GigaOM » home sharing

Watching video podcasts on your Apple TV

Geoffrey Goetz — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 21:24:14 +0000

Podcasts have become a good way for cord cutters to get up to date info in lieu of broadcast news or TV shows. Thanks to the Apple TV, bringing them into the living room is a piece of cake. There are two options for getting this done, depending on your home set up and network configuration.

What is a ‘video podcast’?

Starting out as a means to embed media in an RSS feed in 2004, podcasts originally automated the distribution of audio to desktops and portable music players via subscriptions. As podcasters (individuals who make and distribute podcasts) have transitioned from audio to video, production companies have entered the field. New content providers like Mevio, Revision3 and TWiT TV are now competing directly with established networks like NPR, Discovery, and the BBC. Eventually, video podcasts managed from an iTunes account on the Apple TV could have the potential to be just as big as a living room content vector as YouTube, Netflix or even cable.

Accessing video podcasts directly from the Apple TV

The easiest way to view a video podcast is to find it on the Apple TV itself. You can access a list of readily available podcasts from the Internet menu of the Apple TV by selecting “Podcasts.” Here you can browse by popularity, genre, provider or even search for a podcast by name. If you’re logged in to your iTunes account, you will also be able to add individual podcasts to list of favorites that will be accessible from the Apple TV’s podcast main menu. The challenge is that there is only one list of favorites per Apple TV, and that list can become quite large depending on how many cord cutters you have lounging around.

Home Sharing your video podcast subscriptions from iTunes

If you manage multiple Apple TVs, or if you have multiple cord cutters sharing a single Apple TV, then perhaps an easier way to manage all of your podcast subscriptions is from iTunes running on a Mac. This is the best of both worlds, as you don’t have to repeatedly set up your favorites on each Apple TV, and every user on the network can manage their own collection of shared subscriptions with their iTunes account.

Subscribing to podcasts in iTunes:

From the iTunes General Preferences, ensure Show Podcasts is checked.
From iTunes Parental Preferences, ensure Disable Podcasts and Disable iTunes Store are not checked.
Open the iTunes Store located under in the left navigation pane of iTunes.
From the Podcasts drop down list in the iTunes Store, select Video Podcasts.
Browse and choose a video podcast you which to subscribe to.
Click “Subscribe Free” on the podcast page in iTunes.

Managing Updates to Subscriptions. Once you have subscribed to one or more podcasts, you can manage how often iTunes looks for updates, as well as how many episodes are kept on your computer at once.

Open Podcasts located under Library in the left navigation pane of iTunes.
Click on the Settings button on the bottom go the Podcasts window in iTunes.
Set how often iTunes should check for new episodes, which episodes to download, and which episodes to keep.

Set up Home Sharing:

From iTunes Advanced menu, select “Turn On Home Sharing.”
Enter your iTunes account information and click on the “Create Home Share” button in iTunes.
From your Apple TV Settings menu, select “Computers.”
Enter your iTunes account information.
Open the Apple TV Computer menu and select the Home Share name you created above.

Once you follow the steps above, you’ll be able to play any podcast on your Apple TV that you’ve subscribed to on your Mac. Between the two options, watching streaming podcasts directly on my Apple TV, or streaming downloaded podcasts from my Mac, I would have to say I prefer the latter, since I don’t have to worry about network issues and if I have my settings configured properly, I won’t wait for content to download. Any tips or preferences for Apple TV podcast viewing you’d like to share?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

UPDATED: I Gave My 3 Year Old an iPhone: Have I Created a Monster?

Patrick Hunt — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 16:45:02 +0000

A few months back, my wife went on a girls’ weekend trip from East Coast to West, gone for a total of five days. I survived my first long stretch with our three year old daughter alone, but it wasn’t easy. At 43, I came to parenthood late in life, and I have to admit being a father is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. During my wife’s much-needed and deserved vacation, I perhaps relied a bit too heavily on the TV for entertainment and babysitting. But the TV gave me the few minutes throughout each day that I needed to get things done or just take a minute to myself.

