Syncing vs. Streaming (no longer necessary)

[staylo030]

Wow! It finally works.

Yes. Just make sure all your files are checked in your Library. Unchecked files will not show up on the stream. It works great.

Thank you for that last piece of the puzzle. I have spent hours working on this since doing the upgrade Tuesday night. I even did the factory reset and installed the upgrade again. No matter what I did with the custom sync settings, even following roland.g's instructions to the letter, streaming music would not work for me. TV shows - yes. Movies - yes. My music library - not one song would show up on Apple TV unless I selected it for syncing, which I did not want to do. I want to keep the hard drive free for photos and TV shows and stream most or all of my music.

So what finally worked for me was going into iTunes, selecting the Apple TV, and with custom sync turned on, going to the Music tab, *turning off* Sync music, going to my music library, putting a check mark in front of all my songs, then clicking back on the Apple TV and hitting Sync. Suddenly all my music showed up on the Apple TV, all through streaming. But here is the catch - if I uncheck any or all of the songs in iTunes, they disappear from the Apple TV. Again, this is streaming, not syncing. I just don't get that, and it is not documented anywhere I can see. The only reason I can surmise for this behavior is that if people want to stream their music library, and it is really large, this would be a way to allow some control over how much information is sent to the Apple TV. But to me, it is not intuitive, so it needs to be clearly documented somewhere.

Anyway, thank you to the people posting in this thread!

 

[Edandlindz28]

Thanks for the help. I was getting annoyed with having to load my library all the time, now it works great!

 

[roland.g]

I'm not sure what use checking or not checking songs has in everyday use. The only use we have is that we set my wife's Nano to sync only checked songs and to sync all audiobooks. When she gets a new book she checks it and when she finishes a book she unchecks it and that controls which books are synced to her Nano.

I can see that some people were having problems getting the summary tab that I had b/c they had their tv set to stream and not set to sync at all. The way I used to have it was that I synced some stuff but also streamed so really the same computer was connected both ways and in the software's 1.x mode, you had to go to sources to choose which one. 2.0 makes this unnecessary since all non-synced media except for photos can be streamed through the synced machine. Just don't set it up to stream as if it was an additional computer.

 

[Duffinator]

Thanks!

I can see that some people were having problems getting the summary tab that I had b/c they had their tv set to stream and not set to sync at all. The way I used to have it was that I synced some stuff but also streamed so really the same computer was connected both ways and in the software's 1.x mode, you had to go to sources to choose which one. 2.0 makes this unnecessary since all non-synced media except for photos can be streamed through the synced machine. Just don't set it up to stream as if it was an additional computer.

Posting your screen shot made me realize that something was amiss. Everything is working well for me now. I always power down my ATV with my HT equipment and always had to reselect my PC each time. Now I don't have to do that which is cool. Thanks for posting the screen shot.

 

[smak]

the one thing i think you lose is the blue dot saying you played a podcast, and having that sync back to itunes

Plus i think no album cover screensaver

Am i wrong?

 

[pilotError]

I still see the Blue dot next to unplayed Podcasts.

 

[Duffinator]

Plus i think no album cover screensaver

Am i wrong?

It's still there you just need to go in and reselect it.

 

[imacdaddy]

Please correct me if I'm wrong. I had everything streamed to my AppleTV before Take 2 update. Nothing was on the hard drive ever. I don't think this streaming thing is a new feature. Unless I'm missing something. I'm more annoyed now is the fact it goes to connect to my itunes for each and every media whereas before I only selected my Source once.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

How about photo slideshows in the screen saver?

I think this is a related question. In the pre 2.0 setup, when my TV would switch into a screen saver mode, it would float pictures from iPhoto on screen. Since 2.0, my options appear to be only album cover (art), .mac, and flickr.

I'm missing the option to enjoy our photos as a screen saver. Do any of you have this (still) working without putting your photos on .mac or flickr? If so, how?

Thanks for any help!

 

[Duffinator]

Please correct me if I'm wrong. I had everything streamed to my AppleTV before Take 2 update. Nothing was on the hard drive ever. I don't think this streaming thing is a new feature. Unless I'm missing something. I'm more annoyed now is the fact it goes to connect to my itunes for each and every media whereas before I only selected my Source once.

I was having the same problem but followed the directions earlier in this thread. I power off my ATV daily and always had to reselect the source on power up. Now that I have it setup correctly I do not ever have to select the source. I did a reset (not to factory defaults) and then I was able to see the new tabs in the screen shot posted earlier in this thread. If you do not see the tabs in that screen shot do a reset and follow the instructions. I did sync a couple of items to make sure I had it setup properly but I'm still streaming everything else and it works better than with 1.1.

 

[MikieMikie]

I think this is a related question. In the pre 2.0 setup, when my TV would switch into a screen saver mode, it would float pictures from iPhoto on screen. Since 2.0, my options appear to be only album cover (art), .mac, and flickr.

I'm missing the option to enjoy our photos as a screen saver. Do any of you have this (still) working without putting your photos on .mac or flickr? If so, how?

Thanks for any help!

I have all of our photos and art as screensavers. I have my iTunes/TV set up to sync only photos, and that's it. All photos got moved, are available in screensaver mode, etc.

 

[omni]

Maybe I'm completely missing something here...but this doesn't seem like a 'new' feature at all.

On 1.1 I had only my photos synched and I streamed everything else (music, tv shows, movies) all from the same library.

I'm hoping I'm missing something because I like getting new goodies also!

 

[MikieMikie]

Maybe I'm completely missing something here...but this doesn't seem like a 'new' feature at all.

On 1.1 I had only my photos synched and I streamed everything else (music, tv shows, movies) all from the same library.

