Just recently bought the Western Digital ShareSpace NAS 2TB and got another 2 x 1TB Caviar Green WD HDDs into the ShareSpace NAS, totalling 4TB.
















Some of the components are already in place. The 3 Apple TVs have been serving movies and music from the Time Capsule, but it is running out of space fast. 290 movies at 690GB, 4066 audio titles and music videos at 24.6GB, 45 TV Shows at 225GB, 114GB worth of vacation/home movies and 11GB worth of photos in varying resolutions, spread between the 320GB internal notebook HDD on the Macbook White and the 1TB Time Capsule, and it's coming to the last few remaining GBs on storage space. Time to move up.

Phase 1 - To configure RAID 5 on the 4 x 1TB WD Caviar Green HDDs, to prep them to receive the related medias.(movies, TV Shows, music, photos, essential/sensitive datas).The ShareSpace will be formatted to RAID 5, and still in the process at this moment, and only projected to finish the RAID process in 17 hours. Once that is done, the projected space available will be around 2.68GB, with both the protection of striping and mirroring.

Phase 2 - To relocate all the movies(DVDs or home vacation), music, photos, and TV Shows to the ShareSpace.

Phase 3 - Linking them to iTunes is also required so that they appear right on iTunes, with correct links pointing to the WD ShareSpace, with tagged album art/movie poster and song/movie/TV Show infoappearing correctly, will take another sizable chunk of time.

Phase 4 - It would also be important to test to see if all these transferred media, stream right to all three Apple TVs around the house.

Phase 5 - Once all that is in place, hopefully the Time Machine backup residing on the 2TB MyBook will not take that long to complete.

At the moment, is on Phase 1.Time to dig in the heels, get to work, and *pray* nothing goes wrong, else I'd be losing a lifetime worth of work/data.

The hopeful end result would be automated backup system running in tandem with the video-on-demand media serving capabilities between the Apple TVs and their storage containers(ShareSpace) working smoothly. The target objective is to have a pseudo-VOD-like system not unlike the hotel pay-per-view system, with vast array of selection of entertainment medium at the fingertips of the end user(or at the tip of their Apple Remote ). I'm not holding out much on the wired/wireless capabilities of using the WD ShareSpace as a scratch disk for video editing, but if that turns out to be somewhat manageable, then that would be a bonus. In the end, I hope I dont need to look into larger storage solution until much, much later. Thus, is the curse of an Apple TV user with library size spiralling out of control.

This post has been edited by stringfellow: Dec 3 2008, 06:38 PM

Yikes and time consuming indeed. Phase 1 completed, RAID 5 clocking at 2.68GB. Enter Phase 2, transferring the data from Time Capsule and the iTunes folder from the Macbook White to the ShareSpace. Time til completion? 46 freaking hours! Sigh.......

I plan to stream all iTunes-related contents via the Time Capsule, yes. The beauty of a NAS (ShareSpace) is that it acts like a connected external portable hard drive when it is attached to the Time Capsule via Gigabit Ethernet.Like a portable hard drive, you have access to all type of data, not just movies, music or the likes. And when the ShareSpace NAS is connected to the Time Capsule, the Time CApsule broadcasts its contents to all components you see in that diagram there, including the Apple TVs, which would arrange them as per how they are seen in the iTunes inside the Macbook White (also connected in the network to the Time Capsule), and present them as Front Row-like interfaces easily navigate-able by using the Apple Remote.

Think of it like Astro, only difference is, I choose my contents. And of course, not service disruption when it is raining outside.

Dear iAce,

Yes, you need a Mac to be on to do so. Reason being, the Apple TV needs to use A Mac's iTunes library to be used as reference content to choose from. I can choose to sync the Apple TV with some content, but the largest HDD on an Apple TV without modification is 160GB. Not big enough in my books.

So, in my configuration, I'm using the Apple TV as Streaming receiver, 3 Apple TVs connected to 3 different TVs throughout my household. If I choose to, I can offer different amount of content for those 3 different Apple TVs, or use Parental Locks if I want to, since all my movies and TV Shows are tagged with ratings(R, MA, PG-13, etc). At the moment, I'm just planning to spread them evenly and offer all three Apple TV all the content available.

