Shared iTunes library and iPad

[db02922]

Hi all

First of all apologies if the answer to the following is to be found elsewhere but I was unable to find this specific question in my search of the forums.

I have my main iTunes library in a dedicated share on my Synology DS209+II (not the Music share). I have also set up a small test library in the Music share. I have iTunes server running on the DS and have Home Sharing turned on on my iMac and iPad2. I am running iOS 5.1 and DSM 4.0.

On my iMac, as well as my main iTunes library, I can see the test library under 'Shared'.

On my iPad in Apple's Music app (the one that used to be called iPod), while iTunes is open on the iMac, I can select my main iTunes library from More > Shared. I cannot see the test library at all.

If I quit iTunes on the iMac, I see the following message:

'One or more people are using your shared iTunes library. Are you sure you want to quit and disconnect everyone?'

If I go ahead and quit iTunes, my iTunes library is no longer accessible via my iPad's Music app.

My aim is to be able stream my iTunes library to the Music app on my iPad without the need to have iTunes open on the iMac. I realise I could use DSAudio on the iPad, but it doesn't support gapless playback which is why I would prefer to use Apple's own Music app.

If I could see my test library in the Music app on my iPad, it seems to me that it would be a question of simply re-locating my main iTunes library into the Music share on the DS. I cannot see what is preventing the Music app from seeing my test library.

I am hoping that some of you clever and inventive people may be able to help me with this. I also hope the answer doesn't come under 'Seemingly simple things that Apple doesn't allow you to do'...

Kind regards
David

[brovie]

I have just purchased a DS411J (which I love!) but I am having the same issue. I have not been able to figure it out. If anyone can help it would be fantastic!

[mleclerc7]

When through the same process, only using my Windows 7 PC as the server.
My iPad simply does not see the NAS (211j) as a "sharing" server.

[qwerty1982]

Having simular problems with ipad and iphone... On the NAS we dont have to ebter any home share log ins.... so how is it meant to join with any thing else? Is it just any thing on the same network?

[qwerty1982]

Have been informed that no IoS device will see the Shared Library, only another PC will. To access tunes from any IoS device you have to use the DS Audio app.

[db02922]

Many thanks to you all for your replies. I am fast reaching the conclusion that what I am trying to do is not possible. I suppose then the solution would have to be to migrate my iTunes library to the music share on the NAS and use DSAudio. So Synology, how about a gapless version of DSAudio please?

Kind regards
DB

[myCloud]

My wife and I each have a MacBook Pro. I have an iPad 1 and she has an iPod Touch 4. I've manually been keeping our iTunes in sync with Home Sharing, dragging newly ripped media from my library to hers on her computer.

Our new Synology has a "home" directory for each of us and two shared folders. One is named "shared" (lowercase "s" to distinguish it from the similar folder on the Macs) where the Local Group "users" has R/W permission and the other is named "Time_Machine" where only a user named "tm_user" has R/W permission. tm_user has a 4000 GB quota, so about half the DS goes to that.

On each of the Macs, I set Finder to show networked drives on the desktop. In the left pane of a Finder window, we have a resource with the name of the DS and a resource with the name of the DS followed by (Time Machine). I open the one with the name of the DS and there are two volumes, "home" and "shared". Double-clicking on each one mounts it, and it shows up on the desktop (as does Time Machine when it's backing up). Then, opening System Preferences, Users and Groups, I dragged the "home" and "shared" icons from the desktop to the user's Login Items, so these mount each time at login.

For iTunes, I created a folder named "Music" in "shared," and then created a folder named "iTunes" inside "Music." I copied my "iTunes Media" folder to the iTunes folder on the DS and then pointed my iTunes to it in Preferences->Advanced. As with any bulk move of data I moved to the DS, I did this using two Finder windows (which would be Windows Explorer on the PC) and used a wired connection. FWIW, I use File Station on the DS as little as possible for data moves between the DS and clients.

On the DS, in Control Panel -> Media Indexing Service, I added the following to be indexed:
Music -> /volume1/shared/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music, checking only Music to be indexed
TV Shows -> /volume1/shared/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/TV Shows, checking only Video to be indexed
Movies -> /volume1/shared/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Movies, checking only Video to be indexed

Audio Station picked up everything. The first thing I noticed was a ton of songs were missing cover art that showed up in iTunes. That's because iTunes doesn't store art it downloads embedded in the songs, where Audio Station expects to find it. iTunes uses a separate database.

