AEBS and Airdisk?? Keeping iTunes organized!

[TylerDurden130]

I’m an ATV newbie, just received my refurb yesterday in the mail, I ordered a 16GB, but it looks like they sent me a 32GB, didn’t know they made those but I’m not complaining.

I was planning on hacking it to be able to run an external hd, but now I’m having second thoughts and need some experienced advise.

My itunes library is very organized, all movie posters and meta data thanks to iFlicks. I store all my movies/tv shows on a 1TB external hardrive. I don’t really care about being able to play other type of files as I encode everything with handbreak anyway, I have about 400Gb worth of files.

I was messing around with the streaming option and it seemed to work great with some tinkering. (I usually just create reference files with iFlicks, but those didn’t seem to work with the streaming option, didn’t show up under the Shared Movies of ATV. So I instead deleted them out of my iTunes, then drag/dropped using the option button and that worked fine, I just had to manually grab the artwork, then update the meta tags.)

The movies were fine, its just the TVShows that weren’t working, I couldn’t drag/drop into the TVShows list, it would show up in the Movies, then the meta wouldn’t update, not a huge deal I guess, I could just plug in my external to my computer each time, and stream from there, but if anyone has any suggestions I would greatly appreciate it!

I was reading about AEBS and using AirDisk at the same time (I don’t have one, but would consider picking one up), does anyone else do this? What is your experience with this? If you use this, how does that work with itunes? As far as being able to add artwork, and meta information? I assume I could access it with my macbook, but I was planning to stream from the AEBS, not from my computer.

Maybe I’m making this harder then what it is, any advise would be greatly appreciated!

 

[mstrze]

32GB? The only options that I know of for ATV are 40GB and 160GB models.

We are talking AppleTV now, correct? Because your issues seem somewhat foreign to me.



What I do:

I have my entire iTunes library on a FW external hooked up to my Mini. I have handbraked 40+ movies with all the info and 'posters', I have not attempted TV shows yet. Everything looks exactly the same in iTunes and my AppleTV.

I don't sync any content....turned off syncing in every category...so I just stream from my itunes library hosted on the iMac Mini.

All streaming is done over WiFi connection in my home.

I have all my content, as it is in iTunes, with movies posters and all metadata, visible on ATV.

Not sure what your issue is.

 

[bohbot16]

I'm using the setup that you're referring to.

I have a USB hard drive connected to my Time Capsule as an AirDisk. This works the same if you use an AEBS instead. It's formatted HFS+journaling.

I changed the location of my iTunes library to point to the AirDisk. I enabled the new iTunes organization method (new in iTunes 9) which causes the folder structure to make more sense. I also told iTunes to copy files to my iTunes library (which is now on the AirDisk). I also had to tell iTunes to consolidate my library.

I set up iFlicks to add files directly into iTunes, so it copies them to the AirDisk after tagging.

When streaming to the AppleTV, the videos are streamed through my MacBook like this:
AirDisk->Time Capsule->MacBook->Time Capsule->AppleTV
Because the MacBook is in the loop, I connect it to the Time Capsule using 5GHz 802.11n

 

[TylerDurden130]

32GB? The only options that I know of for ATV are 40GB and 160GB models.

We are talking AppleTV now, correct? Because your issues seem somewhat foreign to me.

Yeah it says free space 32GB, its weird but whatever as long as it works I guess.

 

[TylerDurden130]

I'm using the setup that you're referring to.

I have a USB hard drive connected to my Time Capsule as an AirDisk. This works the same if you use an AEBS instead. It's formatted HFS+journaling.

I changed the location of my iTunes library to point to the AirDisk. I enabled the new iTunes organization method (new in iTunes 9) which causes the folder structure to make more sense. I also told iTunes to copy files to my iTunes library (which is now on the AirDisk). I also had to tell iTunes to consolidate my library.

I set up iFlicks to add files directly into iTunes, so it copies them to the AirDisk after tagging.

When streaming to the AppleTV, the videos are streamed through my MacBook like this:
AirDisk->Time Capsule->MacBook->Time Capsule->AppleTV
Because the MacBook is in the loop, I connect it to the Time Capsule using 5GHz 802.11n

Thanks for the info, sorry I'm trying to get the logic here... When you say its formatted a certain way, why does that matter? How do you do it?

