iPod touch Using multiple computers with multiples libraries and multiple iPods...

[xray328]

Hello everybody.

Now that my kids are getting older and getting their own computers (emacs) I want to find the best way to organize our iTunes library. Everyone has the iPod Touch (4 of us). What I as considering was having a dedicated external drive just for our main iTunes Folder and which would be shared among the 4 computers in the house (a PC - soon to be mac mini, a PC laptop, and the two emacs), then create a separate library on each computer pulling from the external HD connected to the Macmini.

I'd really I'd like to be able to plug any iPod into any computer, but I don't think there's anyway to do that (is there?)

In an ideal world, iTunes would be on the mac mini and you could choose your library off of any computer you wanted using the emac or laptop for instance. So instead of installing iTunes on every computer you could just access iTunes on the main computer via the other three using the macmini as a remote desktop.

Anyway, what's the best/simplest way to make this work?

Thanks in advance!

 

[SlovakApple]

I am not sure if I have understood everything correctly, but have you thought about the "home sharing function" in iTunes? I never used since I have only one computer but I remember it should be useful if you have several computers in a network at home, so you do not have to buy (or import) the music, videos etc. on every computer. Maybe someone who has experience with home sharing could add some info?

I'd really I'd like to be able to plug any iPod into any computer, but I don't think there's anyway to do that (is there?)

That's possible as far as all computers use one account. Back then when I lived with my brother, we had two computers and two iPods (the touch) and we used both computers and everything worked correctly.

 

[Scottyk9]

We have one computer (with lots of storage and backup) that has all of our files (music, movies, apps) on iTunes. We then use secondary computers (or even secondary accounts) and use the home sharing option to move files from the main iTunes file to other accounts. We only move what we want to sync (so that we don't replicate our large iTunes files on every computer).

This works fairly well, although requires some work to select what should (and should not be) synced. One advantage is that the main iTunes file is not at risk (don't want the kids to delete files!).

As for sync on multiple computers, I don't think this works that well, although I haven't tried recently. If the iTunes database is different on each computer, it may ask to change sync to a new computer, which would entail re-specifying what goes on the device.

Edit: for hosting all the files on one computer or network share, as you suggest, may allow streaming, but as far as I know streamed files cannot then be synchronized to a device.

 

[xray328]

Thanks for the help. It might be easier to just use the macmini as a server with all the songs on it, then people can just grab the ones they want for their own computer via CopyTrans. It won't allow me to sync any ipod on any computer, but it's probably the easier way of doing things. I like the idea of homesharing, but if I can't actually transfer the songs to the ipods (sync them) it won't work in this situation. Thanks again for the help though.

 

[tablo13]

Syncing doesn't work, but you can manually drag-and-drop files.