Mac Family I need your help

[Bmoreguy03]

I currently have 3 external hard drives and an apple 3tb time capsule. Each external hard drive is filled with apple movies. I would let to be able to run these movies to my 4th gen apple tv. I do have a usb hub that I can use. So Mac fam can you help my figure this out?


Thank you in advance

 

[mic j]

If I understand your situation correctly, it is pretty straight forward. Using your usb hub (ideally a powered hub), attach your 3 drives to your TC. That will make the drives contents available to your aTV using wifi. Since they are Apple purchased movies they should mp4 and playable using the aTV. If you don't like the aTV interface, you can also use media apps to organize and view your media. I like Infuse. Plex is also a good option.

 

[Bmoreguy03]

If I understand your situation correctly, it is pretty straight forward. Using your usb hub (ideally a powered hub), attach your 3 drives to your TC. That will make the drives contents available to your aTV using wifi. Since they are Apple purchased movies they should mp4 and playable using the aTV. If you don't like the aTV interface, you can also use media apps to organize and view your media. I like Infuse. Plex is also a good option.

Will I be able to add new movies to it and have the apple tv automatically sync it without itunes being open?

 

[mic j]

Will I be able to add new movies to it and have the apple tv automatically sync it without itunes being open?

The Infuse app does not require that iTunes be running and that is the big advantage it has over others. It's drawback is that it does not do music. Plex is a server so it must be running on the Mac while using, however it does both video and audio and is essentially an iTunes replacement. Of course, iTunes must be running if you want to watch the movies through the "Computer" function on the aTV.

So if you don't want to be bound to a server (iTunes or Plex) running in the background to be able to watch your movies, Infuse is probably your best option.

 

[Bmoreguy03]

The Infuse app does not require that iTunes be running and that is the big advantage it has over others. It's drawback is that it does not do music. Plex is a server so it must be running on the Mac while using, however it does both video and audio and is essentially an iTunes replacement. Of course, iTunes must be running if you want to watch the movies through the "Computer" function on the aTV.

So if you don't want to be bound to a server (iTunes or Plex) running in the background to be able to watch your movies, Infuse is probably your best option.

I guess I'm going to have to keep my computer running. I wanted to use the computer function on the Atv

 

[satcomer]

I guess I'm going to have to keep my computer running. I wanted to use the computer function on the Atv

You then should look at buying a modern NAS (like Synology) and out your Music/Music on it! This way you won't have to run your computer on all the time and save space on your Mac.

 

[Hermes Monster]

I guess I'm going to have to keep my computer running. I wanted to use the computer function on the Atv

What computer function do you want to use, and why, may I ask?

My set up is:

External HDD attached to AirPort Time Caspule which I access via infuse on the ATV4, to watch my movies and TV shows. Because the HDD is attached to the ATC I can see it in finder on my Mac as a network attached drive, so any new downloads can be copied over via my network - no need to unplug the drive.

My Mac doesn't need to be running to watch any TV or movie files.

I guess the other question is, if the HDD's are filled with Apple movies, why wouldn't you just watch them on the iTunes Movies app ...

 

[mic j]

What computer function do you want to use, and why, may I ask?

My set up is:

External HDD attached to AirPort Time Caspule which I access via infuse on the ATV4, to watch my movies and TV shows. Because the HDD is attached to the ATC I can see it in finder on my Mac as a network attached drive, so any new downloads can be copied over via my network - no need to unplug the drive.

My Mac doesn't need to be running to watch any TV or movie files.

I guess the other question is, if the HDD's are filled with Apple movies, why wouldn't you just watch them on the iTunes Movies app ...

I think the "Computer" function that is being referred to is the app on the aTV that directly accesses HDD contents with iTunes acting as the server for it.

 

[Boyd01]

I have a base model Mac Mini for an iTunes server, it just runs iTunes with home sharing 24/7 and all my movies are on a fast USB 3.0 drive. You could plug multiple drives into a Mini (or any other computer running iTunes) also, but that gets a little more complicated. My setup works really well with my two Apple TV 3's and a MacBook Air. I also have a screen connected to the Mini, and it's connected to my stereo system so I can also watch iTunes movies there.

I have a 2TB Time capsule and played around with it a bit for this. External drive performance is awful, the interface is USB 2.0, expect 20 to 30 MB/sec speeds. This is fast enough to stream video, but there is a lot of latency, which makes it feel sluggish. Also, I believe the disks will automatically spin down if you stop using them for just a brief period of time. That also makes it feel really sluggish. Using a dedicated iTunes server is a much better user experience IMO (however I only have an Apple TV3 so I never tried any of the apps available on the Apple TV 4).

Backing up your media is also a pain using drives attached to a Time Capsule. Time Machine won't do this. So you have to connect an external drive to a computer on the network and back them up as shared drives. This works, but can be painfully slow with a lot of media, since the bottleneck is the 20-30MB/sec throughput on the disks. My library was about 1TB at the time I was experimenting with this, and it took hours to do a backup (using direct wired gigabit ethernet).

