What is the point of an iTunes server?

I may have also missed the info put out about my question, please forgive me if this is the case. I have three Mac's, three AppleTV's and three iTunes libraries. My content is stored on three external drives for each computer for a total of 9 external drives and a total library of about 10 terabytes for each computer. My problem is updating new content in each computer's iTunes. When I import a movie or TV show that I have ripped from a DVD, that I have bought, I transfer it to the other computers via a home network but then I have to update each iTunes library with the movie/tv show name, date, episode number, and content description. Is there a way to sync my content across the network? The reason I have three AppleTV's is to allow each of my TV's to have its own and because of the iTunes limitation of only being able to sync with one AppleTV at a time. I want to be able to AppleTV in the living room while the wife AppleTVs in the bedroom and the son AppleTVs in his room and we are all watching something different. I posted here because the NAS solution might help but I am not sure. What would be great would be to have a NAS with all my content on it and iTunes running on it also. With iTunes being a true network application and allow multiple users to access the iTunes library content at the same time. I do understand that even if this is possible that two users would not be able to access the exact same movie/song/video/tv show at the same time. I do believe that what I want is not possible at this time but maybe a syncing solution with my current setup is possibe. Thank you for any information or direction.

Bruce Patrick1 wrote:

I transfer it to the other computers via a home network but then I have to update each iTunes library with the movie/tv show name, date, episode number, and content description. Is there a way to sync my content across the network?

Yes, in my case I rip DVD movies on my Mac using one of several ripping programs.

I then run the ripped and converted file through a piece of software (available in the Mac App Store) called iDentify.

iDentify allows me to modify the metadata for common movies, searching by title, and customise less common movies to include names, types, artwork et cetera

(If iDentify does not find the movie online I can simply copy and paste descriptions and artwork from Amazon or elsewhere)

I then, thanks to File Sharing, drag the finished file into the folder 'automatically add to iTunes' on the Mac where I wish it to live.

(If I hold down the command key while dragging the file disappears from my own machine on completion)

iTunes on the destination (if running) will automatically add the movie to its library and Apple TV will then see the metadata added using iDentify.

Bruce Patrick1 wrote:

The reason I have three AppleTV's is to allow each of my TV's to have its own and because of the iTunes limitation of only being able to sync with one AppleTV at a time. I want to be able to AppleTV in the living room while the wife AppleTVs in the bedroom and the son AppleTVs in his room and we are all watching something different.

I think you may have over-thought this.

In my case I have a permanently switched on computer with iTunes running.

On this computer I have activated home sharing (important) using my iTunes account)

I too have multiple Apple TVs, but to ensure any tv can wirelessly receive anything from any Airplay Capable device

As part of this, on everybody's Apple TV, Mac, iOS device or even (but not in my case) PC running iTunes I have also activated home sharing using the same account.

This dedicated computer has a large amount of storage attached and hold a single copy of everything that I want to be available to everyone else on the devices.

Multiple people can access this library on their devices at the same time as long as they are on the same Wi-Fi network

I have used a recent, but not the latest, AirPort Extreme for several years and have had no problems (or at least no complaints) when accessing this single library with multiple devices

The Mac which runs my media centre as described above is directly connected to the AirPort Extreme using ethernet and is simply a broken down old MacBook (one of the white MacBooks from around 2007 with a screen that is completely smashed) running 10.8 with a few terabytes of storage attached

Bruce Patrick1 wrote:

I do understand that even if this is possible that two users would not be able to access the exact same movie/song/video/tv show at the same time. I do believe that what I want is not possible at this time but maybe a syncing solution with my current setup is possibe. Thank you for any information or direction.

As I write this I have the same movie running independently on my MacBook and iPad at the same time

By all means try a NAS, but I'm not a fan.

I prefer something that is universal (in my Apple centric household)

I prefer not to have to train the family

A dedicated Mac running iTunes, a ton of storage, a decent network, multiple devices and half a clue give me all I need

Bruce, I found this article: http://gigaom.com/2011/03/30/itunes-101-multiple-devices-one-itunes-account/, which has some good tips on managing iTunes for multiple users. Also, I use a Synology NAS for my iTunes library (shared) and although it does work, there are issues. If you want to know more about that, I am following this discussion.

Roger, I was planning to create a shared iTunes library (or iTunes server) on my Synology DS412+, to support our household with 3 teenage music lovers. Could you share the issues that you referred to?

