ATV2 reading external drive connected to 1st gen ATV

[mdeming]

OK, here is the situation. I have a 1st gen. ATV with ATV Flash installed sitting in the closet. I regularly use ATV2. I want to move my entire itunes library off of my two computers onto an external hard drive that will be my media player. I realize there is a lot of information about media players but I haven't seen my specific question answered:

If I enable the USB port on the old ATV and plug that into an external media player that has my entire itunes library loaded, will/can ATV2 read from that itunes library located on the atv1/external hd combo unit? I think with home sharing and the new iCloud this will be a perfect way to clean up space and still have access to my content.

I tried a similar fix a few years ago by creating a partition on my time capsule, the only problem was I had to type my password in every time I wanted to access the content and it didn't stream to atv (1 at the time) as a result.

Will my idea work? Will it work seamlessly? Thanks for your thoughts.
regards
M Deming

 

[milbournosphere]

Possibly. You'd have to hack your ATV1 and install OS X Leopard on it, then get iTunes server running on it. You'll have to do Leopard in order to get the latest version of iTunes, not Tiger. Even then, I don't know how streaming video would work on a box like that; the Apple TV is not what I'd call a heavy hitter in the hardware department, and I would be hesitant to offer up the word 'seamless' as a descriptor. It might work out well once it's done, but it could be...interesting to get setup correctly.

You might also consider building a cheap hackintosh or built up an ubuntu box and load up Lion Server in a VM to handle iTunes server requirements. You could also look into Plex as a server for your media. It has a good UI on the new ATV, and they have a free Ubuntu server client. Greater expandability and a more permanent solution to your problem. Plus, you could setup a backup solution that way that would save you in the event of a server outage coupled with hardware failure, in addition to backing up files from your other macs. You can never have too many backups

 

[ehurdler]

This is all possible. I have my atv 1 hacked with atvflash. Installed and updated nitotv. Within nitotv make sure afp is turned on, as well as you could share the external USB hd with smb share. Regardless, I used atvflash black on my atv2. Setup the media player, within here it will play off file shares. Could be off a pc, Mac, or the hd from the atv1. If you want a longer explanation let me know. It is possible, I know because mine is setup to do this.