With the dediated machine for an iTunes server, you could just use Time Machine. I use Carbon Copy however, and every night my media drive is cloned to an identical USB 3.0 drive that is also connected to the server. I rotate between two backup drives and keep one of them separate.

If you have a big investment in media, you should also have a backup strategy.

 

[mildocjr]

Each external hard drive is filled with apple movies

If these movies were purchased in iTunes you can connect the Apple TV to the Internet and watch them through Purchases in the Movies app.

If they are just mp4 movies that were ripped from a DVD then you'd need to hook the drives up to a computer, make a reference to them in iTunes, then you could watch them from the movies category in the Computers App. You'll just need to make sure you have Home Sharing enabled in both iTunes and the Apple TV under the same account.

 

[mic j]

"you'd need to hook the drives up to a computer"

Just to be clear, the drives can be attached to the computer or the TC.

 

[Bmoreguy03]

I have a base model Mac Mini for an iTunes server, it just runs iTunes with home sharing 24/7 and all my movies are on a fast USB 3.0 drive. You could plug multiple drives into a Mini (or any other computer running iTunes) also, but that gets a little more complicated. My setup works really well with my two Apple TV 3's and a MacBook Air. I also have a screen connected to the Mini, and it's connected to my stereo system so I can also watch iTunes movies there.

I have a 2TB Time capsule and played around with it a bit for this. External drive performance is awful, the interface is USB 2.0, expect 20 to 30 MB/sec speeds. This is fast enough to stream video, but there is a lot of latency, which makes it feel sluggish. Also, I believe the disks will automatically spin down if you stop using them for just a brief period of time. That also makes it feel really sluggish. Using a dedicated iTunes server is a much better user experience IMO (however I only have an Apple TV3 so I never tried any of the apps available on the Apple TV 4).

Backing up your media is also a pain using drives attached to a Time Capsule. Time Machine won't do this. So you have to connect an external drive to a computer on the network and back them up as shared drives. This works, but can be painfully slow with a lot of media, since the bottleneck is the 20-30MB/sec throughput on the disks. My library was about 1TB at the time I was experimenting with this, and it took hours to do a backup (using direct wired gigabit ethernet).

With the dediated machine for an iTunes server, you could just use Time Machine. I use Carbon Copy however, and every night my media drive is cloned to an identical USB 3.0 drive that is also connected to the server. I rotate between two backup drives and keep one of them separate.

If you have a big investment in media, you should also have a backup strategy.

That is an excellent idea. I will see about buying an older Mac mini and using it as an iTunes server. I have about 10TBs of movies

 

[Bmoreguy03]

What computer function do you want to use, and why, may I ask?

My set up is:

External HDD attached to AirPort Time Caspule which I access via infuse on the ATV4, to watch my movies and TV shows. Because the HDD is attached to the ATC I can see it in finder on my Mac as a network attached drive, so any new downloads can be copied over via my network - no need to unplug the drive.

My Mac doesn't need to be running to watch any TV or movie files.

I guess the other question is, if the HDD's are filled with Apple movies, why wouldn't you just watch them on the iTunes Movies app ...

These movies that I have will not show up in my purchased movies section. They all are in itunes format and I would like to use the Computer section
[doublepost=1475837555][/doublepost]

What computer function do you want to use, and why, may I ask?

My set up is:

External HDD attached to AirPort Time Caspule which I access via infuse on the ATV4, to watch my movies and TV shows. Because the HDD is attached to the ATC I can see it in finder on my Mac as a network attached drive, so any new downloads can be copied over via my network - no need to unplug the drive.

My Mac doesn't need to be running to watch any TV or movie files.

I guess the other question is, if the HDD's are filled with Apple movies, why wouldn't you just watch them on the iTunes Movies app ...

How is the speed since it is connected to your ATC?

 

[Hermes Monster]

These movies that I have will not show up in my purchased movies section. They all are in itunes format and I would like to use the Computer section

Ahh now we get down to it I would still use the Infuse App over the computer app tbh - Infuse will add the artwork and metadata, will play pretty much any file type and there'll be minimal effort on your part compared to getting them iTunes firnedly.

How is the speed since it is connected to your ATC?

It takes a few seconds to load my library, then it's extremely quick, quicker than watching iTunes movies/TV shows anyway.

The app is free and you have everything you need to use it, it's definitely worth ten minutes of your time to test it.

 

[Bmoreguy03]

Ahh now we get down to it I would still use the Infuse App over the computer app tbh - Infuse will add the artwork and metadata, will play pretty much any file type and there'll be minimal effort on your part compared to getting them iTunes firnedly.



It takes a few seconds to load my library, then it's extremely quick, quicker than watching iTunes movies/TV shows anyway.

The app is free and you have everything you need to use it, it's definitely worth ten minutes of your time to test it.

I'm going to try the infuse app today

 

[aced411]

Are these "Apple Movies" purchased by you in iTunes? If so they would be under purchases. If they're purchased by someone else you will not be able to watch them. If you mean they are in an apple friendly format but not purchased then those suggestions above (home sharing/plex/infuse) would work fine.

 

[mrex]

Or vlc app which is free btw, and plays other than just "apple friendly" formats =} Plex app could be good but it relies on the server rather than the atv.