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Apple TV (2nd Gen) screensaver photo shuffle

Received my 2nd gen ATV yesterday, and successfully setup home sharing with iTunes on my mac, along with photo sharing. I really like the photo screensaver capability of the ATV, and set it up to use my entire iPhoto library with "Floating". However, every time the screensaver starts it shows a bunch of pictures from 10 years ago (the oldest stuff in my iPhoto library). I don't mind seeing these pictures, but I'd prefer to get the photos in random order and not "oldest first". I can't seem to find a "photo shuffle" preference, am I missing something?

Apple TV (2G), iOS 4

Posted on Oct 1, 2010 6:20 AM

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182 replies

Oct 1, 2010 7:24 AM in response to Jolly Giant

Thanks for the suggestion. It's not really that I don't prefer to look at the old photos so much as, I don't only want to see them first every time the screensaver starts. I do have some custom folders set up in iPhoto (such as "Last 12 Months") and I could use them for the screensaver, but I would still want to randomize the order. Is this not possible?

Oct 1, 2010 12:41 PM in response to Jolly Giant

I am an AppleTV 1G and 2G owner and I, too, am having the same issue. There should be a shuffle photos pref in the list above the horizontal separator. The AppleTV 1G did successfully shuffle photos in the floating screen saver.
If you show the photos from a shared library, you will see the settings for the slide show. Within settings, you can see the Shuffle Photos pref but it doesn't exist on the screen saver settings.

Oct 3, 2010 1:14 PM in response to edernest

I can confirm that the Computers -> Photos -> Slideshow - Settings does NOT effect the screen saver shuffle settings. This is a major step back from the 1st Gen. I think that it is due to the photos not being local on the device and it steaming the photos from the computer remotely. On the 1st Gen, you couldn't show photos on the screen saver that were not synced locally onto the device. They need to have Home Sharing of iTunes/iPhoto randomize the photos before being streamed.

Oct 5, 2010 12:29 PM in response to firetr2

This thread intrigued me enough to go run a little experiment on my new ATV2.0 ...

I use an Album I have published to my MobileMe Gallery for my screen saver photos.

I went to SCREEN SAVER on ATV2.0 and hit PREVIEW three different times to see what would happen - random photos started up at each preview.

I then set the screen saver start time to 2 minutes, and let it start up 3 different times - 3 completely different sets of photos started up.

Apparently if you use a MobileMe Gallery for your screen saver photo location it randomizes the photos.

Apple TV (2nd Gen) screensaver photo shuffle

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