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Share videos via iTunes Apps
Although iTunes 6.0 doesn't enable proper, seamless video sharing, you can use it as a means of publicising available video streams on your LAN, and clients can use iTunes to view those streams, albeit in a limited way.
  1. Install Darwin Streaming Server. A complete how-to is beyond the scope of this hint.
  2. Open your desired video in QuickTime Pro.
  3. Export the Movie to the streaming server's shared location (/Library -> QuickTimeStreaming -> Movies by default). You can re-encode if you like, but provided your LAN is fast enough, you should be able to get by with merely hinting the files. Try the following settings:
    • Export: Movie to Movie or Movie to MPEG-4. Select Options...
    • Video/Video format: Pass through
    • Audio/Audio format: Pass through
    • Streaming: Enable streaming and Optimize for server
  4. Add a streaming audio/radio URL to iTunes. Select Advanced: Open Stream..., and paste in your favorite web-radio URL. Here's one to try: http://www.radiokeneally.com/listen/RadioKeneally.pls
  5. Copy that new iTunes Library item to the video playlist you plan on sharing.
  6. Choose File: Get Info on the radio stream, and modify the URL to reflect the streaming server location. Often it will be of the form rtsp://servername.local/Filename.mp4. You can also change the metadata fields to describe the video.
  7. Repeat steps two to six for the other videos.
  8. Connect using iTunes. The videos will play in the Album Artwork pane only.
Okay, perhaps the reward is too meager for the effort, but there is absolutely nothing intrinsic to iTunes that prevents video sharing, as you can see.
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Share videos via iTunes
Authored by: logich on Dec 09, '05 09:23:24AM

Good overview, though I wish Quicktime Streaming Server would announce via Bonjour to make the process a little easier for the average mac user.

I still prefer Tryst when it comes to video sharing. The Bonjour support is the real killer, and it doesn't hurt that it uses VLC as a back end so it is a bit more efficient.

http://www.trystx.com/



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Share videos via iTunes
Authored by: atl on Dec 09, '05 10:04:03AM

Actually tryst is a new one on me. Thanks for the link.

I mostly wanted to see if such sharing *could* be done, given iTunes's increasing status as a general digital media jukebox and sharing hub. It's clear that the infrastructure is there: it's just down to apple making it one-click easy.

I agree that there's a lot more that could be done with DSS/QTSS. There's Bonjour service announcement, but one could also imagine doing some DMAP/DAAP-protocol announcements on top of that, straight into iTunes. The plug-in architecture seems to be there, but I, for one, don't have enough hours in the day...



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Share videos via iTunes
Authored by: kevinbarre on Jan 17, '06 10:47:01AM

I tried sharing clips encoded from DVDs as .MP4 files across my home network. It works fine for small clips. I can't get a full length movie to even start. It shows up, but won't play. I would really like to be able to make this work so I can rip all of my DVDs to my home network and allow my kids to watch all of our movies through iTunes on the network. Any thoughts?



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