[ghostelement]

As the title says, I have a couple media centers around the house already. I have one in the living room and one in my bedroom. Both of these are using a single mysql library to sync everything. I have a wide range of movies/tv shows/music scanned in, and not all of it is appropriate for kids. I would like to add another media center into one of the kids bedrooms, but I don't want them to have access to all this content. I would like to tie them in with the mysql library so we can keep watched status, and resume playback in another room where we left off. I only want them to be able to view/access kid friendly shows and movies though. Is this possible in some way?

[bobbintb]

i believe there are parental control settings and add-ons. never used them myself though.

[Ned Scott]

Not quite. What you could do is make a second MySQL DB that each HTPC can access via a kids' profile (wiki), but it would not sync with the adults' profile. To make a second MySQL DB you would use the <name> tag in advancedsettings.xml to specify a new database.

[Ned Scott]

Just thought of an alternative. You could use source locking: Media_sources#Locking (wiki). Basically, set up your MySQL library so that it uses two sources: one kid friendly, one not. This should work with one MySQL DB.

[saitoh183]

Many ways to approach this...

If you want to keep everything in the same MySQL DB:

1- You can useTags to create your own List of movies/tvshows for kids. Once created (depending on the skin your using), you can make a menu item with it, either by adding the tag directly as a menu item or adding the tag to your favorites and making a menu item out of the favorite. You can also make a smart playlist with your Tag (movies only) to either exclude or include content in that playlist.

Advantage:
Custom list simply by choosing what you want in it without having to worry about categories (ie: adventure, comedy).
You can make as many list as you want and media can be part of multiple tags.

Disadvantage:
Has to be manually updated. (no way for internal scraper to add your tag during scraping process).

But if you use External programs to scrape your media, some support tags (MediaElch and Tiny Media manager). Also you can use Tag Overview addon to help manage tags...really help

2- Smart Playlist by genre if your media have all the proper genre.

Advantage:
You can make a mix media playlist to include movies and tvshows.

Disadvantage:
If certain movies/tvshows fall in the wrong genre and are not for kids, they can show up in your playlist or if the kid movie/tvshow has the wrong/no genre and doesnt show up.

3- This takes a bit more work....Separate your kid stuff from the adult stuff and add that new kid folder as sources..(ie: ...\kids\movies, ...\kids\tvshows)

Advantage:
Guaranteed your adult stuff doesnt show up on there media center.

Disadvantage:
You would have to rescan the stuff you moved and add those new sources on all the other media centers.
You on your media centers with adult content, you would have to apply another method to keep your adult content out of reach.

4- Profiles. Create one for the kids with the options of using different source. Add new source and use the exclude folder.


What i recommend:

Method 1 is the easiest to do as a quick fix

Else use a mix of method 3 and 4. Separate the kid stuff and use profiles to avoid them stumbling on adult content. Yes its more work initially but there will be less manual intervention when new media is added compared to method 1.

Making a second DB for kids only wouldnt fix much unless you need/want a separate watch status for the same shows/movies.
Hope that helps

[ghostelement]

Thanks for the methods! I'll give some of this a try tomorrow and see how far I get.

[protocol77]

i had something similar to do recently i needed a seperate mysql library to my main one so i did the same as what Ned Scott suggested above and edited the advancedsettings.xml to create a second mysql database with seperate watched statuses and then added that advancedsettings.xml to a profile i created within xbmc for the seperate machine now when i start up xbmc it prompts me to login to either my main or my other machine and depending which one i choose it will load that library

i was able to share sources and other things but keeping different menu settings and content different from the other and more importantly watched status which is what my main reason for creating a second database was for