Password Protect Shared External HD

[lotzosushi]

Hey everyone,

Sorry if there's a simple solution to this but I've done quite a bit of searching and I can't seem to find a way to solve my problem.

I want to know how I can set up an external hard drive that will be used for network streaming movies/tv shows to my HDTV as a read-only drive and will require a password if I plug it into a computer. The reason I want to do this is because I want to share my media with my roommates and friends so that they are available for free viewing but don't want them to be able to just drag and copy everything that's taken me a long time to download and organize if they view them on their computers.

I've read about creating a sparseimage to password protect but then it won't be able to be shared on a network to view on the HDTV without entering a password.

Please let me know if there is any way to set this up. The current setup consists of an LG HDTV, Network enabled blu-ray player, my MacBook Pro, a WD 2TB external HD and an Airport Extreme Base station.

Thanks! 🙂

 

[miles01110]

I've never heard of anything that would allow you to do this.

 

[mwhq]

What you would need is server software so you could grant permissions and push them recursively. I haven't got a NAS so not sure if the vendors include this in their software. The mac equivalent would be Snow Leopard Server.

Hope this helps

 

[lotzosushi]

Thanks, I appreciate it 🙂