Pros and Cons of Synching vs. Sharing for a large iTunes Music Collection

Your HDD reports 32 GB for a couple of reasons, the first being the difference between binary and decimal protocols, secondly because part of the drive is used for the OS and some other stuff.

Primary libraries have many advantages over secondary ones and I would generally advise a primary library. Whether you sync or stream is up to you, I stream most of my content since my itunes library is always available, but if your library is on a laptop which might be taken to work or similar, then you would likely want to sync some of your content so it's available at all times.

Any content not synced from a primary library is streamed unless you opt otherwise.

(Please excuse my unsupported nomenclature)

I refer to libraries as primary/secondary rather than sync/stream because although a secondary library will only stream, a primary library will sync and stream. Having a primary library instead of a secondary one has a number of advantages:

Purchases made on the tv will only transfer back to a primary library.
You don't need to load a primary library every time you change content type.
The remote application for iphone/ipod touch only works with a primary library
Etc, etc, etc.

So I choose to have a primary library for these reasons, but I choose to sync only photos and a handful of other files, I stream all of my other content.

epfegn wrote:
Nice explanation! So let me test my understanding here using your system as an example. You say you sync photos and stream everything else. Does this mean that you have set ATV to "Custom sync" only photos and then check box to stream everything else?

Yes, more or less.
I do have some content that I don't want on my tv (ie, ipod versions of movies that I already have as tv versions) which I uncheck so they don't stream.

Also, if I wanted to switch completetly to "stream" from a primary libray do I first go into "Computers" tab on ATV and "cancel" the sync and then go into the "share" menu and enter that password instead into my iTunes account?

No, that would change it to a secondary library which although would stream everything for you would also lose you some functionality. To stream everything (except for photos that is) from a primary library go to your sync options and deselect the sync checkboxes in each category.

I know for sync, it took like 4 hours to put in 8000+ songs. Will it take this long for "stream" configuration?

When a primary library is linked to the tv there are two sets of data that are copied to the tv; The content itself and a library database file. The database file is relatively small (mine is around 20 MB) and is updated regularly which takes (for me) around 20 seconds. The content is much larger and can take a significant amount of time to copy (of course you only need to do it all once), if you sync nothing from your primary library then it won't take any time at all.

Answered already, but day-to-day I keep anything on it that I may want to watch while my MP is asleep, ie. TV shows for that late night viewing. Films are an early evening or weekend afternoon thing while the MP is up and running.

You may have your own viewing routines. Generally, I'd stream everything but just sometimes I put the computer to sleep.

I also have another routine for travelling, sync everything I may want to watch while away, a mix of everything, old favourites and new tv show episodes, then I take the ATV and cables with me to watch whatever I like wherever I am in the world.

epfegn wrote:
If I want to stream my entire music library and sync some photos from a primary library, I keep all songs "checked" but uncheck the "sync all music" button under "music" tab.

Yes (and uncheck syncing in the 'movies', 'tv shows' etc tabs as well)

I then go to the photos tab and pick which albums I want to sync.

Yes

I also make sure I have the "stream all content which is not synced' button checked on the main sync option page.

Other way around, the box you refer to is 'show only synced content' and should be unchecked to allow streaming.

If you want to sync some songs and stream others, the only way to do this is through a custom playlist.

Yes

Downside is you will not have your music grouped by album, artist, etc on ATV but upside is you pull into the ATV what you want synched.

You get exactly the songs you want, but they will still be grouped into 'artist', 'album' etc on the tv.

Simply "Unchecking" songs prevents them from synching or streaming and thus those songs unchecked will not be playable on ATV.

Yes