iTunes, One Library on NAS and two Macs (gapless playback)

[danke]

Hello MacRumors-Users,

this is my first entry here, because I usually find my solutions without asking questions. (I guess I have the usual problems...)

To my problem:
I have a Synology Disk Station and my iTunes library is stored there. It works just fine with my MBP '10 with Snow Leopard.
I now want to use the library with my older PPC with Leopard. It uses the same iTunes (10.2.2).
I want to use the PPC as an Entertainment System in my living room just for music (hidden in the cabinet) and remote control it with my iPhone and the Remote App from Apple.

So far so good. But the (for me) useless function "gapless playback" in iTunes makes it impossible to handle the rather simple task.
Everytime I launch iTunes on either the PPC or MBP it always wants to collect the information about gapless playback. (I am testing a small library with one album right now.)
When I close iTunes and start it up again on the same Mac it doesn't collect the infos and everything is fine. But it always does this gapless playback stuff when I start it on the other Mac and vice versa.

"Sharing" the library the iTunes way is no solution for me. I want the full library with playcounts and everything and not have to fire up the MBP all the time.

I tried putting iTunes.app on the NAS as well but that didnt work. Letting iTunes manage the library is also no help. Tried make the mp3s read only, didnt do the trick either.
Trying to sync 2 shared folders on the NAS with a library for each Mac is as well no solution to me because it might destroy my library some times....

Where is the info for gapless playback stored anyway?? xml? mp3?

Is there really no way to get rid of the gapless playback? I really like iTunes with all its features and the Remote App.



Please help me.

 

[Panch0]

I'm trying to work this out as well. i don't have a final solution yet, but here are some thoughts based on my understanding of several articles and how-tos I've read...

Check out Apple's support pages for Home Sharing. You can use Home Sharing to copy media between libraries, and you can set it up so that some things are automatically copied.

I think you want to have each of your macs have it's own local Library (which is a sort of index that iTunes uses to reference the included media files). The media files themselves can be shared on the NAS, but the libraries should be separate. I think this will take care of your gapless issue. The problem I have encountered with this is that network shares are not always restored before iTunes launches after a restart. This makes iTunes think that the media is not available.

 

[danke]

Thanks for the reply! I understand that I would have to have both Macs on and working to stream content from one library to the other iTunes. (with Apple Home Sharing http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3819)

My idea is:

NAS with iTunes library and Media Files

PPC which is able to access library without the MBP on.
MBP which is able to access library without the PPC on.
Since both Macs will use the same library, the playcounts and stuff will work normally. (I know that simultaneous access is not possible but I don't need that.)

The media files themselves can be shared on the NAS, but the libraries should be separate. I think this will take care of your gapless issue.

So you think my idea is not going to work?

 

[danke]

*push*