I'm hoping I'm missing something because I like getting new goodies also!

All you're missing is that, due to the way Take 2 reorganized the menus, you no longer have to specify a streaming library.

The feature set is identical, but with Take 2, they have removed the need to specify BOTH a syncing library AND a streaming library -- if you specify a Sync library, it adds all of the streamable content to the AppleTV menus, too. Automagically.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

MikieMikie,

Thank you very much for the info. I'll reset the TV and try that. I had originally had the main Mac in the house set to sync, but nothing was showing up. However, I see from other posts that it is because all the video media was unchecked. This sounds like a great setup if it works as described.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

WOW! That did work. Now 2.0 makes a lot more sense, and entries beginning with "My" (My Movies, etc.) also make more sense. Apple should much more clearly document this as it resolves the recurring gripe of having to sync for each type of media, etc.

Thanks very much to those who figured it out, shared it, and helped others (myself included) get this working.

 

[temtexdent]

Yes, as said before, this is a serious improvement, but somewhat ambiguous in Apple's presentation and instructions. But for me, this changes everything!!!!! Kudos, Apple. Every Apple TV user with much of a library at all needs to read this thread. My guess is most people do not understand how this works, especially 1.0 and 1.1 users that have upgraded.

WOW! That did work. Now 2.0 makes a lot more sense, and entries beginning with "My" (My Movies, etc.) also make more sense. Apple should much more clearly document this as it resolves the recurring gripe of having to sync for each type of media, etc.

Thanks very much to those who figured it out, shared it, and helped others (myself included) get this working.

 

[jecapaga]

Yes great update. This finally makes the appletv work with music for me. No more sync'n up 200GBs of music on an external drive when I want to listen to music and having to wait 15 minutes for the sync. Just come home, open laptop, open itunes, select appletv as the speaker source in itunes and done and done and done. Could not be happier.

 

[bluewooster]

There are two drawbacks to the new system, however....

I LIKED streaming photos because it was simple. I could tell my wife "drag photos into this directory and they will magically appear on the apple tv". Now, I need to explain the concept of a "synced" folder and have her periodically click the "sync" button on itunes. Not a huge deal but it seems like a step backward in terms of simplicity and elegance. I know, I know - in 2.0 you can still stream photos but then I've got to mess with the constant library reloads when changing media. I miss being able to stream everything and load my library once.

The other problem I have noticed is that now that the library is no longer loaded, access to cover art is not as quick. Everytime I access an album or movie there is a second of a blank icon before it loads. I don't like it - it doesn't look as sharp.
Blue
ps. Maybe this is a coincidence, but are other people experiencing disappearing album covers? Ever since the upgrade, albums suddenly lose their art (on both the apple tv and itunes!). Very strange...I'm not sure what could be causing this.

 

[DeBilbao]

I understand what you are explaining but I'm missing the optional Sync section in the Summary Tab of my Apple TV.

I must say that I'm running Windows version of Apple iTunes, the latest 7.6.0.29

I NEED the feature that you're explaining because I'm managing a really big iTunes library with thousands of songs. The iTunes Library file is 75 MB and the xml file is more than 91 MB and having to reconnect to my library when I switch from photos to movies or music really drive me crazy, as it takes a few minutes to get the menu in my screen.

I would like to get what roland.g showed a few posts ago ..

Thanks in advance

 

[smak]

I still see the Blue dot next to unplayed Podcasts.

but if I play them on the apple tv will it show as played on my pc?

 

[DeBilbao]

Finally I got it working. This is what I've made:

1. Reset to default the Apple TV - not factory default, just the first option.
2. Disconnect from my iTunes library
3. Reconnect to my iTunes library

... et voilá ...

 

[imacdaddy]

I was having the same problem but followed the directions earlier in this thread. I power off my ATV daily and always had to reselect the source on power up. Now that I have it setup correctly I do not ever have to select the source. I did a reset (not to factory defaults) and then I was able to see the new tabs in the screen shot posted earlier in this thread. If you do not see the tabs in that screen shot do a reset and follow the instructions. I did sync a couple of items to make sure I had it setup properly but I'm still streaming everything else and it works better than with 1.1.

OK, I see what the hoopla is all about after reseting the AppleTV and removing it from iTunes and redoing the iTunes connection. On my iTunes, nothing has changed but on my AppleTV, I don't have to select sources anymore after setting my connection to my iTunes. Now I don't have the annoying connecting to iTunes for every media that is streamed. But streaming feature has always been there for music, movies, photos pre Take 2 update.

I will test if screen saver uses my photos when photos are set up to stream. Before Take 2 you had to sync photos over to AppleTV HD to have your own photos as screen saver.

[EDIT] Just tested. You cannot stream photos as screen saver...there is no option. BUT you can set to use your Album art. Even if you stream music. Maybe this was mentioned somewhere before which I've overlooked.

Question tho...how do people stream radio???

 

[MikieMikie]

Question tho...how do people stream radio???

Streaming radio is not "officially" supported. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Make a playlist and add a streaming radio station to it.

Select the playlist from your Apple TV.

If you're luck, it won't say "There are no songs in this playlist" and it will play.

On the other hand, you can always play a station from your computer, using the Apple TV as a set of remote speakers.

 

[roland.g]

On the other hand, you can always play a station from your computer, using the Apple TV as a set of remote speakers.

That would be the easier way.

 

[Duffinator]

I will test if screen saver uses my photos when photos are set up to stream. Before Take 2 you had to sync photos over to AppleTV HD to have your own photos as screen saver.

I noticed last night that I'm not streaming photos. I can't seem to figure that one out but if I sync the folders they show up. How do you stream photos? I can't find an option for it.