[stejorge]

It would be greate with a "server version" of XBMC.
A server with zfs filesystem wich would make it possible to run raid-z and optimized for ripping media (cd/dvd/BR) automaticly, much like vortexbox does with cd's.
Then you cold just pop the BR into the drive and 30-40 minutes later it would be stored on your server properly taged and named.
Much like HFX's Cinema-X server based on WHS. Only thing that misses frome those is the file system for security.
With zfs/raid-z the media would be as secure as you could get on any filesystem.
Automaticly conecting with any XBMC player in the house, ooooh what a dream.

[technojunkie]

The functions you mention are all available to any vanilla linux installation. There's no need for an XBMC server edition as there's nothing for XBMC to add. If you want a 'live server' just strip down an ubuntu server iso and add the functions you want. ripping media is as simple as writing a couple of shell scripts.

I have a similar setup right now. Ubuntu server install with NFS, mySQL for media database sharing(all xbmc clients use this instead of containing their own local scrapes) I have a bash script that I kick off to rip discs and store them on the drive array.

I'll soon be upgrading this server to unRAID so that I have some fault tolerance.

[topfs2]

While MySQL works its a rather suboptimal solution.
What i would like to see is scrapers put into a service app which shares its scanned content via uPnP. If xbmc allowed for automatically injected data into the database this would make it possible for a server to scan and share the data with metadata and all.
This is superior to MySQL IMO because it could be magical, say a friend pop by with this service inatlled on the laptop it would instantly be available on the htpc since its upnp.

When the new library in xbmc is written it would be possible to do this sadly not now.
Cheers,
Tobias

[spiff]

^^ yuck. can you say pms?

i want my htpc to be standalone, not some stupid device dependent on other machines to do the work for it.

[bleze]

It makes alot of sense to have a shared server for all clients, but as spiff says it needs to work without a server too.

xbmc could use upnp internally, instead of going directly to the database. If you do not connect to a server, this would give it only one client interface (and not two) regardless where the data comes from. Don't know how stuff is done right now so these are just thoughts

[topfs2]

^^ yuck. can you say pms?

i want my htpc to be standalone, not some stupid device dependent on other machines to do the work for it.

Hehe, yeah abit like that alexandria thingy. I think the idea is sound but the implementation seems, sadly, to be very unstandardized for pms though. uPnP in this case would make it work without xbmc and any uPnP device could act as server or client.

And you know me, ofcourse I would never suggest such a thing to be mandatory, I personally would probably never need it since I only have the one HTPC but if anything I feel it makes more sense than MySQL for multiple HTPCs. Or at the very least what most users are looking for with MySQL.

Still, since I do have a server it would have been quite nice to be able to setup the library there and when the urge strikes to watch a show from my laptop I have a simple way of doing so.

EDIT:
The way I see it the library would have extension points, or content providers. The normal provider is the one we have now with sqllite and scraped content. Another could be MySQL, one could be some plugin and one could be a uPnP host. That way if you select and scrape something on your local htpc (as set up now) it would end up in the sqllite provider but stuff from the others could pop up if they are available.