I just realized something. With all the content relocated to the Sharespace, I can finally add another type of download into my daily routine: Podcast. I had deferred downloading podcast in the past, because of space constraints. Not anymore!

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Added on December 4, 2008, 9:09 pmTo answer your question, the Mac just need to be on, not online. The Apple TVs need a reference library to stream from, and the links are inside the iTunes inside the White Macbook. I don't have to turn on the White Macbook if I choose to sync (copy) selected content into the Apple TV's hard drive, but there is not much you can put inside the Apple TV's small size HDD. Therefore, I choose to "relocate" the "HDD" into the ShareSpace, and stream it over to the Apple TVs. This mode requires the White Macbook to be turned on.

This post has been edited by stringfellow: Dec 4 2008, 09:09 PM

A few problems with that setup, to me at least.

The PS3 requires me retagging the music I have to allow the album art to show. I am a perfectionist, and I would not rest until I get things right, and having that little thing called album art, is important to me. I set this up as if I will be evaluated by a tender approver , so it has to be perfect to my own self-imposed standards. I know to some it is enough already to have just the contents appearing, even if they are only appearing in list text form. But this is more for my own self-satisfaction and i hope it makes my guests coming over during movie/TV show nights feel like they have fun using them without complicated instructions.

uPNP on PS3 requires me to retag all the music , and the interface is kinda lifeless to me. Plus I do more than just music. TV Shows and Movies with synopsis, info like actors, directors, date produced, so all this would not appear correctly on uPNP device. I've tried uPnP with Medialink and EyeConnect, pairing it with PS3, but the result is bland, to say the least.

I don't torrent, my media downloads comes primarily from iTunes itself, so pairing a Mac with an Apple TV is a no-brainer. I all for hacking the AppleTV, but my need for a hacked Apple TV only comes for the need for Boxee, which now connects to Hulu.com video streaming service. I don't download TV Shows unless they are shows that I really want to keep, and if I do, I get them through iTunes. TV Shows on iTunes come ONE day after they are broadcasted on their respective network in the States, and I like their quality to be perfect, not with advertisement scrolling at the bottom of them screen, or things like that. If it is a show I'd like to watch but not keep, I watch them streamed from Hulu.com, that way, I abide all the copyright rulings, and still get them fast. Just my opinion.

RAID is very important to me, especially RAID 5, since all these contents are purchased from iTunes, and if I lose them, I cannot redownload them again, unless I repurchase them. So keeping them safe requires RAID 5, which combines the speed and mirroring of RAID 1 and 0.

As for the price, I only bought the ShareSpace NAS in Melbourne, for AUD799. The other two 1TB WD CAviar Green was purchased in Lowyat, for RM720. The rest of the components you see in that setup diagram, is already in place.

I've tried Boxee before, but the fact that Hulu block all non-US IP addresses, totally makes Boxee installation on Apple TV worthless.

RAID 5 is RAID 1 and RAID 0 combined. In my case, let say if I chose to format the 4 1TB drives to RAID 0, I would have the system see it as a large singular 4TB storage space. File access speed is also increased from this configuration. But if there are problems later and one of the drives kaput, I lose all other drives in the RAID array, and losing 4TB worth of data is not something I'd look forward to. Next would be RAID 1, which mirrors the drives, basically carbon-copying one another. In this case, a RAID 1 array on my config will result in a 2TB storage space only since the other 2TB is used to check parity and repair the other drives should one of them fail. Basically, it allows recovery of data from other still working drives. RAID 5 combines RAID 0 and RAID 1, which means it has the speed of RAID 0 and the redundancy of RAID 1, so I'm covered on both ends.

Yup, I buy Blu-rays too, but for independent movies, rom-com (don't look at me, ask my better half ), or other type of movies that I feel that it is not worth buying Blu-ray for, I buy them either in DVD format, or in lots of cases now, I buy them off iTunes. I also collect 4 TV shows, Family Guy, South Park, Lost and Heroes, so these shows I have bought season passes from iTunes, and they are downloaded into my system 1 day after they are broadcasted on US network television. The rest of the shows that I do watch, like House, Fringe, and the rest, I don't download them, I watch them via streaming from Hulu.com. That way, I save on storage space, I obey the copyright laws, and still able to enjoy the most current shows on American TV network.

