Home sharing and videos not bought on iTunes

rocklebee wrote:
So can i not stream videos that aren't bought on itunes through my home share?

i can and have no reason to believe it won't work for you 😉

is there just a more specific video spec needed for video?

check out the *video formats* section for TV2 here: http://www.apple.com/appletv/specs.html.

note that, just because a file play fine in iTunes, it doesn't necessarily mean it is TV compatible. however, you could try if iTunes can convert the files for TV. highlight one of those files in iTunes and choose *create iPad or Apple TV version*. try playing the newly created file on the device.

J GG

rocklebee wrote:
I guess i wasn't clear.

... or i didn't pay attention 😉

unfortunately, i have an all-Apple setup so can't really help - other than providing the link to this support article.

also, in [ this|http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2694365&tstart=0] discussion, they discuss bonjour, which controls sharing on your computers. might be worth looking into, especially on the winsloth side.

well, good luck !

J GG

I am also having this issue? I have 2 laptops, one is Windows XP the other is Windows 7. I also have an Apple TV 2.

Home Sharing is turned on all of the devices and they all can see each other. The Apple TV works perfectly with both laptop libraries. Also the laptops can see all of the content from each of the libraries and can play music content.

The problem is that the laptops can not stream any video that has not been bought through Itunes. All of the ripped videos were converted using Handbrake and the Apple Tv has no issue at all in playing them, they also play fine in Itunes on the host laptops.

I have disabled all firewalls and reinstalled Itunes, I have also turned home sharing off and back on again. Nothing has resolved this issue. Also I do not believe that an issue excists other than a bug in Itunes as the Apple Tv can already play all the content perfectly.

So we can rule out errors with file conversions and firewalls. Has anyone any idea what this can possibly be??

I managed to find a thread that may have a solution to this problem. I am especially hopeful as I had indeed used Handbrake to do all of my personal encodes.....

I will post my findings here once I have had chance to test this theory out.

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=12423785

Afraid this did not work either...................:(

I noticed the same behavior - videos that I converted in HandBrake would play fine on my iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and Apple TV, and in iTunes - but they wouldn't play on other computers thru Home Sharing. After an hour of trial and error, I believe I figured it out.

The problem lies in the tagging that is done by HandBrake, as well as Meta-X (which I am using for tagging). Both Meta-X and HandBrake introduce problems with tagging - so here is what I had to do:

1. Convert video via HandBrake
2. Open converted video in Meta-X. You must assign a "type" to the video - in my case, I was converting movies, so I selected "Movie."
3. In the Advanced tab in Meta-X, I had to remove the "Encoding Tool" field. This field gets populated by HandBrake automatically (although HB probably has a setting to ignore this field).
4. Once you save the file in Meta-X, the "Encoding Tool" field will be removed - but the "type" field causes problems.
5. I opened the converted video in Mp3Tag (freeware) and opened the video file with it. Right-clicking on the file, and selecting "Extended Tags," I noticed a tag that was written by Meta-X called "ITUNESMEDIATYPE" - this tag isn't properly handled by Home Sharing in iTunes. I had to remove this tag and save the file with Mp3Tag. All of the other Extended Tags worked fine with Home Sharing - I use GENRE, ITUNEXTC, and TITLE.

After making these changes to each video file, the files played back successfully via iTunes Home Sharing. I'm not sure why these particular tags cause problems - they don't cause problems with other Apple devices, but oh well.

Hope this helps!

Just noticed this reply (for some reason I wasn't notified)......

I had given up on solving this but I will definetly try this tommorow. I'll let you know how I get on 🙂

Spot on!

This did the trick 🙂

Now I have to go through my video collection but I was glad to see you could make the changes in groups rather than one at a time.

It would be nice to know if settings in Handbrake could be altered in order to avoid this issue, if I figure it out I will post here with instructions.

Thanks very much for the help, its much appreciated 🙂

The easiest way to fix your problem, had one like it myself. So simple it hurts!
1. Drag whatever you want on your pc from itunes to your mac desktop.
2.Create a folder,call it "movies".
3.once itunes has finished copying movie onto desktop, drag into your new folder.
4.When you've got all you want, drag your folder over to a mass storage device-external hard drive or even a usb stick.
5.upload it
6.plug this into your pc.
7. open it up and drag your folder/files out of it onto the desktop or to itunes.
I followed all of the experts advice and couldn't get it to work on my pc.
Using this way works I guarantee it.
Works with product not purchased from itunes or apple as well.
It's so simple I could've smashed myself until I worked it out.
P.S-Works with torrents.