I have a question regarding the new Library function in aTVfb2.0.
Initially I wasn’t that excited about the new feature, and I still feel it clutters up the top menu bar in Media. It’s appeal has grown somewhat since I started using it though. But here’s the thing: in order to get it set up the way I want it to (i.e. not all available content needs to be in the Library) I can only select shared folders that have been set as favorite. If I don’t set a favorite, the folder is not visible in Library Settings, and the only option I have then is to add the entire Share (i.e. my complete NAS) to the Library (which, as I said, I do not want).
So, what I’d like to know: is there a way to add a specific shared folder from my NAS to the Library without having to make that folder a favorite and having it shown up in the top menu bar, and thus adding to the clutter? Specifically, I want to do this for my music folder - I switched from a mac mini server to a Synology NAS, and lost easy access to music from the main menu. Not that I use the aTV extensively for music, but it would be nice to have the ability.
Knowledge Base says to add a new share from a specific folder, but this does not work, I consistently keep getting time-out or wrong credential-errors, even though I’m using the exact same info as to the main NAS-share - and that one loads perfectly.
Another question: is there an option somewhere in aTVfb2.0 that allows to show fanart when I select/open a particular TV Show (the ‘main’ show screen with the different seasons), and/or a specific Season-folder? Or is it only supported for each separate episode / media-file (which would be a bummer, as I like my episodes in list format instead of grid)?
Sort of like XMBC does - I like the eyecandy, but XMBC does not let my aTV2 go to sleep, and setting it up right is not nearly as straightforward as mediaplayer.
If this isn’t possible, can I make a feature-request?
I am looking for this feature as well. I have a ReadyNAS with my video on it, but I have tons of other stuff there as well, including video files recorded by my DVR in another directory. I don’t want my ATV scanning these DVR files, not to mention the myriad of other files I have on this NAS volume.
I have a similar problem with a slightly different server. In my case, I have a Windows Home Server 2011 with a media folder and three sub folders, Movies, TV shows and Music. The ATV Media player sees only the entire server and tries to index (apparently) the whole darn 6.5 TB. It little more than it can handle I think. I never finishes indexing. Like the gentleman above, I cannot get it to just see and use the Media folders. It only sees the entire server and seems to refuse to drill down any further. I have a DNLA capable LG tv that has no problem doing this and had a WDTV Live streaming media player that could also do it easily. I just like the interface on the ATV much better. A basic “how to” for getting the shares to work would be nice. I’m sure if we can get to our media folders on the server/NAS we are using the rest of the set up would be much easier. It shouldn’t be this hard just to open a folder when you are already able to see and access the device it is on. Any help would be appreciated.
I did indeed read that entry in the Knowledge Base, except for some reason it will not work on my Synology Diskstation - like I posted above, when I try this with all possible different path permutations (i.e. with a NAS.local or direct IP Address, with or without \volume1\ added to the path, AFP or NFS) and the exact same credentials as the main NAS-share (from which I load movies and TV shows as favorites in mediaplayer, and which loads perfectly) I consistently get connection errors.
The only difference I can see between the main NAS-share (which can be loaded through zero-config settings I guess) and setting up a share via ‘Other…’ is a field for workgroup.
So what do you recommend: go through ‘Other…’ and leave workgroup blank (or if it needs to be filled in, then with what? I’m on an all-Mac household LAN), or through zero-config and add to the path? I’ve tried both and so far, nothing works…
I was actually able to make this work.. The issue was in the slashes (probably a Linux thing)… I originally entered "" characters between the server name and the directory structure, like so:
READYNASPRO\media\Videos\Download
But, when the test failed, it shows something like this in the error message:
Of course, after I got this working and set the content types, it picked up over 1400 TV shows and a few hundred movies, but while looking through some of the content (while it was still getting Fan Art, etc), my AppleTV crashed… Perhaps this is just too much content for the Library to handle.
Well, I finally managed to add a share to my music folder. I started from Add Share, then selected my NAS from the AFP server list (as opposed to ‘Other…’) and then started editing the path - as it turns out I actually did have to use /music/ as opposed to \music\ - so for users of Synology NAS-ses (?!?), using “/” in paths seems to be the way to go (or maybe it’s just me and I have my DS412+ set up weirdly).
However… When I add this share to the Library, scanning yields zero results for audio tracks. If I select the main NAS share, it informs me that 6116 audio tracks have been found on my NAS (just not added to the Library - stop me if I’ve stopped making sense, OK?)
edit Nevermind, tried adding yet another Share to /music/ and somehow the Library does find all audio tracks on that one…
So that’s adding share-to-a-folder sorted - Hooray and thanks to ptaylor for the initial suggestion.
Now how’s about adding that fanart-option for TV Show folders? ;) Or do I need to make an official feature request for that one?
Related question: how the frack do I get XMBC to recognize that same folder? I’ve tried adding sources through several means: zero-config, then iTunes music server (DAAP); Add network location… and then end up with something like afp://192.168.1.100/music, but nothing works, in the main menu all I see is Files and Add-ons. If I go to Files and then select the location I added, I can see all my music and play it as well.
The Add network location… did work for my movies and TV-shows - I don’t get it…
Regarding the fanart in folders suggestion I’d recommend searching for (or posting) a topic in the suggestions forum. If we get a few folks who would appreciate the same thing we can look at adding it.
it isnt the main system drive. its a second hard drive.
i was however able to get access to the files, by going to Sharing pane in Sys Prefs, sharing only the folders that I wanted access to via afp, and grabbing them via the Share manager in Media app. Hope that helps anyone else!
i love the current version of the media player