Movie collection on Apple TV

[comovartia]

I am thinking of getting a new Apple TV 4K. Beyond steaming I am hoping I can watch my movie collection I have ripped to a hard drive. Can I connect a hard drive to the Apple TV or would I need to get a networked hard drive? Or would that not work at all?

 

[AZhappyjack]

I am thinking of getting a new Apple TV 4K. Beyond steaming I am hoping I can watch my movie collection I have ripped to a hard drive. Can I connect a hard drive to the Apple TV or would I need to get a networked hard drive? Or would that not work at all?

It would have to be a networked drive, and would only work through Home Sharing... or a third party app like Plex and a networked drive.

 

[Boyd01]

I use a 2014 Mini as a server to watch my large library of ripped movies on two Apple TV's. It is still running iTunes with Home Sharing under Mojave. You could do the same thing with newer versions of MacOS by turning on Media Sharing in System Preferences. It is accessed via the built-in "Computers" app on the Apple TV.

There's no way to connect a disk to the Apple TV, you need a computer to host the media. There are some NAS devices that support Plex, so that might be an option but I have never really looked into it.

 

[docjj1]

I have a Linux file server with movies ripped from DVD stored there and use VLC app on Apple TV to stream the ripped video content. Works well for me.

 

[iDento]

I store my movies in an external disk connected to my Mac Mini, and use Plex server with the Plex app on Apple TV.

 

[pdmpolishing]

If you can attach a hard drive to your router or have a NAS infuse on your ATV can access the network drive, therefore there is no need to have your computer running to access your media. If you use Plex you will have to have a server running to access and sometimes transcode your media, with infuse you don't need a server.

 

[steve62388]

Yep, get Infuse. It will play them directly without the need for mucking around with the bloatware that is Plex.