iTunes Home Sharing Connection Issues

[Dave3000]

Some time last year I stopped buying physical media, sold all my blu-rays, and went digital with iTunes. I have an Apple TV 4k as my media streamer and an Intel NUC as a media server running iTunes 12.7.2. Over the years I could never really get iTunes Home Sharing to work reliably. Sometimes my Apple TV does not see my server, requiring me to exit iTunes and restart iTunes or turn Home Sharing off and back on again in iTunes even when I have iTunes already running. I'm using Windows 10 Professional operating system for the server. Also if I restart my server, my Apple TV sometimes will not see the server even when I have iTunes set to auto run at Windows startup, requiring me to close the iTunes app and reopen the iTunes app. I own 863 movies in iTunes, so as you can see I spent lots of money at iTunes. I just don't want to rely on an internet connection for my purchased iTunes movies but iTunes Home Sharing has not been a reliable experience for me. I was considering buying an iTunes DRM remover program so that I can use Plex on my Apple TV for my iTunes purchases but they all re-encode the files during the conversion and I'm worried about losing video and audio quality during the process. Is it worth buying one of the DRM removal programs to remove the DRM from my iTunes purchases so that I can play them through Plex on my Apple TV 4k and not rely on an internet connection or iTunes Home Sharing?

 

[OlyAR15]

I use Tuneskit to remove the DRM from itunes movies. I hate itunes with a passion. 12 major versions in and it is still completely buggy, unstable and feature-poor. The only saving grace is the itunes store, which has a very good selection of media to purchase and rent, even here in Canada.

Of course, you won't be able to download any 4k versions of the movies. You are stuck with 1080p.

 

[Dave3000]

I think I found a workaround to the iTunes home sharing. Before I restart my PC, I need to close iTunes first. I tried this about 8 times and Home Sharing gets detected by my Apple TV each time. When I just restart my PC while iTunes is still running, Home Sharing not not work after I restart my PC and restart iTunes unless I turn off and back on Home Sharing. Also resume checkpoints don't get recorded in iTunes if I just shutdown the PC without manually closing iTunes first. If this is a workaround to the Home Sharing issue I'm having then I find it unacceptable solution because I want to use the PC as an unattended iTunes server with iTunes running at startup. Not to mention the Windows auto updates with auto restarts while iTunes is still running. I don't want to turn on this PC and manually start iTunes when I want to do Home Sharing and then go back to this PC and close iTunes before I manually shutdown this PC when I'm done my Home Sharing session to my Apple TV. I wonder if Home Sharing from a Mac has the same issue I'm experiencing with iTunes Home Sharing. I also wonder if just switching to Plex and buying a M4V converter is worth it if I want to run a server for my iTunes purchases?