2013-09-06, 18:03
Been thinking about this for some time, and wanted to ask if anyone has a solution, an alternative path, or if this is even feasible.
Been using XBMC for a couple years now, and for multimedia playback and viewing, I have enjoyed it very much. I have all my media on a headless low resource file server (hp microserver) which itself does NOT run an instance of XBMC (it can't do so with my current configuration - I tried & failed). This server also contains the mysql db info which is used by all the clients throughout my home. All of my current devices are controlled using Yatse on my droid phone.
There are instances where I would really like to listen to my music on XBMC, but really don't want to have the "full monty" XBMC system running.
Few examples being
- On my computer desktop when I am doing graphics/computer intensive stuff, I don't want the resource draw of XBMC dragging things down (nor 1 of my 3 monitors tasked with the GUI *yeah, I know I can windowize it, but it still draws resources*)
- In my shop when I am working on things (I am there doing projects, not watching movies: just want some tunes, and really don't want a monitor out there ruined by sawdust and welding sparks)
- In kitchen/dining room/etc where I would just want some listening enjoyment, without a TV sucking wattage (and the cost to purchase)
What I would absolutely LOVE is if there was a a small, resource friendly version of XBMC that only acted as a music player (or alternately a 3rd party program which reads & understands XBMC db). Basically, I could set up some small appliances in my shop, kitchen, and dining room (for example a RPi, small amp & speakers all-in-one setup) connected to the network, control them with Yatse, and play whatever music in each area I want. This program would be small (like VERY small with limited GUI (in some cases even command line) that would access the xbmc db for features like playlists, album covers, xml info, "resume from", etc), pipe the music off the server to the device, and could be completely controlled via xbmc remote or yatse. I could have it open on my desktop just like foobar/mediamonkey/winamp would be, but not consume the resources required for the full XBMC GUI. Something that runs on an open platform (windows/linux/mac compatible) would obviously cover everyone. You could just SSH or VNC into the devices to do any sort of maintenance, but in reality, if it all looking at the server's db, this would be very rare once it is all up & running.
I played around with rPi and Openelec on one of Pis, but once you load a BIG library, the system just dogs (talking about a BIG library of over 3400 albums, and the pi would do it, but all the other "stuff" seems to drag it down). This may be still viable, but my ventures into this haven't been ideal. I know some people are also playing around with uPnP, but there seems to be issues with stability there.
So, let's here the thoughts. How to create a whole home, smartphone accessed music system that doesn't need monitors, and accesses a NAS or low resource server with media and XBMC db info on it.
Been using XBMC for a couple years now, and for multimedia playback and viewing, I have enjoyed it very much. I have all my media on a headless low resource file server (hp microserver) which itself does NOT run an instance of XBMC (it can't do so with my current configuration - I tried & failed). This server also contains the mysql db info which is used by all the clients throughout my home. All of my current devices are controlled using Yatse on my droid phone.
There are instances where I would really like to listen to my music on XBMC, but really don't want to have the "full monty" XBMC system running.
Few examples being
- On my computer desktop when I am doing graphics/computer intensive stuff, I don't want the resource draw of XBMC dragging things down (nor 1 of my 3 monitors tasked with the GUI *yeah, I know I can windowize it, but it still draws resources*)
- In my shop when I am working on things (I am there doing projects, not watching movies: just want some tunes, and really don't want a monitor out there ruined by sawdust and welding sparks)
- In kitchen/dining room/etc where I would just want some listening enjoyment, without a TV sucking wattage (and the cost to purchase)
What I would absolutely LOVE is if there was a a small, resource friendly version of XBMC that only acted as a music player (or alternately a 3rd party program which reads & understands XBMC db). Basically, I could set up some small appliances in my shop, kitchen, and dining room (for example a RPi, small amp & speakers all-in-one setup) connected to the network, control them with Yatse, and play whatever music in each area I want. This program would be small (like VERY small with limited GUI (in some cases even command line) that would access the xbmc db for features like playlists, album covers, xml info, "resume from", etc), pipe the music off the server to the device, and could be completely controlled via xbmc remote or yatse. I could have it open on my desktop just like foobar/mediamonkey/winamp would be, but not consume the resources required for the full XBMC GUI. Something that runs on an open platform (windows/linux/mac compatible) would obviously cover everyone. You could just SSH or VNC into the devices to do any sort of maintenance, but in reality, if it all looking at the server's db, this would be very rare once it is all up & running.
I played around with rPi and Openelec on one of Pis, but once you load a BIG library, the system just dogs (talking about a BIG library of over 3400 albums, and the pi would do it, but all the other "stuff" seems to drag it down). This may be still viable, but my ventures into this haven't been ideal. I know some people are also playing around with uPnP, but there seems to be issues with stability there.
So, let's here the thoughts. How to create a whole home, smartphone accessed music system that doesn't need monitors, and accesses a NAS or low resource server with media and XBMC db info on it.
