[t_buzz]

So I find myself running into an issue. I'm running XBMC in my bedroom on a WinVista machine. All my media is on 2 external usb drives. I have no internet at the house currently, have only been there for a month or so. Longterm I should have it, but for now I don't. The living room has a 32" Sony Trinatron built into the wall, which works great, but is non-hd, and is, for now, non-removable. So, in order to watch my content, I got a Gen 1 Apple TV, running at 480i over component, jailbroken with XBMC. Great.... except not. When I update content on my main PC, I just take my drives to work, use that machine to scrape the content, export it, use Notepad++ to change the drive letter as need be, then import at home. Works like a charm on that machine, since the drives are local.

However, I'll be using SMB to throw content to the ATV install. I can't scrape it as I have no internet. Is it possible to do an exported library and edit/amend it to reflect the location of the SMB content and then just import it to the ATV library? Long term I'm thinking of going with a NAS system, but for now, this is the best I can do, and running back and forth with my drives from room to room isn't really a good option. Any help?

[Ned Scott]

Yes. Export the library as a single file, open up the XML file in the folder it produces, and use find/replace to replace the old file path (the local one) with the new SMB network path. You might even want to do an additional find/replace on "\" to "/" (\ is only used in local windows file paths, so there's no risk of it breaking a tag or something else in the XML file). For example, once I did something like this

Code:

E:\Media\

to

Code:

SMB://serverIP/Media/

then

Code:

\

to

Code:

/

and that took care of everything for my library.

Save the XML file in your text editor, then bring that folder over to the ATV1 and import it.

[t_buzz]

Holy crap that was easy. Exactly what I have been doing before. You just saved me hours of tinkering. Thanks much.

[Ned Scott]

No problemo. If you're ever feeling adventurous and want to get some 1080P performance out of that 'ol ATV1, check out our wiki pages on the ATV1 (wiki): ATV1 FAQ (wiki).

[t_buzz]

I have long term intentions of putting a flat panel in the living room, and when I do, I'm definitely putting in the CrystalHD chip and running a dual boot into Crystalbuntu. I had to spend about 30 minutes tampering with the video settings to kill the overscan. It was pretty terrible but now it's manageable. I'm still in the 'what all else can I do with this thing' phase of the ATV, and I'm learning new crap everywhere I look.