[l008com]

I have a ton of video on my home server. It's all .mp4 h264 encoded video. Via aliases, it's all in the primary user's Movies folder. And I watch these videos using front row on my bedroom tv (which is connected via HDMI to my home server (a Mac of course) ). So I'm getting a new, large HD tv in the living room. I want to get an Apple TV too but I'm not sure that I can easily watch all my video on it. Can I? Do I have to do anything special? I've used older APpleTV's in the past, and I remember that you could do some sharing with different 'services', but you would do it differently depending on what you were sharing. Music vs Photos for example. BUT none of my videos are added to any iTunes libraries, and I don't plan on doing that. Would I still be able to play my videos?

[Andy8]

I use an ATV2 which is running XBMC, that lets me stream almost any media format to my TV.

Works like a charm with no iTunes involvement.

I keep an external drive attached to my Airport Extreme's USB port, which all the media sits on, you could use your Mac's internal HD if you wished.

[l008com]

I'd rather keep the standard software on there and not hack anything.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by l008com 

BUT none of my videos are added to any iTunes libraries, and I don't plan on doing that.

You should if you intend to watch them on ATV.

(There's no reason not to, actually - they can still live in the same hierarchy you keep them in now; it's just that they're indexed in the iTunes Library.)

Then, all you need is to make sure that they're in an Apple TV-compatible format (bitrates, sizes, etc.).

[l008com]

The computer they live on is a server. I'm not going to remote-desktop into that server and drop my videos into iTunes every time I add some more to my video drive/shared folder.

[Spheric Harlot]

I have a hunch an unhacked Apple TV is not in your future.

[l008com]

I guess I'll be sticking to my MBP & frontrow.

[Wiskedjak]

Yup. Without hacking or linking your videos into iTunes (they can still live on the server), there's no way to do it. For some bizarre reason, Apple insists that all local streaming goes through iTunes.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

Yup. Without hacking or linking your videos into iTunes (they can still live on the server), there's no way to do it. For some bizarre reason, Apple insists that all local streaming goes through iTunes.

I'm betting the reason is quite simple:

Distribution licensing agreements require that sharing across devices work only through sharing tied directly to your iTunes account.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

I'm betting the reason is quite simple:

Distribution licensing agreements require that sharing across devices work only through sharing tied directly to your iTunes account.

So? I sign into my iTunes account through the AppleTV. The AppleTV is perfectly capable of authenticating me for rentals. I can also push licensed content to my AppleTV from my iPad. No, I think this goes beyond licensing and more into the realm of making iTunes the hub of everything.

And, for unlicensed material, such as iMovie produced content, I should be able to pull those straight from the server.

[l008com]

Yeah, I'm talking about private videos, not DRM'd stuff. iTunes distribution agreements do not apply. Or at least, they shouldn't.

[-Q-]

Unless you want to hack your AppleTV, iTunes is required unfortunately.