most lightweight home sharing setup possible?

[nicho]

i have a couple of apple tvs (a 2nd and a 3rd gen) in the house. i have a fairly large movie collection on an external hard drive, but i don't want to put it in my main itunes library (what i do right now is add a select few, watch them, delete etc.) but i'd like to run a second instance of itunes when i'm at home to allow me to stream *all* of them.

what's my best option without taxing my rMBP too much? i'm was thinking of my old copy of windows XP in parallels - can i pare the settings right down so it runs in the background without me noticing a hit on the computer, but still performs well enough for streaming movies?

has anyone else done anything similar?

 

[Alrescha]

'm was thinking of my old copy of windows XP in parallels - can i pare the settings right down so it runs in the background without me noticing a hit on the computer, but still performs well enough for streaming movies?

I think simply creating another user account and running a second copy of iTunes would be far less taxing than a copy of Windows+iTunes.

A.

 

[nicho]

I think simply creating another user account and running a second copy of iTunes would be far less taxing than a copy of Windows+iTunes.

A.

would that cause me any issues if i ever want to disconnect my MBP and take it somewhere? ie, not being able to eject drives because it's in use by another person.

 

[Alrescha]

would that cause me any issues if i ever want to disconnect my MBP and take it somewhere? ie, not being able to eject drives because it's in use by another person.

You would certainly have to stop iTunes on the secondary user before ejecting the drive. Still less convoluted than running a copy of Windows.

A.

 

[nicho]

You would certainly have to stop iTunes on the secondary user before ejecting the drive. Still less convoluted than running a copy of Windows.

A.

i'm not sure. parallels would smooth that over for me, automatically shutting it down etc. and opening it on login

 

[Alrescha]

i'm not sure. parallels would smooth that over for me, automatically shutting it down etc. and opening it on login

Fast-user-switching means flipping over to your secondary user and logging it off (which takes care of that copy of iTunes as well of course) is a trivial task. It would probably take less time than shutting down/suspending Windows on Parallels.

I ran a user with a second copy of iTunes for sharing purposes for years. I cannot imagine any scenario where doing that in a Windows VM would be the better choice for either convenience or performance reasons.

A.

 

[nicho]

Fast-user-switching means flipping over to your secondary user and logging it off (which takes care of that copy of iTunes as well of course) is a trivial task. It would probably take less time than shutting down/suspending Windows on Parallels.

I ran a user with a second copy of iTunes for sharing purposes for years. I cannot imagine any scenario where doing that in a Windows VM would be the better choice for either convenience or performance reasons.

A.

you're right. i'll give it a go. do you happen to know roughly, the size of a single user account in OSX nowadays?

 

[Alrescha]

you're right. i'll give it a go. do you happen to know roughly, the size of a single user account in OSX nowadays?

I do not know off the top of my head. I would guess a few megabytes. I suspect you will know shortly...

A.

 

[Lumpy05]

There is a great DIY article on How to Build a $150-$300 iTunes media server using a Compute Stick and external hard drives. Just another option that might be appealing in your situation.

 

[Hermes Monster]

Buy an Apple TV 4 and an Airport Extreme (or a similar router you can plug your HDD in to) and use the many streaming apps on the ATV4, I recommend Infuse. Then you can leave the MacBook out of it

 

[nicho]

Buy an Apple TV 4 and an Airport Extreme (or a similar router you can plug your HDD in to) and use the many streaming apps on the ATV4, I recommend Infuse. Then you can leave the MacBook out of it

I have a couple of Apple TVs so I'd have to buy a couple of ATV4s. And a new router.

It'd be cheaper to buy a Mac mini.