Ahah, finally figured out how to use Plex Media Server! Using this, you can stream your iTunes library from any computer to any other computer running Plex, including Cover Art!
1. Install Plex Media Center on each computer you want to stream multimedia from:
Currently Plex Media Server is embedded in the Plex installation, so you have to install Plex on each Mac, then go into Preferences > System > Media Server and set it to "Always Running", then you can quit Plex. This adds the Plex Media Server (PMS) app to your list of login items, so whenever you boot up your Mac, PMS will always start running in the background to make your iTunes content available to all the other computers on your network.
Currently there is no stand-alone Media Server available, so you have to install Plex. There are apparently plans to make it stand-alone in the future, however. That will be nice! Also, there is no Windows client. However, you CAN stream any DRM-laced content from iTunes, as long as the DRM account is activated on your streaming computer. So if you buy a song or video on iTunes that has DRM and want to play it on a different computer in Plex, just authorize it in iTunes first, then you'll be fine. That's a REALLY nice feature!
2. Create a Static IP on each computer you are streaming from:
Since we're going to be adding a hard-coded link in Plex, you should setup your computer with a Static IP. If you're not familiar with what that means, basically you get a randomly-assigned IP address from the DHCP server in your router whenever you boot up your computer - in other words, your computer's IP address will randomly change unless you hard-code it. Since we always want to be able to stream music from that computer, we have to change the IP to Static so it won't change. Go into your computer's System Preferences > Network > (active network adapter) and then select "Using DHCP with manual address" next to "Configure". I use numbers between 50 and 100 on my network (DHCP on my router is 192.168.1.100+).
3. Add the IP link to Plex:
Open Plex, go into Music, Add Source, then click on <None> (not the Browse/Add/Remove buttons on the right side) and type in one of the following:
Music: plex://192.168.1.112/music/iTunes
Videos: plex://192.168.1.112/video/iTunes
iPhoto: plex://192.168.1.112/photos/iPhoto
Aperture: plex://192.168.1.112/photos/Aperture
Replace the IP address with the IP address of the computer running Plex Media Server, or with "localhost" for your own computer. Music works fine, although I haven't gotten Video to connect yet, and I haven't tried iPhoto or Aperture since I don't use them.
Tip: Authorize your iTunes account on the computer you are streaming to
So that's pretty much it - make sure each computer with your music has (1) Plex Media Server running, and (2) a Static IP, and then setup the Plex link on your streaming box, along with any iTunes authorizations needed for DRM-protected content. I wish it was better documented, it'd be really nice to figure out how to stream iTunes videos properly...
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