(2017-12-31, 11:09)steve1977 Wrote: I don't mind the bandwidth, but want artwork to be consistent across all my devices. In general, consistency is across devices is critical for me and I would indeed mind if the artwork shows on device 1, but does not show on device 2 (e.g., downloads sometimes fail). Is the dual download also needed when using mysql. I would have thought and hoped that the download only happens once when using mysql?
No, it makes no difference if you are using MySQL or not. If your movie is linked to remote artwork then each client will try and download the remote artwork in order to populate the texture cache. The only way to avoid multiple downloads is to create the artwork locally (alongside your movies) and when adding those movies to the library Kodi will include the references to the local artwork. All your clients will then use the local artwork when populating their texture cache.
(2017-12-31, 11:09)steve1977 Wrote: That's interesting. Is nothing downloaded during the scraping process and only a link to the remote artwork placed during scraping. So if the artwork gets removed from remote server after scraping, it will just show a black image when selecting the movie? This would be a major downside.
When scraping, Kodi doesn't download anything - it creates a movie entry in the library, and links this movie entry to various artwork urls which will be of the remote variety unless you have created the local artwork prior to scraping.
Only when displaying the new artwork will Kodi first populate the local texture cache, and if this means downloading the artwork from the internet then that is what Kodi will do (assuming the artwork is still available). Obviously if you have used local artwork then the texture cache will be populated using the local artwork instead. All clients will populate their own texture cache first before displaying any artwork. If the artwork is no longer available then the texture cache is never populated and no artwork is displayed. Once remote artwork disappears you will need to rescrape the library item in order to replace the missing artwork (or use a tool like mklocal.py to replace remote artwork with local artwork).
(2017-12-31, 11:09)steve1977 Wrote: Is this how Kodi handles scraping? Just out of curiosity, why is this the case?
Kodi was originally designed around a single client library, with each client scraping their own library. Sharing libraries amongst multiple clients with MySQL was added after the fact.
With the original use case (ie. SQLite) each client would re-scrape the library and clients would use whatever artwork is available at the time of scraping. This might mean that client #2 uses different artwork to client #1 if the artwork used by client #1 is no longer available.
So this was never an issue until the addition of MySQL, when clients stopped scraping their own artwork and instead started using references to remote artwork that may have been scraped months or even years previously.
(2017-12-31, 11:09)steve1977 Wrote: And one separate question: I am also using Kodi Remote (for IOS). Would this be impacted from the use of local artwork? Does the Kodi remote caches and (if so) how can I trigger it to do so?
I would expect any remote (iOS or Android) to maintain it's own cache. If you are using remote artwork then the remotes will download the artwork from the internet (assuming it's still available) before caching on your handheld device. If however you were using local artwork then the handheld device would cache the local artwork, which would be much quicker.
