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Apple TV forcing media into my Itunes

O

Orange Gringo

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 13, 2009
25
0
Arghhh. I use my Apple TV for two things:

1) I push my media from ITunes to the Apple Tv so I can watch home movies, look at photos, or listen to music using my big screen tv.

2) I but movies or tv shows straight on the Apple TV and watch the shows on the Apple tv. I have no desire to back up these movies or shows anywhere besides the Apple TV hard drive.

Unfortunately, every time I sync my AppleTV and Itunes, the first thing the AppleTV does is tries to push the media I have downloaded directly to Apple TV (such as shows or movies) to my Itunes. This wastes time, gums things up, wastes my hard drive space, and is not something I want to happen.

Can I stop it? I sure can't figure out how, except to stop syncs altogether, which I don't want to do.

I know the fact that this happens disinclines me to download whole series of tv shows from Itunes onto my AppleTV, because I don't want 2 or 3 seasons of Dexter, for example, forced to my Itunes upon Sync.

Frustrating.
 
You can use Streaming instead of Syncing. Given your description of how you use the Apple TV, it seems like it would work for you:

Instead of choosing "Connect to iTunes" in the Apple TV's Settings/Computers page, choose "Add Shared iTunes Library instead.

This lets you see all the content on your iTunes library without any syncing going on.

A.
 
Alrescha said:
You can use Streaming instead of Syncing. Given your description of how you use the Apple TV, it seems like it would work for you:

Instead of choosing "Connect to iTunes" in the Apple TV's Settings/Computers page, choose "Add Shared iTunes Library instead.

This lets you see all the content on your iTunes library without any syncing going on.

A.
Click to expand...

Thanks Alrescha. Unfortunately, I erally do want to sync my media files to the Apple TV so that I can use the Apple TV without using the computer. There are a variety of reasons why steaming does not work for me (or I find it less desirable). For starters, I've found that streamed videos are much chopier and less smooth than when loaded straight to the AppleTV and played from there..

Anyone else know of a way to just shut the problem I have down, while still allowing me to do the rest of what I want to do?
 
You think that's bad, try having this problem across multiple AppleTV's. I'd be interesting in knowing as well. Will Apple untether iTunes to its hardware? Probably not. Until then, frustrations such as this persists.
 
Can I ask what you want to happen to the media on your Apple TV when the drive is full? You say you have no desire to back-up the media, however there will obviously come a time if you keep purchasing movies and tv shows that the drive will fill up.
You should be able to delete movies and tv shows purchased on the Apple TV - there used to be a little trash can icon next to these movies & tv shows, not sure if it still exists in the 2.4 update.
 
bucksaddle said:
Can I ask what you want to happen to the media on your Apple TV when the drive is full? You say you have no desire to back-up the media, however there will obviously come a time if you keep purchasing movies and tv shows that the drive will fill up.
You should be able to delete movies and tv shows purchased on the Apple TV - there used to be a little trash can icon next to these movies & tv shows, not sure if it still exists in the 2.4 update.
Click to expand...

Generally, I delete them after I watch them. But, if you buy a whole series, for example, that might not happen for a month or so.

I don't want to feel like I have to rush to delete just so I won't get force-fed this stuff on my Itunes.

In other words,this really is a problem for me that I would like to solve rather than me just not having good sense about how to manage my media.
 
geoffreak said:
Did you uncheck "sync all movies"?
Click to expand...

Then it won't sync my movies TO the AppleTV which I want to do. In other words, the AppleTv feature would be akin to your IPOD forcing the music and media on its hard drive into your Itunes every time you attempt to sync your Itunes music TO your Ipod.

Unlike the Ipod/Itunes syncing setup, which is one-way from Itunes to the Ipod, the Itunes/Appletv syncing setup for movies and tv shows goes both ways, which stinks.
 
kadeschs said:
You think that's bad, try having this problem across multiple AppleTV's. I'd be interesting in knowing as well. Will Apple untether iTunes to its hardware? Probably not. Until then, frustrations such as this persists.
Click to expand...

I'm happy with the tethering, so long as there are good options to customize data management.
 
So you want content from your ATV to sync to your Apple TV, but not content that is on your Apple TV and not your iTunes library? Strange request I must way. To sync means obviously that an exact copy exists on both devices. From what I understand, there is no way to do what you want to do. Apple copies content from the ATV to iTunes to back it up.
 
uberamd said:
So you want content from your ATV to sync to your Apple TV, but not content that is on your Apple TV and not your iTunes library? Strange request I must way. To sync means obviously that an exact copy exists on both devices. From what I understand, there is no way to do what you want to do. Apple copies content from the ATV to iTunes to back it up.
Click to expand...

