Play video from seperate mac via Ethernet?

[elgrayso]

I have an iMac in my bedroom which has my movies on it, but I have a laptop in my Living room which I watch movies on (connected to TV).
If I connect the two computers together with a long ethernet cable, could I watch videos that are on my iMac and view them from my laptop? Kind of like a server? Would I be able to access files from the iMac?

(Before anyone suggests just transfering the videos, I'd much prefer to keep them on the iMac, I keep my laptop really light and minimal. )

PS: My iMac has internet plugged into the ethernet at the moment, would that be a problem?

 

[blueroom]

Have you considered using an Apple TV and running iTunes on the iMac?

 

[frankblundt]

You should be able to access the movie files on the iMac directly from the laptop through Finder if you have file sharing turned on in the Sharing preferences. It's far easier if both macs are connected to a router on the same network than if you connect them directly to one another but it can be done that way too: https://it.uoregon.edu/connect-macs

Then you can open/play them through whatever you want (Quicktime, VLC etc ).

 

[elgrayso]

It's far easier if both macs are connected to a router on the same network than if you connect them directly

Then you can open/play them through whatever you want (Quicktime, VLC etc ).

I have a modem that is connected to a router with multiple outputs. one is going to the iMac and one is going to my Roku. If I had another Ethernet cable connect from this router then would my laptop be able to connect to the iMac?

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Have you considered using an Apple TV and running iTunes on the iMac?

I already have a roku instead, and I don't like having to import things into iTunes. But thanks for the suggestion. a lot of my files are various file types so Apple TV prolly wouldn't accept them anyway