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DVDpedia not network ready

Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 1:26 am
by MauiMark
Hello,
I'm missing a feature in DVD pedia that works similiar to iTunes capability of sharing an entire library over the network. iTunes uses bonjour technology to broadcast the library.

With the increased deployment of Macs across our house it gets more and more difficult to keep the local DVDpedia libraries in sync.

The situation is even worse when I want to browse my library from my living room media center station, select a movie and play it over teh network. This requires a local copy of my DVDpedia library (which is stored on the server) on my media center Mac in the living room. The link to Video_TS folder however must be changed from local to the remote server. Thats a mess!!!

Please fix this in the next release.

Thanks,

Mark

Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 6:41 am
by Conor
Hi Mark,

What you can do, as you seem to have a networked home, is store the DVDpedia library in a location where it can be accessed from any computer. Copy the data folder ~/Library/Application Support/DVDpedia to the server. Then launch DVDpedia while holding down option, you will be able to select the data folder in your server to use. All DVDpedias can run and edit simultaneously, but concurrent access to a file always makes me nervous so make backups of the DVDpedia data folder often.

Note: Holding down option when launching is also a useful tip for creating new libraries for those of who would like to have completely separate libraries.

Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 6:55 am
by MauiMark
Hi Conor,

thanks for the quick reply. I know all workarounds (see my other threads on this) ;-) But unfortunatly they won't solve the problem. Apple could have suggested the same workarounds for iTunes - why do you think they included Bonjour technology instead?

The feature I described is critical to the acceptance of a media center solution. Lack of this feature makes your product usefull in a limited stand-alone environment. And how of us lives just on one Mac?

I'm not sure that others (like Delicious Library) supports it - but I will certainly check.

Please let me know if the next version will include Bonjour technology or not. If not I would certainly like to understand why not.

Thanks!
Mark

Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 7:17 am
by Conor
It on our possible feature list but I could not give you a time frame as to when it will be implemented. Since you seem to have a server, the shared data folder seems the ideal solution, I agree that Bonjour would cut one step less of the set up process. Also in the meantime take a look at MacDVDonDemand. As it's meant to play Video_TS folders from DVDpedia on any computer. It even includes a software control remote and uses Bonjour.