HOW-TO synchronize your XBMC Media Center between every room in the house: Lifehacker

Hmmm, not a good start. I've dropped that advancedsettings.xml file into the folder on the ATV2 and started XBMC. It's painfully slow. Took nearly 5 minutes to load, and when I've selected Videos it's been stuck on the screen for ten minutes with no response.

OK, so I've stripped down the advancedsettings.xml file to just;

<advancedsettings>

<videodatabase>
<type>mysql</type>
<host>192.168.0.4</host>
<user>xbmc</user>
<pass>xbmc</pass>
</videodatabase>

<musicdatabase>
<type>mysql</type>
<host>192.168.0.4</host>
<user>xbmc</user>
<pass>xbmc</pass>
</musicdatabase>

</advancedsettings>

but it's still hanging when I try to access Videos. Stuck now!

Edit: I've tried it <port>3306</port> added as well, but still the same.

What skin are you using? Hardware on the ATV2 does not play well with some of the more processing intensive skins.

Also the first time you start XBMC with no db it will create all the tables and populate them while doing a library scan

And if you have a big library, SMB will be inherently slower than NFS.

In my personal case, I use SMB to share thumbnails across all my Win7 clients but for my ATV2 I use NFS. I have a decently sized library and its pretty spiffy

Transparency - I find it works well with the TV set to 720p (all of my stuff is 720p or lower).

NFS on the ATV? Don't you have to add each whole path manually? Not easy with an ATV remote!

OK, so the ATV is now responding, but very sluggish - are there any SQL optimisations that might help? It has created the sources.xml file on the WHS (yey!), but it's not created an thumbnails (or folders) in the XBMCthumbs folder. It's still only a quarter of the way through scanning the first folder - does it create the thumbs at the end or should it have done that by now?

IMO Confluence is the best skin on the ATV for doing the initial setup, and once you have everything up and running you can switch back to T!

Both SMB and NFS are completely capable of streaming larger files once you select the file to play, but for smaller files that need to be searched for (as in the case of thumbs) NFS is faster. I only use NFS for thumbs, and still use SMB for the actual library access

The CPU on the ATV is slow as crap, if its still in the middle of scanning your library, then it will likely be even slower. On top of that depending on what other scripts are running in the background will slow the process down even further.

Yeah, the ATV2 has been great to be able to play stuff back cheaply, but roll on an untethered JB for the ATV3!

I'll give that a go with Confluence, see if it does the thumbs, etc.

How do you use NFS for thumbs?

(2012-04-08 18:50)Finchy Wrote:  How do you use NFS for thumbs?

You will have to install unix services on your whs, and then enable nfs sharing for the thumbs folder and assign the appropriate permissions, for thumbs they need to be read/write btw. Then in your advanced settings for the path substitution, instead of smb, replace it with nfs

Setting up nfs is pretty simple in linux (which is where I have my familiarity) unfortunately I am not a Windoz person

It's pretty easy to set up NFS in WHS 2011 (it's build on Server 2008), just add the role to the server manager adn you then can add NFS sharing to any folder.

Ooh! I've just set the thumbs to NFS sharing, removed content and re-set the content and it looks like it's doing it! Woo! Finally might be getting there! This is what worked for me;

Quote:<pathsubstitution>
<substitute>
<from>special://profile/Thumbnails</from>
<to>nfs://192.168.1.4:/XBMCThumbs[/code]

</to>
</substitute>
</pathsubstitution>
[code]

Still very sluggish, but definately progress, and I can see by going into the MySQL DB with SQLyog that the movie, etc data is now in there and the new video and music tables have ben created.

One more question lads - does it make a difference which HTPC updates the library?

The DB is stored on the main living room HTPC, however XBMC is not running all the time so when Sickbeard finishes unless XBMC is running the library doesn't get updated until it does.

If my missus turned on the bedroom PC and had 'Update Library on Startup' checked this wouldn't cause any issues no?

(2012-04-08 23:57)PeterUK Wrote:  One more question lads - does it make a difference which HTPC updates the library?

The DB is stored on the main living room HTPC, however XBMC is not running all the time so when Sickbeard finishes unless XBMC is running the library doesn't get updated until it does.

If my missus turned on the bedroom PC and had 'Update Library on Startup' checked this wouldn't cause any issues no?

nope