I use ATV to stream saved DVD movies from my iMac.
When I finally fill the hard drive on my iMac what are my options for viewing additional saved films on my ATV?
MacPro/iMac/MacBook Air/iPhone/iPad, Mac OS X (10.7)
Get a bigger hard drive or save on an external drive.
If I add an external HD, can iTunes read from my iMac & external HD?
You can direct iTunes to load the library from any location you wish. You can do it at iTunes load time by holding the OPTION key down while launching iTunes or you can make the change in iTunes preferences.
Can iTunes read from 2 drives t the same time?
Can ATV read from 2 drives at the same time?
If no, how about a NAS drive shared to iTunes. Would that do it?
No. They can only read from one drive at a time. You can put your iTunes Library on any mounted device and configure iTunes to load its library from that location. But iTunes can only load one library at a time although you can change libraries by having iTunes load a library from a different location. Apple TV doesn't access a drive rather it accesses the iTunes Library that is currently open.
Pedantic point. Only one folder can be designated as the iTunes Media folder, but if you turn off the preference to Copy files to the iTunes Media folder when adding to library an iTunes library can reference media stored anywhere on your local or network drives.
Doug's script Re-locate Selected could be used, for example, to move larger files to an overflow location on an external drive while leaving the rest of the library in the usual place.
That said, a drive big enough to hold all your media in one go will always be a better option as it is much easier to backup and migrate to new hardware.
I also believe there are occasional issues using NAS for iTunes Media (e.g. content getting lost or not able to be shared) but it's not an area I have practical experience of.
tt2
Thank you for that clarification, tt2.
Thanks guys
When my hard drive gets full...
