I recently bought a new iMac (which I love!). However, I created two iTunes libraries (one for me and one for my girlfriend's iPod Mini). When I asked my Apple TV to stream to my iTunes it told me that it will appear only when my girlfriend's iTunes library is opened. How can I change this so that it opens only with my iTunes library?
This largely depends on how you set the libraries up.
My recommendation would be to set up separate libraries under separate user login accounts. This way both your libraries should stream to the tv, indeed since you are using a mac you can have both libraries available to the tv at the same time.
Of course only one library can sync to the tv and if you meant syncing and not streaming in your post, then you can change which library syncs by selecting 'change library' from the 'syncing' option under the 'source' menu on the tv.
If however you are using one user account and simply changing the libraries, I have to admit that I'm not too sure how things might work, however I would have imagined that things would be pretty similar to having two libraries in two user accounts except that only one library would be available to the tv at a time.
I would imagine that both libraries should stream but at different times obviously and of course only one library can be the sync library. Again if your issue is that you have the wrong library as the sync library, I would try the 'change library' option as above.
Of course as I'm not exactly sure how things will work if you are swapping out libraries in the same user account, there is the possibility I suppose that things are getting confused and all doesn't work as expected.
Please post back with more details of what you are doing and what error messages you are getting if I have misunderstood you.
Winston, I have a similar issue. I created a second library on an external hard drive for my movies only. I have been syncing my main library just fine. The second library is under the same user, so when I switch libraries, I want the second library to sync the movies only to my Apple TV. But that second library never shows Apple TV as a device and it does not sync. Any suggestions to this setup? Thanks.
As I said before, I'm not too sure of the implications of having more than one library per user account. It seems to me that it could work in one of two ways: either itunes is linked to the tv or the libraries are linked to the tv. Not having two libraries in a user account myself, I've had to rely on what others have said and I'm afraid others have seemed to say different things.
However taking what you have said that your second library doesn't show the tv as a device, this would suggest that it is the libraries and not itunes that gets linked to the tv, if correct I'd assume you would need to go through the 'connect to new library' thing and enter a passcode before the tv will show up in the device list. Have you tried this.
Good suggestion. I didn't think about that, and I just tried it. But it lets me stream from my movies library, but not sync it. On the Apple TV, under the sources, if I select the SYNC option and want to change library, it gives a warning and says all the content on your apple TV will be deleted if you change your library.
So I can stream my movies, but that does not serve the purpose obviously. I wanna access these movies without having the computer on.
Can you think of any other way? I guess I can keep the movie files on my external hard drive and import them without selecting the copy option under preferences. I guess they will be just referred in my itunes but the file will stay on the external drive. What do you think?
The reason you can only stream your movies is because your first library is already syncing, only one library can sync to the tv. If you want to sync your movies you will need to change the sync library to the one that has your movies in it, which will mean your first library won't sync anymore and any content synced to the tv will be erased to make way for the content of the second library.
If you explain why you want two libraries and what you would like to sync and what you are happy streaming, I'll have a think about an alternative for you.
I don't want to stream anything. I want everything to be on my apple TV. But I also don't want to consume space in my hard drive on my Macbook with movies. I want to keep the movies on my external drive. So my goal would be to sync two libraries into one apple TV and not lose anything during each sync. But that sounds like a not-feasible option.
So in other words, having everything on my apple TV (music, photos and movies) is the goal, while having movies stored on my external hard drive to save space on my internal hard drive on my macbook, is the goal.
I guess I will just "add to library" without copying for my movies. By the way, during these trials with trying to sync a second library, Apple TV got wiped out since I set it up with a second library. Now I have to re-sync everything which takes too long. 🙂 Oh well, it was worth a try. Thanks for all your help. Maybe they will come up with a way to allow people sync two separate libraries.
