Using ATV2 with a large number of playlists

[Avenger]

I would say I have a couple hundred playlists in iTunes. When I first choose to see the playlists on the new Apple TV, it takes approximately 20 seconds for the large list of playlists to appear. Then many times after playing a song, I back out to the playlist menu and more times than not it takes another 20 seconds to load.

Does anyone else have this problem? I'm thinking that maybe most people do not have a large number of playlists like I do and probably look up songs by album or artist. I have a 160GB Apple TV where I have all my music and playlists local on the drive and it is very fast. I didn't think that streaming could slow it down so much. I tried using wired ethernet as well but there was no performance improvement.

 

[newagemac]

A hundred Playlists wow! Have you ever heard of this feature called Genius Mixes?

 

[Avenger]

I use playlists as "alternate" names for albums. A lot of it is for Japanese Anime soundtracks. Lots of times the album name for what really is "TV Show <XYZ> Opening and Closing" is something else and less clear and certainly not something I would want to browse by. I would change the album name, but that would be a loss of information such as what covers go with it, etc.. If anyone has any ideas how to better organize a library like this, please let me know. Apple TV 2 definitely can't handle streaming the large number of playlists that I have.

 

[DJinTX]

A couple hundred playlists? Wow, that is crazy.

I have about 15 playlists currently...and honestly, I probably need to clear out about 7 or 8 of them. Most of my playlists were created to burn copies of songs I bought from iTunes. This was my back-up method for music before I started using TimeMachine. In any case, I just don't really have much need for playlists.

I suppose this could change now that I have the new ATV, but we'll see. Good luck managing your playlists...that sounds like a lot of work.

 

[Avenger]

A couple hundred playlists? Wow, that is crazy.

I have about 15 playlists currently...and honestly, I probably need to clear out about 7 or 8 of them. Most of my playlists were created to burn copies of songs I bought from iTunes. This was my back-up method for music before I started using TimeMachine. In any case, I just don't really have much need for playlists.

I suppose this could change now that I have the new ATV, but we'll see. Good luck managing your playlists...that sounds like a lot of work.

The only reason I have so many playlists is that I use them as an alternate index into albums in order to name them by something I would recognize such as "TV SHOW X OPENING + CLOSING" as opposed to an album title that I would not recognize. I would rename the albums but I would hate to mess up the album tags and remove the rightful names from them.

 

[DJinTX]

I'm sure you have very good reason to do it, as it probably makes things much easier. However, I am thinking that having so many is exactly why it is loading so slowly. I guess you have to decide what is best.

Maybe someone here can make a suggestion of a more efficient way for you to do this. One thing I will say though...while I don't do much with video, I do have a nice sized music collection in iTunes. If I were to need to change the title of an album, I could do so and the artwork would remain unchanged. It's not like it is syncing with some database online to keep the artwork up to date.

Now, if you use the iTunes option to get album artwork, or use a third party application to get artwork, then the wrong name will surely confuse it and it may overwrite your existing artwork, but you shouldn't need to go back and get artwork if you already have it.

You could do a little test where you rename one anime show in a way that helps, instead of needing a playlist, and see if it retains the artwork you are concerned about. If it does, then you would be free to name the shows what you want, and not lose your artwork.

 

[mchalebk]

I have the old AppleTV and probably have more than 100 playlists. However, I put my playlists in folders, so I probably don't have more than 20 or so playlists in any folder.

So, my recommendation would be to break your playlists up into folders. If there isn't some logical way to do it, you could just do it alphabetically (like "A-F", "G-K", etc.).