I have no idea what "So you want content from toy ATV to sync to your Apple TV" means.

I also understand what the word synchronize means, thanks. But, that sync can be a 1-way sync or a 2-way sync.

I have no desire for my Itunes to backup my AppleTV. Just because that's what the almight Apple executes does not mean that is necessarily a good thing.

I am hoping there is a way around this that I am just missing. If not, I think having the option to have a 1-way sync or a 2-way sync would be better than the current system.

Unfortunately, except for a very good "stream instead of sync" suggestion from one poster, the rest of the posts have really been posts suggesting that I should not want the feature I am describing because Apple is not set up that way. Not very helpful.
 
I am a total newb to Apple TV (dont yet own one but am researching), but I wonder if its possible to have 2 iTunes accounts as a solution?

That way you can keep one iTunes account on your ATV and one on your computer. And this way you would just have to manually find a way to copy over your existing library to your ATV but then anything you'd buy via ATV would not sync back to your computer.

Of course, things you would buy on your computer would have to be manually then copied over (which might not be a problem for music due to the DRM-free nature, but could be a pain for movies and videos).
 
Have you tried setting up USB support on the ATV so that you could plug in an external HD as additional HD space to copy your files to that is not setup to sync with iTunes? All media on external HD DOES NOT get sync'd. All media on internal HD DOES get syc'd. Both HDs are accessible at ATV. Good way to isolate media content.
 
kadeschs said:
Have you tried setting up USB support on the ATV so that you could plug in an external HD as additional HD space to copy your files to that is not setup to sync with iTunes? All media on external HD DOES NOT get sync'd. All media on internal HD DOES get syc'd. Both HDs are accessible at ATV. Good way to isolate media content.
Click to expand...

wow. Did not know this was an option. I'll look into this.
 
Well, I know this is judgmental, but it sounds incredibly wasteful to me to purchase TV shows at $1.99 each (or even HD episodes at $2.99 each), and then just delete them after viewing. But I guess to each his own. Apple isn't expecting anyone not to want to keep their purchases and back them up, though, and that's why it's set up that way.

But like another poster said, if you wanted to manage it through the USB port with an external hard drive, that would work.

The way I have mine, I have 2 external drives attached to my computer, and the iTunes library is on one, and then the other is a copy of it. So I just go ahead and let the Apple TV sync to those and keep all the purchases. I suppose I should also have another backup in the cloud or something, but haven't looked into it seriously yet.
 
freediverdude said:
Well, I know this is judgmental, but it sounds incredibly wasteful to me to purchase TV shows at $1.99 each (or even HD episodes at $2.99 each), and then just delete them after viewing. But I guess to each his own. Apple isn't expecting anyone not to want to keep their purchases and back them up, though, and that's why it's set up that way.

But like another poster said, if you wanted to manage it through the USB port with an external hard drive, that would work.

The way I have mine, I have 2 external drives attached to my computer, and the iTunes library is on one, and then the other is a copy of it. So I just go ahead and let the Apple TV sync to those and keep all the purchases. I suppose I should also have another backup in the cloud or something, but haven't looked into it seriously yet.
Click to expand...

And I can't figure out for the life of me why I would want to keep a tv show after I watched it. I'm certainly never going to go watch it again. But I agree, that's just our opinions.

The bigger questions is not what we do and do not want to delete. The more relevant question is what happens to the files before we delete them vis-a-vis the Apple TV and Itunes.
 
I think Gregintosh came up with the answer. Create 2 itunes accounts, the first one will be to sync to, the second will be to stream from.

The first account you never actually log in to after you've created it and registered the :apple:TV with it , perhaps create it in a dummy user account on your computer. That way nothing can sync back to it.

The second account will be your everyday itunes, i.e. the one you use at the moment, this will only be used to stream your home movies, photo's and music, it won't sync anything to or from the :apple:TV hard drive.
 
dynaflash said:
Has nothing to do with spirit. You asked a question ... you were given the answer. Whether it's what you want to hear or not, its how it is.
Click to expand...

That's my point. You actually answered the question.

Most of the posts made no attempt to answer the question. Instead, if you look at most of the responses, they are just a series of comments about why I shouldn't really be asking the question.
 
I hope that you do want to back up your movie purchases made on Apple TV, and are not paying $14.99 or $19.99 for those and watching them once and deleting. I guess I am being too much like the mother on the AT&T rollover minutes commercials, sigh.
 
freediverdude said:
I hope that you do want to back up your movie purchases made on Apple TV, and are not paying $14.99 or $19.99 for those and watching them once and deleting. I guess I am being too much like the mother on the AT&T rollover minutes commercials, sigh.
Click to expand...

You do know you can rent movies on AppleTV too? I would never buy a movie. I watch them once and move on.
 
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