2011-02-24, 22:36
WILL BE EDITING POSTS FOR A WHILE, HARD TO MAKE THE POSTS FORMATTED PROPERLY IN MS WORD.
I have found Windows Home Server (WHS) to be an excellent OS/platform for storing media and streaming it to one or multiple XBMC clients on a network.
Because there is so much you can do, I wanted to write a guide for maximizing your XBMC experience with WHS and here it is. Many components of this guide are optional and you can do differently; these are merely my suggestions. A lot of the information here has been pieced together from multiple sources, so that this acts as a 1-stop shop for a MySQL/XBMC setup.
First I would like to talk a bit about my personal setup so you guys can try and relate. I have a HP MediaSmart EX490 server. On that server, I store my bluray rips that I created with MakeMKV. I have XBMC running on 3 PCs in my household. My MacBook Pro running OS X, Jetway Nettop, running OpenELEC.tv, and my desktop PC running Windows 7 x64. On WHS, I run PlayOn, MySQL Server with phpMyAdmin, and uTorrent (as a startup service controlled through a WebUI). All this software allows for a great media experience. I’ll get into the details of each later.
Anyway, getting down to setting everything up.
You will naturally want to store your videos in the video share, and your music in the music share. Since I have roommates, I leave my movies and TV shows in the public subfolder so they can have access to it, but there is nothing wrong w/ putting all your media in your user name subfolder.
For videos, you will likely want to disable folder duplication. This is purely optional, but people have reported file transfer issues when folder duplication is enabled. Also in my case, I just don't have the hard drive space.
You will want to create two folders within the video folder.
smb:\\serverName\videos\public\movies
smb:\\serverName\videos\public\tvShows
Within the movies folder, you want each movie to be inside its own unique folder.
Within the tvShows folder, you want each show to be in it’s own folder, and each season of that show to be within it’s own folder
Minimizing spelling mistakes will save you from future hassle down the road, but don’t go crazy if you have a ton of movies, we will be using Media Companion or other NFO software of your choosing that will make your mistakes stand out like a sore thumb.
I have found Windows Home Server (WHS) to be an excellent OS/platform for storing media and streaming it to one or multiple XBMC clients on a network.
Because there is so much you can do, I wanted to write a guide for maximizing your XBMC experience with WHS and here it is. Many components of this guide are optional and you can do differently; these are merely my suggestions. A lot of the information here has been pieced together from multiple sources, so that this acts as a 1-stop shop for a MySQL/XBMC setup.
First I would like to talk a bit about my personal setup so you guys can try and relate. I have a HP MediaSmart EX490 server. On that server, I store my bluray rips that I created with MakeMKV. I have XBMC running on 3 PCs in my household. My MacBook Pro running OS X, Jetway Nettop, running OpenELEC.tv, and my desktop PC running Windows 7 x64. On WHS, I run PlayOn, MySQL Server with phpMyAdmin, and uTorrent (as a startup service controlled through a WebUI). All this software allows for a great media experience. I’ll get into the details of each later.
Anyway, getting down to setting everything up.
You will naturally want to store your videos in the video share, and your music in the music share. Since I have roommates, I leave my movies and TV shows in the public subfolder so they can have access to it, but there is nothing wrong w/ putting all your media in your user name subfolder.
For videos, you will likely want to disable folder duplication. This is purely optional, but people have reported file transfer issues when folder duplication is enabled. Also in my case, I just don't have the hard drive space.
You will want to create two folders within the video folder.
smb:\\serverName\videos\public\movies
smb:\\serverName\videos\public\tvShows
Within the movies folder, you want each movie to be inside its own unique folder.
Code:
...\movies\The Usual Suspects\The Usual Suspects.mkv
...\movies\The Hunt for Red October\The Hunt for Red October.mkv
Within the tvShows folder, you want each show to be in it’s own folder, and each season of that show to be within it’s own folder
Code:
...\tvShows\Breaking Bad\Season 1\Breaking Bad – S01E01.mkv
...\tvShows\Breaking Bad\Season 2\Breaking Bad - S02E01.mkv
Minimizing spelling mistakes will save you from future hassle down the road, but don’t go crazy if you have a ton of movies, we will be using Media Companion or other NFO software of your choosing that will make your mistakes stand out like a sore thumb.