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AppleTV question that stumped the genius bar!

gcmexico

gcmexico

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Dec 22, 2007
966
209
Littleton, CO
Is there a way to transfer movies to AppleTV and then delete them from Itunes ...I find it stupid to have to have a movie in both hard drives, my Imac and AppleTV...but if I delete it from Itunes, the next time I sync, it removes the movie from AppleTV...I hope I make sense...the Apple genius I spoke to at the Apple store understood the question but had no answer for it, I was like "did I just stump the genius bar?" He said YEP!

any suggestions?:confused:
 
Well yes there is a way.... sorta. You have to trick AppleTV. By design like the iPod you need to leave it on the host computer. The reason why is again by design there is no way to transfer back from AppleTV and the iPod. NOw people have found ways and designed software to bring back from iPod but I have failed to see one for the AppleTv. So if you need to swap your AppleTV or reformat it you could be at a loss. So if you are fine with this then this is what you do. You sync like normal. Then you go to where the actual file is of said movie in your finder and just delete the file. Leave the name of the file in your iTunes library in the actual iTunes program. This will leave it on your AppleTV. This has worked for many before but I dont know if anything has changed as of recent.

Kevin :apple:
 
Why not?

I understand the need to block transfers from an iPod to a computer: iPods are portable, battery powered devices. People would plug their iPods into all of their friend's computers and "share" their libraries. It would cause a massive domino effect of piracy.

I don't own an Apple TV, but I'm pretty sure people who have them don't routinely carry them around everywhere they go.
 
I know exactly what you're talking about...

I have come across this when I want a different resolution in DVDs I have ripped via handbrake. One for the high res. apple TV setting, and the other for my iPhone and iPod. But after I put the high res. on my apple tv I don't need two of the same files, back to back, in my iTunes library and on my computer (the apple TV setting takes up significantly more space than the iPhone/iPod setting).
But if I delete it from my computer, the next time apple TV shows up under devices in iTunes and starts syncing itself, it deletes the already synced file, because it is matched with my iTunes library. I would put the high res. on my iPhone and iPod, but as discussed in other threads, iTunes does not allow this.

My solution to apple would be let the syncing be manually done; similar to how you can sync an ipod: manually drag and drop files from library to device.
 
-Jeff said:
I don't own an Apple TV, but I'm pretty sure people who have them don't routinely carry them around everywhere they go.
Click to expand...


Portability was not a consideration for purchase, however it is a huge post-purchase consideration.

I took mine over to my sisters house on Sunday, and they went out and bought one on monday. The found being able to take a small movie collection with them was a big benefit. My brother-in-law travels a lot for business and my niece has a massive DVD and she often carries several DVD's with her to friends homes. Now she can carry many more with her and with no risk of damaging the disks themselves.
 
Well with how cheap storage is nowadays and considering an Apple TV drive is much smaller than an iMac drive - this is what I suggest.

1. I too want to have different files for my iPhone and for my Apple TV. The iPhone I do at 480x and a bitrate of 400 and it looks great and movies are typically 500MB. I do the Apple TV movies at 720 or 853 anamorphic and 1500 bitrate and get 1.5-2GB files.

2. The new Take 2 software really solved a big problem for me. With the older 1.1 I had to sync what I wanted and then stream from the same computer everything else, b/c my Photo/Music/Movie library was larger than 32.x GB of Apple TV space.

3. So with Take 2 you don't have to switch between sources like you did in 1.1. As long as you leave your iTunes running and set your Mac energy settings to sleep the display but not the HDD, then Apple TV will always have access to your library. Yes this is easier for iMac owners than notebook owners.

4. B/C 2.0 supports streaming from the synced computer without setting it up as a streaming machine and only photos need to be synced from the streaming machine, I set iTunes to sync my entire iPhoto library, about 12GB. And nothing else. BTW you have to set it for custom syncing in the summary tab and not check the box below. Also go to each of the other tabs and select the 2nd option to sync only selected and then don't select any.

5. When I go into my Music or my Movies or tv shows or podcasts on the Apple TV I still can see and stream anything from movies to music. I have access to it all. And I can save that Apple TV drive space for Rental Movies and photos.

6. To avoid seeing the iPhone versions of movies I've ripped on my Apple TV when scrolling (yes I do see them in the library, but honestly I don't have as many ripped for my phone) you can uncheck the box next to them in iTunes and they won't appear on the Apple TV menus. Also to make it less confusing when I am choose what to sync or uncheck in iTunes I just name the title of the movie with the letter i after it. As in Fight Club and Fight Club i. I suppose you could put the i at the beginning and that would group them all together.

That's it.
 
roland.g said:
1. I too want to have different files for my iPhone and for my Apple TV. The iPhone I do at 480x and a bitrate of 400 and it looks great and movies are typically 500MB. I do the Apple TV movies at 720 or 853 anamorphic and 1500 bitrate and get 1.5-2GB files.
Click to expand...

Not sure if you know this or not, but with HB 0.9.2 you can create ONE file in 720p resolution that will play on the AppleTV, iPhone & current gen iPods.
 
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