If you have multiple Windows Media Center PC’s in you household and use a centralized location for your media, you might want share the playstate and display information between these computers to get a uniform look and feel.
In this tutorial we're going to move the existing display and playstate folders to a new location that is shared on the network. This shared path is then going to be defined in the MediaBrowserXml.config file.
For this we have an imaginary household with the following:
- A main Windows Media Center PC called “htpc-livingroom” which has your movies stored in
D:\Movies. This folder is shared as “movies” on your network. - A secondary Windows Media Center PC called “htpc-bedroom” which has the same media collection “movies”.
Shared playstate is not currently available while using experimantal SQLITE. This is still experimental and simply does not work.
Playstate sharing?
Media Browser tracks which movies you've watched. This information is stored in a folder called “playstate” in `C:\ProgramData\MediaBrowser\Cache` by default.
Important note: in order to effectively share the playstate you will need to configure your Media Collections on all computers with identical paths.
This means you will need to point your Media Collection “Movies” to \\htpc-livingroom\movies on all computers, including the computer that actually has the media stored locally in D:\Movies.
If you do not do this, Media Browser considers the different locations (D:\Movies and \\htpc-livingroom\movies as two seperate things and will create playstate information for each location.
It’s also considered a best practice to use UNC paths. More details about this can be found here (See the section “Network Locations”)
Display sharing?
You can set your own views, sorting and grouping options in Media Browser for your Media Collections. This information is stored in a folder called “display” in `C:\ProgramData\MediaBrowser\Cache` by default.
Either one or both of the above can be shared between computers.
Moving these folders
Part 1
First create a new folder on “htpc-livingroom”. For example D:\MediaBrowser. Share this folder as “MediaBrowser” with read-write permissions for everyone.
Now create a new subfolder in D:\MediaBrowser called “UserSettings”.
Navigate to “C:\ProgramData\MediaBrowser\Cache\`" and cut the folders "display" and "playstate" and paste them in "D:\MediaBrowser\UserSettings`”
The end result will be:
D:\MediaBrowser\UserSettings\display
D:\MediaBrowser\UserSettings\playstate
Part 2
Once you have done this navigate back to the directory “C:\ProgramData\MediaBrowser” and use a text editor such as Notepad (not a word processor like MS Word) to open the file called “MediaBrowserXml.config”.
Look for an entry in this file that starts with <UserSettingsPath>
There should also be an end tag that looks like </UserSettingsPath>.
Between these tags is where you need to put the path to your new UserSettings location. In this example it would be \\htpc-livingroom\MediaBrowser\UserSettings
So the end result will be:
<UserSettingsPath>\\htpc-livingroom\MediaBrowser\UserSettings</UserSettingsPath>
Then save and close that file. MediaBrowser will now use your new location for UserSettings on the computer called “htpc-livingroom”.
Repeat Part 2 of this tutorial on the computer called “htpc-bedroom”. On this second computer the path will still be \\htpc-livingroom\MediaBrowser\UserSettings because our goal is to use the same shared path.
Once this is done you are now sharing the playstate and display information on both your machines. Changes on one computer are reflected on the other.
Additional information
You can move the display folder and playstate information independently. For example, you might want to share playstate information, but not the display settings because in the bedroom you want different views. In that case don’t move the display folder from “`C:\ProgramData\MediaBrowser\Cache`”.
If you have previously set views on the main computer, these will now also be used on the secondary machine. If you want to start from scratch, delete the contents of the “display” folder in “D:\MediaBrowser\UserSettings\display”.
The same applies to previous playstate information. In that case you will need to delete the contents of the “playstate” folder in “D:\MediaBrowser\UserSettings\playstate”.
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