I am looking at the NAS above and wanted an answer to a quick question.
At the minute my iTunes library is on my PC and external hard drive and to view it on my iPad I have to have the PC on and iTunes running.
If I were to purchase this, I would move the photos, video and music to the NAS, would the iPad be able to access the films & music directly from the NAS/? The blurb says, ‘The drive includes iTunes server support so you can centralise your music and stream it any Mac or PC with iTunes.’
Or would I have to have the PC switched on and iTunes running?
…would the iPad be able to access the films & music directly from the NAS?
…Or would I have to have the PC switched on and iTunes running?
The latter. The PC must still be on and running iTunes.
I have observed the following, when the NAS holds the media files and the PC’s iTunes Library is mapped to the NAS (i.e. xml on the PC, data on Z:\Public\Shared Music):
PC is On: iTunes shows local library _and_ the shared library from the NAS
PC is Off: iPhone does _not_ show the library from the NAS
Why not? This is the primary point of having an iTunes Server on the NAS, on top of the “normal” centralized file storage.
Why not? This is the primary point of having an iTunes Server on the NAS, on top of the “normal” centralized file storage.
No NAS-based iTunes servers that I know of do that.
iTunes servers serve to iTunes CLIENTS ONLY. No iOS device is an iTunes client.
I understand perfectly that this is how the protocol is specified, and there is probably no fault at all on WD’s side.
It’s just that I don’t understand the reasoning behind exactly this sentence “No iOS device is an iTunes client.” – what is then the point of having a streaming server, when “iTunes clients” can only be other PCs running iTunes and capable of accessing centrally available music files is about two dozen other ways?
Why not? This is the primary point of having an iTunes Server on the NAS, on top of the “normal” centralized file storage.
No NAS-based iTunes servers that I know of do that.
iTunes servers serve to iTunes CLIENTS ONLY. No iOS device is an iTunes client.
I understand perfectly that this is how the protocol is specified, and there is probably no fault at all on WD’s side.
It’s just that I don’t understand the reasoning behind exactly this sentence “No iOS device is an iTunes client.” – what is then the point of having a streaming server, when “iTunes clients” can only be other PCs running iTunes and capable of accessing centrally available music files is about two dozen other ways?
Hehheh… The answer is in your question.
The iTunes server is to do exactly that – to stream to other PCs running iTunes.
Sure, there’s plenty of other options. iTunes server functions are really outdated, anyway. Apple slowly eroded the functionality with each successive release of iOS and iTunes. They’re “protecting” their market.
It wouldn’t surprise me too much if they soon put the final nail in the coffin by redoing DAAP in such a way that 3rd party devices no longer work. — Trying to get more iCloud and iTunes Match subscribers.
Why not? This is the primary point of having an iTunes Server on the NAS, on top of the “normal” centralized file storage.
No NAS-based iTunes servers that I know of do that.
iTunes servers serve to iTunes CLIENTS ONLY. No iOS device is an iTunes client.
I understand perfectly that this is how the protocol is specified, and there is probably no fault at all on WD’s side.
It’s just that I don’t understand the reasoning behind exactly this sentence “No iOS device is an iTunes client.” – what is then the point of having a streaming server, when “iTunes clients” can only be other PCs running iTunes and capable of accessing centrally available music files is about two dozen other ways?
Hehheh… The answer is in your question.
The iTunes server is to do exactly that – to stream to other PCs running iTunes.
Sure, there’s plenty of other options. iTunes server functions are really outdated, anyway. Apple slowly eroded the functionality with each successive release of iOS and iTunes. They’re “protecting” their market.
It wouldn’t surprise me too much if they soon put the final nail in the coffin by redoing DAAP in such a way that 3rd party devices no longer work. — Trying to get more iCloud and iTunes Match subscribers.
And that’s probably why you have to “hack” your iDevice to be an AirPlay_Receiver_ and not only Sender, when most of them are perfect “first screen”, not second screen devices.
Well, enough of this. We’re not going to change this.
