2014-02-20, 18:17
The setup
Let's say you have the ideal XBMC setup - a large NAS with lots of movies, a large TV or two with dedicated HTPCs, and then several smaller devices, like laptops/iPads/cheap android tablets for the kids/etc... Database is shared via mySQL.
Inside the home, this is ideal; XMBC with a shared library is IMO the single best option out there for media browsing/playing, free or paid, by a large margin...
But then...
Now it's time to go on vacation for a few days with the wife, or heading out of town on business for a few days... want to bring some movies with of course. What to do? Browse through the library in XMBC, write some down that look good... then go back to the non-HTPC computer, open up explorer or Finder, drag them from your network shares to your computer or an SD card, etc... Go on vacation, and sadly double click on them with VLC.
What if...
There was a special user profile called mobile. When this profile exists, browsing the library with other profiles has a new context option, "copy to local device." Upon selecting that, the movie with it's accompanying metadata is transferred directly to the device. Then when switching the active profile the the mobile one, only the movies on the local device are there... Now before a vacation, you can kick back on the couch, click on 10-20 movies that look good to copy; on vacation you just switch users, and browse the selected movies in the same wonder interface.
Bonus points if
Watched status/count gets synced back to the main profile from the mobile profile, when you log back into the main profile again.
Let's say you have the ideal XBMC setup - a large NAS with lots of movies, a large TV or two with dedicated HTPCs, and then several smaller devices, like laptops/iPads/cheap android tablets for the kids/etc... Database is shared via mySQL.
Inside the home, this is ideal; XMBC with a shared library is IMO the single best option out there for media browsing/playing, free or paid, by a large margin...
But then...
Now it's time to go on vacation for a few days with the wife, or heading out of town on business for a few days... want to bring some movies with of course. What to do? Browse through the library in XMBC, write some down that look good... then go back to the non-HTPC computer, open up explorer or Finder, drag them from your network shares to your computer or an SD card, etc... Go on vacation, and sadly double click on them with VLC.
What if...
There was a special user profile called mobile. When this profile exists, browsing the library with other profiles has a new context option, "copy to local device." Upon selecting that, the movie with it's accompanying metadata is transferred directly to the device. Then when switching the active profile the the mobile one, only the movies on the local device are there... Now before a vacation, you can kick back on the couch, click on 10-20 movies that look good to copy; on vacation you just switch users, and browse the selected movies in the same wonder interface.
Bonus points if
Watched status/count gets synced back to the main profile from the mobile profile, when you log back into the main profile again.
