iTunes content on a shared hard drive

I have a scenario, someone please tell me if this is plausible.

Lets say I have an airport extreme base station and a shared hard drive, a macbook pro, and an imac. essentially, i want to not have to transfer and store itunes content on more than one machine, and not have to run both machines and stream using home sharing.

If I want to utilize itunes content, say watch a movie, on my macbook pro or apple tv, can i set up itunes so that the main library folder, for the two different computers with two different itunes and also the apple tv, can be located on the shared hard drive?

This should hep you set-up iTunes on a networked drive, as for Apple TV, I dont have one

Sharing your iTunes collection

The following assumes you want to keep all your iTunes music and movies on a shared folder and ensure new music is always stored there, and that you want to share the iTunes library among multiple users

First, you need to consolidate your iTunes Library to a folder you have chosen (let's say External > Media).

Select the command consolidate library from the File Menu > Library > Consolidate Library (or from the Advanced Menu in iTunes 7). This will copy all your iTunes media to the shared folder and link the iTunes library file to it

The files will now be in the folder while the library file (the index as it were) will still be in the Users > Me > Music folder of your mac.



Copy it to shared Media folder, start iTunes with the alt key pressed and you will have the option to select the library file now on the shared drive



Select the library file you just copied and now both your music and the library are on the external

Press the alt key in any other accounts to get iTunes to see the library file, now both users are using the same index. Make sure both Users itunes have the same location for the music folder set in their advanced preferences.

Also make sure that all users have read and write privileges for the folder and the library file

For music, just use the AirTunes function. It'll stream your music to any device on the network that can play music.

As for Apple TV, you would want to "sync" your selected movies and music to the Apple TV inside iTunes, or use Apple TV as an AirTunes receiver.

Otherwise, the shared drive may work.