[nickr]

Well get the authors of your player clients to update the watched status.

[Ned Scott]

2. Watched flags and resume status works great for UPnP in Gotham builds. Smart playlists will work if you make them on the UPnP hosting computer, but the others can only make basic playlists. This is another thing that might be overcome with the work mentioned above.

The main problem with this right now (as far as I know) is that the only way the status is updated is if the client is also XBMC. This is a much more rare (read: IMHO less useful) scenario than have the status be set regardless of DLNA client that's playing back the source. For example, when I use my iPad, I use MLPlayer Lite. On my PC, I *might* want to use WMP, on my 'big screen' I use XBMC (actually running against mySQL so no DLNA in that case for me).

Just my 2 cents. :)

That really has nothing to do with this thread which is talking about MySQL vs UPnP, since you also can't use our MySQL setup without XBMC either ;)

Other UPnP clients can support the watched status feature, though. There's nothing on the XBMC side that can be done about their support, though.

And no, it's not rare. We have tons of people with multiple XBMC to XBMC setups, hence this entire thread and several others like it.

[edrikk]

My thinking was more along the lines of "we can't make the world support a standard, but we can control our server, and our metadata; So if we see something is being served, let's mark it as watched, regardless of the other side."

With that said, you're right. This is now completely off topic, so I'll save my rant on that for another day, another (appropriate) thread.

[T800]

I have been using MySQL for just over a year now. My friend who I just set up with XBMC on an android box recently has started sharing his library via UPnP. He said that the watched status kept.

I haven't kept up with UPnP sharing on XBMC. It tried it briefly last night and noticed the watched status but also where last playback was stopped is there too.
Can anyone tell me the advantages/disadvantages of UPnP over MySQL on Frodo 12.2 and then the same on Gotham as it is right now?
From what I noticed last night I think it already does enough for my needs just want to make sure there is nothing I'm missing.
Thanks

[trogggy]

Last time I tried it (about a month ago) you couldn't see movies grouped in sets - you could see sets only or title list, but I use sets in my main list and that doesn't (didn't) translate to the second machine.
That's the only thing that's stopping me using upnp at the moment.

[T800]

I might give it a go then. My MySQL set up is having issues. I'm not bothered about sets on the 2nd and 3rd machines only the main one.

[hewligun]

Hey can someone help me out here.. I am formatting my pc's to run 8.1 so I was thinking of going the uPNP route instead of mysql. Manly i just want my library synched between the 2 machines with watched/unwatched and hopefully pause/resume. If the art carries over as well that would be cool. much of how it works in mysql.

Is this possible either with gotham or frodo? And if its on gotham.. if i use the latest nightly and when the final comes out can i just do a simple install upgrade or do i need to restart everything from scratch?

Also will all my playlist work as they do currently? I dont use the movies and tv sections that default with XBMC i use playlist as menu items because i break my movie and tv sections into sections.

[Ned Scott]

With UPnP you can actually mix Frodo and Gotham, but both builds should be on a Gotham nightly or monthly for watched and resume status sync. You can use the Gotham test build and just install the final version of Gotham over that, with no need to start over from scratch. However, it's always a good idea to backup the userdata (wiki) folder just incase.

Playlists will work, but the way they work is that you need to use the playlists from the "server" XBMC instance. Smart playlists made on the client-side won't work because they don't see UPnP entries as being in the local library (something that will change in the future, yay!). So basically, set up those movie and TV sections on that main/server XBMC instance, and then you can use them on all the other instances. You should even be able to map them to custom home buttons if you want. The playlists show up under the UPnP instance in a "Playlists" folder".

[T800]

I just noticed last night that my second box will see the watched status and progress from the master box but it doesn't update the master box when viewed from the second box.

Can anyone tell me the best stable Gotham build they have used or should I just go with the latest monthly?

[Martijn]

latest monthly

[hewligun]

With UPnP you can actually mix Frodo and Gotham, but both builds should be on a Gotham nightly or monthly for watched and resume status sync. You can use the Gotham test build and just install the final version of Gotham over that, with no need to start over from scratch. However, it's always a good idea to backup the userdata (wiki) folder just incase.

Playlists will work, but the way they work is that you need to use the playlists from the "server" XBMC instance. Smart playlists made on the client-side won't work because they don't see UPnP entries as being in the local library (something that will change in the future, yay!). So basically, set up those movie and TV sections on that main/server XBMC instance, and then you can use them on all the other instances. You should even be able to map them to custom home buttons if you want. The playlists show up under the UPnP instance in a "Playlists" folder".

Can you link me to something to setup the smart playlist? Thats exactly how my home button sections are on Aeon Nox. Also Do you know if thats translates over to pseudoTV live as far as the playlist go? Do i just point them to the server side? This is perking my interest to finally ditch mysql.

