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SickIcarus · 2009-02-22, 21:28

If you're wanting to use XBMC as a server to stream video to client machines, try using Tversity instead, as that's what it was designed for, and does run as a service. Use XBMC as a front-end to display the media content served up by said server.

As for remoting in and having XBMC launch again, remote to a different user account.

Ideally, XBMC should have its own user account, and said account should only have access to only what you want it to have access to, since security is a concern. Then remote in to a different account to get work done - this is how mine's set up, and it works perfectly.

tjdadj · 2009-02-22, 22:05

Nazgulled, thanks for the pointer, but there are many free "Run As Service" utilities available..

SickIcarus

Thanks for the input, but after a brief review of "tversity", it doesn't seem to provide the same featureset as XBMC.. Although, I will keep it in mind as an option..

I have spent a couple of months working thru most of XBMC's options, and validating operation with WHS, so spending another month, or two, evaluating "tversity" is something I'll have to think about..

So, did you ever try running XBMC as a service?

thanks
tj

Livin · 2009-02-23, 00:10

tjdadj,
Seems like the answer you are looking for is no one has tried it. There is not likely much need for that as it is in our intranets, behind firewalls.

Seems like you have a ton of experience... so leverage it. Try running XBMC as a service and report back. You will be both answering your question and also providing the community with possibly valuable info so maybe someday we can run it as a service (if it does not already work).

dandirk · 2009-02-23, 05:36

XBMC is not built as a server application, it is quite the opposite... a client application. It has the ability to make use of resources from servers not to be one...

Be that as it may... There are some server type features that you could use, if XBMC could be run as a service.

http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=Streaming

This I found in a quick "search" of the forums for "web server".

From just a quick poke around, XBMC does have a uPNP server, mainly to sync to other xbmc clients, sounds kinda like a peer network but maybe there is a master/child relationship, don't know...

These server features looks to be very light in features and probably insecure just due to the low use (most people use xbmc as a client only).

There would be many better media server applications out there. Most are for music but Video is catching up with appliance type devices like the Popcorn hour.

MainLobby is a commercial HTPC application written specifically for people that require a Client/Server based application. http://www.cinemarsolutions.com/

I am sure there are tons of other client/server based video/media solutions out there that probably would be a better solution for you.

If XBMC "could" run as a service, then you still would need to have another machine running XBMC in a user desktop as the client actually displaying the media. You never mentioned if you planned to actually use other clients. From reading this thread it could sound like you were expecting to run XBMC as a service and have the WHS server act like a client and display the media (which is almost impossible)

dandirk · (This post was last modified: 2009-02-23, 05:44 by dandirk.)

SickIcarus Wrote:If you're wanting to use XBMC as a server to stream video to client machines, try using Tversity instead, as that's what it was designed for, and does run as a service. Use XBMC as a front-end to display the media content served up by said server.

tjdadj Wrote:Thanks for the input, but after a brief review of "tversity", it doesn't seem to provide the same featureset as XBMC.. Although, I will keep it in mind as an option..

Unless I read his post wrong... You do understand he was saying to run TVersity as the media server and then XBMC on a separate client machine for the actual running/displaying of the media Huh

?

Seems like people are trying to help but could you explain what your whole plan is (limitations, expected results) in more detail then "can I run XBMC as a service". You CAN run it as a service but will it work (simple one) or do what your want (hard one) is the question.

You mentioned feature sets... What features sets are you looking for Huh

??

tjdadj · 2009-02-25, 08:56

dandirk
Sorry for the slow response, been sidetracked..

You stated in your previous post that I was unclear on what I wanted to do. I assumed that when I said I was wanting to run XBMC as a service, on WHS (Windows Home SERVER), that implied that there would be clients..

I totally understood what SickIcarus was recommending, I just don't want to have to do another month of learning/testing Tversity..

