Play home movies on tv

Read this post from earlier today:

How to watch my movies on 4th gen apple tv

I have never tried the VLC app with my ATV4. If you have a bunch of video on the disk just saved as files, this may be the way to go.

Otherwise, you need to set up your iTunes library and import all the videos into iTunes. With that done, you could stream the videos to a ATV from your MacBook using iTunes via Airplay (where you control playback with the laptop) or via Homesharing to the ATV where your Macbook and hard drive act as a server and you use the ATV remote to play movies.

This is how I have my videos setup.

The problem you may run into is getting the videos into iTunes in a format playable on the ATV. Depending on your video formats this may or may not be an issue.

If I were in your shoes, I would investigate the VLC option. Once clear on how to network your drive, buy an ATV4, get VLC and try to make it work. If you can't take the ATV4 back before the 14 day return period.

Using Apple solutions the ATV is not your solution.

ATV does not have storage so it will not be able to act as a backup.

The ATV counts on streaming home video from your Mac so again you need to hook up the hard drive.

The Apple TV cannot store media files. The 4th Generations storage space is only for Apps and games. Any media would need to be streamed from a computer or other device to the Apple Tv.

blakefromnewton wrote:

I don't want to have to "hook up" the hard drive every time I want to watch...

Why not? Anything else will require it be hooked up any time you want to watch the movies, so not sure why the hard drive is not an acceptable option.

If your TV has a USB port that can be used to read drives, and your movies are in a format supported by your TV a secondary hard drive or even a USB drive connected directly to the TV would work.

IT will play any compatible media of the shared itune liv of the computer running itu se when its on