I strictly buy Blu-rays on titles that showcases good image quality or outstanding audio quality. I don't waste my money buying Blu-rays on sitcoms of rom-coms or movies that dont show great scenes, or audio capabilities. (although sometimes my better half breaks that rule with her own choice of purchases like The Devil Wears Prada........women! ).

As for the Rolly, I use it as a living room talk piece. It is so hard not to notice it when it is docked on its docking station sitting on the center of the coffee table or the living room table, and not getting asked what it is. Once I pair it with my NWZ-A820 16GB Sony Walkman via Bluetooth, the Sony Rolly becomes 2 things: a Bluetooth speaker with DAMN GOOD bass/volume, as well as a dancing robot! That livens up any evening that I have guest over, they love seeing the little bugger dance. I don't keep my songs inside the Rolly, so the lack of storage space issue does not matter to me, because I stream the audio via Bluetooth from the 16GB Sony Walkman. The NWZ-A820 + SEP-10BT + DR-BT50 = match made in heaven! I got them in 3 different places, the Rolly in Osaka, the Walkman in Singapore, and the BT Headphones in KL. Phew!

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Hulu video streams while in KL is painful to say the least. I have to cache it first, before hitting the play button if I'm using Streamyx. It really takes off when I'm at work. Places that I go, like Osaka and Tokyo, as well as European destinations all have blazingly fast Internet connection, so watching Hulu there is like pressing the play button on any movie playing software.

Yup, believe it or not, I've breached the USD1000 mark on the stuff I've bought from iTunes. And I still have Lost Season 5 season pass to buy.

I've been trying to emulate those smart home concepts I see on movies and TV shows, but I don't want to spend a ton to do so. This way, I still have control over what component I use, and how much money I spend on doing so. If I had the money, I'd be splurging on the Kaleidescape Home Theater setup, and no having to worry a thing about setting things up as such.



The price of this setup? In the millions, so I think I'll stick with my own, thanks. There are TWO Malaysian dealers of this ultra-high-end setup, but I dare not even try and look them up and see if they allow a demonstration of the system.

RAID 5 needs 4 HDDs as minimum, well, that's what WD says in their manual for the ShareSpace.

Apps and games are redownloadable from iTunes, but not movies, TV Shows and music. Reason being, you can claim loss of content, but you can set up your iTunes account on a different computer and redownload it there if Apple allows redownloads of these contents. This is akin to piracy. With apps and games, they are tied to an iTunes account AND an iPhone/iPod Touch, so no hanky-panky there.

These devices are on when needed. I can leave them on 24/7 and allow remote management, but seeing how Malaysian weather being prone to lightning storms, I'm not too keen on playing chicken with God when it comes to my Terabytes of content.

This project is mainly done to make my guests at ease when they come over for movie/TV Show nights. One day, I'd like to be able to entertain them, hosting a movie or TV Show premiere at my place, at the ease of simply flicking a switch or a press of a button. At the moment, there are still rough spots, but it is on the way.

We usually have the Lost TV Show premieres with my other Lost fanatic friends, and seeing how Lost is coming back on Season 5 on January 21st, I have to get this done by that date. Heroes, not so much, but if they want, and when they decide it's my turn to host, I'll put it on, or any other Blu-ray titles I've just purchased. Different groups with different interest, some like movies and TV Shows, others love games. The gaming crowd would come mostly on games that are rare and/or fun to play on multiplayer, such as the recent Super Street Fighter II Turbo High Definition Remix on PS3/PSN. Otherwise, it is much more convinient if we only play each other while multiplaying online on Playstation Network or Xbox Live.

Don't worry, I keep a spare defibrillator handy. You stunned and pengsan, I shock you back to life......but outside the compound of the house lah. Nanti stun again.

Phew!