Ok, I'll explain it again.. I want to run XBMC (SMB) as a service on a WHS server, and send multiple streams to multiple clients ( 5 max). This server will not be in a secure location (NOT my idea!), and therefore needs fairly secure access. Running XBMC in the start folder is out, as no one will be logged in, so it needs to run as a service. This server is currently in production, and is working so well, I didn't want to "experiment" on it, by testing the XBMC service idea. Hence, I went to the most active XBMC forum I knew of, and asked if anyone had attempted this, and if so, what were the results..

AS far as your question "You CAN run it as a service but will it work (simple one) or do what your want (hard one) is the question."., Huh

It's pretty simple, Will XBMC run as a service, and stream video? What other reason would you want to run XBMC as a service for?? Huh

I really like the current featureset/lookfeel of XBMC, (Scraping, library, configurability, etc.), and I now know how to make most of them work, so I'm not really interested in learning another app, if I don't have to.

I was just really surprised at the responses I received.. especially the ones from the dev.. Blush

Thanks for the interest..
tj

dandirk · (This post was last modified: 2009-02-27, 01:57 by dandirk.)

Oh... well if you are planning on having/installing clients the easiest thing to do would be to NOT run XBMC on the server at all, just store you media on the server with standard file shares. Install XBMC on your client machines with mapped drives, configure and there you go all done. This is the same configuration a vast majority of us use but we only have 1-2 client machine (our HTPC). Your setup would just have more clients/installs of XBMC.

Granted there is some extra overhead in configuring XBMC on multiple client machines but you can probably do an easy copy of config files etc so they are all setup the same. There would be multiple DBs (stored locally on each client) but if they are all configed the same the data and info should be the same as well...

I know this isn't a true client/server setup like you are probably hoping for, but XBMC isn't really designed for that. The best setup for that would be like mentioned. Look for a upnp media server and use XBMC to access the media server. You would still get the XBMC look and feel and also have a centralized media server with single DB etc...

And no your posts didn't seem "that simple" to me I assumed you wanted to run xbmc on the server as a service and some how still access the GUI with out also installing XBMC on the client machine. No mention of installing xbmc on a client and access media on a server at all. Everyone assumed you wanted a more complex setup based on how you described it. If you would have said "I want XBMC to access media stored on a secure WHS server" things would have been much different.

tjdadj Wrote:It's pretty simple, Will XBMC run as a service, and stream video? What other reason would you want to run XBMC as a service for??
tj

Again this statement is unclear and not "that simple". No mention of what client you are assuming will receive the streamed video... Again if you would have said XBMC as a client software then people again would have given you proper answers (though its easy enough to find on the forum if you looked).

defaria · 2009-02-27, 04:50

dandirk Wrote:Oh... well if you are planning on having/installing clients the easiest thing to do would be to NOT run XBMC on the server at all, just store you media on the server with standard file shares. Install XBMC on your client machines with mapped drives, configure and there you go all done. This is the same configuration a vast majority of us use but we only have 1-2 client machine (our HTPC). Your setup would just have more clients/installs of XBMC.

This would not work in my circumstance because I don't have a HTPC (which I assume means Home Theater PC). I have only a PS3 so I cannot 1) install XBMC on my "client" machine because there isn't a version of XBMC that runs on PS3! Nor can I map drives to the PS3. So what's the solution for me?

Now XBMC can act as a UPNP server but it has to be running. Would it be that much to ask to have the UPNP portion of XBMC separated out such that it can run as a service with no need to access the display? Put differently, XBMC's UPNP server portion is a server and thus should be allowed to be installed as a service. In fact, in most applications that I've seen, installation would install the UPNP service portion as a service and the Enable UPNP option would simply start it. XBMC's architecture here seems screwy or at least non-standard.

Quote:I know this isn't a true client/server setup like you are probably hoping for, but XBMC isn't really designed for that.

I understand that XBMC was not designed to be a service but when a service portion was developed it should have been architected into a real service not a service portion that only runs when the client is running!

