Yes, I would also love to see this working in MC 15.
Ideally, I want to have access from my laptop to the media stored on the HTPC. I have no preference if it's thru the library server, or a shared library, or a profile, or magic
I want (full control) to be able to watch live or recorded TV, setup recordings, delete shows (and any media), fully tag my media and (perhaps) copy/move files ON THE HTPC from my laptop, or better yet, my mobile device. I would like another user to be able to do the same, ideally we could both watch the same/different program at the same time. This kind of works now, which is very cool, but only from recorded TV, and it was not smooth. That may be a matter of fine tuning. I'm still playing with functionality capabilities at this time.
I am using a library shared on the HTPC, as described below, and the playback of recorded media is pretty good. i think I can get it smooth with some tweaking, but live TV simply does not work at all. I cannot find a way to view live TV on the laptop with the tuners in the HTPC. I've tried with the shared library and library server, and no live TV remotely that I can find.
Another problem is that I can't manage (setup, change, delete) recordings from the laptop. I can if I remote into the HTPC, but that's obviously not ideal. If the laptop is the first to open the shared library, it gets control, but this can't happen because the library server needs to be running in order to record the programs. So I need to remote into the HTPC, kill LS, open the shared library on the laptop, then shut the shared library on the laptop when I'm done, then remember to open LS on the HTPC again so recordings will start again, and I'll miss anything during the downtime. Again, not ideal.
Is there any way to detach Library Server from *all* clients, and just allow multiple connections to it from various clients (connected machines), switching full rights to the newest/selectable connected user? This way LS can always be running, on whichever machine houses the tuners and hard drives, then each machine can connect to it independently, including the machine the Library Server is running on (the HTPC in my case). It gets completely separated from all users/libraries/profiles and just handles the serving of the media to the clients. the clients configure how they process the media being delivered. they control the codecs, audio/video settings, playback controls, tweaks, whatever all handled by the client/user/profile, and automatically any required conversion is handled by the Library Server, to save on bandwidth when streaming. (I'm guessing the Server would then need to have it's own copies of the codecs from all machines, or maybe not.) maybe allowing the clients to do this is easier/better for some reason?
Either way this would give us full control to setup and configure and use MC locally, with all our media stored remotely. I would assume this could be expanded to allow the Library Server to serve media stored on any of the connected machines, but that would get a lot tougher to manage I should think.
Since TV can be set to start in time-shifting mode, live TV could be started from the client, time-shifted on the HTPC, then streamed from the recording to the client. Again, this kind of works now with recorded(ing) shows, but it cuts off at the time of the length of the program that had been recorded when you started playback. In other words, I started a show recording from a remote connection on the HTPC client library. after 16 minutes of it recording, I started watching it on my laptop shared library. it stuttered for about 15 seconds, then went into smooth playback for the next 10 minutes. then as a test, I had my wife open MC and open the same shared library, select the same program, then start playback. Sure enough hers started from the beginning and stuttered a bit, then went into smooth playback. this lasted a couple of minutes, then my playback began stuttering, and hers continued along without stuttering. When my playback got to 16 minutes (the length it had recorded when I began playback on my laptop) , it stopped, they progress bar was at the end, there was no more program recognized by the client (my laptop connection to the shared library) so it stopped. I checked the remote connection and the show was still recording and my wife watched until about 26 minutes, then hers stopped.
so, if there was a way to make the connection, in this case, the local laptop connection to the shared library, more self aware and auto update to know that the show didn't end, there was more recording to continue on to, this would be "working" now. (this would ideally be resolved by the individual connections directly to the library server)
Matt said this was on the list in September, and I know a lot has changed since then, but hopefully it's creeping back up the list towards some serious attention, because getting live and recorded TV working on clients, laptops, iPads, mobile devices, whatever, will allow me (and lots of people) to ditch cable/satellite/pay TV. yeah, there's some stuff on cable that I can't find on the internet somewhere, but OTA TV is enough for me, but it's just not quite usable for the wife, and I don't have the energy to manage it and her at the same time, so the simple remote (U-Verse) that costs $50/month gets used to watch pretty much the same stuff I record OTA.
***Current setup***
I have an HTPC with my raided hard drives in an aluminum case above my Receiver, below the TV. The TV is the only monitor for the HTPC. It's currently also hooked up to U-Verse, but I'm hoping/planning on dumping it soon. This will result in the HTPC being the only input into the TV/Monitor.
I have a local library stored on this machine.
I have a local library stored on my laptop. I do most work, tagging, ripping and listening on the laptop.
My wife has a laptop, it also has a local library.
I have a dual digital TV tuner in the HTPC. The local library has these tuners configured correctly. I record TV to the HTPC Raid 1 drives partition locally for TV, and long term storage and music and photos are on the RAID 5 drives.
I can watch TV on my laptop if I am using library server on the HTPC, and have the HTPC served library as the "local" library selected on the laptop. This won't let me actually delete watched shows, or move them to someplace to delete later as even a temporary solution. I have to either go to the HTPC or remote in, or navigate to them in windows explorer to actually delete the files. this is not ideal. I also cannot setup any timeshifting with this library either. it appears I can, but it doesn't actually record.
I can't watch TV at all with the local laptop library loaded, the laptop has no tuners, so no channels can be selected. it also seems to not let me even watch the recorded TV on the HTPC thru the TV interface. I can't see any channels, so I can't set up or see or change any recording of TV from this library either.
I have set up a library stored on the HTPC, on a shared drive, and use that library from the laptop, and that's how I'm currently setup.