Tackled Phase 2 AND 3 in one fell swoop, in the process iTunes calls Consolidating a Library. Pointed the Library to the new ShareSpace storage, and consolidated so that all the contents go into the iTunes folder in the ShareSpace and corrrectly linked to it as well. The length of the process? Well, let's just say I started it the day before I left for Shanghai, left the White Macbook running, and only now have completed the lengthy process! 3 DAYS!

Starting Phase 4, checking to see if all three of the Apple TV streams the content fine from the setup. From the Apple TV streaming closest to the Sharespace + Time Capsule, the few TV Show episodes and trial test movies tested streams beautifully without hiccups. Next would be the one in the guest room, and the further in the living room. Things look rosy from here on.

Already starting evacuating the iTunes folder inside the White Macbook, and suddenly I have 260GB free! Time Machine backups should take faster time to complete, and I have more room to abuse on it. So Phase 5 is running in tandem with Phase 4 at the moment, and should be done by tomorrow.

Sorry if the description is a bit more descriptive than empirical, since I have not done any statistical tests to check on the throughput of the data flying around wirelessly using this setup. But I'm only interested to see if the content being streamed around is adequate for the Apple TVs/ Time Machine requirements, and it certainly is.

Also a point to note, since every single iTunes library content has been transmigrated into the Sharespace, syncing of my iPhone(especially syncing applications and games, as well as the periodic iPhone backups) and Apple TV takes a while longer than before since it has to access the Sharespace via network, instead of locally available on the hard drive. Not a big problem, and it works as it should. Also on the opposite route, contents purchased and downloaded INTO the iTunes folder into the primary library also downloaded, written and stored properly and without issues into the Sharespace. Yesterday, got the email notification from Apple about the availability of the new Heroes Season 3, new episode Our Father, and once download is initiated, it is routed nicely into the new pointed library in the ShareSpace.

It has been a long journey, and it was a pretty nail-biting one, to say the least. During the 84+hours of transferring the iTunes library and data content into the Sharespace, I had been extremely worried should a power failure occurs and wipe things out, having me to do it all over again. The fact that everything went as automated as it is, while I was away in Shanghai, and returned to see that it works beautifully is a testament to the fact that Apple made this possible, and made this right! Thank you Apple!

This journey is coming to the end of its road, and I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel. What is left to do, is to continue ripping movies, TV Show DVDs and music into the ShareSpace as I am continually doing now. At the moment, I'm ripping Futurama - Bender's Big Score and Futurama - The Beast with a Billion Backs, so the work continues.

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Added on December 11, 2008, 7:25 pmPictures of the completed setup will come once everything is set and done. Stay tuned!

This post has been edited by stringfellow: Dec 11 2008, 07:25 PM

Try re-encoding it into an .mkv recognized by Quicktime, I suggest using HandBrake. The new HandBrake has presets for MKV built into it.

Easy! Remember, your Apple TV is just a husk, an extender for your iTunes. If you have tagged your media right, that would come with ratings. Mine does. Every time I rip my movies using Handbrake, and tagging them using MetaX, MetaX includes embedded rating into your newly ripped movies. Once done, you can arrange this as per the ratings, or IIANM, you can already do so from within Apple TV. That way, you can exert parental controls over what your media is available to your loved ones.

I was heavily into Drobo+DroboShare as well, but looking at the price, it wasn't feasible. The ShareSpace includes 2 x 1TB Caviar Green HDDs with its price, compared to am empty husk for the Drobo, not to mention the added cost of DroboShare. I intended the ShareSpace as a NAS, not a wirelessly-transmitting storage space. From my time having the Time Capsule in my network, it has proven to work beautifully, so I'd like to continue doing so, with as little changes to the already up-and-running system I have. Sure, I'd love to have the Drobo's hot-swappable HDD feature, but judging from the reviews I read online, doing hot swaps results in the HDD arrays left in the Drobo recovering from that loss of a HDD, and rebuilding that array takes a while. More so, that it negates the advantage of this hot swap itself. It may take considerably less time if you're dealing with a smaller RAID array, but once you hit the Terabytes, that advantage diminishes.

