Watching Videos On Shared External Drive

[Gmouse]

Using macOS Monterey 12.6 and I have an external drive connected to my iMac with a large quantity of downloaded videos on it. I want to be able to watch them via my AppleTV in another room (on same wired/wireless network). I have shared the folder and the Apple ID logon that I use for all my Apple logons and connections has full rights on the folder, but I still can't see anything from the TV side. How do I share that folder so that I can view the videos?

Thanks!

 

[arw]

How do I share that folder so that I can view the videos?

Without a 3rd party app like Infuse or FileBrowserTV on the Apple TV your can't access plain network shares (like SMB) to play content. I guess that is what you did so far?
What you need to do is import all movies into the TV App on the Mac and enable home sharing.
In the Macs TV App make sure to untick "copy files to media folder when when adding files to the library" otherwise every movie gets copied from the external drive to the iMacs internal. Also untick the other two options to be safe.
Be aware, only compatible files get imported. No mkv files. They have to be remuxed/converted with a tool like Subler.
The more advanced and common solution is Plex which requires a separate software on your Mac but then plays all formats on your Apple TVs Plex app.

 

[gilby101]

Infuse on the Apple TV is the simple way to go. As @arw says it can access file shares - just connect with you Mac user and password. Infuse is able to play almost any video format.

 

[Gmouse]

Infuse on the Apple TV is the simple way to go. As @arw says it can access file shares - just connect with you Mac user and password. Infuse is able to play almost any video format.

OK...soooo, do I add Infuse app to AppleTV, then connect to the shared folder by SMB? I loaded Infuse on my iPhone to trial it, and it seems like it wants to add or move files TO the iPhone...can I just play them from the shared folder I created on my external iMac drive?

Thanks!!

 

[Gmouse]

Without a 3rd party app like Infuse or FileBrowserTV on the Apple TV your can't access plain network shares (like SMB) to play content. I guess that is what you did so far?
What you need to do is import all movies into the TV App on the Mac and enable home sharing.
In the Macs TV App make sure to untick "copy files to media folder when when adding files to the library" otherwise every movie gets copied from the external drive to the iMacs internal. Also untick the other two options to be safe.
Be aware, only compatible files get imported. No mkv files. They have to be remuxed/converted with a tool like Subler.
The more advanced and common solution is Plex which requires a separate software on your Mac but then plays all formats on your Apple TVs Plex app.

Most of the video files (1226 files at present) are .mp4, so assume they'd work?

I'd want to play them from the shared folder, and NOT move them to a library or anything, is that possible using Infuse, or is there a better solution?

Thanks!

 

[arw]

I'd want to play them from the shared folder, and NOT move them to a library or anything, is that possible using Infuse, or is there a better solution?

Yep, Infuse on the Apple TV should do exactly that. No copying, no importing, simply playing the files from the network share on-the-fly.
I can't add more info about Infuse as I despise subscription-based apps and therefore don't have it. On my iPhone/iPad I use nPlayer which offers exactly said functionality but it is not available on the Apple TV (there I use Plex).

 

[gilby101]

OK...soooo, do I add Infuse app to AppleTV, then connect to the shared folder by SMB? I loaded Infuse on my iPhone to trial it, and it seems like it wants to add or move files TO the iPhone...can I just play them from the shared folder I created on my external iMac drive?

Yes, install Infuse on the AppleTV and it will connect to SMB shares and play directly (stream) over the local network.

I don't find the interface all that easy to use (but got used to it). Infuse will play almost anything.

 

[Gmouse]

Besides Infuse (and...I'm not crazy about the interface, either) I also found that there is FileBrowser, and a special version, FileBrowserTV, that allows for connection to my iMac's external files.

Be aware that there is an additional requirement not really stated in documentation for either that if you have macOS Ventura, you have to deliberately check the Windows File Sharing block next to the account name used to access the shared drive, as evidently you MUST use SMB to connect with (System Settings | General | Sharing | File Sharing | Options)...else, it won't work...<G>