iTunes Home Sharing question

[MatLane]

I wonder if anyone can help me..


My stepfather has just got a iPad for Christmas and i'm due to buying my 2nd Mac and i've decided to set up Home Sharing so i can listen on all the devices and so can my family.

Just a few questions

Are the songs streamed in the quality that they originally are (my library is all Lossless)

Does the main computer with the files stored on, have to be turned on at all times to access the home sharing?

and will it slow the speed of my net down? ( I have around 180GB sharing )


Thanks and hope I've explained it ok, cheers in advance

 

[blueroom]

Your files will stream unaltered. Audio isn't going to give most networks any grief.

iTunes has to be running somewhere for this to work. You might want to consider iTunes Match but it will recompress to 256 AAC.

 

[MatLane]

Your files will stream unaltered. Audio isn't going to give most networks any grief.

iTunes has to be running somewhere for this to work. You might want to consider iTunes Match but it will recompress to 256 AAC.

Thanks Blueroom for the help, i was thinking about Match but was not keene on the idea of my files being compressed down...as we have some top end speakers systems and would rather lossless but still it's a great service.

Thanks!

 

[blueroom]

AAC is much better than MP3 at the same bitrate. 256Kbs AAC is going to sound excellent through speakers (remember the DACs in your computer / iPad are not great).

Headphones and good ones at that are where you might hear a difference, as you age your hearing isn't what it was when you were in your teens.

To get around the DAC deficiency you could...

• Apple TV2 via optical to a good DAC or Receiver
• AirPort Express optical out to DAC or Receiver
• A/V receiver with AirPlay

Keep in mind the Remote app for iOS is an awesome way to control media from a iTunes share.

Just food for thought.

 

[hugothomsen]

iTunes and DRM and sharing and stuff ...

Calling the techie eagles out there ...

My 4 kids are coming of age, and now have each an iTunes account, a laptop and a phone, as do my wife and I. As a long standing Apple user, I have purchased, used and enjoyed both Apple software and hardware for years ... however, I am now stumbling over a slight issue :

Originally I had my own personal .mac account that I used for purchasing content, i.e. music and films - some of them for the kids. Later I subscribed to a .me family account so I could give the kids their own emails and share files with them as and when they needed to do stuff for school - that was brilliant for years. However, the family thing has a limit of 5 and does not exist any more so I have now 6 individual .me accounts, one for each family member.

So here's the problem : my youngest kids want to watch films originally bought for the older ones - they are tagged to my .mac account, and I can share with a max of 5 computers ... but we are 6 ! So if I unshare, for example, my wife, she can't watch The West Wing and she'll kill me - if I don't, my youngest will get really noisy. Hard to choose between death and hearing loss ...

Furthermore, the kids keep getting iTunes vouchers as gifts and sometimes cash them in on my iTunes account, and sometimes on their own, so we have a right royal mess in terms of DRM. Trying to get a grip on how to get around all this, and survive with hearing intact, I have attached a network layout and am enquiring from any experts out there...

The main issue is that when you buy DRM content you are actually worse off than when buying a DVD - with a DVD, you can stick it into any drive you want and watch it, and noone complains. Not so with DRM stuff.

So :

Question 1 : Based on my network layout, where I have a single homeshare based on my iTunes account, is it really not possible to give all 6 of us access to all content on all devices without great hassle ?

Question 2 : To allow everyone to watch and listen to anything they want, do I have to become a borderline criminal, ripping all purchased content (110 movies, 800+ tracks, 12 complete TV series) so anyone in the family can access what they want when they want it, and I don't have to be around to do things to allow it ?

Question 3 : Is the layout I have made using a MacMini with a standard iTunes as a homeshare the best (albeit incomplete as no. 6 cannot play stuff) way around this, or does anyone know of hardware or software that allows me to do what I want to do without becoming a criminal ?

Thank you for any guidance. Please don't tell me to lose a child - I know 4 is excessive, but hey ho ...

Hugo

 

[thekb]

Hugo,

I do not know the answer to your question, ,but can commiserate on the restrictive 5 user limit in iTunes.

I am mainly responding to compliment you on your flow chart. If you created it just for this posting, I hope someone gets you a good answer.