Will This Unusual Setup Work?

[NakaNaka]

Hi guys, I was thinking through this and I couldn't figure out if this would work. I would like to get a new Macbook Air and a Thunderbolt Cinema Display. I keep my itunes media files located on an external HD. So when the HD would be plugged into the display and the Air plugged in, it would work great. But say I wanted to use my Apple TV when the Air was not plugged in, it seems to me that would be a problem because the Apple TV would be connecting to the laptop's media files and the files would currently be only on the cinema display. Is there anyway for the files to be accessed, say if the Apple TV was connected by ethernet wire and the display was connected by ethernet wire, while the actual computer was not plugged in?

Does that make sense? Thanks for the help!

 

[TheStu]

I don't think that it would work the AppleTV (assuming it is not jailbroken) connects through the iTunes library running on a system. The monitor is just a dumb hub essentially, it needs the computer there to actually interpret the signals.

If you were to jailbreak the aTV, and hook the iTunes Library up to an Airport Extreme then you could use XBMC on the aTV to connect to the share on the Airport (in theory)

 

[NakaNaka]

Does Time Capsule have the capabilities I'm looking for?

 

[slugg]

Does Time Capsule have the capabilities I'm looking for?

No.

TheStu's solution is pretty much what I would try.