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MySQL vs UPnP sharing
I like the sound of where this UPnP is going with with XBMC. Nice to hear some really good plans to make it fit nicely into what already exists.

In the future would it be possible to connect via UPnP as a joint user with watched status etc but also as a separate user?
For example if I share the library on the main machine could a second machine connect and share the library and watched status but also a third machine also connect via UPnP, share the library contents but NOT effect the watched status?

Does it link at all into these light weight XBMC server builds I have seen a bit about? WIll these server builds ever be an official XBMC product for sharing via UPnP?
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The initial version will not include profile support, though ofcourse some profile support could be hacked together via multiple upnp servers (the server will currently serve up the logged in profile, and the client will receive whatever the server serves up regardless of profile). Reason is that the database knows nothing of profiles, and nor does the UPnP server/client.

And yes, there is the potential for a lighter weight XBMC server build, but a few more things need doing first. (settings exposed to JSON-RPC, and a much cleaner build that drops the unneeded dependencies - as far as I'm aware the server builds currently require essentially the same dependencies as the main build).

Cheers,
Jonathan
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Thanks, I had a feeling you guys would be on top of it in one way or another.
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(2013-10-18, 00:40)jmarshall Wrote: @pecinko: The idea is that instead of you browsing the UPnP share on the client, you'll instead just browse your client's library. Whenever a UPnP server is found (and it's XBMC) that remote content will just be dropped into the the client's library, and everything is available as standard. (Further, if you have two clients both with local libraries and UPnP sharing enabled, both share with each other).

This is building on some of the GSoC work (which was unfinished) which Montellese has spent some time cleaning up. There's still a some rough edges to be worked through (primarily handling of updates on the server in a nicer way than rescanning everything client-side, and handling of duplicates) but it's already pretty neat.

We'll get together some details of what was discussed at devcon and then create a thread.

Cheers,
Jonathan

So are you saying as long as both XBMC instances have UPNP turned on and have local libraries that 2 instances will share libraries between each other with watched/unwatched flags as well as playback (pause/resume) working? Above Ned said one had to be the "server". If its the first option is that going to be in gotham or a future release?
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(2013-10-18, 00:40)jmarshall Wrote: @pecinko: The idea is that instead of you browsing the UPnP share on the client, you'll instead just browse your client's library. Whenever a UPnP server is found (and it's XBMC) that remote content will just be dropped into the the client's library, and everything is available as standard. (Further, if you have two clients both with local libraries and UPnP sharing enabled, both share with each other).

That is an interesting decision, which means that the client like RPi would maintain (slow) local library on itself, instead of parsing XML or whatever from the serving XBMC. That would probably mean that widgets script will still need to run locally and probably wait for library update to finish in order to expose it's items instead of parsing prepared XML or some other listing from the serving XBMC.

If you contact XBMC from DLNA enabled TV you would probably need to browse current navigation tree, though : Videos/Movies/by Title instead of Movies /filters/ content and you would probably be lacking widgets script content.

Looking forward to discussion&info when the thread gets opened.
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(2013-10-18, 16:25)hewligun Wrote:
(2013-10-18, 00:40)jmarshall Wrote: @pecinko: The idea is that instead of you browsing the UPnP share on the client, you'll instead just browse your client's library. Whenever a UPnP server is found (and it's XBMC) that remote content will just be dropped into the the client's library, and everything is available as standard. (Further, if you have two clients both with local libraries and UPnP sharing enabled, both share with each other).

This is building on some of the GSoC work (which was unfinished) which Montellese has spent some time cleaning up. There's still a some rough edges to be worked through (primarily handling of updates on the server in a nicer way than rescanning everything client-side, and handling of duplicates) but it's already pretty neat.

We'll get together some details of what was discussed at devcon and then create a thread.

Cheers,
Jonathan

So are you saying as long as both XBMC instances have UPNP turned on and have local libraries that 2 instances will share libraries between each other with watched/unwatched flags as well as playback (pause/resume) working? Above Ned said one had to be the "server". If its the first option is that going to be in gotham or a future release?

Future release. Read the live blog on XBMC.org.
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is there a guide on how to setup the upnp for server and client? i want to run a test.
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UPnP/Share (wiki)
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I've been playing around with UPNP library sharing. All my content is split between 2x 2 bay Nas'. One for Movies and one for TV shows. Movies are in separate folders for each movie and TV shows are in separate Series/Season folders. All artwork has been exported to those folders with the 'Export to separate folders' function. The library contains about 800 movies and 4000 TV show episodes.

