What's the role of MP2 Server-Only? (1 Viewer)

[dir]

I/ve used MP1 for years on several machines. I'm now ready to try MP2 again.

I have a main media server with 40 or 50,000 shows and movies on it.
I have a htpc connected to the TV.
I have a bedroom laptop.

I just tried installing MP2 and saw the option 'Client Only', 'Server Only' etc.

I thought it would be great to have my server be configured as 'Server Only' since I never actually need to run the gui on it. Then I can have my htpc and laptop running as clients. And it takes hours and hours to update each machine if I do a re-installation, which also consumes huge amounts of Internet bandwidth downloading all the metadata and images - which is redundant. And I'd prefer not to have the additional 75,000 files on each machine if I can avoid it.

So I chose 'Server Only' and watched it install.

Ok, now what? Its running as a service but all I can do is see that its running.
How do I configure it? How do I add my media collection?

Seeing that there's no app(s) to do this, it made me realise I have probably mis-understood what 'Server Only' means. I expected it to mean:

- Server machine has all the media and possibly tuners on it
- Server has the metadata, images, and database files on it
- Clients have the gui and obtain all/most metadata, data, etc. from server
- You only need to update the Server machine when adds, moves, deletes occur to your library.

But my thinking must be faulty since there's no apparent way to configure the server.

So exactly what is the point of installing MP2 as Server Only?

I've scoured the wiki and forums but nobody seems to have thought of describing what the client-server model is for MP2 and how to set up your systems to use it (Or I missed it!)

 

[HomeY]

This might help:
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/2_MEDIAPORTAL_2/1_Getting_Started

 

[morpheus_xx]

Hi,
Your idea of the MP 2 server is correct, its task is to centrally manage all your media, while the MP 2 clients provide you a GUI for using the media on any computer.
But the client's GUI is also the only way to configure the server (in contrast to MP1, where you have standalone configuration tools).

I recommend to read though our wiki, starting with http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/2_MEDIAPORTAL_2/1_Getting_Started/1_MP2_Components.

Then install a client on any computer (or even on the server pc) and setup your media sources (we use the term "media shares").

 

[RicoHTPC]

Managing media and metadata and so on centrally is probably the feature I am waiting for the most.

 

[dir]

Thanks guys, didn't find that section of the Wiki (or overlooked it of course). Have now read it and it was illuminating and relieving to discover the architecture is how I imagined it to be. I have now installed a client and let the server do its thing -took about 24 hours to get through the collection but now my MP2-Server folder has 12.8GB of files in it, so hopefully that's the last time for a while that it has to download that much data.

Saw a few anomalies in the alpha-4 client but heck, its alpha, no biggie.
Now going to hunt down some plug-ins to see if I can get some TV series/Moving Pictures-functionality into it.