Showing photos on Apple TV, with a twist

Question

Level 3

518 points

Showing photos on Apple TV, with a twist

Hi,

I am looking for a way to have my Apple TV access photos from an Aperture library, through a computer which does not have that Aperture library.

Here is my setup....

A MacBook Air which is turned off most of the time, but when I do use Aperture it's always on the MBA (with external screen)
A Mac mini with lots of storage attached to it, always on
An Apple TV (2nd gen) which accesses media files on the Mac mini

As said, I use Aperture on the MBA and the library is also stored on the MBA. I do make backups to a drive connected to the Mac mini. I mount it over the network, and use the built-in 'Vaults' feature to make a library backup.

What I would like is to somehow have my Apple TV be able to access the Aperture library and show photos on the tv. Is there any way it can use the 'Vault' copy? Any other tricks you can think of?

thanks,

Rob

AppleTV 2

Posted on Oct 26, 2012 3:47 AM

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Answer 1

huskyte

Level 1

25 points

Oct 26, 2012 8:19 AM in response to Rob de Jonge

I may have a tweak, but I don't know if its gonna work. I was looking into it as well. My setup is just slightly different with a fat imac instead of an MBA. My managed libary is on the mini and I connect to it via GBit-Lan, no issues with that so far.

What if...

...I would install Aperture on the mini as well, let it point to the usually connected to the imac lib. Of course, no double connection at that time. Then I point iTunes to the Aperture lib, quit Aperture on the Mini and work as usual. iTunes on the always on Mini would just go for previews and hopefully not messing around with the database itself. I would always have my pics on the ATV and in sync with my current iMac, although the lib itself is on the Mini.

Anybody wants to try?

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Answer 2

Rob de Jonge Author

Level 3

518 points

Oct 26, 2012 8:34 PM in response to Rob de Jonge

Had a thought when I woke up this morning - I wondered if the Vault was simply a copy of the Library. So I looked into the package contents and turns out it looks like it's pretty much the same thing. If that were the case, then surely I could just mount the Vault as the library for Apple TV to get access to!? ... is what I thought.

To confirm, I used a command-line tool called 'diff' to compare. And I found each file to be different from the vault. Very strange, so I created a thread for that in the aperture forum - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4471883. Once I have the differences cleared up, I'll see if this approach will work. To be continued.

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Answer 3

Rob de Jonge Author

Level 3

518 points

May 2, 2013 6:44 PM in response to Rob de Jonge

Since posting this question, I've discovered the joys of Photo Stream and I now have a Photo Stream created to which I publish the photos I wish to have shown on the tv. The Apple TV subscribes to this Photo Stream.

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