lukebrynycz

Q: Using 8 Apple TVs

Hi guys,

 

 

I have just recently had a look at a configuration and was hoping for some advice...

 

 

He has, himself, installed 8 Apple TVs and is having issues connecting some of them at times.  I have very quickly identified that only 5 devices can use home sharing to his iMac to access his iTunes.

 

For example, here was my tests:

 

 

I rebooted the iMac, then started up each Apple TV and began streaming media.  5 performed absolutely fine, then the 6th one simply wouldn't connect to the iMac, BUT, Internet was fine, ping tests were 100% reliable throughout this whole time and everything else Network wise was fine.  Even IF we unplugged one of the initial 5 TVs, then tried the 6th again after a hard reset, it still wouldn't work.

 

I would assume, that when each device accesses media, it registers it's mac address or serial number on the iMac to prevent more than 5 devices streaming, not only for licensing reasons, but for quality of service..?  The only way I have found to 'cure' this is to simply reboot the iMac or stop and start the home sharing service, power off all the Apple TVs (sometimes requires even a reset of the device from the menu!) and then begin powering up the TVs that are required.  This seems to be quite a common occurance across the boards here with even less than 5 devices however..

 

Feel free to correct me on any of the points above.  I'm almost certain i've got a grasp of what is happening here, but the client will simply not acknowledge that he is exceeding the limitations of home sharing and the number of devices supported.  Thanks for taking the time to read this and hopefully providing some official response that I can hand over.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks,

Luke

Apple TV

Posted on Apr 12, 2012 2:12 AM

Close

Q: Using 8 Apple TVs

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

  • by Alley_Cat,

    Alley_Cat Alley_Cat Apr 12, 2012 2:30 AM in response to lukebrynycz
    Level 6 (19,583 points)
    Apr 12, 2012 2:30 AM in response to lukebrynycz

    I have to admit I'm thoroughly confused these days between cloud access, itunes Match, Home Sharing and allowable number of computers for iTunes.

     

    AFAIK - you can still have 5 computers authorised for iTunes use of a particular account.

     

    5 computer limit for Home Sharing between them:

     

    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3819

     

    That Home Sharing article also suggests you can Home Share to multiple iOS devices but does not specify a limit - provided it was sharing for streaming purposes only I can't see a reason they'd limit it, after all AppleTVs now have no onboard permanent storage.

     

    There used to be a 5 AppleTV device limit for a single iTunes library in AppleTV1 days - this did not use Home Sharing at all.  Maybe this still holds true for Home Sharing.

     

    Clearly network bandwidth issues might be a consideration for streaming to multiple devices simultaneously.

     

    Can you set up a second itunes library on a separate computer and see if it allows more than 5 to connect provided connections are shared between the two libraries?  Last time I checked I could not have another user running iTunes on the computer for streaming whilst logged in to a second account with iTunes - only the logged in iTunes was available to AppleTV - no harm trying this though as things may have changed.

     

    AC

  • by Alley_Cat,

    Alley_Cat Alley_Cat Apr 12, 2012 2:33 AM in response to Alley_Cat
    Level 6 (19,583 points)
    Apr 12, 2012 2:33 AM in response to Alley_Cat

    Another thought might be to try having half the AppleTVs Home Sharing using the current AppleID, then on another machine also authorised with that ID use a different AppleID to HomeShare to the remaining AppleTVs.  Some have said this works for example to allow 2 people's iTunes account purchases to be Home Shared from a single library - so long as they'd both signed in with their accounts the 2 separate account purchases would apparently Home Share - never tried this myself.

     

    AC

  • by lukebrynycz,

    lukebrynycz lukebrynycz Apr 12, 2012 2:48 AM in response to lukebrynycz
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 12, 2012 2:48 AM in response to lukebrynycz

    Thanks for the replies, much appreciated.

     

    That does actually prompt a situation that I had... We actually noticed that home sharing was disabled within iTunes so I guess they must have been working without this enabled. Is this another method of streaming that is still valid with Apple TV 2s? If so, how does that work!? I'm a bit confused here.

     

    All that I can say with confidence, is that clearly there's a 5 device limit to accessing his media and it's a very sloppy way in which to reset it so that the '6th' device can be used, even if one of the intial 5 devices is powered off. It clearly holds a cache of these devices somewhere and resetting the iMac and the Apple TVs clears this.

     

    It would be very useful to know how exactly this works. Although saying that, if the 5 device limit is there (which it clearly is...) then the user should just simply accept that using more than 5 devices, whether he only has 5 running at a time or not, it doesn't matter...it's bad practise to have more than 5 accesing one media server and should just simply be accepted. It's not for us to then begin trying other iMacs that we don't have and to waste time.

  • by Alley_Cat,

    Alley_Cat Alley_Cat Apr 12, 2012 2:53 AM in response to lukebrynycz
    Level 6 (19,583 points)
    Apr 12, 2012 2:53 AM in response to lukebrynycz

    You're presumably looking into this for a friend/client.

     

    There is no official technical info about Home Sharing I'm aware of.

     

    Remeber we are just fellow users here not Apple tech support.

     

    Has the owner of the devices asked Apple about the connectivity issue?

     

    They may be able to confirm this limit exists.

  • by lukebrynycz,

    lukebrynycz lukebrynycz Apr 12, 2012 3:09 AM in response to Alley_Cat
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 12, 2012 3:09 AM in response to Alley_Cat

    That's correct.

     

    Sure, I can understand that.  Apparently he has called Apple and they couldn't confirm.  It was a bit wishy washy, but I can't call Apple as I don't have his account details or serial numbers for the devices.

     

    Thanks for your advice, i'm simply asking as a curious fellow user/techy as I always like to know how things work for any possible issues in the future.  I was just hoping that someone here has already gone through this and can confirm it fully that's all.

  • by Alley_Cat,

    Alley_Cat Alley_Cat Apr 12, 2012 3:28 AM in response to lukebrynycz
    Level 6 (19,583 points)
    Apr 12, 2012 3:28 AM in response to lukebrynycz

    lukebrynycz wrote:

     

    Thanks for your advice, i'm simply asking as a curious fellow user/techy as I always like to know how things work for any possible issues in the future.  I was just hoping that someone here has already gone through this and can confirm it fully that's all

    Thanks.

     

    Hopefully someone else will chime in with an answer but this question has come up a few times and I don't recall a definite answer but your experience suggests a 5 AppleTV limit - the question I guess is whether or not this applies to a single computer or 5 AppleTVs irrespective of how many computers are Home Sharing.

     

    Might be worth checking current iTunes T&Cs to see if there's anything there.

     

    AC

  • by iVmichael,

    iVmichael iVmichael Apr 12, 2012 5:40 AM in response to lukebrynycz
    Level 6 (13,725 points)
    Apr 12, 2012 5:40 AM in response to lukebrynycz

    If they are new Apple TV's running iOS 5+ then he could use iTunes Match which allows 10 devices to be associated with a single AppleID

     

    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4913