[jeffczyz]

I'm curious what everyone else does for their iTunes setup.


I have 5 "authorized" pc's for iTunes in my house. I store all my music, (mp3 and m4p files) in one place so they can be easily backed up and accessed. However, when I buy something on 1 pc's it isn't sync'd with the other PC's. That requires a manually adding of music.


Has anyone come up with a better way for seperate PC's to get access to the same library, playlists etc and have those changes replicated across all PC's?

 

[Tybio]

Yep! Just found it the other night. iTunes Library Updater .



!!!WARNING!!! Back everything up to the point that your comfortable, any solution like this if not done properly can cause data loss. Do NOT just trust people like me, go to the iTLU website and read the docs....also, if your not comfortable with it don't do it! Do not risk your Library without reason...and please don't blame me if something goes wrong .



I've not tried to do it with the playlists and settings...this is how I did it.


Preped NAS:

• created iTunes directory on NAS
  
  copied all music from the iTunes directory into it
  
  created Video directory on NAS
  
  copied all video from the iTunes directory into it

Prepared iTunes:

• Turned off "Keep iTunes Music folder organized"
  
  Turned off "Copy files to iTunes Music Folder when adding to library"
  
  mounted my NAS iTunes directory as a drive letter
  
  mounted my NAS Video directory as another drive letter
  
  Backed up old iTunes library on local system into a temp folder (out of the iTunes path)
  
  Deleted all songs from my library (while I had 2 copies, just to be extra safe)
  
  Deleted all video from my library (same as above)
  
  Closed iTunes
  
  Validated that iTunes folders did not have any media on them locally.

Rebuild Library:

• Run iTLU
  
  Pointed iTLU at both mapped drives
  
  Let it run.

I repeated the removing library part on all my systems, I don't want to end up with copies of the songs/videos all over the place (That's the point of a RAID NAS!). Be ready for it to take some time, and for heavens sake, turn off "Get Album Art on import". I did it with that option the first time and it took FOREVER. When I did it over a powerline network I just let it run overnight. Over a gig network it was much more snappy. iTunes scans each file, so if you have 2500 like me, or 10000 like some people...it's not going to happen instantly.


Also, iTLU does not really "Control" iTunes, it uses the script interface. So that means it's not an illegal hack, or designed to do things iTunes does not want done.


Another option, one that I didn't try cause I wanted to segment my video and audio...I have to keep the structure updated, but that's my problem

. Anyway, the other option is to take your primary system and mount the new location for the library as a drive letter...then go into Prefrences advanced and repoint iTunes at that. If you leave the "Keep orginized" and "move files" options selected it should copy all your songs and videos over. I'm unsure if it does preferences as well. From there, you should be able to just remove the librarys on the other systems and run iTLU against the new folder.


Anyway, that's all I got for ya!

 

[jeffczyz]

In theory this looks pretty good, was there any docs or help with it?

 

[Tybio]

Not that I've found.


I would recommend playing with it. There are options where it can remove iTunes entries that don't point to a valid song...that sort of thing.


There may be a better solution out there, but I have no idea what it might be.

 

[Nikonowski]

Hi everyone,


I am new here but I am struggling with this solution so I thought, I would ask experts for help

Here is what I would like to do:


I have iMac and 4 PCs and 4 iPods in my household. All the computers are interconnected via Gigabit Network and I am able to access files from my shared drives/folder between any of them.


I would like to setup one main iTunes library on either one of the PCs or on the iMac - it shouldn't really matter what computer should that reside on, or does it ?


So I will have 1 big drive that will have all the music files on it organized in folders i.e. Albums, Singles, or something similar. Bottom line is that I would like this drive to become main location for all of our music. Next, I would like to create a one massive iTunes library that will have all that music.


Next, I would like to be able to access (play, look-up etc..) this main iTunes library from any PC on my network without having to copy the music files over to the machine I am viewing the library on.


Next, this is where fun starts and I need all your creative minds to help me


I would like then to be able for each iPod user in our household to be able to connect their iPod to their respective machines and be able to create their own playlists that will be stored locally and once they create their playlists (from the the music that's in the main library) they would be able to sync to their devices selectivelly, so if they want sync just certain playlists, they can do so.



Furthermore, I would like to be able for any user in my household on any given computer to be able to import any new songs into the main iTunes library, which then would be updated ( I assume that the new song will need to be uploaded to that main drive where the main library resides, which would be fine)


And once again, if they after importing this new song, would like to update their own playlist with let's say that new song, they could do so. The idea is that every user would have access to all the music, if they wish and being able to sync to their own ipod device.


Is this possible and if t is, could someone please give me step-by-step guide how to do all of this ? Are there any gotchas etc...


Thanks in advance,

Nikonowski



Once again, after

 

[Suntan]

If you buy your songs from Itunes, this probably won't interest you, but otherwise I would suggest you look into getting a copy of J. River Media Center.


J. River has a similar, but more flexible interface than itunes and it has a couple of nice features that make it better suited for keeping multiple PCs and/or players synced with audio (like automatically searching your network music collection for new songs and either adding them to your list, or fully copying a duplicate of the file to the local drive (to update your laptop for use off the network later for example.)


J. River, it is what Itunes should be.

http://www.jrmediacenter.com/


-Suntan