Back in iTunes, I filtered each album to show the songs on it, then right-clicked on the cover art shown and selected "Copy", then right-clicked on the cover art for song 1 and selected "Paste." This takes a bit of time and the cover art will flash once it's copied to song #1. Then I selected the rest of the song and right-clicked on the cover art, selecting paste. This can take even more time. If I tried to paste the cover art into all songs at once, often several would be skipped. Doing song 1 separately prevents this. As you do this and go back and look at the album in Audio Station, you'll see it picking up the cover art.

There are some other things to be done to the songs in the album in iTunes. In fact, they probably should've been done years ago, before Audio Station. First, the album title in multi-disk sets often show (Disk 1) and so on for each disk. I used Get Info to remove this from the album titles on each disk so there's only one album name for all disks. Before you do this, activate the disk number column and make sure there's Disk X of Y for the songs on each disk. You can fix this in Get Info if it's missing.

The other thing to be done is where the entry for Artist is not the same on every song is to highlight all the songs in the album and make sure "Part of a compilation" is Yes in Get Info for all of them. Otherwise, you'll wind up with a separate album listing for each artist.

Finally, as I went through doing this, I fixed the Genre in Get Info where iTunes had got it wrong. When the Genre field is blank, you can use the down arrow to see all the Genre's iTunes has, but you can create your own here.

We have an impeccable collection of music and cover art in Audio Station. I've intentionally left the cover art off singles to distinguish them as not being an album. One could also have the cover art and distinguish them by adding (Single) to the song title(s) in iTunes Get Info.

My wife and I now use Audio Station on the Macs and DSaudio on the iOS devices for playback. In our opinions it is much nicer and more intuitive than iTunes. We have an AirPort Express with speakers at each end of the house and can control the music they're playing individually with either the Macs or the iOS devices.

I periodically copy the other files in my Mac's iTunes folder (besides iTunes Media) to the shared/Music/iTunes folder on the DS. Immediately after doing so, I could start iTunes with the option/alt key held down and point iTunes to use everything from the DS, not just the iTunes Media folder. The reason I don't is because I sync my iPad with my Mac (wirelessly) and it goes faster with all the Apps and Books I have, even though they too are on the DS. Although my wife no longer uses iTunes, she also syncs her iPod Touch with her MBP (usually wired since she also charges it that way).

Regarding videos...
Our TV Shows are El Gato eyeTV recordings converted to m4v and placed in iTunes TV Shows.

Our Movies are typically Handbraked DVD main features as m4v in iTunes Movies.

None of our videos are protected files from the iTunes Store. It goes without saying, these can only be played with Apple software.

We typically open them with File->Open in VLC, pointed to the mounted "share" volume, but with them in iTunes, I could run that on my Mac and use iTunes to serve the iOS devices, particular an Apple TV, which we don't have. Or we could mirror from the iOS devices (streaming from my Mac, which is getting them from the DS) to an Apple TV.

Instructional or other DVDs where we want to keep the chapters and extra features are ripped with RipIt and located shared/Movies/DVDs on the DS. I've created an alias to shared/Movies/DVDs on our desktops. DVDs open with the Mac's DVD Player application.

I hope this helps. We found Synology's "iTunes Server" to be pretty worthless, but that's Apple's fault, not Synology's. Questions are welcome.

[mike135]

Hi myCloud,

I have just signed up to the forums as I can see nobody has replied to you for over a month, and a fair bit of effort obviously went into your response. I'd just like to say a big thanks for the above - I purchased a DS212+ (4TB setup with SHR) about a month ago and have been wondering how I can use and store my iTunes music library effectively, and how the rest of the family can access the shared library and add what they want from it to their own personal library (which I'm not too bothered about backing up - so long as the main shared library is safely stored on the DS).

I'd almost got my head around the 'whether i could do it this way' stage, and your post has just confirmed it...

...looks like I'll be busy after work tomorrow night!

Many thanks again!

Mike

[myCloud]

You're most welcome, Mike! Setup of a new DiskStation can be daunting.

I decided to go ahead and make a final copy of the other iTunes files (xml, etc) besides iTunes Media, from my MacBook Pro to the /shared/Music/iTunes folder on the DiskStation, and use it from there, even though it's a bit slower. To get iTunes to use it, launch iTunes with the option key held down and it will let you choose an iTunes library location. Browse to the iTunes folder on the DiskStation and choose that. It's important to do this on only one Mac (or PC) since iTunes is a single-user program with no locking to prevent simultaneous writing, and hence data corruption, of the index files.

With iTunes running on my computer with Home Sharing turned on, my wife can have her own iTunes library on her MacBook Pro, and use iTunes to play media from my MacBook Pro on hers. But we've decided to use Audio Station and DS audio for playback instead. I only use iTunes now for ripping CDs, and adding Handbraked Movies and TV Shows to their respective areas in the library.

