Option to get thumnail / fanart from another XBMC installation?

Hello,

I currently have two XBMC machines in my house. One in the bedroom and one in the living room. Both of them connect to my server which houses all of my media. On that server I've installed mysql and the two XBMC installations share that database. This is great for stopping and starting shows and keeping track of what's been watched, but in terms of syncing the thumbnails and artwork, not so much. It seems that the solution given on the wiki is path substitution, but like the big warning at the top says, that slows things down considerably.

My question is... I know XBMC will check the local /thumbnails folder before going to the internet, but is there a way to make it check another thumbnails folder on another XBMC installation and download the thumbnails / fanart from there? This would speed things up and reduce the number of requests to IMDB, TMDB, etc. Perhaps even an option to "Check other XBMC installations on the local network for thumbnails / fanart" option in XBMC in a future release.

Once it checks the other XBMC installation, it will download it and store it locally for use from there forward.

I found that the easiest, and for backup ease, was to save all the info on my server / nas in nfo files as well as the jpgs and tbn files.
That way all 3 boxes use the same data and I only need to backup the server / Nas.
If I need to reinstall, I just let the box scrap from the server / Nas and all is good
I've never tested just using the jpgs and tbn files on the server / nas - but it might work for you.

Just my way of doing things.

There is a new dropbox like service, called Cubby, that will sync any folders you want on a local network without uploading/downloading to an internet server like Dropbox does, so there is no data limit. I was planning to try this to sync my thumbnails between two boxes using this, but my new build got temporarily derailed by life so it will have to wait.

So if you are using Win 7, you might want to check it out.

I used symbolic links, rather than path substitution, and didn't notice any slowdown after the initial library scan.