iTunes replacement?

I'm wondering if there is some alternative to iTunes that can stream
videos from my PC to an Apple TV box? I tried to use iTunes itself, but
it is a POS, screwed up my computer in everyway, to the point where I
couldn't even click on icons! I'm not sure if this is an incompatibility
with Windows 10, I don't think it was nearly this bad under Windows 7.

On Fri, 17 Feb 2017 09:14:13 -0500, Wolf K wrote:

On 2017-02-17 06:46, Yousuf Khan wrote:
I'm wondering if there is some alternative to iTunes that can stream
videos from my PC to an Apple TV box? I tried to use iTunes itself, but
it is a POS, screwed up my computer in everyway, to the point where I
couldn't even click on icons! I'm not sure if this is an incompatibility
with Windows 10, I don't think it was nearly this bad under Windows 7.

AFAICT, the issue is that Apple and MS don't play well together. Often,
avoiding the problem is the easiest solution. Replace the APPLE TV box,
or replace the MS streaming source.

Here's one solution, starts at $39.95(Canadian), sometimes on sale at
resellers:
https://www.roku.com/en-ca/how-it-works

I have 3 Roku devices and absolutely love them for streaming from the
Internet, but I've never tried to use them to stream from a PC, as
Yousuf wants to do. I'd like to hear from someone who does that.

Yousuf Khan wrote:
I'm wondering if there is some alternative to iTunes that can stream
videos from my PC to an Apple TV box? I tried to use iTunes itself, but
it is a POS, screwed up my computer in everyway, to the point where I
couldn't even click on icons! I'm not sure if this is an incompatibility
with Windows 10, I don't think it was nearly this bad under Windows 7.

The Apple TV uses AirPlay. On your computer end, your computer
is running a kind of HTTP server (on a specific set of ports).
So iTunes bascially added an HTTP server to serve AirPlay.

https://nto.github.io/AirPlay.html

It has at least one "unencrypted" setting, which I suppose
leaves room for someone to hack their own AirPlay source on
an arbitrary PC.

Someone made a solution for Windows Media Center,
but not everyone was able to make it work. It was
developed on Windows 7, and uses Bonjour (a component
of iTunes but available unencumbered, separately). Even
Windows developers have been including a copy of Bonjour
installer in their installs. I expect the idea would be
to uninstall iTunes (to free up the ports), make sure Bonjour
is there (to detect the Apple TV when it nameserves), and then
serve media to it.

https://thomaspleasance.wordpress.co...center-beta-1/

If the Apple TV had used DLNA, it would have been different.
But then, perhaps they'd have had trouble keeping purchased
media content within their walled garden (FairPlay).

This looks like one of those Too Much Work projects,
but, you never know.

Paul

On 2/17/2017 11:29 AM, Paul wrote:
Yousuf Khan wrote:
I'm wondering if there is some alternative to iTunes that can stream
videos from my PC to an Apple TV box? I tried to use iTunes itself,
but it is a POS, screwed up my computer in everyway, to the point
where I couldn't even click on icons! I'm not sure if this is an
incompatibility with Windows 10, I don't think it was nearly this bad
under Windows 7.

The Apple TV uses AirPlay. On your computer end, your computer
is running a kind of HTTP server (on a specific set of ports).
So iTunes bascially added an HTTP server to serve AirPlay.

https://nto.github.io/AirPlay.html

It has at least one "unencrypted" setting, which I suppose
leaves room for someone to hack their own AirPlay source on
an arbitrary PC.

So open-source AirPlay clients might be a bit hard to come by? I found
this list of clients:

GitHub - jamesdlow/open-airplay: A collection of libraries for Apple's
AirPlay protocol
https://github.com/jamesdlow/open-airplay

Someone made a solution for Windows Media Center,
but not everyone was able to make it work. It was
developed on Windows 7, and uses Bonjour (a component
of iTunes but available unencumbered, separately). Even
Windows developers have been including a copy of Bonjour
installer in their installs. I expect the idea would be
to uninstall iTunes (to free up the ports), make sure Bonjour
is there (to detect the Apple TV when it nameserves), and then
serve media to it.

https://thomaspleasance.wordpress.co...center-beta-1/

Windows Media Center is not even officially available to Windows 10 anymore.

https://www.howtogeek.com/258695/how...on-windows-10/

Regarding Bonjour, I had removed that along with everything else from
Apple to re-sanitize my machine. Didn't think it might have been okay to
leave on.

If the Apple TV had used DLNA, it would have been different.
But then, perhaps they'd have had trouble keeping purchased
media content within their walled garden (FairPlay).

This looks like one of those Too Much Work projects,
but, you never know.

DLNA would've been useful. Hard to expect Apple to stick to industry
standards, obviously.

Does look like, maybe I should go explore what caused iTunes to f*k up
in the first place on my PC?

On Fri, 17 Feb 2017 12:11:37 -0500, Wolf K wrote:

On 2017-02-17 10:55, Char Jackson wrote:
On Fri, 17 Feb 2017 09:14:13 -0500, Wolf K wrote:

On 2017-02-17 06:46, Yousuf Khan wrote:
I'm wondering if there is some alternative to iTunes that can stream
videos from my PC to an Apple TV box? I tried to use iTunes itself, but
it is a POS, screwed up my computer in everyway, to the point where I
couldn't even click on icons! I'm not sure if this is an incompatibility
with Windows 10, I don't think it was nearly this bad under Windows 7.

