What gets copied, what not...

[fryke]

When synching my iTunes library to the AppleTV, obviously some things are left out, because my library tends to have 60 GB of stuff, whereas the AppleTV has ~35 GB of real space. I'm not bitchin' about that. I knew that before I bought the AppleTV.

Apple has made an assumption, and we all know where that leads to according to the saying... They assume that you primarily want films and TV shows, then photos (there's a setting for photos that lets you synch them before anything else so they don't get left out), then music and then podcasts. Why on Earth are podcasts last without a way of putting them before music? I certainly prioritize differently. My video podcasts should be priority 2 after films and TV shows.

Is there some way to make sure this doesn't happen? I don't want to restrict the music, it should just synch as much music as it can, but copy all of the video I want...

[Ferdinand]

Why didn't you just buy the 160 GB version of AppleTV?

You could just (in iTunes) un-tick the music & podcasts, click apply so it'll delete all music and podcasts, and then tick the podcasts so it'll then copy all podcasts over. If you still have space left you can select which albums of music you want to sync.

[kebosma]

Buying a 160GB AppleTV is only shifting the problem until you have 180 GB of data in your library.... :)

[fryke]

Yep. Don't underestimate my movie library. ;) ...

[legacyb4]

I've been thinking about getting an ATV but am not sure 100% of how the whole syncing thing works.

Do you have to keep the content on an ATV on your source Mac as well? I have a ton of stuff for my kids I'd like to have available for playing but understandably don't want to clutter up my laptop unnecessarily...

[fryke]

Sadly, that's how it works, yes. Just like with the iPod, the AppleTV is a subset of your computer's media library, not an extension of it.

[lbj]

What may be of slight help is to place a subset of your movies (in your case legacy, your kid's stuff) on an external drive and option-drag it to iTunes. This will merely place an alias of the "stuff" on your laptop (in iTunes). Then, when you sync your iTunes to your ATV, the "stuff" will copy over unto the ATV provided the external drive is connected.

I'm not sure what would happen if the sync ever occured without the external drive being hooked up, however.

[nittany4]

question for apple: why on earth can't you manually manage what goes on your apple tv like you can an ipod?

for that matter the iphone as well

i hate syncing