Jimmy,

I think I have had every problem you can experience with this setup over the last several months. But until Apple decides to let us have a compatible NAS solution, this works fairly well.

The problems I have mostly stem from the differences between Mac OS and ext4 which is the native file system on Synology Disk Stations (and most other NAS products) and the way iTunes handle Files.

I tried several ways of migrating my iTunes library to my DS212j(some of the ways available on the net do not work properly).

The main problem is that if I restart my Mac, iTunes will sometimes will place the library files back on the Internal drive of my Mini. If I quit iTunes before restarting or shutting down this doesn't happen. But if it crashes, about half of the time it will revert. Even though my NAS library loads at startup, it must be too late to direct iTunes to my NAS library. This necessitates going into iTunes preferences and pointing iTunes back the the proper library. ITunes then has to process the entire library. It doesn't have to copy the files again but it takes a few minutes depending on the size of the Library. Recently after a crash, iTunes would not let me choose my NAS library at all. I finally just copied the itl and other library docs back to the NAS. I think they got somehow corrupted.

If you are not stuck on iTunes, Synology audio app does work but you have to make new playlists. With their app, you don't need iTunes running to play music and i'm pretty sure it would handle several users at once.

(The issues Below pertain to movies. If you are just doing music I don't think you will experience them).

I also have to be careful about how I add files to the library. I always use the "add to library" command and always after the files have been tagged.

There is one ether odd thing that happens. If I add "bonus features" files, iTunes adds them as "home videos". If I change this to "Movie", the files show up on the NAS in both folders. But if I delete one they both disappear and I have to retrieve the file from the Recycle Bin.

Hope this helps. if you have any more questions, we should probably start a new discussion. We are getting a little off topic.

Roger30 wrote:

The main problem is that if I restart my Mac, iTunes will sometimes will place the library files back on the Internal drive of my Mini. If I quit iTunes before restarting or shutting down this doesn't happen. But if it crashes, about half of the time it will revert. Even though my NAS library loads at startup, it must be too late to direct iTunes to my NAS library. This necessitates going into iTunes preferences and pointing iTunes back the the proper library. ITunes then has to process the entire library. It doesn't have to copy the files again but it takes a few minutes depending on the size of the Library. Recently after a crash, iTunes would not let me choose my NAS library at all. I finally just copied the itl and other library docs back to the NAS. I think they got somehow corrupted.

Sounds very similar to my issues several years ago before I stumbled into the right way to do it

I use the iTunes server on my NAS so my partner and I can share a central music collection at home.

We both run iTunes on our laptops, and connect to the iTunes shared library. We don't need to use iTunes to import music, or worry about iTunes media mapping to the correct directories, etc. And we don't have to worry about inconsistant libraries which can happen if you both have seperate libraries stored locally with iTunes Media location mapped to the NAS.

Adding new music (including FLAC!) is simply a case of dragging and dropping to the Music folder on the NAS. The NAS will automatically re-index the Music directly and thus enable access to the new music via the server.

The only downside I can think of is (currently) lack of album art and haven't tried transferring music to partner's iPhone yet, not sure how/if that will work.

jhclare wrote:

I use the iTunes server on my NAS so my partner and I can share a central music collection at home.

We both run iTunes on our laptops, and connect to the iTunes shared library. We don't need to use iTunes to import music, or worry about iTunes media mapping to the correct directories, etc. And we don't have to worry about inconsistant libraries which can happen if you both have seperate libraries stored locally with iTunes Media location

Hi all,

I've got a Synology ds213j with iTunes Sever enabled and I use it just as jhclare has wrote (probably that is the point of an iTunes server).

Problem is sometime iTunes shows it in the shared libraries but most of the time doesn't.

I've spotted no rule in this behavior.

I'm running iTunes 11.2.2 (3) on Mavericks. Does someone knows how to "force" iTunes to get it back in the list?

Thank you

Hello,

Nice discussion. Lots of good ideas thrown around. Mostly about specifying the needs. For my needs, the best suggestion is to run iTunes all the time on a networked machine. This provides the best apple integration as opposed to running a non-native nas solution along the lines of DAAP.

