I can't get my aTV to appear in my iMac's iTunes. I love the thing so far but now this is a real problem....

Both are networked wirelessly through a 1TB TimeCapsule. I've set up the network no problem, I can play trailers etc. so I know the aTV is connected fine. I've googled this problem and found a lot of people with the same problem and plenty of advice but nothing has worked. Often the information relates to outdated versions of OS X and/or iTunes.

I've got the latest version of iTunes (8.1) and after a factory reset, I updated my aTV to the latest version as well via the Software update option.

It was all going so well....

For the benefit of others...

If your Apple TV is connected normally to your network and all else looks AOK, then following fact is key to getting your AppleTV connected to your iTunes:

When you go to connect to an iTunes source in your AppleTV menu and AppleTV displays the 5 digit code for you to enter into iTunes, you have 5 minutes before it pulls the plug. This sounds fair enough, but firstly, I didn't know this and secondly, even though 5 minutes sounds like plenty of time to walk from your lounge to the room where your other computer is running iTunes, when you don't know the clock is ticking and you share your house with a wife and small children who interrupt you constantly, you can miss this window of opportunity time and time again as I have done for the past week.

5 minutes. Do it at a time when nobody is around and it should work fine. :eek:

That is VERY good to know!

I certainly would have liked to have known it before I spent hours and hours trying to figure out why my AppleTV would never appear.

I'd just like to add that now that it's connected and I am streaming all my media to it, it is AWESOME!!!!! My Media Centre journey is over and I wished that I had just gone with iTunes/AppleTV in the beginning and not wasted hundreds of dollars and weeks of fiddling on other setups.