So even your music now is stored on the AirDisk? I guess it wouldn't really matter, but would I have to move my current itunes folder to the airdisk, then reimport the entire library? Or can I just move the folder, then just point Itunes to it?

Do you encode your files before using iFlicks? Or do you let it do that too? What setting do you use? The AppleTV? I was using the reference file, but ATV wouldn't see it.

On the ATV you just point it to stream at your macbook, but since your macbooks itunes is actually the time capsule its finding the files there? Again thanks for the information, I think this is what I'm going to do.. I just really like iFlicks and the way it works that I didn't want to give that up I guess.

 

[bohbot16]

Thanks for the info, sorry I'm trying to get the logic here... When you say its formatted a certain way, why does that matter? How do you do it?

I formatted it when it was empty using Disk Utility. It needs to be Mac OS format if you want to hold any files over 4GB. Otherwise, it can be FAT32 format. NTFS (Windows) format doesn't work as an AirDisk. Most drives come new as FAT32. Formatting erases the disk, so be careful with what you choose.

So even your music now is stored on the AirDisk? I guess it wouldn't really matter, but would I have to move my current itunes folder to the airdisk, then reimport the entire library? Or can I just move the folder, then just point Itunes to it?

Yes, my entire library is on the AirDisk. If you tell iTunes to consolidate your library it will move the files over for you so you don't have to re-import.

Do you encode your files before using iFlicks? Or do you let it do that too? What setting do you use? The AppleTV? I was using the reference file, but ATV wouldn't see it.

I suggest encoding files using HandBrake's AppleTV preset then using "Flatten to QuickTime" in iFlicks. I haven't played with the built-in encoding features of iFlicks.

On the ATV you just point it to stream at your macbook, but since your macbooks itunes is actually the time capsule its finding the files there? Again thanks for the information, I think this is what I'm going to do.. I just really like iFlicks and the way it works that I didn't want to give that up I guess.

As far as the AppleTV knows, it's getting the files from the MacBook. iTunes running on the MacBook keeps track of the actual file location.

 

[TylerDurden130]

Thanks, for the information it was very helpful! I just ordered a AEBS. thanks

 

[soLoredd]

Using this method, can the AppleTV see the AirDisk as an iTunes library? Or must you still have a computer running iTunes in order for the AppleTV to access the content? I'd like to get my G4 Mini out of the loop but I doubt that will be possible

 

[bohbot16]

Using this method, can the AppleTV see the AirDisk as an iTunes library? Or must you still have a computer running iTunes in order for the AppleTV to access the content? I'd like to get my G4 Mini out of the loop but I doubt that will be possible

It still requires a computer. My MacBook automatically wakes from sleep mode if the AppleTV needs to sync or stream.

 

[TylerDurden130]

Ok, I was just thinking... If I move my itunes to an external HD, and use AirDisk, I guess when I take my computer places I won't be able to listen to my music, because it won't be able to find the file, correct? Then I thought, I would keep my itunes on my internal, then just do the 'option drag' into iTunes from Airdisk. Then it brought me back to my original issue, I can't do that with television shows, it only lets me drag into movies.

So, can I somehow move just the Movies/TVShows directory to Airdisk? The problem are my television shows, and also those will be the ones updated/add too the least. How can I get around this?

Should I move my iTunes to Airdisk, then add all my tv shows so they show up under TVShows, then move my iTunes back to my internal hardrive? I assume when I do this and I try to play a TVShow it will say something like file not found, but will I get a prompt to find the file? That way I could navigate back to the Airdisk where all my TVShows are stored and find that episode. Any suggestions would be appreciated, just kicking around some ideas to be able to keep my music stored internally and Movies/TVShows externally.. Thanks

 

[TylerDurden130]

After playing around with it, I think this is what I'm going to do to accomplish keeping my music locally and my movies/tvshows on my external hardrive...

I'm going to move all my movies/tvshows to my external and delete them out of my itunes.
next i'm going to hold down option while starting itunes and click create new library (this will just be for my tvshows and movies)
Next i'll use iFlicks to import all my movies/tvshows, and use flatten quicktime with copy to itunes check since its pointing to my external drive

I don't see why this won't work, any thoughts?

I just have to refind my library for music when I want to use that..