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eddieblock

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 2, 2008
71
0
hello. i have an imac and an apple tv, all set up wirelessly and working fine. my question is i have just bought a mac mini for my son and would like to know if i can use the mac mini to watch content from the apple tv. without affecting my imac setup. it will have to be wireless aswell. thanx ppl.
 
you can't use the mini to watch content on your atv, but you can use the atv to watch content on the mini.

if you're just watching stuff in itunes, you can share your library on the imac so that it's available on the mini.
 
that,s what i thought. i have the sharing part set up but that requires my comp to be on at the same time. thanx
 
Yea, just set up iTunes to share the library ( you can use password if you like) and then the mini will be able to see the contents in it's iTunes, and will play them there. I'm not sure if it will work in Front Row or not...
 
OK just tried it... It works on Front Row. In iTunes, got to Preferences and then Sharing, and choose to share the library. Use a simple password if you want one because inputting it in FrontRow is a pain.

Then on the mini, open iTunes and go to Preferences, Sharing and tell it to look for shared libraries. It will now appear in the sources list.

In Front Row (hold the apple key and press escape) go down to Sources, and choose the computer you are sharing the library of. Enter the password if you have one and it will load the library. This might take a moment (took about 15seconds for my 2TB+ library) and then you can browse stuff to play. Note that the menus are not the same as the AppleTV and in some cases are not as good to use - such as not having the genres menu in the movies section and such.

It's pretty simple to set up really- hope it works out well for you :)
 
thanx for the help. didn't know you could use front row. I'll set that up and should be perfect for what I want. thanx
 
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