play from a hard drive to remote apple tv's?

Daddy k

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hi guys.

i understand none of this but have so far managed to bodge together the following:

i have 5 apple tvs around the house, 2 MacBooks, all using the new time capsule.

i have a hard drive connected via usb to the time capsule that I've used to store movies on and i can view the films on there using my western digital tv streamer.... happy with that!

after turning on home sharing in itunes, if i leave my macbook on, i can view my iTunes library on the apple tvs and stream them from the hdd connected to the time capsule. but when my macbook is off it won't work.

so what do i need to buy to enable me to have the apple tvs around the house play the videos stored on the hdd.

hope this makes sense?

do i have to buy a mac mini or something to leave constantly on rather than my macboks, or os there a far more simpler solution?

it needs to be viewable on the apple tvs as its just easier for everyone to operate in the household
 
You need a NAS or a microserver with the folders shared and it all networked to your router.

It's just basically a mini computer that hard drives plug into, they come in a variety of sizes and prices. Some only take a single disk, others can have a dozen.

If you google or amazon search QNAP, Synology etc you'll see the type of devices. These can be switched on 24/7 not needing an expensive computer running pointlessly and all the hard drives accessible over your network.
 
You need a NAS or a microserver with the folders shared and it all networked to your router.

It's just basically a mini computer that hard drives plug into, they come in a variety of sizes and prices. Some only take a single disk, others can have a dozen.

If you google or amazon search QNAP, Synology etc you'll see the type of devices. These can be switched on 24/7 not needing an expensive computer running pointlessly and all the hard drives accessible over your network.


Ok thanks. Looking in Amazon. Any recommendations for a particular model? Prob only need a 2 bay. Main thing is compatibility with Apple TV
 
Synology works well with the Apple Time machine apparently. If you're not going to be using any of the Synology apps and just using it to stream audio/video then you don't need a very powerful one.

I'd look at what you want a bit more though and find out a bit about a NAS before recommending a model. Do you want RAID for redundancy, will you want to expand your capacity in the future as we're always buying more films etc. I'd have a good look at the Synology website.
 
its just to stream video to my samsung smart tv, the apple tvs, and western digital.

i have no real understanding of it all and seems to be the apple tvs are creating an issue due to how they need something running iTunes, ehng the scenes, something I'm not sure the nas drives can do. the snap ts-251 looked good, but if I'm still going to have to leave my macbook on in background for the iTunes stuff its pointless buying it as my current cheap and cheerful setup streams to my apple tvs, from the usb drive attached to my apple airport IF my MacBooks turned on
 
I'm wondering if it would be easier to buy a mac mini, use the mac mini running kodi for in the living room replacing my western digital streamer, then i can also just leave it on so my apple tvs will can connect using home sharing no problem
 
Very expensive solution using a Mac Mini.
I have little experience of Mac's but many users seem to use a NAS to stream to ATV's with no issues.
There is a dedicated NAS area on the site you could ask questions -
Networking & NAS
 
@Daddy k you've effectively created a NAS of sorts by plugging the the hard drive into the Time Capsule – it's network attached storage, after all.

And you're right – to stream iTunes content via Home Sharing from that drive you need iTunes running on something, whether it's your MacBook, and Mac mini or a PC. The Apple TVs need iTunes running; I'm guessing the WDTVs can read straight from the HDD. Seeing as all that works, it sounds like networking isn't the issue, it's the need to run iTunes.

If your Apple TVs are the latest version, Plex may be an alternative, though I know very little about it and don't use it, but know it's only available for the latest version of ATV with App Store.

If your movies were bought from iTunes in the first place, they should be available on Apple TV anyway as they're linked to your Apple ID. But if that's not the case then it's obviously of no help to you. :)

I'm pretty sure the above is right but I agree that you might have more luck in either the Networking and NAS forum or, perhaps more likely, the Apple forum here – there will be plenty of others who will know about the intricacies of Home Sharing and the Apple ecosystem in general but who don't necessarily venture into this section regularly.
 
Synology has DS video app, that can also be installed on to the Samsung tv, so no need for a media streamer.

You can also install Plex to the synology nas, using it as a Plex server, I think there is also a Plex app that can be installed to the samsung tv.

In both cases, there is no need for a separate media player

Service & Support - Synology - Network Attached Storage (NAS)

Samsung Smart Hub
 
Decided to go Mac mini route. It just works for me and I can make it work ;)

Got Mac mini via gigabit Ethernet to Apple time aspire to run plex server, plex cinema front end for living room via Apple remote , iTunes in background for all the apple TVs around the home, and an external usb 3 5tb drive for all the films connected to the Mac mini, rather than have the bottle neck of running my old usb2.0 drive connected to the usb 2.0 port on the Apple time capsule.
ImageUploadedByAVForums1455614805.991994.jpg
 
Decided to go Mac mini route. It just works for me and I can make it work ;)

Got Mac mini via gigabit Ethernet to Apple time aspire to run plex server, plex cinema front end for living room via Apple remote , iTunes in background for all the apple TVs around the home, and an external usb 3 5tb drive for all the films connected to the Mac mini, rather than have the bottle neck of running my old usb2.0 drive connected to the usb 2.0 port on the Apple time capsule. View attachment 681019
Just saw your post in GC so came back here to check – to be honest, if you want to 'go Apple' with one device, everything's going to be easier if you go all in. Sure you won't be disappointed, even if the credit card has taken a hit!
 
Yeah I'm happy with the end result. The thing with Apple stuff is it lasts and lasts and is reliable, AND then the resale value is fantastic.
 

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