Last night I partitioned my external harddrive (500 gig drive). I figured 350 gig for time machine backups, and the rest for movies (150 ish). That's as far as I got, I'm new to streaming video from my imac to atv2. What I would like to do is handbreak movies to the external drive and be able to stream them to atv2. What is the correct way to do this and what do I need to setup in advance so when my kids what to see their movies, it's easy for them to find them on atv? Thanks.
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Movies on Harddrive (how do I find them)
- Thread starter imamully
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You need to use Handbrake (or similar) to convert the material to .m4v. The aTV2 preset is fine, but you probably will want to add Detelecine and Decomb (under the video tab) for TV content.
After this, you'll need to drag this content into iTunes (you'll need to Change the iTunes Media Folder Location, under the Advanced tab in iTunes, to store the media on a separate hard drive, unless you have a huge hard drive on your computer) & turn Home Sharing on in iTunes and on the aTV (both need to be turned onto the same account). At this point, with iTunes running, the content should appear on the aTV under the Computers tab.
After this, you'll need to drag this content into iTunes (you'll need to Change the iTunes Media Folder Location, under the Advanced tab in iTunes, to store the media on a separate hard drive, unless you have a huge hard drive on your computer) & turn Home Sharing on in iTunes and on the aTV (both need to be turned onto the same account). At this point, with iTunes running, the content should appear on the aTV under the Computers tab.
What format are the movies in now, will you be ripping DVD's.
On a side note, it does not sound like you have a lot of room to work with. I would suggest at least 1TB for your movie collection (i bet it grows from 150)
No No No
From my reading of your situation, you want your movies on the external but the other media somewhere else, internal implied?
If you want to put your movies on the external but not physically in the main organized iTunes library (internal), put them in a folder on the external.
When you add them to iTunes, hold the option key which will let iTunes catalog the movies but will leave them on the external drive.
This way, your music is on your internal and the movies on the external, but can only be played if the external is plugged in..
Either will work. My way will put all your music and movies on the same external drive, that's true. That's what I do, allowing iTunes to keep my media organized in a single iTunes folder on a single drive instead of scattered over multiple drives.
It means you need a drive big enough to hold it all. Also, I use my iPod, not my laptop, to take my music away from home, which might change what I prefer. It's a life choice you need to make.
And this 150 GB of movies (I agree that it is also far too small) is backed-up where?
I always cringe when I hear people partitioning their TM drive. That means if your TM drive dies, you still have all of your data on the main computer, but you have lost anything on the partition.
Buy a 1TB external for TM and keep the 500GB strictly for your movies. Have TM backup both the internal and the movie drive onto the 1 TB drive. You can get a 1TB online (and in stores) for less than $80 these days...buy.com has them for less than $60! There is no excuse to not have everything backed up.
I always cringe when I hear people partitioning their TM drive. That means if your TM drive dies, you still have all of your data on the main computer, but you have lost anything on the partition.
Buy a 1TB external for TM and keep the 500GB strictly for your movies. Have TM backup both the internal and the movie drive onto the 1 TB drive. You can get a 1TB online (and in stores) for less than $80 these days...buy.com has them for less than $60! There is no excuse to not have everything backed up.
