*** Official Kodi (née XBMC) Thread ***

You've gotta have your tags correct for music. Unlike videos, where the path & filename is key, the filename could be absolutely anything for music, it ignores it completely and uses just the tags.

I don't recommend using any automated utility for tagging music - apart from in one situation - which is when you know categorically that your folder/file names are 100% correct.

I have spent some time manually sorting my tags out using MP3Tag, and by just spending an hour a day on it waiting for the GF to come back from work, it didn't take too long to sort it all out.
 
Burned_Alive said:
Anyone know if its possible to make the library scan occur on your media server?

My setup is that I have my PC with all my files on, and two Raspberry Pis which stream off that. Because the Pis are only turned on when I want to stream something, they rarely catch up with library changes. Anyway I can put some sort of agent on the PC and have the Pis use the library file from there?
Click to expand...

If your PC is always on, you can set up MySQL on it, and also set up XBMC on the PC. Then, whichever device turns on will have access to the same library.

kkelly said:
http://lifehacker.com/5634515/how-t...c-media-center-across-every-room-in-the-house
Click to expand...

Don't follow this guide - it is out of date.

ubern00b said:
Setup XBMC to scan to a MySQL database and have all of your client devices read from the database. You can do all sorts of neat things once this is done like pausing a movie/tv show in the lounge and continuing from the same spot in any other room in the house. It's the little things that excite me really :P

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=HOW-TO:Share_libraries_using_MySQL
Click to expand...

Use this link instead, or, look at what I posted in the very first post of this thread, it's the MySQL part that I originally made this thread about.
 
I've never had the database locally, so can't compare - however, I can't say I notice any speed issues at all. Each client also is responsible for downloading the fanart itself, so the only delay I see is while it accesses TheTVDB etc for the images.

If you don't like it, simply remove the advancedsettings.xml file and you'll go back to using the existing local database on the Pi itself - you'll not lose that.
 
I think either Catalyst Control Center or the Windows Home Server LaunchPad which steals focus if I start up XBMC too soon on my HTPC.

You can add -d xx to the end of the XBMC shortcut to delay startup by xx seconds. I use this on the laptop on the wall in the kitchen, because it takes a few seconds to connect to the wireless.
 
MeMeMeMe said:
Yesterday, I followed the instructions in the first post to create a MySQL database, and set up two profiles.

It worked fine, and the databases exist on the mysql server, library works, etc.

Tonight i tried to create a 3rd Guest profile, and it's just not working. Here are my steps:
* I create the profile, shut XBMC down,
* add the advanced setting file, with the new databse names (Guestvideo, Guestmusic)
* start6 xbmc, add a source and try to scan it. Nothing happens.
* check the mysql server, and no new database has been added

Any idea what is going wrong?

Ah, just logged into the other profile, and they aren't showing the library - so I'm not connecting to the mysql server any more with any of my profiles. My android tablet still connects okay though.

Any idea how to restore this connection?
Click to expand...

What does it say in the XBMC log file? Do you see it loading the advancedsettings and does it give you any errors when creating the database? Enable full debug logging on that profile, restart XBMC, and paste the log file to pastebin.com and post the link here, and I'll take a look.

Also - what version of MySQL are you using? The latest (5.6) seems to be having a few issues - try version 5.5 (I'll update the first post to reflect this...)

As soon as you load the profile that's configured with MySQL it should begin to look for the database and create it if necessary before you even get to the main menu.
 
If you have a satellite dish and a satellite tuner, then it depends on where you point the dish.

You've got plenty of options for what to use as the PVR back-end - on Windows you have MediaPortal, ArgusTV, NextPVR, and on Linux you have TVHeadend and others (I don't use Linux so can't remember the names)


My Freeview HD tuner card is in my server (which runs WHS2011), and runs ArgusTV. My tuner card is a dual tuner, so I can tune to 2 multiplexes (of a total of about 7) at once - which means as many channels as are on those two multiplexes - ie I can watch all 4 HD channels, as well as the ~10 channels that are on another multiplex. (To view all channels simultaneously, I'd need as many tuners as multiplexes)

With satellite, it's even easier, as there's only 4 variations, as opposed to ~7 on Freeview - so to view every single satellite channel simultaneously, you only need 4 tuners!



XBMC itself doesn't talk to the tuner hardware - it uses these 3rd party applications (ArgusTV etc) - these can either be installed and running on the same box as XBMC is, or on a completely separate box (as I do with mine - my server, which is always on anyway)


There's nothing illegal about tuning these channels - obviously you will still require a TV licence as you are viewing or recording TV as it's being broadcast - it gets into "illegal" territory if you go to efforts to, for example, attempt to view encrypted Sky channels. But for the UK/foreign channels which aren't encrypted, then it's perfectly fine.
 
