MacBook Pro, Apple TV and Time Capsule 2TB

[badbradderz]

I was wondering if anyone can help me with a query I have re: Apple TV and Time Capsule with my MacBook Pro.

Basically I have a relatively substantial catalogue of Movies etc on an external 1tb hard drive but I'm running low on space and contemplating grabbing a 2gb time capsule as an upgrade. As well as that it is also my birthday in a few weeks and my partner is wanting to know what I would like, I've been considering the new Apple TV for a while now, and I was just wondering how well the two integrate with 1 another.

What I was wondering specifically is....if I store all my videos on the time capsule...would I then be able to wirelessly stream them to my Apple TV, connected to any tv set within the house or would Apple TV's dependance on iTunes make this impossible.

Any tips or alternative recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

 

[bjett92]

I think you would have to have the Time Capsule wirelessly connected to the MacBook Pro. You can then jailbreak the AppleTV and install aTV Flash which allows you to stream non-iTunes media from your MacBook. So then you will have the movies on the Time Capsule which would be attached to the MacBook Pro and the aTV would be able to stream them as long as you have file sharing turned on.

 

[badbradderz]

Thanks for your reply.

Not overly keen on Jailbreaking, never have been, though your suggestion does sound good.

Any other suggestions? it doesn't have to be using Time Capsule and/or Apple TV, I'm just basically after external storage for my media and a way of wirelessly getting that content onto my TV with ease.

 

[nwcs]

Honestly I wouldn't use the time capsule as a streaming drive. That would be SLOW. If you're running out of space it would be cheaper to just get a larger drive and move the library to that and get an Apple TV. Then you'd be able to use your old drive as a backup drive.

I'm assuming you already have wireless? If not then you'll need wireless in addition to the above.

 

[bjett92]

I do the same thing, except I use a USB external drive instead of a wireless drive. The apple TV will only play files in your iTunes library without jailbreaking.

 

[badbradderz]

Thanks again for the quick replies.

Is it possible (this may seem like a silly question) to add all the files on an external hard drive (Time Capsule or a USB one) to iTunes without having to consolidate them onto my MacBook Pro hard drive?

 

[bjett92]

Thanks again for the quick replies.

Is it possible (this may seem like a silly question) to add all the files on an external hard drive (Time Capsule or a USB one) to iTunes without having to consolidate them onto my MacBook Pro hard drive?

Try holding option and dragging the movie file into your iTunes library. Just make sure that the movie file is compatible with iTunes.

 

[MarineR6er]

What I do.

What I do is I have a Apple TV 1st generation and all my media on a 2 TB External drive plugged into the USB port on my Airport Extreme (APE), basicaly what you are talking about with your TimeCapsule.
Then I set up my Mac Mini to import the media from the external drive attached to the APE and use it as it's itunes library. To do this you go to preferances in itunes and uncheck the box that says copy media to hard drive when added to itunes library. This makes your Mac look at the drive attached to the APE or Timecapsule. Then your apple tv streams from the mac mini or macbook. It worked for me and when you first start a movie it will take about 30 seconds to buffer and then it runs smooth for me. Hope this helps.

 

[MarineR6er]

True that.

Try holding option and dragging the movie file into your iTunes library. Just make sure that the movie file is compatible with iTunes.

Just like he said....I converted all my .avi files to the apple tv compatible format by using Handbrake. "Awesome Program"

 

[newagemac]

Just hold option or command (I forgot which) while dragging your media from the Time Capsule to iTunes and it will add it to your iTunes library without actually moving the file. So you can leave the files on your Time Capsule and play them from the Apple TV. And you don't need to jailbreak to do that.


There is also a setting within iTunes preferences where you can choose this to be the default behavior. Then the opposite happens when holding option while dragging into the library.

And if you so choose, you can also just move your entire iTunes library to the Time Capsule.

 

[mdeming]

time capsule backup

I did what you are talking about a few years ago. The problem is that whenever I wanted to access the content from the time capsule in my itunes I would have to type in my password for the time capsule. I could see the content titles but if I clicked on them I got the prompt. Its been awhile since I had this setup but if I remember correctly the password prompt made that content impossible to stream to atv. I was using a gen 1 atv that had atvflash installed. It may not be a bad idea to just have a partition on the time capsule (assuming you don't have another external drive) to backup your library just in case.

Now i'm trying another idea of plugging a large external drive into my old atv and seeing if the new atv will read off of the old drive if my library is on the gen 1 atv/external drive combo.