Good luck on yours, I am having so much fun with mine. Been downloading podcasts like crazy, even the HD ones, which were not possible before because of storage constraints. I even am in the process of ripping more movies into the ShareSpace, I had to be selective before because of storage space again. I can also finally get rid of all my CDs( or at least store them away ), and DVDs, and eliminate clutter. Life is good!

Danke, danke!

If you want something simple, that simply plugs and plays straight out, I would suggest using a WD MyBook, configured to RAID 0 or striped configuration. That way, you have maximum possible space and the fastest access speed as well. Bear in mind, RAID 0 allows 2 TB full disk space, but no protection against data loss due to failure of any of the other striped HDD. You lose one, you lose EVERYTHING. If you want protection, set it to RAID 1, that way, every 1s and 0s of data you have is mirrored, so losing one HDD means that you can rebuild the TOC and the content itself from the remaining surviving HDD. But doing RAID 1 means halving the available content, so if you got the 2TB ShareSpace, you effectively only have 1TB of storage space, because of the mirroring.

Moving up the table to 4 x 1TB HDDs, you can configure to RAID 5, which stripes and mirrors your data, basically the best of RAID 0 and RAID 1 combined.

The Sharespace comes with 2 x 1TB HDDs already inside, or a more pricier option, a full 4 x 1TB HDDs. I opted for the cheaper 2 x 1TB HDDs, since I can outsource cheaper prices for the remaining 2 x 1TB HDDs that I need. Also, your choice of HDDs is also somewhat important. Tendencies would go for the fastest, hence performance driven HDDs in the WD catalogue, hence the "Black" Edition. But there are drawbacks in this setting, mostly from power consumption, acoustics and life expectancies of the drives. I chose the WD Caviar "Green" Edition HDDs, which are also the HDDs that WD chose to put into the Sharespace, because they run on lower power consumption (meaning it would not be like a blistering hot oven when all these 4 HDDs are running in that tight space confines of the ShareSpace enclosure), they park when they are not accessed (hence lower possibility of the platters getting damaged by constantly moving reader head), and since they spin at a lower RPM compared to the "Black" Edition, they are very quiet. I place the Sharespace inside my bedroom, and I dont even hear them even during heavy access. It is even more critical if you choose to place the ShareSpace in the living room, you dont want to hear the whines and drones of the drives spinning, while entertaining your guests.

For a Mac , it is easy. If you are planning to use this plugged straight to your Mac, pick an empty Ethernet port. Gigabit Ethernet works best, providing optimum speed. Right-click your Finder, and choose "Connect to Server". Type in "smb://wdsharespace" in the server address window, and voila! It comes up instantly as an acessible storage space, just like how a USB-type storage space would. Done with it? Eject is as per normal. The same instructions as what I have typed above is available on the provided manual. I find it that on the Mac it is easier to access the Sharespace than on a PC running Vista, on Vista, you would have to run WD's specific software to access it as a NAS. On a Mac, it acts just like any storage device, thanks to its Bonjour-friendly characteristics.

If you are planning to use the ShareSpace as per my setup, the same instructions applies. Just that now you have to make sure your wireless router plays nice with the ShareSpace. Mine works beautifully with the Time Capsule, zero config, right out of the box.

As for the HDDs supporting Mac, that point is moot once you decides which RAID configuration you are going to go. In my case, I picked RAID 5, and I had to go through a 15 hours RAID 5 setup to prep the 4 x 1TB HDDs to stripe and mirror each other. Your mileage may vary, may be vene shorter, on smaller capacity drives, or if you plug the Sharespace straight to your Mac using a wired Ethernet cable. I did my RAID setup while in a wireless environment.

The end result? Have you been to a nice high-end hotel which offers video-on-demand movies for purchase on their in-room TV? The one that you can choose with the remote and purchase if you like? Mine uses similar principles, only that the movies are free, of course. And best of all, they come with the slick, awesome Apple TV interface you can move around using that little Apple TV remote (or in my case, I'm using my Logitech Harmony One Universal remote), with beautiful movie poster art, movie details such as directors, screenwriters, producers, and the actors, date of these movies produced......even, their ratings (PG-13, R, etc)! That way, I can simply do my own self-censoring, by blocking out the more unappropriate content when guests with young childrens in their families come over to my place. They always have their kids diving for the Apple remotes wanting to check out what new movies their Uncle Stringfellow have for them to watch. Latest ones are WAll-E, Speed Racer and Kung Fu Panda as digital copy download from their Blu-ray packages, while for the more responsible adults gets Wanted, Get Smart, The Dark Knight, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls and Hancock during our movie nights. Popcorns, snacks and sodas included of course, I love entertaining my guests.