Quote:The best setup for that would be like mentioned. Look for a upnp media server and use XBMC to access the media server. You would still get the XBMC look and feel and also have a centralized media server with single DB etc...

I also know there are many other UPNP servers - some better than others. I currently have Orb. It works pretty good in that it seems to handle all of my file types. Also has a mycast.orb.com or something like that - a web site kinda thing. But it's a little slow and I wanted to switch to using XBMC as I like XBMC's client software too. But having to run XBMC constantly just to insure that I have a UPNP service running seems like a bit of overkill..

Maxim · 2009-02-27, 05:53

defaria Wrote:Now XBMC can act as a UPNP server but it has to be running. Would it be that much to ask to have the UPNP portion of XBMC separated out such that it can run as a service with no need to access the display? Put differently, XBMC's UPNP server portion is a server and thus should be allowed to be installed as a service. In fact, in most applications that I've seen, installation would install the UPNP service portion as a service and the Enable UPNP option would simply start it. XBMC's architecture here seems screwy or at least non-standard.

This sounds like a candidate for a trac ticket. It seems reasonable to me, but I don't write the software. Smile

defaria · 2009-02-27, 05:54

What's a trac ticket?

Maxim · 2009-02-27, 06:01

It's a ticket system which allows tracking of problem, patches, and feature requests for the project.

http://trac.xbmc.org

You can use your forum login and password so no need to register. Note: It's case sensitive.

defaria · 2009-02-27, 07:31

Ticket #5995 Implement the UPNP server in XBMC as a stand alone service - created.

Not sure what you meant by "It's case sensitive". If you mean my username and password, after 30 years in the business I can say "I'm well aware". If you mean the URL is case sensitive then again I say "Well of course".

Of course you could have entered it in yourself - I don't really care if I'm associated with it or not - I just want it implemented.

ewok666 · 2009-04-12, 11:15

tjdadj Wrote:There's a couple of reasons:

One, I need a secure server, so auto-login is out.. It's running much more than a stock WHS normally runs, and there are apps and data that shouldn't be accessible to anyone..

Two: if XBMC is running in one session, and I RDP into the WHS w/ XBMC in the startup folder, it tries to run again, then crashes and trashes the previous running process..

but thanks for replying anyway..

No offense but this seems like a pretty silly exercise! If you need a "secure" server then what the hell are you doing running XBMC as a "service". Even if this is possible and interaction does work (which I doubt!)....you'd still be left with a weird, non-standard setup. You'd be best off to set it up to start only manually! Or run XBMC via batch file that uses pslist (or similar) to check whether the process is already running and does NOT start a second instance.....VERY easy to do.

Cheers

kemik · 2009-04-28, 12:39

tjdadj,

You sorted a solution to this yet?

I too would love to have this running as a service as I run WHS as my NAS for all my media plus I run XBMC on it too

Problem I have is that its connected via HDMI to my Plasma but I want to also be able to run it through Remote Desktop but it won't start in remote desktop giving the following error 'Desktop Color Depth isn't 32bit'

If there's a feature request in this thread I would love to see XBMC become a WHS addin that would be awesome as there are some media packages already available as addin's such as the PS3 Media player but nothing comes close to the capabilities of XBMC

tjdadj · 2009-04-28, 16:23

kemik

Well, yes and no, I haven't had a bunch of time to work further with WHS, although I temporarily resolved the issue by switching to UltraVNC as my remote client..
This eliminated the multiple login issue, and although slightly slower, it will work for awhile.. Confused

BTW - you should be able to resolve the "Depth of Color" issue by setting your WHS video card and remote desktop PC to 32 bit color. Or, just install UltraVNC instead..

I do agree with you that XBMC as an 'Addon' would be a killer app for WHS.. and definitely eliminate alot of problems.. Cool

AFAIK, that hasn't been added to the "Feature Request" log yet, but you can check..

hth