AFAICT, the issue is that Apple and MS don't play well together. Often,
avoiding the problem is the easiest solution. Replace the APPLE TV box,
or replace the MS streaming source.

Here's one solution, starts at $39.95(Canadian), sometimes on sale at
resellers:
https://www.roku.com/en-ca/how-it-works

I have 3 Roku devices and absolutely love them for streaming from the
Internet, but I've never tried to use them to stream from a PC, as
Yousuf wants to do. I'd like to hear from someone who does that.

Me too. :-)

The link indicates that you can connect the Roku to your wireless
network, which implies connection to any other source on that network.

Mostly, they just mean you can use your wireless network to access the
Internet, but among the Roku 'channels' I see Roku Media Player, which
looks promising but needs to connect to a DLNA server on your local
network, (my AV Receiver acts as a DLNA server and I assume a PC can be
set up to do likewise), and I see a channel called Plex, which I think
is another type of media server. In addition, the Roku 3's have a USB
port so you can play video that way, too. I haven't actually used any of
those methods, though. I mostly stay within a few channels: AccuRadio
for uninterrupted music, Amazon Video, and Spectrum, which is my local
TV provider.

Yousuf Khan wrote:

On 2/17/2017 11:29 AM, Paul wrote:
Yousuf Khan wrote:
I'm wondering if there is some alternative to iTunes that
can stream videos from my PC to an Apple TV box? I tried
to use iTunes itself, but it is a POS, screwed up my
computer in everyway, to the point where I couldn't even
click on icons! I'm not sure if this is an
incompatibility with Windows 10, I don't think it was
nearly this bad under Windows 7.

The Apple TV uses AirPlay. On your computer end, your
computer is running a kind of HTTP server (on a specific
set of ports). So iTunes bascially added an HTTP server to
serve AirPlay.

https://nto.github.io/AirPlay.html

It has at least one "unencrypted" setting, which I suppose
leaves room for someone to hack their own AirPlay source
on an arbitrary PC.

So open-source AirPlay clients might be a bit hard to come
by? I found this list of clients:

GitHub - jamesdlow/open-airplay: A collection of libraries
for Apple's AirPlay protocol
https://github.com/jamesdlow/open-airplay

Someone made a solution for Windows Media Center, but not
everyone was able to make it work. It was developed on
Windows 7, and uses Bonjour (a component of iTunes but
available unencumbered, separately). Even Windows
developers have been including a copy of Bonjour installer
in their installs. I expect the idea would be to uninstall
iTunes (to free up the ports), make sure Bonjour is there
(to detect the Apple TV when it nameserves), and then
serve media to it.

https://thomaspleasance.wordpress.co.../23/airplay-fo
r-windows-media-center-beta-1/

Windows Media Center is not even officially available to
Windows 10 anymore.

https://www.howtogeek.com/258695/how...l-windows-medi
a-center-on-windows-10/

Regarding Bonjour, I had removed that along with everything
else from Apple to re-sanitize my machine. Didn't think it
might have been okay to leave on.

If the Apple TV had used DLNA, it would have been
different. But then, perhaps they'd have had trouble
keeping purchased media content within their walled garden
(FairPlay).

This looks like one of those Too Much Work projects, but,
you never know.

DLNA would've been useful. Hard to expect Apple to stick to
industry standards, obviously.

Does look like, maybe I should go explore what caused
iTunes to f*k up in the first place on my PC?

I would go with the advice "choose one or the other". Apple
and Microsoft are two different worlds.

Android might not be a great operating system, but at least
it is compatible with my file system. Apple sucks in that way.

On 2/17/2017 12:11 PM, Wolf K wrote:
On 2017-02-17 10:55, Char Jackson wrote:
On Fri, 17 Feb 2017 09:14:13 -0500, Wolf K wrote:

On 2017-02-17 06:46, Yousuf Khan wrote:
I'm wondering if there is some alternative to iTunes that can stream
videos from my PC to an Apple TV box? I tried to use iTunes itself, but
it is a POS, screwed up my computer in everyway, to the point where I
couldn't even click on icons! I'm not sure if this is an
incompatibility
with Windows 10, I don't think it was nearly this bad under Windows 7.

AFAICT, the issue is that Apple and MS don't play well together. Often,
avoiding the problem is the easiest solution. Replace the APPLE TV box,
or replace the MS streaming source.

Here's one solution, starts at $39.95(Canadian), sometimes on sale at
resellers:
https://www.roku.com/en-ca/how-it-works

I have 3 Roku devices and absolutely love them for streaming from the
Internet, but I've never tried to use them to stream from a PC, as
Yousuf wants to do. I'd like to hear from someone who does that.

Me too. :-)

The link indicates that you can connect the Roku to your wireless
network, which implies connection to any other source on that network.

I've used Roku devices since they were first introduced, always
connected via WiFi to my router. I looked into its bluetooth capability
a couple of months ago, but AFAICT, it is for streaming ROKU channels
*to* the computer, and I couldn't figure out how to stream *from* the
computer, as the OP wants to do.

--
best regards,

Neil

On 2/17/2017 2:31 PM, John Doe wrote:
I would go with the advice "choose one or the other". Apple
and Microsoft are two different worlds.

Android might not be a great operating system, but at least
it is compatible with my file system. Apple sucks in that way.

The Apple TV was a gift, so it was free, so I'm going to try to make it
work. I normally wouldn't touch Apple anything otherwise.