[slzmd]

This issue of sharing music among many different Macs on one network seems to be much harder than it should be. It would be ideal to be able to walk up to any Mac I own in my home (all of which are registered with Apple to play my AAC files) and listen to any song I want from a common library of songs on an external drive (and from any user account on each of those Macs). Also, if the fancy strikes me to hop onto iTunes and buy a song I should be able to do so from ANY computer and have the song automatically be placed into that external library AND show up on EVERY iTunes library of every user on every Mac in my home. This is where it gets sticky - I have been able to point each iTunes to the iTunes Music folder on the external drive (either directly pointing it to the folder or using an alias) but there is no way that I have found to AUTOMATICALLY have a new song I have purchased show up on all Macs. What I need to do is manually go to each iTunes (on each Mac and on each user account!) and add that purchased song to the iTunes library of that Mac. Confusing, right?? Gets worse if you purchase songs on more than one Mac in your home (I have 3). Apple really should make this entire process seamless -- especially if they want to have us buying media (songs, movies, TV shows, etc...) from them to play wherever and whenever we want on our Apple products (iPods, iPhones, AppleTVs, AppleToilets, etc...). Would seem straightforward to have iTunes check a file to see if a new file has been added to the main library on the external drive and if so, add that file to that particular iTunes library. Just some of my thoughts.....

[Tom_Diola]

Is your question: Why can't I have my iTunes Library on an external drive and have all 'authorized machines' see all the songs?

[minischneides]

I am likely missing the point here buy why can't you just configure iTunes library sharing...

[slzmd]

No question here - just a statement. I can share the library and see the songs on multiple computers/accounts. The problem is when I purchase a song from one computer it does not automatically show up on other computers unless you specifically add it to that computer's/user's library on that computer. Not sure if I am making myself clear...

[slzmd]

You can view and play the songs when sharing libraries across a network but you cannot sync separate iPods with those songs that are not in your library. So, if I purchase a song that my son wants on his iPod he would need to add it to his library to get the song - will not allow you to add the song to your iPod from a shared library.

[albloom]

You've hit a limitation of iTunes that most of us just shrug off and deal with. Our
home ethernetlet has one master iTunes library, on my machine as luck would have
it. Get your music from anywhere onto any Mac, but it doesn't "count" if the tracks
aren't transferred to my Mac and loaded into my iTunes library.

When folk gripe about that limitation, I suggest that they are free to write their own
programs. If you use someone else's program, live with the features it offers.

I don't understand the problem you encountered. My iTunes is set to share. Anyone
else on the netlet sees everything on my library. Read only, of course. As with all
shared data, it is loaded when iTunes starts. This has been a feature of computers
since I started with them in 1966. Yes, I'm an Olde Farte. The solution is to quit and
relaunch iTunes on the "satellite" machines. Nothing for it. You'll see the same thing
in Finder if someone you link to changes something on his or her drive after you link.

Clear as mud? I thought so.

[slzmd]

I am also shrugging it off and dealing with it but I figured it would make good discussion. I am a "have my cake and eat it too" type of guy. If you limit the users on your netlet to only download new songs on one computer and sync their iPods from that one computer and they can only use other computers to listen to the shared library it would solve this problem. HOWEVER I have 2 boys who want to be able to use their own Macs to sync their own iPods and be able to add songs from their Macs but have everyone in the house be able to listen to them AND sync them onto their iPods from their Macs and not be limited to using only 1 Mac for this. (say that 10 times fast!)

My point also was that everyone keeps talking about how we'll all have our digital media in one place in our home (presumably our server with the 5TB drive) and be able to share it freely amongst everyone in the home - whether it be viewing a movie from the bedroom TV (with AppleTV) or from the living room TV or listening to songs from any computer in the house, etc... To be able to do that freely without worrying about which library this or that movie or song is synced to, problems like those that exist now with iTunes will need to be eliminated.

If you weren't completely confused before, now you must be!

[albloom]

Confusion is my natural state.

It's not something that I've seen, much less tried myself, but would a "network
drive" solve the problem? It wouldn't be tied to any computer, and everyone's
iTunes could point to that library -- or separate idiosyncratic ones in addition.

It could be a mess, too. I don't think iTunes is smart enough to "lock out" a
library that is being updated by one person to prevent two people updating
the same data base at the same time.

Just my 2p.

[slzmd]

The drive where the iTunes library resides is not material as long as all users always have access to that drive. All users now do point to that drive/library. The problem of adding new tunes to that library (as extensively discussed above) still exists.



I agree with your assessment of the mess that could ensue with multiple users accessing the iTunes shared library and making changes at the same time. This seems to be a common problem with databases but it would seem there should be some way of making it not a problem.

[xengia]

I have changed the folder to which all music is to be stored to my network share (I use a QNAP server 209Pro which uses an embedded Linux system, with appropriate access rights to the Qmultimedia folder - this is a default system folder, that itunes immediately recognises on setup; however, one needs to grant the appropriate access rights to enable music to be stored directly on that folder).

I have found no degradation in quality and everybody on my network set up in the way described above (mixed macs and pcs) is able to access and write to the library.

itunes, unfortunately, does not automatically allow for sharing of other information such as album artwork. If anybody has found a way to share such info as album artwork on a network share, please let me know.

xen

[albloom]

Quote

itunes, unfortunately, does not automatically allow for sharing of other information such as album

>artwork. If anybody has found a way to share such info as album artwork on a network share, please let me know.

Quote

It's not a true audiophile's solution, but I store my music in MP3 format. All the metadata, including
album art is stored internally in the files.

Makes it downright pleasant when I load an MP3 CD (about 10 audio CDs worth) into my car's stereo.
Displays the album and track names instead of TRACK01, etc.