Setting up media server

[emegmac]

I have been reading this forum for the last few days. I am getting an appletv for my 65 inch tv. I have had a macbook pro for a while now. I recently found a powermac for a 100 dollars. My first question is how do I get my itunes library on that machine. I have 2 500 gb externals I would like to put it on, hooked up to the powermac. I have 5500 songs, 35 movies so far and a few hundred tv shows. Everything is very very organized, with ratings on everything. I want to keep everything the way it is, including play counts. The powermac is very slow at handbrake so I want to use my macbook to compress them load them into itunes wirelessly. Right now I'm streaming everything to my xbox 360 and I hate the interface. All the tv shows shows up by episode name not what show or what season. So I hope the apple tv will make me happy.I have 300 dvds I am starting to convert. When its done it should be very nice.

 

[dynaflash]

My first question is how do I get my itunes library on that machine. I have 2 500 gb externals I would like to put it on, hooked up to the powermac.

Well, just transfer the library via ethernet or whatever <confused>.

I don't see a second question anywhere.

 

[gadabout]

there are several ways to do this. the easiest in my opinion is to hook up the external drive to the macbook, tell itunes to keep the library there, hit "consolidate library," wait up to several hours, and make sure everything copied over alright. next, quit itunes. go to finder, and locate the itunes library file in your music folder. move the library file to the external drive. create an alias of it. put the alias where the old library file was (music/itunes), replacing the pre-move library file. launch itunes and make sure everything works.

now, plug the external drive into the powermac. copy the alias of the library file to the music/itunes folder of the powermac. open itunes. it should load the library file from your external drive, showing all of your media. go to the itunes prefs and tell it to put new stuff on the external (or another external/internal drive if you're low on space).

now you can delete the original music and movies from the macbook if everything is working well.

you can delete the alias on the macbook if you plan to let it have its own itunes library (if you dont do this, itunes will not open unless the external drive is plugged in. if you ever rip a cd when out of the house, you may want to have itunes openable...).

sorry if this is confusing at all. i don't have time to proffread it. let me know if anything needs clarification, and i can help out more later.

hope this helps though!