XBMC "Server" - centralized XBMC management for multiple XBMC devices/platforms?

Hi,

XBMC does not have server support yet like Plex media server. Are there plans to have that? Any pointers on how it can be done in XBMC, so that I dont need to maintain database on all clients and just have server having all the media.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Thanks

There is MySQL support for a "centralized" database for videos and music. But it's new and doesn't quite work as expected for everything. I would do a search for that if that's what you're looking for. I know there has also been talk at some point about doing some sort of headless server application for xbmc. Pretty sure that would be way down the line though unless a whole team starts work on it.

Thanks for the reply.

I'll check out on mySQL support for database.

To tell you my setup would be something like multiple boxes running xbmc, where one box has something called XBMC server which would hold all the media from various sources, and this interface/server would provide the media to other XBMC boxes which are clients. Hence all media management done by server and clients dont have to maintain multiple libraries.

So, using mySQL we can probably have media maintained on the server side and any idea on how this stuff can be passed to the clients?

Thanks

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paries Wrote:Thanks for the reply.

I'll check out on mySQL support for database.

To tell you my setup would be something like multiple boxes running xbmc, where one box has something called XBMC server which would hold all the media from various sources, and this interface/server would provide the media to other XBMC boxes which are clients. Hence all media management done by server and clients dont have to maintain multiple libraries.

So, using mySQL we can probably have media maintained on the server side and any idea on how this stuff can be passed to the clients?

Thanks

I run this very setup, and its really not a big deal. All media resides on the server, with shared srvies to the network and MySQL used as the dbase. Each client is set up with the edited advancedsettings.XML (see the MySQL thread for the settings) and the sources are mapped to the shared drives via smb.

The server insatllation of xbmc also needs to have its source mapped via the network, so that network paths are preserved. On the server copy of xmbc i have the auto update timer adding installed so that it looks for new media every few hours, and have sickbeard setup to automatically update the library when it down loads new TV shows.

With this set up, one thing to remember is that the clients never needs to update their libraries, since this is all handled on the server side.

The only other trick to making this work is to share the fanart and thumbs directory from xbmc so that all the clients can pull from there. Otherwise getting fanart etc is a big of a piano, since the local clients don't scrape it themselves.

I have 4 xbmc clients and the server set up this way and it works like a champ.

Blacklist

Is there a way to start xbmc without display attached? I wish to run it on a headless pc.

Thanks blacklist. I was able to setup the mysql and access the data from client. You mentioned about thumbnails and fanart

"The only other trick to making this work is to share the fanart and thumbs directory from xbmc so that all the clients can pull from there. Otherwise getting fanart etc is a big of a piano, since the local clients don't scrape it themselves."

How do you do that? I shared the Thumbnails folder on server side. Now what configuration is required at the client side to access these thumbnails and fanart?

Thanks,

The XBMC Server idea rocks, maybe it can be developed in Java, so we can run it in almost any OS available.

IMHO, the ideal setup would be a mixed schema, with a remote repository of all movie/music info served by a Java SQL server like HSQLDB and the thumbs served by a HTTP server, and a local synchronized version of it's data.

In that way, we could have the speed of local stored data and centralized server distribution.

Would it be possible to....

Build robust Server box running either windows home server or 2011 server, using a robust quad or hex core and 3 video cards to run 3 instances of XBMC by running them on individual VMWARE machines and then going the route mentioned above about sharing the SQL DB and art/thumbnails? Would be running the outputs of each VM w/ its own card to a HDMI matrix swtich (from there going out via hdmi extendeders) to play diffferent streams on different TVs throughout the house. I would prob run the XBMC "server" instance on the actual server OS that would be fed to onboard video for admin.

Possible?

90% of my content is 1080p mkvs's between 10gb and 20gb apiece....

Would like to be able to control the VM copies of XBMC from the tablet remote apps currently available on the android market...

I am more worried about the XBMCs talking to each other properly and if anyone has put a processor through the paces of dealing with decoding streams. I know I have will network/HD bandwidth covered, as well as the the video distribution outside of the server itself.

For Windows 7:

Has anyone tried running the exe remotely using Windows 7 homegroup? I know it doesn't make this a true client/server set of applications but at least it resolve installing and configuring xbmc on all the computers.

(2012-04-30 21:31)TheMonkeyKing Wrote:  For Windows 7:

Has anyone tried running the exe remotely using Windows 7 homegroup? I know it doesn't make this a true client/server set of applications but at least it resolve installing and configuring xbmc on all the computers.

I installed Office 2007 over Homegroup. Didn't seem to take much time either, about the same as installing it on the same computer