairs?
 
Hi
Just upstairs- not very remote.

I tried setting up a NAS but it didn't seem very easy or fast - it might have been my old mac or not a very good NAS or my ineptitude. Am hoping a new iMac and some decent software might work.

I asked Apple if their Share my Mac would work. They said I could access what is on the mac but not easily edit - too slow. Is
Jump Desks Fluid Remote Desktop able to do this? They say so but it would be nice to hear from someone independent.

Editing remotely would be nice but not a huge deal - viewing easily would be a deal breaker though.

Thanks.
 
Why not use iTunes, set up your library on the iMac, share it, and any mac or PC running iTunes on the local network can view the shared photos or movies? That seems to be what most here use. Simple straight forward.

Then there is the screen sharing option, if you want more function like editing. Set the iMac to allow screen sharing and connect to it from any computer on the house network. The window on the local computer will look just like the screen of your iMac, and will operate just as if you were there.`

The iTunes share approach may provide better video performance, however. I have my iTunes library on a computer, and view it from computers and apple TVs around the home.

NAS is slow, but you could turn your iMac into a server for about $20. Don't think you need to do that for simply sharing movies.

Its get more complicated if your remote is miles away on a different ISP, but doable with VPNs.
 
If you have the budget, get a 15" MacBook Pro with Touchbar and 2TB SSD.
Otherwise, get an iMac when they announce the new ones next month, and then login to your iMac over the network on your MacBook Pro.
All you will need to do is browse the finder to Go > Network > (iMac name) > (iMac user account & password).
You will then be asked which of your iMac's drive you want to use.

Then to play the movies, use VLC. It is free, open source and will play anything.
For the pictures, you can use preview if you have a few at a time, or find a slideshow program.

If your budget is low, I advise you to get the 2011 iMac, as it can be fully upgraded with a SSD in the second Sata slot, and it can deal with 32 GB ram. You can also get it to work with Thunderbolt for USB 3 ports on a TB 1 or TB 2 dock.
Plus it has a DVD burning superdrive.

Alternatively, get a small desk in the main part of your house, and a new and light iMac, as it will be better to watch pictures and movies on.
 
ColdCase said:
Why not use iTunes, set up your library on the iMac, share it, and any mac or PC running iTunes on the local network can view the shared photos or movies? That seems to be what most here use. Simple straight forward.

Then there is the screen sharing option, if you want more function like editing. Set the iMac to allow screen sharing and connect to it from any computer on the house network. The window on the local computer will look just like the screen of your iMac, and will operate just as if you were there.`

The iTunes share approach may provide better video performance, however. I have my iTunes library on a computer, and view it from computers and apple TVs around the home.

NAS is slow, but you could turn your iMac into a server for about $20. Don't think you need to do that for simply sharing movies.

Its get more complicated if your remote is miles away on a different ISP, but doable with VPNs.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I'll likely end up just doing the Sharing thing. Nice to know that this will work better than settling it up as a NAS

I had hoped to be able to edit what is on the IMac from the comfort of upstairs. I'll try Jump Desk. If it works great. If not oh well.
[doublepost=1490449639][/doublepost]
kiwipeso1 said:
If you have the budget, get a 15" MacBook Pro with Touchbar and 2TB SSD.
Otherwise, get an iMac when they announce the new ones next month, and then login to your iMac over the network on your MacBook Pro.
All you will need to do is browse the finder to Go > Network > (iMac name) > (iMac user account & password).
You will then be asked which of your iMac's drive you want to use.

Then to play the movies, use VLC. It is free, open source and will play anything.
For the pictures, you can use preview if you have a few at a time, or find a slideshow program.

If your budget is low, I advise you to get the 2011 iMac, as it can be fully upgraded with a SSD in the second Sata slot, and it can deal with 32 GB ram. You can also get it to work with Thunderbolt for USB 3 ports on a TB 1 or TB 2 dock.
Plus it has a DVD burning superdrive.

Alternatively, get a small desk in the main part of your house, and a new and light iMac, as it will be better to watch pictures and movies on.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I have the budget for a good IMac and a simple MacBook. Very good to know that new IMacs are coming out. I can definitely wait a month.

Small desk upstairs would be nice - just not happening this life time.
 
Jump desk is designed for miles away networking over a VPN (like working from home and connecting to your office computer). Its way overkill for what you are doing and will probably be slower than any of the free options mentioned. In fact screen share does the same thing for free. But it looks like you want to pay for it and try it out anyway. Nothing wrong with that. Let us know how it goes. Its like $30 now isn't it?
 
Last edited:
Viewing and editing files can be done between any two Macs pretty easily. As recommended here, just set up the Macs to share and there your go. That said, there are many things that will affect this experience. How fast is the network connecting the Macs? How fast are the disks at each end? Processors, other background activities. and so on. Some workflows suggest copying the work files from the remote disk to a local computing environment (your laptop, say) such that all work is local. Then at the end of the session copying it back. Other workflows try and work over the network. Note that, generally speaking, the best home network will never be better than the worst local file system (your local disk drive). Yet the sense I get is that the number one thing is not having to go to the basement to access the computer. Laptop seems the right choice. Perhaps use small external disks for additional storage as needed.
 
kohlson said:
Viewing and editing files can be done between any two Macs pretty easily. As recommended here, just set up the Macs to share and there your go. That said, there are many things that will affect this experience. How fast is the network connecting the Macs? How fast are the disks at each end? Processors, other background activities. and so on. Some workflows suggest copying the work files from the remote disk to a local computing environment (your laptop, say) such that all work is local. Then at the end of the session copying it back. Other workflows try and work over the network. Note that, generally speaking, the best home network will never be better than the worst local file system (your local disk drive). Yet the sense I get is that the number one thing is not having to go to the basement to access the computer. Laptop seems the right choice. Perhaps use small external disks for additional storage as needed.
Click to expand...

There is no point doing that for pictures and movies.
VLC is called Video Lan Client for a reason, and strangely enough that reason is networked video and music.
Even if you use Wifi N at just 300, you'd get the whole movie at cinema quality uncompressed in seconds fully loaded into VLC.
Seeing as most movies are at most a couple of gigabytes, you're really not going to notice a speed advantage for sneakernet unless you only have a wifi G router from 2005 or earlier.
Which is as unlikely as your contrived local disk scenario, just won't happen.
 
What about the remote editing aspect that snuck in? Can one easily do the types of editing the OP wants with VLC? Just asking as I sometime use sneaker net to move large files between one machine and another for editing or processing, just for convenience.

There are a bunch of options for just viewing.
 
ColdCase said:
What about the remote editing aspect that snuck in? Can one easily do the types of editing the OP wants with VLC? Just asking as I sometime use sneaker net to move large files between one machine and another for editing or processing, just for convenience.

There are a bunch of options for just viewing.
Click to expand...

If you had bothered to check http://www.videolan.org/index.html, you will find your answer.
You could also use iMovie which comes with all new macs, or Final Cut Pro from the app store if you need professional video editing.
 
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