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Added on December 30, 2008, 1:11 amAnd by the way, I dont stop at movies. Next month, we're continuing our tradition of TV Show nights as well, when Lost Season 5 starts January 21st. Add the new season of Family Guy and South Park, it's going to be awesome! iTunes provides these episodes ONE day after they are screened on national American TV network, so we're not missing on the freshness of these episodes! We rotate homes to go for during TV Show nights, others subscribe to other shows, so when the latest episodes are available, we go to their house to watch them together.

Also, the Sharespace holds all my music collection, as well as vacation photos and home-made videos I've made during the holidays. The photos come out as beautiful slideshows WITH accompanying music, set on Apple TV as screensaver. And even when all my iTunes library is stored on the Sharespace, when my iPhone or iPod Touch is plugged in to sync, or back up with iTunes, and it having to access the Sharespace wirelessly, the sync/backup went in flawlessly. No hiccups whatsoever. I now have a centrally-located storage of all my multimedia-related, as well as sensitive/personal data on the Sharespace.

This post has been edited by stringfellow: Dec 30 2008, 11:16 PM

My HD movies from my camcorder are in the .m2ts format, so I'll have to use VoltaicHD to convert them into a H.264 file wrapped in the .mp4 container. Works fine by me, and I am very finicky when it comes to IQ.

If you're planning wireless transport via WIFI, use Wifi-N. "G" would work, but prone to inteference. also make sure there aren't double wifi-hops, meaning you dont transmit twice over wireless environment, if you do, you'll get slideshows instead of any semblance of a movie. Only transmit ONCE over wifi, preferably between the transmitter and the end-user(in this case the Apple TV).

The stength and quality of the throughput greatly depends on the distance and line-of-sight hindrances between your transmitter-receiver (Airport Express and your Apple TV). Otherwise, they work beautifully.

I don't store any movies or songs on my PS3, the PS3's interface is hideous compared to the Apple TV. I tried streaming content to the PS3 using MediaLink and EyeConnect before, and the filetree and directory is so ugly, and unwieldy for common layman to navigate through, I scrapped that approach. Plus, media streaming to the PS3 requires strict uPNP and DLNA compliance, resulting in some of my files arriving onscreen via my PS3 with their metadatas and tags missing, including album art. I am so used to Apple TV's presentation of the media being streamed over to it, including its beautiful album art and metadata tags, that I cannot live without it.

All the digital copies from the BDs are verified and copied over into iTunes, which in turns, since I place the primary iTunes library pointed to the WD ShareSpace, gets copied there as well. When I want to play them, just turn on the Apple TV, which links up with the iTunes and points to that digital copy in the ShareSpace and voila! Instant Video-on-Demand!

The digital copies are in .m4v format. Some of the digital copies, from Hancock and Speed Racer are in the .wmv format, so I need to re-encode them back to .mp4 before I can add them into the primary iTunes library.

Good luck with your setup!

I am using Handbrake, and using its built-in preset, it took as long as the movie itself. So you can imagine, all this effort took long man hours, and I am not taking any chances about losing all those effort down the drain should the drives go kaput.

The Drobo is good, just not so good when you look at the price you pay. The dealbreaker for me was after researching its features, I found out that its supposedly hot-swappable feature, is not so superior, when user reports stating that the rebuilding of the files from the removed HDDs (if you want to upgrade to bigger size HDDs or removing faulty ones) takes a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time. IT also uses Data Robotics proprietary file system, unlike the RAID config. For the price you pay for the Drobo(much more expensive, and WITHOUT any HDD inside, unless you get them straight from the US), it's relegated to second choice to me. For the time being, any NAS-related devices from QNAP or Synology is better than the Drobo. WD Sharespace just happen to be available when I was shopping around Melbourne at that time.

