- Joined
- Jan 7, 2008
- Messages
- 8,303
- Reaction score
- 242
- Points
- 63
- Location
- In Denial
- Your Mac's Specs
- 16Gb Mac Mini 2018, 15" MacBook Pro 2012 1 TB SSD
You all probably know this, but for those who may not I will give a quick summary of the evolution of my Home Theater setup.
1. I started with buying the MacMini (just before they added the HDMI port). It worked, but I honestly found it too cludgy and complicated for my tastes and ended up not using it a lot. With the advent in our household of the iPad and Printopeia, the MacMini's primary usage became providing wireless printing for our IOS devices.
2. Next I added the DNS-323 (mostly due to my gadget addiction) and found that I could store my videos on the NAS (via Handbrake) and access them using Filebrowser (APP) on my iPad, which also had Airplay capability, which led to my next purchase . . .
3. After watching the WWDC keynote I immediately ordered an ATV2. It has been wonderful! All of the videos I had on the DNS-323 I could stream anytime I wanted via my iPad, outstanding.
This all drove me to speed up the transfer and cataloging of my videos to the NAS. While doing this I found out something that I should have known (but didn't), that iTunes could be set up to import without copying the original file. In otherwords the video could sit on the NAS but still reside in my iTunes Library.
Since the MacMini (now repurposed as a Photography workstation) was on continuously (to run Printopeia) it made sense for me to use the iTunes Library on it as a link to the NAS and use Home Sharing.
I now have the Home Theater setup I originally envisioned and couldn't be more pleased. Yes, if I had read all of the available information first I probably would have known this before, but I didn't. And, since I am probably not the only one I am posting my results here.
1. I started with buying the MacMini (just before they added the HDMI port). It worked, but I honestly found it too cludgy and complicated for my tastes and ended up not using it a lot. With the advent in our household of the iPad and Printopeia, the MacMini's primary usage became providing wireless printing for our IOS devices.
2. Next I added the DNS-323 (mostly due to my gadget addiction) and found that I could store my videos on the NAS (via Handbrake) and access them using Filebrowser (APP) on my iPad, which also had Airplay capability, which led to my next purchase . . .
3. After watching the WWDC keynote I immediately ordered an ATV2. It has been wonderful! All of the videos I had on the DNS-323 I could stream anytime I wanted via my iPad, outstanding.
This all drove me to speed up the transfer and cataloging of my videos to the NAS. While doing this I found out something that I should have known (but didn't), that iTunes could be set up to import without copying the original file. In otherwords the video could sit on the NAS but still reside in my iTunes Library.
Since the MacMini (now repurposed as a Photography workstation) was on continuously (to run Printopeia) it made sense for me to use the iTunes Library on it as a link to the NAS and use Home Sharing.
I now have the Home Theater setup I originally envisioned and couldn't be more pleased. Yes, if I had read all of the available information first I probably would have known this before, but I didn't. And, since I am probably not the only one I am posting my results here.
