I have an external HD connected via USB to my time capsule which acts as my home wifi. Is there a way to access the mp4 video files to play over AppleTV units on my TVs? I have tried third party apps, but then my iPhone cannot be used during playback. Thanks for any help.
If you have an Apple TV 4 you might try third party apps (on the Apple TV not on your phone) some apps such as 'Plex' do what you want (You don't need your phone)
VLC is another universal player app for ATV 4.
home sharing won't work? I have older versions of the AppleTV
No, homesharing won't work. Home sharing uses iTunes, you can't run iTunes on an network drive.
You'll have to use iTunes on your computer or purchase the newer Apple TV.
Why not just plug the ext drive into your mac/pc ?
That on it's own won't help, the content needs to be in iTunes.
Sorry what I meant was.....
In my instance, I have a 5TB drive attached to my iMac to home share. iTunes is open on the iMac with all content on the external drive.
Yes that's how mine works too.
The OP would need to import the content into iTunes though, it wouldn't just work by plugging it in as an external drive. I appreciate you might realise that, it's not certain the OP would.
Fair point.
external HD content to AppleTV
