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Is Your Computer On All The Time?

A

Andrew07

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 25, 2007
282
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Just got the new Apple TV :D but I'm not quite sure I get "Home Sharing"

For you guys ripping your own movies to play on the Apple TV, are your computers on all the time? To my understanding, to play movies from your iTunes library through "Home Sharing," your Mac must have iTunes actively running. And it doesn't seem like you can stream or connect a hard drive to the Apple TV...so is there no way to access non-cloud content on the Apple TV without your Mac turned on?
 
My iMac is almost always on now that iTunes has 1080pand closed captions I'm in the process of transitioning to getting my media from iTunes. Then iCloud should allow me to turn my computer off once in a while :p
 
My computer is on all the time and I was surprised to find out that people still turned their computers off. However, you don't need to leave your computer on all the time to use Home Sharing. If you know you aren't going to watch TV any time but 6 pm to midnight, you can set your computer to turn on a little before 6, and shut off a little after midnight. Alternately, you can just set the computer to sleep and wake on LAN, wake for Network Access or wake on ethernet.
 
My iTunes library is on an external hard drive connected to my Mac Mini. I have enabled the option to wake via a lan request. So my Mac Mini will go to sleep and wake when a computer / apple tv needs access to iTunes, but I never turn off the Mini or close iTunes, aside from the occasional reboot.
 
I use a mini as my media server and yes, it's always on. There's no reason not to leave it on.
 
Yes, my iMac is almost always on with the display asleep. My ReadyNAS Ultra is also always on, with the drives configured to sleep after 1 hour of idle time. If I start playing something via home sharing and the ReadyNAS is asleep, it takes about 10 seconds for the drives to spin up and streaming to start.
 
Last edited:
Yes.

I have a Mac mini and an Airport Extreme, so the mini sleeps when it can (not often :) and the Bonjour proxy takes care of waking it up on demand.

A.
 
Alrescha said:
Yes.

I have a Mac mini and an Airport Extreme, so the mini sleeps when it can (not often :) and the Bonjour proxy takes care of waking it up on demand.

A.
Click to expand...

I have a similar setup (Airport Extreme + iMac). The Bonjour proxy works like a charm, waking the iMac just long enough to transfer the file, then gently putting it back to sleep. I even have my MBP on sleep as an alternate iTunes server, in case I've booted my iMac into Windows/Boot Camp; the AEBS works with that too. It's almost a must-have for a household that uses :apple:tv heavily.
 
Andrew07 said:
Just got the new Apple TV :D but I'm not quite sure I get "Home Sharing"

For you guys ripping your own movies to play on the Apple TV, are your computers on all the time? To my understanding, to play movies from your iTunes library through "Home Sharing," your Mac must have iTunes actively running. And it doesn't seem like you can stream or connect a hard drive to the Apple TV...so is there no way to access non-cloud content on the Apple TV without your Mac turned on?
Click to expand...

If you own a Mac mini, its the ideal server for Apple TV because of its low power consumption (abt 8-12W min to 85-110W max).

I personally have a Mac mini Dual core 2GHz with 4GB RAM and an ext 2.5' 1 TB LaCie via USB with all my iTunes on it (LOTS OF MOVIES) and it has served me very well. Occasionally if I want to browse the internet or get my email I can always turn on the monitor and work.
 
My mini's primary purpose is to serve AppleTV's but I Really wish I could just plug the HDD to the Apple TV or that my Time Capsule was also an iTunes server because its silly to have a computer on all the time just to serve the occasional movie or tv show.
 
My iMac is on 24/7 with the display set to sleep. It only gets turned off during storms so that I can unplug it (yes there is a surge protector, but I don't really trust them).
 
Sleep & wake

I just sleep mine when going to bed. It automatically wakes up when ATV or a family member uses Home Sharing to play music or movies.
 
I can't believe there have been 23 responses and no one has mentioned the obvious. Laptops. I can't say with certainty if that's what the OP is referring to, but I think it might be. Yeah if I had an iMac/Pro/Mac Mini then I'd never turn it off ever. BUT my only computer is a Macbook and I do NOT want to keep it open and plugged in at all times because that supposedly reduces battery life. I always close my macbook when not using it. It would be pretty inconvenient for me to need to go open my macbook, then launch iTunes anytime I wanted to use my Apple TV... just saying...
 
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