[mgworek]

Is there a way to share, not copy, a library?

I was reading the Plex forums and they got it to work adding a symlink to the userdata folder.

I want my mac and my appltv to share a library, so when I watch a tv show or movie on one, they both know it has been watched.

Thanks

[davilla]

Is there a way to share, not copy, a library?

I was reading the Plex forums and they got it to work adding a symlink to the userdata folder.

I want my mac and my appltv to share a library, so when I watch a tv show or movie on one, they both know it has been watched.

Thanks

Not recommended, not only will you share the library but also every other setting that XBMC stores in userdata.

[jayhawk785]

It wouldn't hurt if both environments were identical.

I've debated trying this a few times, given I have 2 minis--and they share movie/tv sources. It would be incredibly easy to update, keep posters the same between the two, etc. If it were only the library piece that you were linking, that would be perfect.

I think the only thing stopping me from sharing is the audio settings, and video calibration (sizing).

[DaveGee]

Great timing!

I just got 2 brand new Apple TVs that I plan on using in the house.

1 - Master Bedroom
1 - Family Room

I have a home-brew box running (_ahem_) a number of different OS environments (including my most favorite), a 24" iMac and an Intel Core Duo Mac mini. I also have plans to purchase a Mac Pro if I can find one for a reasonable used price.

One point that can't be argued, Apple built Macs sure do hold their value and are amazing feats of design and engineering my adventures in home building was more of a mental challenge then anything else, quite fun to have and play around with but unless you REALLY like fixing things it's not for you're average Joe. I guess if I didn't screw around with it so much it would be pretty stable but what fun is that when it's a home-brew?

I plan on using the mini in the computer room connected to a new LCD tv that the wife doesn't know about yey. Yea, not sure how I'm gonna get that to fly... Our Anniversary is this month, do you think she'd go quietly if I told her it was an Anniversary gift from our cat and dog to us? :confused2:

So 3 individual devices all needing to share a common base of media. I have plans on getting seagate 2TB drives x4 to hold the rest of my collection (I hope its enough) and I need to select a SAN since I think having the storage independent of any of my existing computers would be the best in terms of reliability given my tendency to want to experiment with my computers.

I'll search the hardware areas for ideas on building the perfect storage platform for XBMC.

- So how to configure the individual boxes?

- Do I do them by hand painstakingly configuring my entire entertainment collecting three times? (I hope not)

- Do I utilize the networking configurations I see in XBMC? I see options to enable http services as well as 'event services' (as 2 distinct items). I need to read up on that.

- Do I simply get the library the way I want it and then copy the files to the other XBMC systems placed in the house but what happens when items are added to the collection?

In short (too late), how are the people with more than 2, 3, 4 or more XBMC enabled TVs doing it? Do I configure timed events (crontab?) that copy changes on an nightly basis to each box from a centrally located location or do I have it where the 'primary' XBMC will perform uploads to that central location and the various secondary devices will download from? Also on from a timed event.

I'm certainly open to ideas since I don't have any preexisting implementation in place. I don't have to worry about breaking an already working environment.

Dave

[mgworek]

They way they do it in Plex is to sharing just the userdata directory under plex. That way each machine will use their own settings.

I do not know if XBMC has the same directory structure as plex something similar might work.

quote from the Plex forums.

"i would just share the actual userdata dir thats inside the ~/Library/Application Support/Plex folder

this way your not forcing one guisettings.xml on all the comps (one of the settings in there controls your res and stuff and most likely not all the machines have the same default res)"

It wouldn't hurt if both environments were identical.

I've debated trying this a few times, given I have 2 minis--and they share movie/tv sources. It would be incredibly easy to update, keep posters the same between the two, etc. If it were only the library piece that you were linking, that would be perfect.

I think the only thing stopping me from sharing is the audio settings, and video calibration (sizing).

[jayhawk785]

I'm currently trying this out, and it seems to be ok:

lrwxr-xr-x 1 steve staff 66 Sep 22 17:57 Database -> /Volumes/steve/Library/Application Support/XBMC/userdata/Database/
lrwxr-xr-x 1 steve staff 68 Sep 22 17:58 sources.xml -> /Volumes/steve/Library/Application Support/XBMC/userdata/sources.xml

I just mount the shares on the other box at login, to make sure they're present when XBMC opens.