[kiptanoi]

Hello, I am trying to get a smooth way to share my kodi movie and tv-show library between 3 windows machines, one android phone, one Philips TV with android on it, and one Chromecast device.
I want them all to use the same library.

And I have a NAS where I store my libraries on.

On the windows machines I could use "mklink /d" for different files and folders inside my userdata folder.
But that does not help the other machines.....

So I wonder how I should set up all to be as smooth as possible for all machines to be able to share my libraries, should I use MySQL or should I do something else?

[jbinkley60]

Hello, I am trying to get a smooth way to share my kodi movie and tv-show library between 3 windows machines, one android phone, one Philips TV with android on it, and one Chromecast device.
I want them all to use the same library.

And I have a NAS where I store my libraries on.

On the windows machines I could use "mklink /d" for different files and folders inside my userdata folder.
But that does not help the other machines.....

So I wonder how I should set up all to be as smooth as possible for all machines to be able to share my libraries, should I use MySQL or should I do something else?

Kodi has a number of sharing solutions.  You can see the options here.  Since you have included Android devices, the question will be whether you want to / can run Kodi on them.  If so, then a MySQL solution can work.  Other sharing options provide native Android clients which share the same back-end database and might be more flexible.  I run a solution which has over 12 clients, Kodi, non-Kodi, web and more.  I've been running a sharing solution for 10+ years with over 35K library items and 500GB+ of storage.  The Kodi ecosystem provides many options.

Every sharing solutions has pros / cons.  I always suggest making a list of your priorities and then folks can help guide you in the right direction.  Some solutions leverage non-Kodi scrapers, others have more integration / automation, others offer additional features.  My point there is no perfect or best solutions, just a solution which might be right for your needs.

Happy to answer questions.


Jeff

[LongMan]

Look Here https://kodi.wiki/view/Syncing_and_sharing

Not mainline but MediaImport is another option
https://github.com/Montellese/xbmc/wiki/Media-Import

Setup instructions here https://github.com/Montellese/xbmc/wiki/...structions

[kiptanoi]

Hello, I am trying to get a smooth way to share my kodi movie and tv-show library between 3 windows machines, one android phone, one Philips TV with android on it, and one Chromecast device.
I want them all to use the same library.

And I have a NAS where I store my libraries on.

On the windows machines I could use "mklink /d" for different files and folders inside my userdata folder.
But that does not help the other machines.....

So I wonder how I should set up all to be as smooth as possible for all machines to be able to share my libraries, should I use MySQL or should I do something else?

Kodi has a number of sharing solutions.  You can see the options here.  Since you have included Android devices, the question will be whether you want to / can run Kodi on them.  If so, the a MySQL solution can work.  Other sharing options provide native Android clients which share the same back-end database and might be more flexible.  I run a solution which has over 12 clients, Kodi, non-Kodi, web and more.  I've been running a sharing solution for 10+ years with over 35K library items and 500GB+ of storage.  The Kodi ecosystem provides many options.

Every sharing solutions has pros / cons.  I always suggest making a list of your priorities and then folks can help guide you in the right direction.  Some solutions leverage non-Kodi scrapers, others have more integration / automation, others offer additional features.  My point there is no perfect or best solutions, just a solution which might be right for your needs.

Happy to answer questions.


Jeff

Thanks for the answer.
My main thing will be to run kodi on windows machines, in my movie room and living room, and sometimes I want to run Kodi on my TV in my bedroom, and very rarely run it on my phone.
It will only be local, in my network, and I dont need it to open outside my network.

I have about 5Tb library with my Blu-ray movies and some old DVD movies that I want to be able to watch on Kodi from different machines, and when I add new movie to the library, then I want all machines to have the new movies as well at the same time.
I do like Kodi, it can handle the sound need I do have. Like DTS, DTS-HD and so on...

And all machines will be running Kodi clients on them, so I am just looking for a solution to share the media library that is on my NAS, and would be nice if they share watch state, and the thumbnail folder to.

[jbinkley60]

Thanks for the answer.
My main thing will be to run kodi on windows machines, in my movie room and living room, and sometimes I want to run Kodi on my TV in my bedroom, and very rarely run it on my phone.
It will only be local, in my network, and I dont need it to open outside my network.

I have about 5Tb library with my Blu-ray movies and some old DVD movies that I want to be able to watch on Kodi from different machines, and when I add new movie to the library, then I want all machines to have the new movies as well at the same time.
I do like Kodi, it can handle the sound need I do have. Like DTS, DTS-HD and so on...

And all machines will be running Kodi clients on them, so I am just looking for a solution to share the media library that is on my NAS, and would be nice if they share watch state, and the thumbnail folder to.

Pretty much all of the sharing solutions will do what you want.  They do it differently with various trade-offs. A couple of things to keep in mind with MySQL is that to share state and such all clients need to be on the  same version of Kodi code (or at least the same video database version).  Also unless you may need to put controls in place so that any client can't make a change that impacts all clients and some DBA skills may be required for backups / restores and such.  I believe there are plenty of instructions around and folks who can help and provide more feedback.  MySQL is a bit more of a peering strategy with a shared database but you can leverage the current Kodi scrapers and tools. 

Some of the other solutions, including the one I use, run a completely separate database and abstracts it away from Kodi providing a more client / server based strategy.   This approach allows clients to be on different versions of Kodi code (i.e. 18-21), seamless upgrades / downgrades of Kodi, provides a centralized point of control where clients can't make changes to the central database, has its own scrapers and provides an integrated backup / restored utility.  No DBA skills required.  Some of the other solutions mentioned on the Kodi sharing approach are similar in approach and capabilities..  Some do have a small one-time charge depending upon whether you need to basic or advanced features but that tends to be small and nominal.. 

I'd suggest to take your time, do a little research, be willing to try a solution and fail away from it if it isn't what you want.  Most solutions should allow you to try it in parallel to your current setup.


Good luck,

Jeff

[kiptanoi]

Yeah, my first try was install Kodi on windows, and set that up, scrape my media and export it to multiple files.
Created my "advancedsettings.xml" and set up the lines for my MySQL Library in that.
Run that client to update and insert all media to MySQL database on the NAS.
Copied "advancedsettings.xml", "Textures13.db" and the "Thumbnails" from my first windows client, and paste into my second and third windows clients, and then run Kodi on them, and all works fine.....

Now to my first Android device, my TV, the movies is there, and work and so on....
But no thumbnail working, or other pictures, so no logo, no fanart, no banner, no landscape, and no poster for movies working.

So I first try to do the same way, paste  the "Textures13.db" and the "Thumbnails" to the userdata folder, in my TV, but still no thumbnail was working.
I did try to remove them as well, and after that using default files......
But I can not get my android device to show any thumbnails, logo, fanarts, banners, landscape, posters for my media.

So how to get my android devices to be able to show logo, fanarts, banners, landscape, posters for my media when using MySQL solution?

[kiptanoi]

Yesterday I was looking into why my thumbnails did not working. And just want to update this post if anyone else got this problem.

It was because I did not have permission on the files that kodi create when I do export my library I did try one export with single file, and one with multiple files, and it did get the same result, I do not have permission to that files.
So I tested to use smb instead of the nfs I use in my path to my media library. And after I using smb it all works fine, I can export files, and have permission to that files.
And my Android can easy pickup that export and use thumbnails now.

So I guess I got it to work now as I wanted. With MySQL on multiple devices.