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Has the home sharing browser been improved?

A

andyp350

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 14, 2011
807
460
I can't seem to find much information online about how the home sharing is on the new Apple TV, in fact I even wondered for a while if this feature had been removed completely!
It always bugged me on the older Apple TVs when browsing tv shows from my iTunes library how each season of each show was listed as a separate show, rather than selecting say 'Game of Thrones' and then having a list of seasons, does anyone know if this has been improved on the new apple tv?
 
Not a single bit... In fact it's worse now because there is no down button to hold down... Now you have to continually scroll.
 
i have about 1500 movies and it is a massive pain to scroll. If they could give a way to jump to a letter in the alphabet, that would be a tremendous help.
 
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I gave up on ripping my DVDs and just started re-purchasing the important stuff on iTunes... I'm sure that's Apples goal. But on the plus side the iTunes HD looks better then DVDs
 
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richpjr said:
i have about 1500 movies and it is a massive pain to scroll. If they could give a way to jump to a letter in the alphabet, that would be a tremendous help.
Click to expand...
Does Siri take you straight to the movie you want?
 
ajiuo said:
I gave up on ripping my DVDs and just started re-purchasing the important stuff on iTunes... I'm sure that's Apples goal. But on the plus side the iTunes HD looks better then DVDs
Click to expand...
The thing is that this also affects movies purchased from iTunes if you want to stream them locally (as opposed to the cloud).
 
chabig said:
Does Siri take you straight to the movie you want?
Click to expand...

From what I can tell so far, Siri only knows about playlist entries that are actually displayed on the screen. I don't mean in the playlist that is displayed on the screen, I mean the playlist entry is actually visible on the screen. If I ask for something in the playlist that is not on the screen I get shown an iTunes screen to purchase it. How this is useful, I have no idea.
 
Wow thanks for the info. This really puts me off purchasing. I have a massive local tv and movie library on my MacBook so streaming to the Apple TV would still be my primary use. This really puts me off getting one to be honest!
I suspect as others have said, Apple have no incentive to improve the home sharing interface as they'd rather push paid for content on their users.
 
andyp350 said:
I suspect as others have said, Apple have no incentive to improve the home sharing interface as they'd rather push paid for content on their users.
Click to expand...
Well, my Homesharing library includes several hundred TV episodes that I purchased from their store. I sort of expect to be able to access them easily using their device. I prefer to download iTunes content to my local libary once and then stream it locally rather then from the Internet.
 
andyp350 said:
Wow thanks for the info. This really puts me off purchasing. I have a massive local tv and movie library on my MacBook so streaming to the Apple TV would still be my primary use. This really puts me off getting one to be honest!
I suspect as others have said, Apple have no incentive to improve the home sharing interface as they'd rather push paid for content on their users.
Click to expand...

thats why I use Plex! http://www.plex.tv
 
Yea.... iTunes HomeSharing worked well for me before, but it looks like Plex might be the way to go these days.
 
Home sharing is the same, the only thing changed is that if you have multiple episodes in a series it will continue to play them one after another. This would only work before if you started playing an episode using the remote app.

Not interested in Plex because you have to pay a subscription for it, to play your own media, wtf.
 
Marshall73 said:
Not interested in Plex because you have to pay a subscription for it, to play your own media, wtf.
Click to expand...


You don't. You only pay if you need extra remote play features.

Plex is great. It plays almost any media file format. Auto add cover art, film info and can even add subtitles for you.

I've been using home sharing for years but after I tried using plex I never looked back
 
AlyMourad said:
You don't. You only pay if you need extra remote play features.

Plex is great. It plays almost any media file format. Auto add cover art, film info and can even add subtitles for you.

I've been using home sharing for years but after I tried using plex I never looked back
Click to expand...

Ah, was sure they stated that it was only going to be available to premium members first, like they did with the Xbox one version.

I tried Plex before but it couldn't handle the way my media is stored (it's all in iTunes and in m4v format and on multiple locations, plus all of my media has cover art, subs and full synopses etc) Plex just spewed out a jumbled mess mixing TV shows with movies and there was no way I was going to rename 4000+ video files just so it could work out what everything was. :(
 
At this point, those of us relying on Home Sharing are better off moving to Plex once it is available.

I've used it for years anyway. They've been so good at keeping the apps updated. They look beautiful on iOS right now too. I've been using Home Sharing for a couple years now, with about 5 Apple TVs in the house, and it's a daily occurrence where it's not working and I have to restart iTunes on the Mac. Plex is always solid in that regard.
 
Marshall73 said:
Home sharing is the same, the only thing changed is that if you have multiple episodes in a series it will continue to play them one after another. This would only work before if you started playing an episode using the remote app.
Click to expand...

...which is not good when you fall asleep watching episode 5 out of 20.
 
profets said:
At this point, those of us relying on Home Sharing are better off moving to Plex once it is available.

I've used it for years anyway. They've been so good at keeping the apps updated. They look beautiful on iOS right now too. I've been using Home Sharing for a couple years now, with about 5 Apple TVs in the house, and it's a daily occurrence where it's not working and I have to restart iTunes on the Mac. Plex is always solid in that regard.
Click to expand...
I have used Plex before and do like it however seeing as I organise all my media in iTunes I would prefer to be able to stream directly from that rather than having to manage a Plex library as well.
My smart TV and many other devices I own already have a Plex app so theres no really no need for me to buy the new Apple TV if i'm just going to have to end up using Plex anyway.
For me the whole idea of buying Apple hardware is so that I can use everything universally across the 'Apple Ecosystem' having to then use Plex for my films and tv shows defeats the purpose of having the Apple hardware.
 
I'm not a fan of the way the ATV organizes TV shows, but there is 'workaround' that works well for me. Smart playlists and folders. It takes a little time to setup, but then I am able to sort them the way I want (By episode number, chronologically, etc.). Also, since playlists are first on the list, I don't have to scroll down to get to them.

It's not the easiest way, but it works for now.
 
The Mad Hatter said:
I'm not a fan of the way the ATV organizes TV shows, but there is 'workaround' that works well for me. Smart playlists and folders. It takes a little time to setup, but then I am able to sort them the way I want (By episode number, chronologically, etc.). Also, since playlists are first on the list, I don't have to scroll down to get to them.

It's not the easiest way, but it works for now.
Click to expand...
Might give this a try, my tv episode library isn't ridiculously large so it shouldn't take me too long to get them organised.
 
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