[DJVege]

Hi guys,

My question is simple yet long winded below because I couldn't figure out how to ask this in one line (english blankout in my brain)!

Assume:

* Using a mySQL shared DB on my HTPC that my iphone/ipad and other devices can use.
* I have exported my library to separate files so info and images are stored with each video (movie/tv ep) on my NAS

If I don't share my thumbnails/fanart for the devices as well,
(1) does the ipad/iphone keep their own local copy of the thumbnails/fanart?
(2) Does it build these directories and fill them with the images on an "updatelibrary"?? Or when?

I understand if I share thumbnails as well, there is just the one copy of thumbnails/fanart between devices, however I'm not happy with the speed of loading screens when the thumbnails folder is on my NAS and symlinked from my HTPC. So i figure I won't share them, each device will have their own local copy of thumbnails and fanart, but I just wanted to understand if my thinking was correct or not.

Before you ask, "no". Haven't set up the shared library yet. Looking to updated to Eden RC2 this weekend and setting up the mySQL db as well.

Thanks and sorry for the ridiculously long post.

[jmarshall]

With Eden, most thumbs/fanart will only be cached when scanning the library, yes. Some images might be cached when you browse your files, but this depends on your file layouts, and for a bunch of them it won't work (eg movies in separate folders, tvshows in general etc.)

Assuming the paths are the same on all machines, what you could do is treat machine A as the master machine, and scan on that. Then copy the art across to machines B, C, ... after you scan.

Make sure you follow the guide in the wiki regarding setting up MySQL - a bunch of the info on other websites is incorrect.

After Eden, this will all be fixed (videos are already done - music still to do).

Cheers,
Jonathan

[DJVege]

Thanks.

So it's fine to copy the art from a windows machine to an IOS device as long as I'm aware of the paths to copy to?

Yep, I've got the wiki page up and I've been through it as well.

Thanks again.

[jmarshall]

And as long as the path to your media files is the same from both machines.

[DJVege]

I just realized that although my media files sit on a NAS, my HTPC accesses them through a mapped drive.
Ie. M:\Media

I'm guessing I can't map drives on the iPhone, so it would be accessing files via "[ip address]\Volume_1\Media .

So that presents an issue...

I was under the assumption that mapped drives were the best way to access networked file shares from Windows (\\Ip address\Volume_1 used to have issues i remember) . Is there another better way to access networked shares from Windows that would see the same path from a idevice as well?

[Martijn]

smb:// or nfs:// protocol

Depends on what your NAS supports

[DJVege]

Brilliant. I have an old school Dlink DNS-343. Supports nfs so I'll give that a whirl this weekend.

Thanks guys.