[zappeh]

I've just bought a MacBook (my first ever Mac, so I'm completely n00b) and want to know the best way to manage MP3's on OS X.

What I want to do is play my MP3's on my MacBook which are stored on my PC and access them over the network. I have about 100GB of MP3's. I'd prefer to use iTunes as it works really well with the Apple remote and looks fancy.

I've tried to install iTunes and add the MP3's to my iTunes library by drag and dropping over a samba share (ensuring to check the option NOT to copy the files over in the preferences) and after doing that, iTunes runs absolutely dog slow. I would have thought it wireless would have enough bandwidth to do that, but maybe I'm wrong.

Am I doing something wrong? Does anyone know of any other software which will enable me to do this?

[MindFad]

Isn't Rendezvous built in to the Windows version of iTunes? You could always have iTunes open on the Windows machine and share the library that way, no?

[zappeh]

I've not heard of Renezvous (as I say, I'm a mac/iTunes n00b). I'll read up on it and give it a try, thanks

[jasong]

It's not called Rendezvous anymore, the new name is Bonjour. It is a technology that allows network devices to communicate without having to manually configure them.

What Mindfad is trying to get at is you can set your PC with iTunes to share your music, and then have your Mac look for shared music. This way your Mac's iTunes will list all your songs and playlists from your PC. While this is the simplest way of doing this, there are some drawbacks. You can't make playlists on your Mac, only use the ones from the PC. You can't add ratings or any other metadata from the Mac either. It's simply read (play) only access from the Mac.

As for playing them off a SAMBA share, 802.11G is certainly fast enough to do this. Are you certain your wireless router is 802.11G and not B (although this should work as well)? When you say iTunes is dog slow, what do you mean? Does each song take time to load? Does iTunes take forever to open? All of the above?

Although it's unlikely to be the case, check to make certain iTunes isn't opening in Rosetta. In the Finder, navigate to iTunes, select iTunes and then Get Info on it (either right/control click on the iTunes icon, use the action menu, choose File > Get Info, or command (apple) I). and verify that the Open in Rosetta checkbox is NOT checked.

[zappeh]

Ok, I'll try using bonjour, thanks. It sounds perfect to me, I just want read access - I'm not bothered about ratings or anything.

I am definitely using 802.11G, and when I say "dog slow" it takes 2-3 seconds (sometimes longer) for iTunes to respond to a command (e.g. pause, next track etc...) and often stops responding.

Thanks for the advice, it's all very useful and I'll give it a try

[OreoCookie]

You can download and install Bonjour for Windows, if you want to, as well.
If you want to access your pcs library, just launch iTunes on the PC and select to share its library (either with or without password). It should automatically appear in iTunes' sidebar.

[MindFad]

Whoops, I knew I screwed that up. Bonjour. Bonjour.