1. Yes, perfectly possible. Assuming that the Pi can access the shares where the files are, then it can play it back. If you have MySQL on your server, you can centralise your library. Without it - not a problem, it just means that the Pi will keep its own library, and you won't be able to do stuff like synchronise Watched status, or stop on one device and seamlessly resume from the same point on another device.

I would highly suggest setting up MySQL on your server for this purpose, it really does make life a lot easier to add more devices :)

2. XBMC can play ISO files, but it may struggle with the Blu-ray menus. The better option would be to convert the movies into MKVs (you can do a direct mux and not lose any quality), and you can then include as many or as few audio/subtitle tracks as you wish, excluding the foreign languages and save a little bit of storage space.

XBMC can pass through TRUEHD audio to a receiver compatible of decoding it - it cannot natively decode it. You might struggle a little with full-rips on the Pi.

3. Yes - assuming the filenames follow the convention - mostly having the name as defined on TheMovieDB, and for better matching of the correct film, also add the year.

4. You should not notice any difference in quality, unless Total Media/Power DVD are applying any kind of picture processing. XBMC does not apply any processing at all.
 
gazo7000, can you get into System -> System -> Debugging and enable the "Enable debug logging" option.

Then, after it's crashed, go to %appdata%\XBMC and there should be a debug log there - upload this to somewhere like PasteBin and put the link here, and I'll take a quick look through the log file and see what might be causing it.
 
If you don't want the debug info on screen whilst it's in Debug mode, you can add the following to your advancedsettings.xml file (or create one):

Code: 
<advancedsettings>
    <loglevel hide="false">1</loglevel>
</advancedsettings>

(this will then over-write your Debug settings in the GUI, so to disable debug mode again, you'll have to remove this line from your advancedsettings.xml file.
 
XBMC won't run truly headless. You need to have it showing a window on a desktop - even if you don't have a monitor plugged in...

That said, you can then control it via a number of apps for iOS/Android/Windows, but I'm not sure if those will allow you to make use of Spotify.

I don't use Spotify, so I don't know whether something like Yatse will allow control of it. There's an option in Yatse at least to go through the "file" structure of add-ons - this might do what you need it to do?

Else - if you can get it displaying on-screen (not in proper full-screen mode) then you might be able to use VNC or TeamViewer etc.
 
MG42Maniac,

Does your receiver actually support TrueHD, DTS-HD, AC3 etc ? If there's any of those that it doesn't support, and it tries to send the data down via HDMI, it will lag.

Try disabling all of those options, and re-enable them until the problem returns - you then know which format isn't supported.
 
I wouldn't say the Pi can "comfortably" play back 1080p content.

The Pi does have limitations - I'd consider it a reasonable device for a secondary playback device, but if you're using it all the time, it might frustrate you.

I don't think you can beat a PC - I think Windows will give you least fuss - the only thing to watch out for is the audio settings.
 
The only thing you can't do natively with XBMC is record Live TV - but there are a number of solutions available for this which are supported via an XBMC plugin.

XBMC does not *need* a central server, each instance of XBMC can exist quite happily on its own, be that with a local database or a shared MySQL database.

By running a copy of XBMC 24/7 on the server, you can ensure that all your clients always have instant access to the latest media, without having to run a scrape on the client. At the moment, assume that XBMC needs a display, so no command-line-only running of it, but that's the only limitation to running it on a server.

I have mine running 24/7 on my WHS2011 box, which also has a TV tuner card and is running ArgusTV for that purpose, as well as MySQL and a number of other applications.
 
It depends on exactly what you want to do, and what OS you want to use.

I'll assume Windows, because that's what I know :)


Shared Database: MySQL
This will allow you to store your media metadata centrally, and will allow watched status etc to be shared between multiple clients. This isn't needed, but I think this is a really great feature - for example: stop a film downstairs, retire to bed and resume it at the *exact* same point!

Media storage:
This can be pretty much anything - SMB sharing, NFS sharing, FTP, Webdav etc - this can be anywhere that is accessible by your clients, be it locally, or even over the internet!

LiveTV: ArgusTV
Install this on a PC/server on your network that's preferably always on that has TV tuner cards. You can specify where to store the Live/recorded TV (same machine or networked location). XBMC's add-on will point to ArgusTV to load the EPG etc.


On the client side, you've got a lot of options - from an Android box, Raspberry Pi, AppleTV, Mac, or a full-blown PC, running either Linux or Windows :) Pretty much anything you can think of!
 
I've got a BlackGold BGT3620 dual-HD Freeview tuner card, which has been in my server with Argus-TV for the last few months, and it's working great.
 
As of 12.2, no scheduling options in the GUI. I can't remember seeing anything in the Gotham alpha release notes so far about any PVR stuff either.
 
There's absolutely no need to use a 3rd party application to scrape your media - XBMC will do it all automatically.

I used to scrape all the data with a 3rd party software before moving to XBMC - now, I've actually removed *all* my existing metadata from the media folders, and just let XBMC deal with it all.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom