MySQL vs UPnP sharing

All good points... I do agree that Server/Client with server transcoding is the future for all media centers. Even the new version of "MediaBrowser" is breaking free from WMC and becoming its own client/server media center setup.


But how do we get UPnP to scrape into the xbmc video library? I am only able to add it but it never asks to update the library and won't scrape when I choose to manually update.

Currently, you can't. UPnP provides it's own metadata, and scraping is handled by the XBMC install providing the UPnP source, so it's basically an isolated library. Finding a way to integrate UPnP libraries with the main library is one of those things being looked at now.

(2013-05-10 16:54)TugboatBill Wrote:  

(2013-05-10 14:52)steve1977 Wrote:  

(2013-05-10 14:17)Ned Scott Wrote:  It's probably possible to install XBMC on your headless win7 machine (at least, I don't see why it wouldn't work).

There are several threads on this topic. I always thought it is a "bug", which would get fixed, but it is more complicated. I never understood what prevents this from working, but several developers aknowledged the issue and shared that there are no plans to change this.

I have XBMC installed on a headless Win 7 that I use as a server. I have it boot @ ~5PM, scan for new content and update the MySQL gatabase if anything is found, and then shut down. It's a stock eden install, nothing special. If I need to make changes I just RDP in and make them.

Would be really great if it would work, but there are dozens of threads confirming that it is does not run headless. Please see below one that I had started - two developers (Martijn and kricker) confirmed that it is not working and Martijn (back in Jan/2013) concluded the thread by saying that "It's somewhere on the road but no near future".

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid...pplication

(2013-05-11 02:05)Ned Scott Wrote:  Currently, you can't. UPnP provides it's own metadata, and scraping is handled by the XBMC install providing the UPnP source, so it's basically an isolated library. Finding a way to integrate UPnP libraries with the main library is one of those things being looked at now.

Is that relevant to those of us going cross-players with UPnP (Plex/XBMC) or also those of us like me who only use XBMC?

How does artwork/poster caching works? Or will the display be slowed down as it will always need to stream them from the UPnP-Server? What about sorting my library by genre or year? What about video playlists?

(2013-05-11 00:57)Ned Scott Wrote:  It's also Apples and Oranges because XBMC is not designed for phones and tablets, it's designed for set-top-boxes and the 10 foot interface with local media. It's a case where people are far less likely to need internet streaming from a home connection. Phones and tablets are more of an experimental area for XBMC right now, simply because we get those devices as a side effect of the Android set-top-box efforts. It's like comparing Plex to a DVD player. A DVD player doesn't transmit DVDs over the network, because that's not what it's designed for.

Reading the whole thread and many other threads on this topic, the paragraph above sums it up nicely. XBMC is THE best player for HTPCs and this is what it is designed for. It is emerging to be strong on set-top boxes and this is where its core is.

In my eyes, the tablet and smart phone applications are not priority and not the core of what XBMC really is. For example, there is not even an official iOS based XBMC out by now (the release only works on jailbroken devices). I do not want to start a conversation about Apple/iOS and its policies, but not even haveing an officially approved app for these devices shows that this is not the direction that XBMC currently wants to take.

What does it mean for me - my home is an "XBMC home" and I use itunes for my iOS devices. I don't want to bother with jailbreaking them (which I used to do in the past and always found a pain) and I also don't want to bother with the buggy nature of Plex and the need to harmonize things with XBMC, which is a pain in the neck. Also, I am sceptical about Plex' future (and it appears from the web-site that the LG support has already stopped).

hi everyone - sorry for not being around to answer questions but I just can't keep track of everything that goes on in the forums - I'm more comfortable with mailing lists and am also right in the middle of my finals at university.

I just quickly scanned through this thread and one question I see that's not answered is whether something like Plex (and others) respect the watched status / resume point update support that I added. The short answer is no I doubt it will (though it could be added by them easily, and I'd welcome that).

The long answer is while the ability has existed for years, behaviour like this has never been dictated by the UPnP specs. So as an example I doubt you'll find many clients in the world that respect the upnp:lastPlaybackPosition metadata tag (other than the wonderful XBMC of course). I also doubt that any other servers support the UpdateObject mechanism we use to pass back resume points and update play counts (watched status). Take a look at how Samsung have handled this, they created their own proprietary method, despite the fact there exists a perfectly workable system described in the UPnP specs since MediaServer:1 (written nearly 15 years ago). Some people just don't like to share their toys with others..

As you can understand this is one of the major annoyances about working with UPnP/DLNA, but it's all achievable with a bit of effort and really there's no other framework out there which is as comprehensive, flexible and platform agnostic. I'm hoping to start to get XBMC up to par with the best free & proprietary UPnP/DLNA servers out there [see http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=162225].

@alcoheca - thanks for your insightful input. Indeed interoperability with upnp/dlna isn't all it could be, but as you say it tis the best "all it could be" out there. I do get sick of telling popele that their Smart TV isn't necessarily smart enough to play every format that XBMC's upnp service can advertise as available, and that just because you have been collecting xvid avis for years doesn't mean that LG/Samsung/Sony/Panasonic want a bar of them. In the end my suggestion is always that "XBMC is way smarter than your Smart TV, just buy an HTPC and stick it under the TV".

One question about the UPnP sharing and profiles. Assuming you go with either a headless XBMC server or an always on master instance of XBMC.... I have four profiles used interchangeably across 6 XBMC machines in my house. Does that mean i need 1 instance dedicated to each profile (which have slight variations in sources and completely separate watched data) which would mean i need 4 XBMC servers/machines that can each only run 1 profile? meaning right now i have my headless file server which is running 4 MySQL databases (super easy after the first is set up and almost zero extra overhead after the first) and holds my Movies, Music and TV Shows(18 TBish) and my 6 TVs each with an XBMC machine attached, each set up to allow any of the 4 profiles to login interchangeably. Instead i need My file server, 4 PCs or virtual PCs each running a separate copy of XBMC each one being responsible for a single profile in addition to my already existing TVs (none of them can be the always on master for each profile because I would lose the ability to login to an alternate profile or turn off the PC). Or are you going to enable a single copy of XBMC to load every profile and serve up each profile as a separate UPnP library simultaneously.

The latter. Clearly running 4 copies of xbmc on one machine would be ridiculous.