Mac TV app not seeing shared media - Is this just not a thing?

[WiscoNicky]

Perhaps I'm misremembering, but back in the good ol' days of iTunes, I though we used to be able to access our shared media libraries, including Movies and TV, right in iTunes. I'm familiar with accessing my shared media library (stored on my Mac mini) on the Apple TV, but I was hoping that that same media library would be available to watch in the TV app on my MacBook Pro, or even my partner's MacBook Pro. Is this just not a thing? Was to ever a thing? If it's not possible, I find this just silly.

In System Preferences/Sharing, it even says "Devices on your network can browse and play downloaded music, movies, and TV shows." Both Media Sharing and Home Sharing are turned on on my Mac mini. All media is downloaded to the Mac mini. All devices are on the same network. The library is available on my Apple TV.

 

[Nermal]

Perhaps I'm misremembering, but back in the good ol' days of iTunes, I though we used to be able to access our shared media libraries, including Movies and TV, right in iTunes.

That was definitely a thing; I used to use it to watch stuff in bed, "streaming" from my desktop.

I haven't tried doing it in ages though...

 

[chabig]

The TV app can import media from other devices, but I don't think it can stream from a shared media source. Open the TV app's Help menu and type, "Import media using Home Sharing in the Apple TV app on Mac".

Music can still play from a shared library:

Use Home Sharing to share media from a computer to other devices - Apple Support

Stream content from your computer's iTunes library to other computers, iOS devices, and Apple TVs.

support.apple.com

 

[HDFan]

but I was hoping that that same media library would be available to watch in the TV app on my MacBook Pro,

but I don't think it can stream from a shared media source. With Media Sharing enabled in my Mac's Preferences/Sharing when I go into the TV app and select "Library" all of my

Not sure I understand the issue. With Media Sharing enabled in my Preferences/Sharing all of my Movies show in the TV app on my Mac and iPhone under the Movies section and Home Videos show in the iTunes Library section. All files are in my iTunes folder.

 

[WiscoNicky]

With Media Sharing enabled in my Preferences/Sharing all of my Movies show in the TV app on my Mac and iPhone under the Movies section and Home Videos show in the iTunes Library section. All files are in my iTunes folder.

Huh, ok, I just tried it with my iPhone and I do see the shared video library, but when I tap on it, it loads super slow. Once it's loaded I can see some categories (TV, Movies, Home Videos), but I tapped on Movies, it loaded for a while, then said my shared library wasn't available at this time.

Tested in the iPhone Music app I could see the library, just as I did in the TV app, but it did the same thing as in the TV app - after loading it disappeared. Trying again, it loaded and I was able to play music from the shared library.

I really just want to stream movies from my Mac mini to my MacBook. what happened to "It just works."?

 

[HDFan]

I just tried it with my iPhone and I do see the shared video library, but when I tap on it, it loads super slow.

What are your speedtest results? Even better would be Wifi network only speed tester (server on Mac, client on iPhone) such as network speed tester.

 

[doobydoooby]

Files on a shared folder are available for streaming on the mac tv app, I just checked and I can do it fine on my mac running ventura. Unless I'm missing something, you are just asking for the mac tv app to access a shared folder on a mac mini and stream from it much like it could access a shared folder on a NAS. Both work fine for me, I just went into preferences on the tv app and pointed the media folder location to the correct place. Equally, you should be able to do it with any other media player: infuse, vlc, elmedia player etc. Maybe your network is the bottleneck?

 

[WiscoNicky]

For anyone interested in this matter, I eventually figured it out. My confusion was due to the difference in how iPadOS&iOS, and MacOS TV apps display the Home Sharing library.

On a Mac, you can access your home sharing library by clicking on the little downward-pointing chevron next to "username's Library", in the sidebar. Then the user would select their shared library.

On iPadOS, there is a full sidebar item titled Home Sharing, where you can access you shared library. I think I would prefer some uniformity throughout the ecosystem but I'm just happy to have figured it out.

 

[Hyooman]

Thanks, that helped a lot. I was in the same boat and it just seemed uncharacteristically odd that I wasn't able to see my home library.