I might also mention here, that instead of embedding cover art into each song, you can place an image in a file named, "cover.jpg" in each album folder. I prefer the former, even though it uses considerably more disk space.

Good luck with your setup and feel free to PM me if you have specific questions.

[relax_nl]

I had a similar question with respect to an AppleTV.

---=== Short version ===---

Hi, Will I be able to feed content to the new AppleTV from my Synology DS210J NAS? It has an "iTunes service"...

Not directly.
A NAS with an "iTunes Server" is running an open-source package called "Firefly Media Server" and while it does support DAAP (iTunes shared libraries) it doesn't support Home Sharing for ATV2 or the pairing protocol used by the classic ATV. Apple TV requires either a synched or streamed sever to respond with a 4 digit code upon initial link-up. The NAS's use the mt-daap/FireFly media server which does not have the capability to respond with a 4 digit code response. Besides, iTunes 10 broke the ability of most NAS mt-daap/FireFly servers to share thru iTunes.

The iTunes server on the DS is the firefly media server/mt-daap project - this only streams audio, it is not capable of streaming video.

---=== Long Version ===---
The iTunes library on the NAS can only be seen by a PC/Mac, but not from an AppleTV. You can pull the media on the NAS via an iP[od,ad,hone] using the official Synology Apps and push them on the AppleTV via AirPlay.
http://blog.synology.com/blog/?p=29

Currently there are two major media sharing protocols used in Apple TV, namely Home Sharing and AirPlay. The difference between the two protocols doesn’t always seem easily distinguishable to most people. Here is how it works. When you enable Home Sharing on your Apple TV, you will be asked to enter your Apple ID before connecting to your iTunes library. Only upon successful authentication will you be able to browse your media collection, either purchased from iTunes Store or ripped from CDs, that is stored in your PC or Mac and control the playback using the remote of the Apple TV.

Although we have evidence that the protocol of Home Sharing is much the same as the DAAP (Digital Audio Access Protocol) used in iTunes Server, the authentication mechanism prevents us from developing a solution to browse your media collection on your DiskStation and control the playback using the remote.

viewtopic.php?f=47&t=50119&p=192922&hilit=itunes+appletv#p192922

That is the Apple way, and the way iTunes works on all iOS devices... besides from iCloud, they only stream from a Mac or Windows PC up and running iTunes which is tied to the iTunes Store with an Apple account (with credit card info) -- unless you jailbreak your ATV, in which case you can install XMBC and use DLNA from Media Server on the Diskstation.

The Synology "iTunes Server" only serves Macs and PCs running iTunes.

Apple is cracking down hard on jailbreaking since the new ATV 3 (1080p) came out by not signing previous versions of the iOS. There's still one way to do an untethered break with 4.4.4 on the ATV 2 and a tethered break with 5.0 on the ATV 2. There is currently no jailbreak at all for the ATV 3 and the gurus who do these things say it'll be the hardest one ever to jailbreak. I'm sure they'll find an exploit, but wouldn't count on it now.

You can keep a Mac or PC up and running with iTunes using it's library from the DS and get media to the ATV 3 that way.

[myCloud]

Very nice synopsis on iTunes and the Apple TV. Thanks!

[db02922]

As the OP of this thread I would just like to add my thanks for the wealth of information provided by myCloud and relax_nl. I like DSAudio and am still hopeful of a gapless version one day. That would be sufficient for my needs although your replies have set me thinking about how I might better organise my media on the NAS.

Best regards to all.

DB

[Hemisphere]

I, too, just registered here to add another BIG THANK YOU to myCloud and relax_nl for taking the time to relay a wealth of knowledge. Their work underscores how extending a direct hand to one person on the Internet also extends an ongoing, though seemingly invisible hand to many others. It's a powerful demonstration that knowledge is a living, breathing, cumulative, cultivated, and communal human quality that changes us all.

Cheers to your work.

[myCloud]

It gives me, and I'm sure others, great joy when members search the archives and find our previous posts to be helpful. A big, "You're most welcome," to you and db02922, and thank YOU for taking the time to search the archives.

[cherrycloud]

Just wanted to say thanks for the info here. My wife and I both use Asus tablets and use the Mynet app that came preinstalled. It autmatacly sees the Synology Nas. Music, photos, and videos can be played with this app. But my son purchased an Ipad and I was pulling my hair out to find a way for him to access the Itunes library with out using the ds app. He hates the app for reasons only a kid could tell you. Thanks again for the info.