I am thrilled at the prospect of not having to run library or artwork updates on my 5 Arctic MC001 devices because they take forever and slow the GUI down while running. The MC001's can play everything I throw at them because of the Mobile AMD 5 series GPU's in them but the Atom D525 CPU's struggle with the updates and GUI together.

However, I am disappointed to see that using UPNP library sharing, only 1 fanart and poster/banner etc is shared. The clearart, logos, disc art, extra fanart etc is not displayed/shared. These are enabled in the Aeon Nox 4.19 menu and appear when browsing the smb shares and the local library.

I am assuming I can add Titles and Recent episodes/movies as favourites and create custom main menu items for them and hide the 'Real' xbmc Movies/TVshows menu items.

I still haven't ruled out MySQL though

Can I clarify some things before I make my final decision on which to go for. Everyone will in the house will have only their own profile on their own bedroom XBMC devices but the shared XBMC machines like the Livingroom and Kitchen ones I would like to have everyone have a profile.

How does that complicate the setup of mySQL?

Does mySQL library sharing remove the need for 'Scan for new Content'/'Library Updates' on all the machines (excluding my own i5 machine that I run the updates on) My PC rockets through updates etc while the XBMC clients are dog slow as I explained earlier. If mySQL merely keeps them in sync but they still have to scan then that really defeats the purpose of a shared library for me.
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With MySQL if you scan on one machine the metadata is available on all machines.
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Did some more reading and came across a comment by Ned Scott in another thread.

Quote:If you add a movie to the library to one XBMC instance and it does not show up on another XBMC instance, then they are not using the same MySQL library, or are not using MySQL at all. When MySQL databases are used, it is impossible to have a different library across XBMC instances. No exporting is required to add a movie. [b]You only need to update the library, just as you would for a normal local database.[b] Without debug logs, I cannot tell you why it doesn't work for you.

You see, my workflow at the moment is to Scrape/update the library on my i5 Win7 machine. It does this very fast. I then Go to the Video menu and "Export as separate files" and telling it not to overwrite so only the new stuff gets exported. This puts all the artwork and nfo's along side the media. The i5 machine also does this very fast. The other devices in the house are set to update library on bootup. They find the new stuff, find the nfo's and artwork.

Its probably a combination of slow old Nas' (2x Dlink DNS323's) and Slow Atom D525 CPU's in the Arctic MC001 XBMC clients but even with the clients not having to scrape nfo's or artwork from the internet, the library updates on the clients are slow and the client GUI's are slow while the update is running.

I thought using mySQL would solve this. That it would be like UPNP sharing where the uptodate library appears instantly on the clients when you turn them on without any need to update the client library. However from Ned Scotts comment above it sounds like I still have to update libraries on the clients. Thats the part I wanted to do away with by using mySQL!! Or did he mean you update the library on the master machine like you would for its local library, then the mySQL db feeds that to the rest of the clients instantaneously such that the client machines have their auto update settings turned off.

If its the former rather than the latter interpretation then in effect, is MySQL merely automating the workflow I already use. ie Scraping and updating library on one machine, exporting the NFO's and artwork to the media folders. Then the clients scraping/updating from this Nas-local nfo's/artwork instead of going on the internet.

If thats the case then it turns out that UPNP sharing is closer to what I want/need. The only problem with UPNP sharing for me at the moment is that it doesn't seem to share the extra fanart, clearart, logo's and disc art etc. Is that coming with UPNP sharing on Gotham? I'll just have to wait for it to go gold though as I can't use the nightlies as I am using openelec on the clients, so have to wait till openelec switches to gotham.
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Both UPnP and MySQL only require one scraping from one machine, and then it automatically shows up on all of the other machines. UPnP doesn't handle the extra artwork, even in Gotham, so you probably will want to use MySQL.
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Thanks for the clarification Ned.
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Not only do I lean towards the MySQL setup not only due to the extra artwork, but also the ability to not have to keep an instance of XBMC running. I understand that I'm likely in the minority, but I have a headless server that I run 24/7 anyways, so with MySQL i can limit the number of computers on to 1 instead of at least 2. The only better thing was if XBMC moved to a service style scanner and media server (PLEX), but I don't believe that will ever happen, so I'm hoping that we can at least keep mySQL for as long as possible.
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Just thought of one more question.

The machine that I will run MySQL on is a near 24/7 machine. Its also the master XBMC Library machine. However, I added the 2 NAS sources and scanned the librrary using the Drive mappings on that PC. ie. X:TVSHOWS & Z:Movies rather than smb:// addressess. I think I read that this wont work. Do I need to delete sources and start again using the smb addresses and rescan the library or is there an entry in the advancedsettings.xml files or MySQL setup that I just need to edit.
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