[eeevooo]

Hey,

I have this network setup at home:
- file server running FreeBSD, serving all my movies and music
- HTPC that will run Linux or Windows, running XBMC connected to TV, accessing files on the fileserver
(To this point it is really basic setup, should work perfectly.)
Now I have few PCs running Windows and Macs, sometimes I just want to watch movie on the PC/Mac.
So I need to find solution to a few problems:
- How to control XBMC from network. (I know there are some nice controller apps for Android and iPhone, bud I've seen none for Mac and even they doesn't provide full XBMC experience.)
- How to tell XBMC that I want to watch the movie on my Mac.

Now here are my solutions so far:
- VNC or rdesktop for remote control, but this doesn't provide full user-experience, it si just slow even on 100Mbit.
- Installing XBMC on every Mac and PC and completely bypassing HTPC. Now this works, but I have about 6 computers and it's lot of duplicate work.

Please share your ideas on my setup above. Also what is better for XBMC, Linux or Windows?

Thanks.

[topfs2]

webinterface is usually simplest

[darkscout]

(To this point it is really basic setup, should work perfectly.)
Now I have few PCs running Windows and Macs, sometimes I just want to watch movie on the PC/Mac.

How to tell XBMC that I want to watch the movie on my Mac.

If you want to watch the movie on your mac. Play the movie on your Mac. Either install XBMC on it or just fire up mPlayer. ANY solution with the HTPC 'playing' the movie and trying to watch it remotely (VNC, etc) is going to suck.

XBMC is my 10 foot interface for my HTPC. When I want to watch something in Bed it's absolute overkill. I just mount my server drives (NFS) on my mac and double click what movie I want and mplayer opens.

The "Full XBMC" experience is with an remote control. If you want to control it remotely, the web interface is the way to go. Given the number of normal skins there are, once the new web interface we're going to see some awesome web skins too.