Q: How to watch movies from my external drive at Apple TV without iTunes running?
Hey everybody. I got a question considering my Apple TV.
I have a lot of movies and music so they are all sitting on an external drive which is hooked up to my Apple Airport Extreme base station. My Apple TV or my iPhone or iPad can not access those movies and music unless I get my MacBook out, boot it and fire up iTunes. Now this is very inconvenient and takes quite some time. How can I solve my problem and let a device access my content fast and easy without the need for iTunes?
I was considering buying the LaCie Fuel external drive with built in WiFi for $200 which lets your iPhone and iPad access your content without the need to start up iTunes. It works simply with an app accessing your external library. I could forward the movies and music through Airplay to my Apple TV and Airport Express boxes.
Now thinking about the LaCie Fuel I feel I would pay for something I already have. I have a network set up already and I have an external drive with my library sitting there. I just need a way to acces those files with my iPad or iPhone and Airplay them to the Apple TV.
Is there an app that can access your external drive even with the Mac beeing shut down? Or is there any other way I could stream content from my external drive to my Apple TV without my MacBook and iTunes running?
MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9)
Posted on Mar 16, 2014 4:24 AM
Ok, I solved this after a few days of search on all kind of forums!
Airport Extreme does not support the DLNA standards which most external drives like LaCie Fule or DW My Cloud use. I found out it supports the SMB standard though. So a quick search on the App Store with SMB as the keyword showed up a few file managment apps and the first I tried worked!
It's called FileExplorer Free and can access files on your external drive attached to your Airport Extreme. There were more hits but since the first app I found worked I didn't bother to check out the other apps.
I tried FileExplorer with songs first and it worked. You can listen to your songs with your iPhone or iPad or Airplay them to your Airport Express and listen to them at your home audio system. I couldn't hear any loss of quality.
It also works with yorur movies. Just select the movie and watch it on your iDevice or Airplay it to your Apple TV. Works with HD movies as well with no problems. Only downside was that the Apple TV can only display .mp4 files. Even the movies bought on iTunes won't work with the app and the Apple TV. So I had to convert a few movies using the free converter HandBrake.
FileExplorer works with other types of files like photos or documenst too. Oh and as a bonus: The FileExplorer app can also access your library from the DropBox or Google Drive. Works with NAS drives as well. Looks like you need the paid version though for those extras.
So finally I can move my big movie collection to my external drive ans still watch it without the need for the Mac or iTunes to run. Hope this helps other people too.
Posted on Mar 21, 2014 5:22 AM