Installation. Howto : XBMC share and sync your Media library between multiple XBMC instances using Samba/NFS and Mysql. Last update:09/19/2012: FAQ - deleting databases if required If you have multiple XBMC installations (or if you're planing to), you should be interested in sharing and syncing your Media Library between your installations. When you have multiple XBMC running in your Network, and one central storage, this will really really simplify your life ^^ Advantages: Share watched and unwatched status for your media on all devicesStop watching a movie or TV show in one room then finish watching it in another room automaticallyOnly one library to maintain for all devicesConsolidate thumbnails and fanart to save hard drive space (only with XBMC Frodo v12) Main source: You'll find in this Wiki page all required information to achieve this, but i wanted to share my own experience to help you implementing this great feature!
Let's start ^^ 1. On Ubuntu based systems: $ sudo apt-get install samba Share your files: Restart samba: How to Sync Your Media Across Your Entire House with XBMC. XBMC is an awesome media center solution but when you’re using it all over your house your library updates and watched-media lists get out of sync. Read on as we show how to keep all your media centers on the same page. Note: This how-to guide was originally published in September of 2011 and detailed how to set up whole-house media syncing for XBMC “Dharma” 10.0. We’ve updated the guide for the newer, more user-friendly MySQL integration included in XBMC “Eden” 11.0. Why Should I Care and Who Is This Guide For? XBMC has a built-in library system and it keeps track of media you’ve already watched. As a result if you watch some of your TV shows in the living room and some in the bedroom then the marked-as-watched function in XBMC will only show you what you watched on that specific television set.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could stop watching a movie in the living room and resume watching it in the proper location somewhere else in the house? You should skip this project if… Success! Profiles. Profiles allow users to save all of settings as a profile and change them at the touch of a button. It also allows you to grant access to specific folders and network shares based on the profile being used. This is ideal for systems that have multiple users. It works much the same as setting up individual users on your home computer. These individual profiles allow you to customize the environment for multiple users, allowing for such functionality as: Customized view settings such as skins for each user The ability to lock folders, such as network shares on a per-user basis Separate media libraries for each user Unique RSS feeds for each user Unique keymapping for each user Unique network settings All options stored in the userdata folder can be customized per profile, allowing for an amazing amount of flexibility. 1 Profile settings Selecting Profiles from the main settings window will bring you to the screen pictured to the right.
Login screen Enables/disables the login screen. Sync multiple libraries/Sync other parts of XBMC. Many things can be synced using path substitution. Note that you can also use the Symlink instructions if your OS supports it. This works with both directories and single files. The following directories and files are generally safe to share between XBMC devices: 1 Steps Share your existing userdata folder or a new folder with those files via NFS, SMB, or AFP (make sure have write access, not just read-only access). Most users to do this from the same computer/device as the MySQL server. 1.1 Playlists The Playlist folder in XBMC contains music, video and mixed playlists. 1.2 Add-on data Sync some of the add-on settings and preferences. 1.3 Keymaps Useful if you want the controls on all your XBMC devices to be the same. 1.4 Sources The sources.xml file contains a list of all the sources your media will be collected from, including both local and network-based media.
Mediasources.xml is similar to sources.xml, but only effects the options seen when you add a new source and select "browse". Configuration. XBMC: Share and Sync Media/Settings Between Multiple XBMC Installs. If you are using multiple instances of XBMC throughout your house one thing you’ll definitely want to consider is setting up a shared MySQL database that can be used to retain data about the media you have. A good example of this is saving the status of where you left off in a video. If all of your XBMC instances don’t share a centralized data system you won’t be able to stop a video in one room and pick up where you left off in another.
A MySQL database gives each XBMC a way to share that data. You can even step beyond just sharing a database and share other files as well. Setup a Shared MySQL Database: On your centralized server you’ll want to install and configure MySQL which will vary based on OS. Now we need to configure the XBMC clients to connect to the new MySQL database.
Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/XBMC/userdata/Windows: %appdata%\XBMC\userdata\ If you don’t see a file named advancedsettings.xml go ahead and create it, but if it does exist just open it up.