More > JRiver Media Center 25 for Windows
NEW: Television tuners on clients are allowed to be used for recording
Yaobing:
--- Quote from: imeric on February 26, 2019, 06:21:10 pm ---Could you make it so the kitchen PC has its own server settings for recordings (using local drives) but behaves as a client for TV watching simultaneously? (ie looking at the library content on the server only?)
--- End quote ---
That can not be done because when a client is connected to a server, it is using a copy of the server library. It either synchronize everything with the server (with authentication), or loses every change on exit. So the recordings are either synchronized into the server library, or not saved at all.
RoderickGI:
However...
The setting at "Options > Television> General > Folder for recording and time shifting files" is tied to the PC and not the Library. It is not synchronised to the Client from the Server, or back again. So there can be different values in the Server and Client Libraries.
I think when the Client creates a recording it would use that local setting to decide where to put it, even if it had the Server Library loaded at the time.
Naturally, it would be best if the Client always loaded the Server Library, and was synchronising back to the server with Authentication. But the Client recording location would probably be meaningless on the Server, even if the default "C:\Users\[UserID]\Videos\JRiver\TV Recording\" was used. Even if the location existed, it would be unlikely to be the location used on the Server. The recording location would have to be independent of the User ID anyway, so that all useres could access it. So the MC Server would be unable to find the files and would mark them as such, or would remove them from the Library if the "Fix broken links" setting was set to either of the "Yes" options.
However, if the recording location on the Client was Shared (i.e. KitchenTV = C:\TV\), and set on the Client and Server to that Share, then the Server could have a different recording location, but it would still find the recordings created in the \\KitchenPC\KitchenTV\ location by the Client PC.
You could then have another share set up for the Server recording location, i.e. ServerTV, and available to both the Server and the Client, so that the Server saw the recordings on the Client PC, and the Client PC saw the recordings on the Server PC. Then create a share for each Client PC's TV location and set them up on all PC's, so all can see all recordings, if wanted. The "Fix broken links" setting would then have to be set to "Yes. (protect files on missing drives)". In fact, it may be easier to use mapped drives rather than Shares, so that it is easier to understand and when drive "W:\" was missing, MC wouldn't delete the recordings. Each PC recording location could have its own mapped drive, which was created on all PCs in the network.
The question is, would this break MC on the Server? i.e. It would now be managing recordings created by two separate instances of MC, using different and potentially overlapping Recording Rule IDs and Channel IDs, for example. Although based on the description you have given Yaobing, that would be an issue even in the recommended configuration.
So, the Server records to drive T:\ and has a mapped drive W;\.
The Client records to drive W:\ and has a mapped drive T:\.
The Client always uses the Server Library, synchronised with UserID and Password authentication.
The Client records a program to drive W:\ and creates a record in the Client copy of the Server Library.
The Client synchronises the record of the recording to the Server, which recognises the W:\ location.
The Server can play the recording from the Client or Server (itself).
The Client can play the recording from the Client (itself) or the Server.
If there was a chance that the record of the recording wasn't synchronised back from the Client to the Server, then the Server could be configured to Auto Import recordings found in the W:\ location. which would then be loaded on the Client on a restart, or synchronised back to it.
I think that would all work. What do you think Yaobing? How about you try it Imeric.
TL;DR: It doesn't matter if the recordings are local on the Client PC, as long as the path to the recording matches a path available to the Server.
RoderickGI:
Hmmm, maybe condition 0.B. would have to be modified, so that different locations were allowed, as long as the Server could see the Client location. That may be hard to test.
My understanding in MC prior to this change is that the TV functionality creates a record of all recordings in the Library it is using, which is why the TV Recording location doesn't need to be included under Auto Import. In the current new arrangement if full User ID and Password Authentication isn't being used, this record wouldn't be synchronised back to the Server, so the Server wouldn't know about the recording, unless it also looked in the location using Auto Import. So full User ID and Password Authentication should also be a prerequisite, should it?
In fact, without full User ID and Password Authentication, wouldn't some of points 1 to 6 fail? Or are you writing Recording Rules directly to the Server, rather than using synchronisation?
Yaobing:
Yeah, I misspoke on shared drives a little in my first post.
The server and the client do not need to use identical "Recording folder", but the server must have a mapped drive that is identical to whatever the client is using. For example, you can have a shared folder, which can either be on the client or on the server physically, though server is probably preferred, and it should be mapped to identical drive, say drive V:\. So the client specifies V:\TV Recordings\ as the location to put recordings in and all recordings made by the client should be there. The server must be able to understand that location and be able to access it. When the client makes a recording, it will be something like "V:\TV Recordings\PBS News Hour.ts", or something in a subfolder. This file is now part of the server library after synchronization is done. The server should be able to read/play the file "V:\TV Recordings\PBS News Hour.ts". On the other hand, the server's TV recording location does not need to be in V:\TV Recordings\. It can use its own location, such as W:\TV Recordings\. This server location does not need to be shared with any client. I do not see so much difference whether the server uses W:\ drive or V:\ drive. Once a client connects, it should be able to play any file the the server serves, from either location.
Yaobing:
I modified my first post.
I will give a hypothetical example here:
Suppose my server has only one drive, C:\, and I create a folder C:\Users\Yaobing\Video\Client Folder\TV Recordings\ on the server, and want clients to write TV recording files into it. I would share the folder C:\Users\Yaobing\Video\Client Folder\, and map it to drive V: (so on the server, V: is the same as C:\Users\Yaobing\Video\Client Folder\). On the client I would also map the same shared folder (server's C:\Users\Yaobing\Video\Client Folder\) to drive V:\ and specify "V:\TV Recordings\" as the location for TV recordings. This way, any file the client creates in this folder will be referenced as one in the folder V:\TV Recordings\, or its sub-folders, and be totally accessible by the server. That is all we need. The server can specify it's own TV recording location anywhere on its own C: drive, including but not necessarily C:\Users\Yaobing\Video\Client Folder\.
Here I use the phrase "sharing a folder" to mean making a folder on one computer accessible from another computer, not "both computer must use the same folder as recording location."
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version