Marc Palmer

This is such a nightmare and it only grows with time.

Many many people have this desire: a single place for all their media: music, videos etc.

A NAS device is the place, backed up suitable. The problem is iTunes / Front Row just does not fit with this strategy if you have more than one computer / Apple device.

The core issue is that iTunes does not automatically rescan the media folder for new files. So you can point as many iTunes as you like to a shared location but they will only see the files they add to their libraries via purchasing or importing media.

So you end up with many devices in your house, all with a different view onto your shared media.

To access that new album you imported, you have to manually Add To Library on that iTunes instance, hoping it isn’t set to duplicate the files on the server. When this happens, as it certainly used to for me, you then end up with many copies of albums as you re-create your library from scratch on the various computers over the years.

Add to this the fact that if for some reason your connection to the NAS goes down when you run iTunes, it will revert the media path to the local folder, and you end up with a total mess – a bunch of machines with files only on some of them, their media split between local and NAS, and only the ones that added those files having them listed in their library.

The experience is so un-Apple it is shocking, and it causes daily pain.

It is important to remember that the iTunes Media folder is where it PUTS files that you buy/import – and that is ALL. (There is a new “Automatically add to iTunes” folder there, which seems half-assed to me). The iTunes Library is specific to each computer and is the list of media and the file path to each. This, unlike the media folder that actually stores the media files, is something you do not want to share between computers in many cases.

Now, iTunes 9 added Home Sharing. But guess what, this sucks and blows! Why? It (a) only shares iTunes-purchased content and (b) it duplicates the files to your local HD. Home sharing, I believe has a lot more to do with the iSlate/tablet and their new datacenter – music in the cloud crap – so you can sync your iSlate content without a cable.

Please Apple, it needs to work like this:

How it should work

This is relatively simple:

1. First, never change the media path in iTunes if the previous path is not reachable. Tell the user what is happening so they can fix it
2. When new files are added, make a bonjour announcement to any other iTunes running (perhaps even wide-area bonjour to make iPhones/Slates pick it up) so that they can instantly add the file to their iTunes library
3. When a file is not located on the local disks, have a local cache for stuff that the user ACTUALLY PLAYS. My wife doesn’t like all that heavy metal I listen to, so let’s not fill her hard disk with a clone of it eh? iSlate and Apple TV / mac mini media hubs etc can pick up just the files that are needed.
4. For the occasion when not all the machines / iTunes are running, have iTunes do daily rescan in the BACKGROUND for any new files in the media folder and AUTOMATICALLY add these to the Library. This is not rocket science.
5. Maintain an “excludes” list on each iTunes library so the user can remove items from their local itunes Library (without deleting it from the NAS) and they will not be offered the file again in a future background sync.

Don’t give me stuff about non-purchased media not having ISRC codes to identify them and de-dupe. You can dedupe on SHA hashes of the media (calculate once and embed in the metadata of the file) and failing that trackdata, and then failing that – USER INTERVENTION eg “There are some new media files added and we don’t know if they are duplicates or not – help me”.

You can even put all these newly discovered files into a special “Newly discovered” place in iTunes where the user can yay or nay them – or have it set to auto-accept (default).

The more and more macs and related devices are sold to households the more shitty this problem becomes and you REALLY REALLY need to fix it Apple. Without the cloud. The cloud is not a solution for terabytes of media being instantly accessible in your living room.

Please. Just do it. iTunes Home Sharing was nearly it, but sadly failed completely to address this.