No way to sync or put movies on AppleTV v2.1

[AV Integrated]

First time poster - and I didn't see a thread on this.

This seems like it should be basic, but I have no way to sync my iTunes to AppleTV. I can stream from iTunes to AppleTV, but I can't actually put any movies or music on my AppleTV at all.

I have firmware 2.1 running on my AppleTV currently if that makes a difference.

I would really like to be able to have these movies on my AppleTV instead of having to have a computer on, and dedicated to streaming the movies I have to the AppleTV. It also means that I can't use my iPod Touch to browse or find any movies whatsoever on my AppleTV since 'Remote' doesn't allow me to browse to shared videos.

Any help is appreciated!

 

[jsimmons]

Have you selected the apple tv and set up the sync preferences. When you click the apple tv i the side menu of itunes you should see automatic sync or custom sync which is selected?

 

[AV Integrated]

Have you selected the apple tv and set up the sync preferences. When you click the apple tv i the side menu of itunes you should see automatic sync or custom sync which is selected?

That's just it - Unlike my Nano and iPod Touch when I click on the AppleTV the only two tabs which appear are 'SUMMARY' and 'PHOTOS' the summary tab has no check boxes at all - just info about the AppleTV. The Photos tab lets me pick a folder to sync, but that's it.

FYI: I did the firmware update which took me to v2.3 but that didn't seem to improve anything.

I will try rebooting my PC and I will also try resetting the AppleTV to see if that helps.

I did just plug in my Touch and saw that on the Summary page it gave me the 'Sync' options.

I just expected the AppleTV to have similar tabs to my Touch so that I could pick which movies I wanted to sync. I currently have about 150 movies which I can stream, but I would like to have 30 or so of the newer films which are instantly available.

 

[AV Integrated]

Grrr...

Got it figured out.

Apparently I had only setup my AppleTV for streaming from my iTunes Library and hadn't set it up to actually be a device in my iTunes library. I will go and check, but I would bet that I have to do both, set it up for streaming AND set it up to be a device.

Now all I need is to figure out how to add a true external hard drive to my AppleTV directly.

 

[GreatDrok]

No, you need to set your Apple TV to sync with your iTunes library (and you can only do this with one copy) but you can also stream from other iTunes shares. For example, my Apple TV syncs with my Mac mini iTunes library but it also streams from my MacBook Pro iTunes library too. When setting up sync, you also need to decide what should actually be copied to the disc on your Apple TV, and what will just stream from your iTunes library. In my case, I set it to copy new films and TV shows but nothing else. This means that when iTunes is running, the entire music and film library is available, but when it isn't, only those files that are synced to the built in drive are available. It is seamless and works well. Local copies will start quicker but other than that it is all the same. Since my media disc is 400GB, it can only sync a small portion of it to the ATV because it only has a 40GB drive. Rentals are also stored locally too and purchases will sync back to my iTunes library.