Apple TV and Home Sharing

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Is there a way to connect an external hard drive to my time capsule and us a copy of my itunes library to watch movies on Apple tv(newest gen). I am trying to avoid having my notebook open all the time while being able to get to my itunes movies on apple TV.
 
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MacBook Pro 2.2 i7 + MacBook 2.2 Duo 2 (late 2007) + ATV2 + T/C-2Tb + iPhone4 + iPad2 (64gb wifi)
I currently connect my hard drive to airport and run it through itunes. The time capsule, as i understand from historic threads, acts as a hard drive and an internet router (effectively making my airport redundant if i buy the time capsule)

now then here is the trick. you have to have your notebook open as, as soon as itunes is closed ATV disconnects. I don't think Time capsule can run software like iTunes. (Again i may have to bow to more experiences members to verify and amend this statement accordingly)

j
 
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2011 MB Air Core i7 256GB, 2011 Mini with 8GB RAM, iPad 2, iPhone 4S, 2TB Time Capsule
As far as I am aware, the above is entirely correct. There is no way to have the Apple TV pull movies from a hard drive, only to have it stream them from an open iTunes library.

That said, it would be a fantastic feature for Apple to add to the Apple TV in the future. Giving it the ability to pull movies from Time Capsule and run them with no need for iTunes to be open would probably be a simple software fix. The Time Capsule is a router with integrated NAS, so if the Apple TV has the horsepower to run .mp4 and .mov files it shouldn't really care where they are coming from.

If Apple will do it is another issue entirely... They are pretty attached to iTunes acting as the portal to all media.
 
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As far as I am aware, the above is entirely correct. There is no way to have the Apple TV pull movies from a hard drive, only to have it stream them from an open iTunes library.

That said, it would be a fantastic feature for Apple to add to the Apple TV in the future. Giving it the ability to pull movies from Time Capsule and run them with no need for iTunes to be open would probably be a simple software fix. The Time Capsule is a router with integrated NAS, so if the Apple TV has the horsepower to run .mp4 and .mov files it shouldn't really care where they are coming from.

If Apple will do it is another issue entirely... They are pretty attached to iTunes acting as the portal to all media.

I agree. Since Apple's strongest computer sales by far are notebooks, they should make it possible to stream content to ATV without leaving your notebook up and running all the time. They could at least make it possible through their other devices like Airport and Time Capsule so it still involves their hardware ecosystem.

At any rate, if you're really interested I think there are jailbreak capabilities for this. I'm not familiar with it, but apparently you can load XBMC on it to open up your streaming possibilities.
 

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