Feature request: Remote database/administartion (1 Viewer)

[JadedHeart]

Hi!

I have been using Moving Picture for a while now and I have some thoughts.

1. From time to time my MP installation needs to be reinstalled for some
reason, upgrade or some other problem. This means that I need to install
and search the movie directory again.

2. When my girlfriend is watching TV on my living room PC and I
want to watch a movie from the office PC then I don’t have the updated
“watched” information in the office PC MovingPicture.

3. Again if my girlfriend is using the living room PC and I want to
manage the MovingPicture DB by accessing the application then I
need to wait until she is done with watching TV.

So to my request. I think it would be of great value if the MovingPicture DB
(and parts of the application) could be installed on a remote system.
For example the same PC that in my case are running the MP TV Server.
This would make it possible for me to manage the DB or get the updated
movie status on different installations of MovingPictures.

In my opinion this is the most logical step to take, most of the systems is
moving towards a multiplatform environment. We have multiple PC’s for
watching TV and Movies, living room, office and even the laptop.

Best regards
Per-Arne

 

[RoChess]

Hi!

I have been using Moving Picture for a while now and I have some thoughts.

Pretty much everything you want has already been requested. But wanting something to be added by the developers and them actually having the time to do it can be eons apart

Issue 23 - moving-pictures - Centralized Database / Multi-Seat Support - Project Hosting on Google Code

It is scheduled for v2, which could be done tomorrow, next week, next year or to quote Blizzard "It will be ready when it's done". It's like building a 2-seat car and then somebody saying "but I want 4 seats", it will pretty much require an almost full redesign, but at the same time the owners of the 2-seat car expect their car to be improved as well. So it will eventually get done, but nobody looks forward to throwing away a stable product and start over, or attempt to stretch and pull, to turn what they got in what is asked for, because you run the risk of introducing a lot of bugs that nobody wants.

In the meantime there are many workaround and tricks you can use to get as close to what you want as possible. If you scan the forum, you will find other users who have been able to hack together some sort of server/client setup that works for them. Or for example use the XBMC NFO system to make re-import easier, incase you made custom changes. If you scan forum you will find some tools created by others to make this process very easy.

Another question you should be asking yourself, is why are all your reimports after reinstall needed, because even if you do reinstall MediaPortal, you can install MovingPictures and restore your database/artwork backups and you will be up and running in a very short time.

So if you setup everything based on UNC paths, you can create duplicate setups in which your 'office' system can copy the 'livingroom' database as-is (all paths and settings will be the same), and all the watched flags will be kept. Since I'm sure you don't have MePo running all the time in office, you can simply write a little batch file that before MePo is started it copies the database over. It adds a few seconds delay, but at least you got it close to what you want then.

 

[ixian]

Use one of the tools available here to generate XBMC friendly NFO and .tbn files, as RoChess suggests, makes re-installing/re-importing or just plain adding movies a snap.

True it won't pick up your watched/not watched flags and such between PC's but until the devs code in true database support we're stuck with hacks. Sharing flat-file databases (which essentially is what the MP db is) between PC's isn't very elegant. Coding Moving Pictures to support a true db, such as mySQL, even as an option, isn't very easy either. We're just gonna have to wait

 

[JadedHeart]

I have a good understanding about the problems presented by this task (software dev by prof) and I understand that I may need to wait for it, I just wanted to make my "voice heard"

 

[ixian]

Add it to the Google Code issue that's already there (linked above) if you want to make sure they see it. Making a separate thread for a long known about issue usually doesn't get the message across.