LOL, we're both two crazy iTunes junkies, aren't we? Yup, if your immediate area of operation for these media delivery is small, the most common-sensical way to go about it is wired, be it wired GE or USB/FW. There's no uncertainties about wired connection on whether your media transfers would work or not, it just does.

As for Lost, I went hi-def on the Blu-ray route. I keep the standard definition from my iTunes Season Passes, so I'm sticking it that way.

The Time Capsule is good start, but it would start getting pretty cramped sooner or later. With a NAS, you can easily(relatively) swap the smaller sized drives for bigger ones later when they are made available or becomes cheaper later. So, in essence, it depends on your needs, and how you are approaching this in terms of future ability of storing your data later. If you only hold smaller sized data, and/or not planning to upsize your storage size later, then the TC would be adequate. But trust me when I say that, all this storage capacity and filling it up, gets addictive, at least to me. I always find ways of filling them up with things, even things that would be time-consuming, like ripping entire seasons of TV shows, that I initially would not prefer to do later. There's always something about the ease and accessibility of all those TV Shows, movies and photos at the tip of your fingers using the Apple Remote. Very very liberating.

I've not read on the MediaSmart server, so no comment on that. As for where I read reviews on this stuff, I actually dont read them until I've narrow it down to a few candidates. For that, I follow up with the guys at Macrumors.com forum, there is this one thread about the members there utilizing their Apple TV and discussing about their iTunes library spiraling out of control in terms of size. A few go for the external HDD route ala MyBook, but there are a few who dealt with NAS for their storage choice, and it seems like the NetGear ReadyNAS is popular there. Me? All I need is the NAS to be readily and easily detectable by iTunes, and of course fast transfer system via the Gigabit Ethernet. The reviews for the ShareSpace, I read the all over the place, but I pay particular attention on choices of NAS which hold not problems with detection within iTunes, as I want as little problem as possible, and as much automation as I can so that my guests can easily go about turning on this VOD system as easy as turning on the Macbook and turning the Apple TV on.

Hello there!

I've thought about hacking it, but the movies and audio I mainly use the Apple TV with are on formats readily recognizable by the Apple TV. Personally, I kept avery high standards on what I store in my ShareSpace and what I have running on the Macbook serving the ShareSpace to the Apple TVs, so I dont want things like dodgy files from shady and questionable sources to permeates my system and possibly undermine and disrupt my VOD ecosystem. I've seen a few of those "torrents" of TV Shows and movies, and personally, although they are passable in quality, but they are not good enough for me to put as servable media in my VOD ecosystem. Some have rolling advertisement at the bottom of the screen, some have questionable aspect ratios, and even the TV network logo on the top right corner. Others may not mind these things, but I want my media to be pristine and free from these "blemishes".I want to serve them right. And to do so, I even research them, these TV shows and movies and songs, I tag them properly using websites like TV.com, Film.com, and IMPawards.com for their metadatas like directors, actors, screenwriters, year of release, length of movie/TV Show, ....even their ratings (PG-13, TV-PG, etc). That way, it looks very very professional and authentic.

To some, watching TV shows and movies may just be about "downloading/leeching" pirated copies of them and watching them on their PC monitors, and then delete them off, but to me, great TV shows deserves collecting and proper management of them. Watching them is also an experience, an event for itself, I have friends, guests and diehard fans of these shows and movies over for a Movie Night, throw some popcorn into the microwave, a few jugs of soda and/or tipsier beverage , and have a great time watching them. That way, you would appreciate them more, than just simply associating watching TV shows or movies with illegal downloads and piracy. We (my buddies and I) make it into an event, and we rotate houses, for Heroes and Lost, the come over to my place, for House, 24, Battlestar Galactica(before it ended last year ) or other series, we go to our other buddies' houses and they hold their own Movie Night events.

There I go babbling again. To answer our question, I have thought of hacking it, but I dont feel the need for it. My home over in LA, the Apple TV has been hacked to use Boxee to watch TV shows on Hulu, which Boxee supports, but it is a moot point here, since Hulu implements Geo IP blocking stopping streaming outside continental US.