When my wife returned, we settled back into our routine, consisting of 1-2 days per week when we eat dinner out as a family. These events can also be challenging, as our daughter is one of those kids who just cannot sit still for anything. She seems well connected to her surroundings and engages with us and others, but she is perpetual motion personified. So imagine my surprise when the littlest tornado actually sat in her chair for an entire meal!

My wife’s new secret weapon was a series of iPhone apps created especially for toddlers that one of her California girlfriends had recommended. The most popular with our daughter is Letter Tracer, which works as the name suggests. So my daughter was occupied by learning to write her letters. The device and screen provided the engagement that pen and paper hadn’t, and she delighted at being able to successfully trace all the letters of the alphabet, smiling and exclaiming “Look Daddy, I did it!” each time she completed a new tracing. My daughter was having a blast learning how to write her letters, and her parents were enjoying not just her growth but a nice restaurant experience as well.

As 2009 wound to a close, I engaged in my typical year-end organization efforts, scouring boxes and folders to discard what I didn’t need and properly file what I wanted to keep. When I found my original iPhone (16GB Edge; no 3, no G), my first thought was to sell it on eBay. I had great success selling an iPhone 3G on eBay, after all, getting $350 for one that had been exposed to moisture but was working perfectly. Then it hit me: why not load it up with iPhone apps for toddlers like Letter Tracer, put it in a heavy duty case with a screen protector, and make us into a three-iPhone family? Better, why not rip all the discs we use on a portable DVD player during long family trips, making it even easier to travel? My schedule didn’t allow me to finish configuring “her” iPhone before our trip to New Jersey for Christmas, but I was able to unveil it shortly after we returned, which turned out to be a good thing as I was home with our sick daughter the week between Christmas and New Year’s.

My three year old daughter now has her own iPhone, though without service so it is effectively an iPod touch. And how did I create a monster, you might ask? Easy. Her first words upon waking from sleep are “Where’s my iPhone?” Her reaction to her parents call to come to the dinner table, head upstairs for a bath or get ready for bed is to clutch her iPhone and cry. Even though I loaded her iPhone with some of her favorite apps from her mom’s phone (by re-downloading to our black Macbook, as I couldn’t get iTunes Home Sharing to work with my wife’s Macbook Air), she only really uses it to watch a small handful of videos that I ripped or downloaded. And she uses it constantly: sitting in a chair, laying on the floor, walking from room-to-room… head down, focused on the iPhone screen, it can be a challenge to get her to disengage with the device and engage with us.

So how can this be a good thing, or at least not bad? For one, I long ago read “Everything Bad is Good for You” by Steven Berlin Johnson, and take solace that her use of the iPhone at this early stage is at least teaching her some valuable skills, including human-computer interaction (for example, she is still mastering the art of touching a video then touching again on the appropriate icon to pause or play it). The videos I loaded are generally good quality educational content, so there are learning moments in them. And her ability to use the iPhone or not has quickly become the “carrot” and “stick” motivation we’ve long needed: she responds to our threats to take it away or promise to let her use it as with nothing that came before it.

As the novelty of watching videos begins to wear off, I expect our daughter to explore all of the possibilities that her iPhone offers. We’re already using the built-in clock to learn to tell time, Camera to take pictures, and Weather to see if it will snow today. I can imagine using apps like Best Camera to learn more about art and photography, or Vocabulearn Tagalog to learn her mom’s families native language (which I need to do before we go to the Philippines in a year or two). In the meantime, she’s already started to use some of the toddler apps I installed, like Kid Art, Voice Toddler Cards, and the Curious George Coloring Book.

The real challenge will be to help our daughter use her iPhone as an educational device, and avoid the trap of becoming too immersed to the detriment of social, motor, and other skills development. The real question is whether I’m a bad dad for giving a three year old an iPhone. What do you think?

UPDATE: The response generated by this post have been pretty emotional, ranging from “are you crazy?” to “way to go dude!” Most responses cautioned moderation, suggesting that as long as there was parental involvement and some limits to her using it, it likely wasn’t a bad thing.

