[captain_obvious]

Could this maybe be done by using a sort of "transition" between the file system and what's being shown in the XBMC and FTP?

Let me take an example:

Filename is 50 characters long. The limit is 32 (or something) in FATX. How about storing the 50char long filename in a database, so that each time when a file is being requested/accessed, it accesses the 32char file on the hard drive with a "flag" attached to it, accesses the database and gets the full 50char name. Same with FTP: all in/out traffic passes through this database. Result; the 32char name is "hidden" from the used, who only sees the full 50char name.

Dunno if this explanation was understandable? But could it be done? Seems like a pretty easy, straightforward way to overcome the limitation in my ears (buth then again, I'm not a programmer )

Awesome if someone could look into this. Especially with long audio filenames that includes artist-album-song this is a problem. And dealing with long filenames with an number ending - the last file gets overwritten by the new one with the same reduced filename when transferring via ftp.

[captain_obvious]

So basically this was a total crap idea or what?

[jmarshall]

It's been thought of before, and (as per usual) noone has stumped up to write said code. A search will yield a myriad of threads, which will even have some implementation ideas in them (by me at least, and I suspect by other developers as well).

We have few developers, and none of them (generally) store stuff on the xbox, as it's inefficient. So it's unlikely to come from the core team.

Cheers,
Jonathan

[MOAI]

Shamelessly bumping an old thread - I would LOVE for some work to be done on this, I can't myself because I can't code (graphics guy), but I, and I'm sure others, would hugeley appreciate if this could be implemented.

[MOAI]

And actually failing that, could someone tell me where you guys are storing your media?
And if its on a server, how is that more efficient? (I'm looking into doing it, but it seems like its just another box? [assuming you only want your media on your xbox])

[tvdb-scott]

I have everything split amongst a couple of servers. I have a 200gb hard drive on my Xbox that I use for XBMC, emulators, games, and recent movies. I have a router that allows USB-attached storage, which I have a handful of 250gb hard drives hooked up to. I use those for movies and TV shows I want to keep. The reason for the 2 locations is that the USB on the router is extremely slow, so it's easier to just FTP those things to the Xbox. I also have 1TB of hard drive space in my computer, which I use for very recent movies and tv shows that I'm not planning on keeping once I watch them. I just delete them when I'm done. This makes it easy since I encode/download the shows on my computer and I don't have to bother using FTP to put them on the Xbox or waiting for the slow USB on the router.

Many people use separate media servers which are the way to go in the long run. They're more stable, you can enable RAID on many of them (preventing data loss), and they're faster than USB devices. You can have an unlimited amount of space compared to the Xbox and it many cases it's very easy to maintain.

For people that haven't heard of it, look at Lime Tech's UN-Raid server. It's a free download if you have your own hardware and the developer made it specifically for HTPC applications (he was a Meedio user).