Still No Apple TV Audio or Video Streaming Options?

schalliol wrote:
Last I checked there weren't any options to let an Apple TV play content from a ReadyNAS (any variation). Last thread I found on this was last year. Is this condition still the case? Thanks!

The older ReadyNAS families i.e. those running OS 4.1.x or 4.2.x come with and use the Firefly iTunes server software. This extremely old software does not support Apple TV clients and also only supports music files. However it is my understanding the the newer ReadyNAS models i.e. those running OS 6.x come with instead the forked-daapd software. This software does supposedly supports Apple TV as a client. This might therefore meet your requirements.

For what it's worth, this same issue applies to all NAS makes as pretty much all of them use Firefly. The QNAP does also have the option of a user supplied forked-daapd package.

Both Firefly and forked-daapd have been abandoned by their original developers however companies like NetGear have continued to make very small tweaks to the code to keep it just about working, for example a while ago Apple made a change to iTunes which broke compatibility with Firefly but (someone made) a patch to fix this.

Hmm, thinking further about this I think Apple have since moved the goalposts again. iTunes Sharing is not the same thing as HomeSharing. I will have to test to see if an Apple TV can still connect to an older iTunes (pre-HomeSharing). Obviously the latest Apple TV firmware now supports HomeSharing but I will have to see if it still also supports iTunes Sharing. If the latest Apple TV firmware is now HomeSharing only then it will no longer be able to connect to forked-daapd.

Ironically, even if the latest Apple TV firmware cannot connect to iTunes Sharing anymore a Mac or Windows client running iTunes can.