Browsing the LAN (1 Viewer)

[Pringle9984]

My current media center setup is an X-Box with XBMC, works as an amazing media center - except for the hardware limitations of the X-Box itself.

So I want to use a dedicated PC (actually an old laptop that I'm taking the screen off) as a new media center and MediaPortal is the obvious choice of software.

I've installed it and played around with it very briefly, seems really nice and can't wait to get it all set up (just waiting for a new HD Plasma to arrive).

I know that to access computers on a network I can easily map network shares - either to a drive letter or just mount the network share within the MP setup tool.

In XBMC however, it's possible to simply browse a smb network workgroup; dynamically see all the computers and shares on the network, etc. Since I have at least 6 PCs in the house that are randomly on and off at different times this is a very nice feature (you view the workgroup, you can immediately see which computers are turned on). I couldn't work out a way to do this in MediaPortal though (alas, I can't mount an entire workgroup ).

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

- Ben

 

[Pringle9984]

I'm guessing this isn't really feasible then? A shame because it's just about the only thing stopping me using MediaPortal on all my machines

 

[NickName]

AFAIK it is not possible.
I have experienced limitations with mapped drives too in that they display as empty unless you browse in them "before" opening MP. Apparently (have not tried) it works fine if use UNC shares i.e. setup MP to use \\RemotePC\C and not Z: (mapped to \\RemotePC\C)
Hope that makes sense...

 

[enriguep]

I had the exact same issue of not being able to open the network drives; I tried scripts too but it did not work until I came across a niftly little tool that now automatically maps the drive for me everytime windows starts. I am in office right now and can't seem to remember the name of the tool but I can tell you in the evening when I get home.

 

[Pringle9984]

Thanks for the help both of you - I've been using a login script to map the drives but obviously that's not really dynamic and there are issues.

If you could find out the name of that tool it'd be great

 

[cheezey]

I use UNC mappings for all folders on my MP clients, all content is stored centrally, so in My Movies, My Music etc I have \\server\sharename.

The share is open for everyone to read from, if the server is down the root share still shows in MP but when selected appears empty.

I don't do drive mappings or map to UNC explicitly, as the share is open for everyone MP just connects to it when it starts up.

 

[Pringle9984]

Yeah, that looks like the only native option - I just didn't want to be explicitly pointing to things within the MP setup since the network tends to change quite frequently (new computers, new NAS, etc).

It's not a major issue but since MP evolved from the same roots as XBMC I thought perhaps it might share the smb browsing capabilities.

No worries, UNC may be the way to go.

 

[walkerx]

i use mp on win xpsp2 - and have it pointing to my network shares without any problems

i just have the path set as \\machinename\sharename, same way i had it setup on my xbox when i used that as a media pc

why not have one machine dedicated to hold the media - an old pc running ubuntu would be suitable (no need for firewall, av) and is faster than running windows on it

then when you download or save anything, save it straight to the media machine

no need to then having to keep messing about with new pc's and sharenames

 

[Pringle9984]

I have all *my* media hosted on my Ubuntu desktop; but it's a communal media center and each person keeps their media on their own PC, plus if people visit they may have their media on their laptop or on a portable drive, etc.

It's not a major issue really, it's just that with XBMC all someone had to do was connect to the network and their media could immediately be accessed; if they brought a drive over I'd just plug it into a PC and share it (rather than plug it in, share it, go to the media center and change some settings to add the share which I'd then have to remove again later). It was nice and convenient.

It was a really nice feature of XBMC which I've not seen in any other media center - like I said though, not really a big issue, just something that would have been nice.

 

[illStyle]

I think this should be posted in the improovement suggestions section. I will do that.


Regars,
Simon