I have not read the entire 5 pages of comments so I am not sure this has been mentioned. I am going to run a iTunes on a WIN7 VM with sharing turned on. I would run an apple VM but it requires having the apple hardware among other complications. I am hoping running it on windows gets me the home sharing feature. From there it is trivial to connect to the NAS storage.

I use esxi to run numerous servers for hobby and home networking. Running iTunes on the WIN7 VM keeps my machine count down and gets me all the benefits of running a mac mini without having to buy one. I will report back on how this works out.

Thinking of picking up a Synology and running the exact setup you've got: iTunes library on the NAS, accessing with ATV3 via home sharing. Wonder if you could comment on any performance related issues you may have come across. We're an all-Apple household and I'll probably end up with my wife's library on the NAS as well. We don't mingle libraries because she has some terrible iTunes habits that make me crazy. No album art as far as the eye can see! Anyway, just curious to see if you're happy with it.

Best,

Ron

To answer your question properly, you have to understand that the AppleTV is not a player, It's a streamer and requires a player to work (iTunes). The iTunes server is not a player, just a collected library that can be accessed across a network. The iPods, iPads and iPhones have downgraded versions of iTunes because the necessity of keeping the application smaller on portables is a great deal. The purpose of having an iTunes server running on an NAS is strictly for the need of other computers being able to access it without the need for taking up additional resources. For example inside an office that has 20 people listening to the same shared song you would be pretty ****** that the reason why your computer or your network was running slow was because 19 of your co-workers were listening to your music, though you might not notice the difference, as far as computer speeds, if you were using a Mac Pro or a Server grade PC (Xeon processors, not the i5 or i7), you would notice it on a desktop workstation like an iMac or most PCs and laptops. As a solution to what you are trying to do the best bet is bring the NAS back to where you bought it, get a Mac Mini, pay the extra $50 for the server license on the OS and buy a RAID tower to connect to the Mac MINI and run it strictly as a server, both for media and file storage.

If you run one of the newer Synology NAS units you don't actually require a PC/Mac running iTunes to stream media: Synology have written some apps for their NAS that allow you (via a browser or via iPhone/iPad DS Audio and DS Video apps) to stream media DIRECTLY from the NAS to an AppleTV unit, there is no intermediary copy of iTunes software needed on a Mac/PC. It's pretty handy.

First of all, the OP should be named Scuba Snarky...(or worse); why people feel it's ok to be d!#k heads on the Internet has always baffled me.

Second, Plex is a very good alternative media server for iOS, Android, PC, Roku, Windows and Xbox devices....way better than anything iTunes Server does...especially for owners of a Synology NAS.

Third, I agree that iTunes Server is worthless...which is why I use Plex Media Server!

Fourth, I know...I'm posting on a thread from 2013....

Here are my recent experiences...

I wanted to be able to maintain a single iTunes library and use a mixture of Windows and Apple devices in the household for access and playing content. I already had a NAS (Synology DS214SE). Little did I know how much it was capable of until more recently.

Initially I tried setting iTunes to use the NAS drive as the library location on all computers, as suggested by many blog posts around the internet. This meant adding those files to each iTunes library. However, I got many of the same problems as people have reported here (duplications, corruptions, etc.) So, I tried the iTunes Server approach, and it seems to be working perfectly, despite only trying to get this to work half an hour ago.

For administering the files on the NAS, I am using a standard local iTunes library on a machine I have designated as a Master. Here, I add the music files, as before specifying the NAS drive as the library location. Now I can open the NAS Server library on each copy of iTunes in the household and play the music that is stored there. It took a little while for the server application on the NAS to find all the files and make them visible on connected machines, but now I see everything I want (except album artwork on slave machines).

So, in my opinion the iTunes server is not worthless. It is easier to administer than having multiple libraries all looking at the same network location. I would personally recommend taking this approach, if your requirements are the same as or similar to mine.

I am using iTunes version 12, and my Synology is 100% up-to-date (currently 5.1).

I do almost the same thing, but I do not have a master iTunes, I use only Audio Station. When I want to add new music i just go into the network drive and drop the music in /music/dir. I make the playlist in Audio Station and the iTunes server is automatically updated with the latest info. I even use the Download Station to fetch all my podcasts. With setting up a few smart playlists in Audio Station all my podcasts show up with the latest episodes as soon at they're downloaded.

The iTunes server is definitely not worthless anymore, especially with some of the recent updates to the apps and OS.