[GENERAL_SMILEY]

Does it mean that to stream content from the shared disk, it has to go through the laptop then to Apple TV?

Or can it pick content off the shared disk, without needing a computer?

[-Q-]

The AppleTV does all its syncing thru iTunes, so it would require a computer to get content. Now, if the stuff in your iTunes library were stored on that shared disk, I'd imagine it would stream it to the AppleTV just fine, but I don't know that for sure.