AppleTV and homeshare or NAS

[itunesdingdong]

Hi,

I have a Apple TV, an Imac running Windows Vista, a Seagate BlackArmor NAS and a Airport Extreme. The Itunes library is on the NAS so that I may access it from multiple pc's at home.

I have two related questions:
1. When using Homesharing the Apple TV only discovers my "computer" when I have 1) turned on the imac 2) open explorer and clicked on the drive (on the NAS) that contains the itunes library (so that it maps this) 3) open Itunes on the imac

Should that really be necessary?

2. Is there any way I can point my Apple TV at the itunes library at the NAS instead?

Thank you very much in advance

 

[hitekalex]

2. Is there any way I can point my Apple TV at the itunes library at the NAS instead?

No. Out of the box, Apple TV needs a running iTunes instance to serve streaming media. What you have on your NAS is a raw media files - the iTunes databases and server processes are on your iMac.

If you patch/jailbreak your Apple TV and install something like XBMC - you can get file level access to your NAS media. But it won't be served as iTunes media, so you lose all your tagging, cover art, etc.

 

[itunesdingdong]

Isn't that a shame

Can't believe that Apple would actually sell something that is so badly thought through that you really have to go start up the imac etc. to see your media on the Apple TV.

 

[Panch0]

Can't believe that Apple would actually sell something that is so badly thought through that you really have to go start up the imac etc. to see your media on the Apple TV.

Well, if you were running OS X, it would wake ON LAN, and after a brief delay, your library would start itself up. No idea if you can do that with an iMac running Vista.

Or, you could just leave the iMac running. I have mine set to sleep the screen, but leave everything else running. Again, not sure how much you can control the sleep settings in Vista.

 

[ericvmazzone]

Can't believe that Apple would actually sell something that is so badly thought through that you really have to go start up the imac etc. to see your media on the Apple TV.

Then return it and get something else.