Have i blundered ? Synology DS213j/ITunes/Apple TV2

TOPDIV

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Aug 21, 2007
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Some advice please as i have a horrible feeling i've misunderstood what i could actually achieve with a NAS/ITunes/ATV 2 set up.

I already had a gen 1 ATV in my living room,and it soon became my favoured music playing device as it stored all my ITunes library (mostly ripped in Apple Lossless) on its hard drive which could easily be accessed using the IPhone remote app.It was linked to a Denon 4310 and usually sounded very good.Not as good as CD's but more than good enough given the ease of use.I also liked the fact that i didn't need to have my laptop running in order to access my ITunes library.

I wanted a similar set up for the bedroom,with the ability to listen to or watch anything stored in my ITunes library (and as an added bonus i also wanted to make sure my music was 'safe' as my laptop had been playing up recently and my external backups weren't done as often as they should be).

I did some research,looking through suggestions/opinions and reviews of products and set ups in What Hi-Fi and on this forum and eventually purchased an ATV gen 2 (jailbroken so i could watch more sport,which was important) and a Synology DS213j to hold (and back up) my ITunes library so that my laptop didn't need to be on. Note:It's probably worth pointing out that i did consider just buying a second hand gen 1 ATV and hooking that up to the amp/tv in the bedroom but it was the jailbreak features on the ATV 2 that also interested me.

As i'm not as computer savvy as most of the forumites seem to be i contacted a local IT guy and sent him details of the DS213j,told him what i wanted to achieve - i.e to have my whole ITunes library available to be streamed to my bedroom ATV 2 without the need for the laptop to be running - and asked him to double check that the products were capable of doing this,and if so was he capable installing it and getting it up and running.

From what i had understood,i'd have the synology holding all my ITunes library,sat in a corner and always turned on,ready to send it's music or video files to any Apple product that wanted to see/hear them.The IT guy said this was achievable.

But that is not what i have at present - i can listen to my complete music library through the DS Audio app on my IPhone,and i can listen to or watch purchased ITunes songs/films through my ATV 2,but i cannot access the complete library like i assumed i would be able to.In fact at present i can't even access the complete ITunes library when my laptop IS running ITunes ! (although i'm guessing that's something minor and easily fixed?).

Have i blundered in assuming the DiskStation would serve up my complete library of music (purchased through ITunes and ripped from cd's) or has the IT guy not set things up properly ?

If i want access to all of my music library in my bedroom,at night when my laptop is off,should i just buy an old gen 1 ATV ?

Sorry for the length of this post but i wanted to make sure i explained things properly - any advice would be gratefully received,even if it is bad news !

p.s i am hoping that even if i have blundered,some clever forumite may be able to tell me that the jailbroken ATV can stream the contents from my DiskStation using some of it's other software ? I sort of understood this might be the case but lack of computer savvy is seriously hindering me (and costing me a lot more money than i probably need to spend).
 
A

Anderson

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Was your laptop previously able to access all your media?

Its been a while since I've used iTunes but I remember that you had to have a password set up to access music remotely is this still the case?

Did the new ATV automatically recognise your iTunes folder on your home network or did you manually point it at the shared drive?

Clarifying on the first question, does all your original hardware pre new ATV still have the same access as before?
 

Craig M.

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I have the same setup, Synology nas - jailbroken ATV2. You can't use iTunes in the way you want with the nas, it will only act as storage for the library - you still need iTunes running on a computer somewhere. I use the Synology Audio Station app - this is a free dl from Synology, I control it using the free Synology remote app on my phone. You just point Audio Station at where your music files are, I created a folder called music and copied all my albums there, then you tell Audio Station where they are and wait for it to create a library from it.

If you want to watch films from it then you'll need xbmc (which might already be installed) if the rest of your kit doesn't have a dlna input. I had to jailbreak mine myself which required a fair bit of googling but was simple enough in the end.

http://www.synology.com/en-uk/support/tutorials/522

Hope this helps.
 

TOPDIV

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Thanks for the repiles,from what i can gather then i HAVE blundered in as much as i thought i could stream every piece of music i owned (ripped from cd or purchased in ITunes) from the Synology into the ATV2 without a laptop/computer running ITunes.

But if i'm understanding things correctly,i have inadvertently solved my own problem but purchasing a jailbroken ATV2 that has xbmc installed on it and purchasing a synology NAS with audiostation on it.

I half grasp what Craig is saying regarding using Audio Station (i am not the best or most confident when fiddling around with computers or understanding networks,files etc etc) but assume that i can either use audio station to play my music through ATV2 or use the some software in the xbmc to play it (and videos).

I'll look at the links provided,do some google searches and have a bash at sorting it out myself over the next few days.

If i'm struggling (and after a very brief poke around i think i'm going to struggle finding a way of getting something in xbmc to 'find' my diskstation and pull the files from it) then i will return and hope someone is kind enough to point me in the right direction.

I might well need a step by step idiot proof guide through things,so be patient with me :)

I will see if i can surprise myself first though - thanks again
 

TOPDIV

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So 15 mins after posting previously,i've tinkered around and to my surprise i have just listened to numerous snippets of songs in my ITunes library that were being played through the ATV2 using xbmc stuff (i say stuff as i don't understand whats going on,i just know that i know have access to the music that i expected to have access to,but previously didn't).

It's all a little bit confusing still but i suppose i'll get my head around it eventually,obviously by following advice on here and reading the help in links provided i've done what i wanted to,i just don't quite know how,so thans again everyone.

The music sounded as good as i expected (bedroom set up is basically an older version of the living rooms tv,amp and speakers combo).Not that it matters if it sounds ok to me but am i right in assuming that playing the 'lossless' files through xbmc software is producing exactly the same quality of music as i was expecting to get by streaming the files into the ATV2 and playing them from the 'apple' side of things ? They don't sound 'downgraded' but it was only listening briefly to a few tracks.

I'll continue 'tinkering' - any more helpful tips/links etc very much appreciated
 

TOPDIV

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It's amazing what you can do when you follow decent instructions (and have helpfully been pointed towards those instructions).

It appears that i have access to my complete music library through either xmbc (pulling the files from my DiskStation) OR through the DS Audio app,which is now set up to be a remote control and,i believe,is pulling the files from the DiskStation and 'Airplaying' them through the ATV2.

I should really have had a proper review period and listened to lots of tracks (maybe with and without headphones) before posting again,but i'm away for the next few days so trying to get things sorted asap.So on first impressions it feels as if the DS Audio 'airplaying' gives a 'subdued' sound but i could be imagining it ?

Would the lossless files be played (and sound) exactly the same in each option ? DS Audio was much easier to operate as i'm still finding my feet with xbmc and initially that feels very clunky and long winded.But if the sound is better then i'm happy to put up with it.
 

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