[Groooompf]

Hi,

I have one PC with all my movie in it (server)
The other PC has no movies at all. (client)

Both have Kodi installed.
I enable Upnp on both Kodi.

On the 1st PC (server), my movies appears in main menu in "MOVIES".
On the second PC (client), I have to set the Upnp source in "favorites", and then I can find all my movies there.

Is it possible to see all my movies in "Movies" (in main menu) ? (the same way it appears on my first PC )

Thank you for your help !

(Kodi 20.1)

[PatK]

Hopefully these pages will help Syncing and sharing (wiki) and SMB (wiki) when adding sources in the client, you would use one of the networked paths to the server as a source, then treat it as you would for local media. Be sure that the operating system supports networking and name/passwords are handled in it's permissions. UPnP (wiki) note: UPnP file sharing cannot be used to create a Kodi library on the client device, nor can you use any library features. You can only browse and play from the Browse Tree. I suggest you set-up an SMB connection.

[Groooompf]

Thank you for your answer !

In fact I created, in the main menu, a menu which I named "Server-Movies". This menu goes to the Upnp source.
So I think this is a better solution than SMB, because I have in the main menu : "Movies" (which is the local source) and "Server-Movies" (which is the source from the server).
Everything work perfectly well.

I don't understand why SMB would be better...

[jbinkley60]

Thank you for your answer !

In fact I created, in the main menu, a menu which I named "Server-Movies". This menu goes to the Upnp source.
So I think this is a better solution than SMB, because I have in the main menu : "Movies" (which is the local source) and "Server-Movies" (which is the source from the server).
Everything work perfectly well.

I don't understand why SMB would be better...

Better is relative and often aligned to the specific situation.  There are Kodi sharing solutions which are UPnP/DLNA based which allow a full browse and native Kodi more operation for the best of both worlds.  I concur that I wouldn't use Kodi as a UPnP server but as a client it is great, especially with the right addon(s).  The UPnP one I use leverages UPnP for discovery, DLNA for control and HTTP for media streaming, leveraging the best from each protocol.    It might not be my first recommendation for a two node environment without knowing a bit more.  When you begin down the road of sharing media a number of things come into play including ease of support/complexity, reliability,  features, future growth and how much time you need to invest keeping things running, just to name a few items to consider.

I started out with just 2 clients and now have over a dozen Kodi and non-Kodi clients, sometimes with 6-7 streaming at the same time.  So for me reliability and minimal support are key, this includes managing through various Kodi upgrades, server upgrades and client related issues (i.. rebuild, HW upgrade etc..).  Also the ability to run multiple versions of Kodi simultaneously with seamless upgrades is important to me.  I would never attempt to leverage an SMB based solution for my environment. 

I have found though that the most time I have invested over the years is in library management so I prefer a solution in which the library management tools are bullet proof and almost fully automated.  I have close to 30K items between movies, TV episodes and music tracks / songs.  I could never reinvest the time to rebuild what I have from scratch.  I maintain 12 sets of backups to be able to restore to a point in time, if needed.  In the past 10 years I have had to restore the database once and that was due to my breaking it doing some Kodi addon development.  Fortunately for me it was a 3 minute database restoration process.

I don't say any of this to suggest one solution over another.  I am simply sharing things I have learned and possibly to consider when looking at the best ways to share media.


Thanks,

Jeff

[Groooompf]

Thank you for these informations !

I will have only 2 clients. My server is on a Raspberry Pi5, in a local network (WI-FI)

If the 2 clients are playing movies at the same time through Upnp, could it make a problem to the server ?

[jbinkley60]

Thank you for these informations !

I will have only 2 clients. My server is on a Raspberry Pi5, in a local network (WI-FI)

If the 2 clients are playing movies at the same time through Upnp, could it make a problem to the server ?

It shouldn't create a problem since that is one of the main purposes of a UPnP server but I'll defer to Team Kodi regarding Kodi's internal UPnP server and how it operates.


Thanks,

Jeff