I mentioned that she awoke from sleep asking “can I have my iPhone?” In the almost 3 weeks that have passed, the iPhone has followed a now established trajectory for many toys, games, and clothes. There is an initial period of intense interest, which soon wanes. The iPhone is now simply one of many toys at her disposal. In fact, she prefers her Barbie cupcake baking kit now, and her interest and infatuation for it seems to be lasting longer than it did with the iPhone. She can also read a couple of books on her own, though mostly through memorization. It is quite obvious that she prefers playtime and interaction with Mom and Dad, and we’re happy to give it.

Still, there are times when she wants to use the iPhone, and other times when we’re all too happy to rely on it. I really was worried shortly after giving it to her that I had made a major mistake. I’m less worried about that now, and more worried about just being a good dad.

Image courtesy of Flickr user jessica.garro

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

iTunes 9: At Home With Home Sharing

Darrell Etherington — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:00:35 +0000

For me, the Home Sharing feature introduced in iTunes 9 has been a long time coming. I’ve always run at least two Macs, one desktop and one notebook, and over the years I’ve tried various solutions for sharing media between multiple machines.

Of course, there was always the option of sharing your library on your home network. This allowed you to play streaming music from one computer on others via iTunes. It works well enough for what it is, but Home Sharing does that, and much more.

Share More Media

First of all, you can share much more than just music between computers. Movies, music videos, and TV shows are all now playable on any machine in your network you authorize via Home Sharing. Authorization is simple, but requires you to have an iTunes account, and to have authorized the computer in question to play media associated with that account. Once that’s done, your Home Share libraries should appear in your source list.

Clicking on an available library brings up a straightforward list of all the media available on that library. As with Shared Libraries, you can only view Home Shares in list view, not in Grid or Coverflow. It’s inconvenient and unfortunate, but it doesn’t really detract that much from the feature’s usability that much, especially since you can still filter the library via search.

Copy and Sync

You can also break down the shared library into categories, just like iTunes’ native library is divided up. Clicking on any item in any category will activate the “Import” button, which allows you to physically copy the item to your current library with a single click.

To make it easier to find items you don’t already have, there’s a simple drop down menu in the bottom left-hand corner of the media browser window that lets you choose between “All items” and “Items not in my library.” You can also open the “Settings…” dialog to set up automatic transfer of new purchases from one library to another via Home Sharing, ensuring that your content is up to date across all computers.

One Central Location

For my own purposes, I’m much more interested in Home Sharing’s movie and TV show streaming. I couldn’t tell you why I have a problem with keeping a decent amount of hard drive space clear on any of my computers, but the fact remains that I do. It definitely doesn’t help that I can’t keep the lines clear between a dedicated media machine and a work machine.

With Home Sharing, I can use my Mac mini as I intended when I bought it: As a central repository for all entertainment media. On those occasions when I want to watch something on my iMac or on the bedroom TV via my Macbook Pro, I no longer have to transfer any files (which I invariably forget/am too lazy to delete). Media stays where it belongs, and remains accessible.

Good, But Should Be Better

So what is Home Sharing still lacking? How about the big glaring omission: the ability to share content to iPod touches and iPhones on the local network. I can’t imagine what’s preventing Apple from allowing me to view Home Share playlists in my iPhone’s iPod application as well as on other computers. If you’re paying attention, Cupertino, think about working that into iPhone OS 3.2.

If you were hoping that since Home Sharing requires you to be using one of your five account-authorized computers, you’d be able to access shared libraries on the road, you’ll be disappointed. Only computers on the same Wi-Fi network can see active shares. To get this functionality, and to be able to stream iTunes libraries to your iPhone or iPod touch as mentioned above, check out Simplify Media and its attendant iPhone apps.

My ideal vision for the future of Home Sharing? Tie it to MobileMe and have an option to keep libraries synced the way you can Address Book and iCal, make it accessible away from home from authorized computers, and introduce mobile device streaming for iPhones and touches. It’s a nice start, but those features would make it a true game-changer.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.