General XBMC topics

[BRiT]

There's a lot of discussions related to XBMC throughout the forums, but I didn't want to bring up old threads or more specialized threads to ask some general questions. I know there's dedicated XBMC forums and sites elsewhere, but there's perhaps too much information to dig through. 

 

Q1) What files should be backed up to keep/remember the already scanned media/library files when doing a full reinstall of XBMC or XBMC Live?

 

Q2) What general tweaks can or should be done relating to XBMC and unRAID?

 

I think the following tweaks are desirable:

• Centralized Thumbnail/FanArt/Poster directory (lifehacker Guide)
  
• Centralized MySQL database (unRAID Discussion) (lifehacker Guide)
  

 

Thanks...

[chanders]

As per Q1 you can just export the databases from the settings. When you re-import them everything will be restored.

 

I don't have more than one media pc so this does not apply to me but I can see it being beneficial if you look at shows in multiple locations. (how can you tell if it was you or another user watched a show if you use the same database??)

[cleight]

As per Q1 you can just export the databases from the settings. When you re-import them everything will be restored.

 

I don't have more than one media pc so this does not apply to me but I can see it being beneficial if you look at shows in multiple locations. (how can you tell if it was you or another user watched a show if you use the same database??)

 

Chanders is correct all XBMC data is stored in its "database" with the exception if you are running a MySQL backend for XBMC. The easiest way to re-install XBMC is to perform a DB export like Chanders said and then import the DB into the new installation.

 

As for tweaks for unRaid/XBMC I would use Ember Media Manager or equiv. to scrape all information and place the .tbn and .jpg files along side your media so your XBMC installations don't have to scrape the data which is slower. There is no benefit in using MySQL as the backend db along with a centralized images directory unless you are planning on having more the one XBMC instance in the house.

[poofyhairguy]

Sabnzbd and Sickbeard - XBMC's best friends

[chanders]

^^ Aint that the truth!

[NAS]

If your machines all have acces to unraid suing the same path i.e. \\tower\TV etc then the cache is completely sharable between any xbmc install on any platform.

 

Simply backup you userdata folder and you have the dbase and art. done

 

Small note sometime you may have to delete your guisettings.xml between differernt systems but 90% of the time you dont need to do anything.

[kizer]

\\tower\movies

\\tower\tv

 

disk cache option

 

Is your best friend.

I just update my files on unRAID and set all of my XBMC machines to update library on boot. Of course all my fan art is generated by ember prior so I don't have to worry about it scraping.

 

I even run command line scripts via windows to automate ember to find my art work and I use command line scripts for my tv shows in MIP (Media Info Plus)

[JM2005]

I have (3) XBMC Revo's all pulling there movie info from mysql on unraid box. I was wondering how i need to setup a Centralized Thumbnail/FanArt/Poster directory on unRaid for all my XBMC's to pull that info as well from?

 

 

JM