Last questions if I switch over to uPNP is there a way for me to export my library and re-import it so it all my watched/unwatched statuses come with it? And finally do my sources go in as smb or do i use local paths? And with uPNP do i need 1 sesrver? or can both my machines host some of the content? Then just add a second path in the smart playlist to the other host?

[Ned Scott]

With UPnP you basically set things up on a single machine as you want them. They can be local media files, SMB, a mix, whatever. You set up the playlists on the single machine as well. Then when you share this via UPnP the other XBMC machines will see it as a file server under Videos -> Files. Here you will see things like "library", "files", "playlists", etc. You can mark the correct playlists and folders as favorites on the second machine, then use a skin to use those favorites as custom home items.

You can use the MySQL instructions for exporting/reimporting ( http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=HOW...edsettings ) to go from MySQL back to a local library. Basically, you export as individual files again, overwriting the old files so it updates the watch status. Then remove the MySQL parts of the advancedsettings.xml file, but keep the "import watched" part. Then when XBMC starts up, re-add the source and scan the library, and it should give you a new local library (assuming you don't have an original library from before MySQL was set up. If you do, you can just remove that or delete your userdata (wiki)/Database/MyVideos75.db file).

Make sure the UPnP settings are on (see UPnP/Share (wiki)) and you should be good to go.

Both machines can host content, but they won't mix the content together in single folders. Like you can't have a single TV shows folder with content from both, but you could have "action" TV shows on one, and "drama" TV shows on another, and just set those up as two custom home items. Or maybe "kids" and "adults" videos, etc. Being able to mix the content will be something that will come later to XBMC.

[pecinko]

With UPnP you basically set things up on a single machine as you want them. They can be local media files, SMB, a mix, whatever. You set up the playlists on the single machine as well. Then when you share this via UPnP the other XBMC machines will see it as a file server under Videos -> Files. Here you will see things like "library", "files", "playlists", etc. You can mark the correct playlists and folders as favorites on the second machine, then use a skin to use those favorites as custom home items.

Unfortunately I couldn't come to Munich to discuss this at GUI topic and I don't know whats been agreed upon but from my humble point current navigation structure needs to be flattened a bit:

UPNP Server -> Movies -> filters -> content

where FILTERS should contain all - playlists, sets, recent items, by genre, by folder (or files). Current situation is getting a bit complicated as everyone wants something else - custom nodes vs playlists vs files vs filters vs going directly to all movies... It is complicated to support such a skin.

If you are planning to open up specific topic on this and there's a desire from devs to discuss it - I'm willing to participate.

[hewligun]

With UPnP you basically set things up on a single machine as you want them. They can be local media files, SMB, a mix, whatever. You set up the playlists on the single machine as well. Then when you share this via UPnP the other XBMC machines will see it as a file server under Videos -> Files. Here you will see things like "library", "files", "playlists", etc. You can mark the correct playlists and folders as favorites on the second machine, then use a skin to use those favorites as custom home items.

You can use the MySQL instructions for exporting/reimporting ( http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=HOW...edsettings ) to go from MySQL back to a local library. Basically, you export as individual files again, overwriting the old files so it updates the watch status. Then remove the MySQL parts of the advancedsettings.xml file, but keep the "import watched" part. Then when XBMC starts up, re-add the source and scan the library, and it should give you a new local library (assuming you don't have an original library from before MySQL was set up. If you do, you can just remove that or delete your userdata (wiki)/Database/MyVideos75.db file).

Make sure the UPnP settings are on (see UPnP/Share (wiki)) and you should be good to go.

Both machines can host content, but they won't mix the content together in single folders. Like you can't have a single TV shows folder with content from both, but you could have "action" TV shows on one, and "drama" TV shows on another, and just set those up as two custom home items. Or maybe "kids" and "adults" videos, etc. Being able to mix the content will be something that will come later to XBMC.

I think that all makes sense. So if I have 2 xbmc's instances and one server for one of those. Basically I just point the "server" to the 2nd xbmc smb share of those files. In reality the second machine will connect to the first see its own smb share and still work?

How is the second machine viewing all the art and such? does it work like the mysql setup? and the second machine does it have any sources at all? like how am i pointing it to the playlist? I dont recall seeing any options in XBMC to remote playlist.

[jmarshall]

@pecinko: The idea is that instead of you browsing the UPnP share on the client, you'll instead just browse your client's library. Whenever a UPnP server is found (and it's XBMC) that remote content will just be dropped into the the client's library, and everything is available as standard. (Further, if you have two clients both with local libraries and UPnP sharing enabled, both share with each other).

This is building on some of the GSoC work (which was unfinished) which Montellese has spent some time cleaning up. There's still a some rough edges to be worked through (primarily handling of updates on the server in a nicer way than rescanning everything client-side, and handling of duplicates) but it's already pretty neat.

We'll get together some details of what was discussed at devcon and then create a thread.

Cheers,
Jonathan