Handbrake works fine by me, including the latest version. If the disc I'm ripping is too stubborn, I use MacTheRipper to rip the VOB files out and feed that VOB into Handbrake. I dont do cross-encoding between format that much, because I don't "download" other format contents. The most would be transcoding between .wmv to mp4/m4v because some of the digital copy included with Blu-ray movies I've bought are in that format.

First things first.

Open your iTunes. Go to Preferences, and go to the Advanced tab. Did you check the "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to Library" box? If you did not, then iTunes maintains an alias, a link to where your songs are located and points to that when you click to play them. If you do check that box, and you wish to maintain that setup, what you need to do, every time you select a file and drag-and-drop them into iTunes, you need to press and hold Alt-Option, so that iTunes does the opposite of what you've checked in that box, in this case, keeping your files intact at its present location , instead of copying them into your iTunes Music folder.

Or if you choose to keep your songs in your Time Capsule permanently, it is even easier! Open up iTunes, go to Preferences and change the iTunes Music folder to a folder you would appointed residing INSIDE the Time Capsule. iTunes will then go through the lengthy process of relocating all your media to that folder, and once that is done, all your songs will reside in that iTunes Library folder in your Time Capsule. If you are using the Time Capsule as your wireless router, then it should come out automatic when it comes to detecting the location of where your media resides.

It all depends on how you want to keep your Library organized. Do you want it to stay in one centralized location, or do you want to keep them spread across a few locations but still want iTunes to play them when you click on them. I prefer the former, but there are circumstances where you have to do the latter. Your choice.

The minute you have tagged them, either with iTunes or third party apps like MetaX, the metadata stays embedded within that media file. So yes, they stay tagged until you strip them of that metadata.

I think what you are experiencing is the occasion where your iTunes fails to connect to your Time Capsule for some reason, and when you open iTunes and look at the album art, the artwork remains empty. That is because iTunes only links/aliases to that song/album, it does not keep album artwork. It is the job of that song/album to be made visible to iTunes so that it can see the album artwork. Therefore, you need the location of where you keep those songs to be visible and connected to iTunes at all time.

I have this case all the time with my other two laptops, the Macbook Air and the Alienware. The case with both the MBA and the Alienware is that, I simply dont have enough space to keep all the movies into their local hard drives, so I point them over to their location in the Sharespace NAS whenever they are connected in the wireless network environment. The movies comes with nice movie poster artwork tagged in them. Obviously, when I'm away from home, they are not in that wireless environment, and whenever I view the movies previously tagged with these nice artwork comes out with no artwork, and cannot be played as well, since the location the iTunes is pointing them to, no longer exists. (since I'm not at home).

That idea about syncing online is my plan of action as well,you dont want to keep all your eggs in one basket. But The only time I can use a fast enough internet connection to do so, is while I'm in Japan, and I dont get to go to Japan that often these days. Another way of doing it is by doing secondary backups to a different external drive, but in my case, that is a bit redundant. The 4TB is backing up itself with RAID 5, while the Time Machine backup on the Time Capsule is basically a mirror image of the working HDD on my Macbooks. One gone , the other can replace. So having another secondary backup is not necessary in my case, as well as the self-backing-up nature of the RAID 5 on the Sharespace.

The 4TB Sharespace basically holds all my media, while the Time Capsule holds my sensitive/personal data. At this moment, the 2TB MyBook has been disconnected, until a time comes when I have exhausted the storage space inside ShareSpace and need to store it somewhere else.

I'm afraid I do not know any option of streaming data to the iPhone, and do not wish to do so. Reasons being, our line is crappy, as you eloquently put it. and most importantly, I need to leave the Sharespace on all the time. I'd rather have it turned off while I'm not around, so as to prolong its lifespan. Helps on the utility bill at the end of the month too.

Looks good, with great compliments of connectivitiy options as well. Two slots only though.

Cant comment on the price, I've only dabbled with WD MyBooks all these while. Never really researched enclosures like these before.

By all means, please dump the IDE, go for the SATA.

Stick with the previous one, you'll thank me later. Sustained speed of transfer through Firewire, and the convenience of eSATA connection is worth it.