I am using library server in two locations, with a server (synced up) containing all content. This has gotten significantly better in the past 100 versions or so of Media Center. It is now highly usable, excluding one bug that I want to discuss briefly and I can resolve myself if needed.
I store 1200x1200 JPGs of cover art at 100% quality. This leads to cover art images taking 0.5 - 2MB each. While most of theater view pulls thumbnails from the server, some areas (full screen display) still retrieve the original files. There are a few solutions I see:
1. MC should checks for folder.jpg locally (via play local version if they exist)
2. MC should simply display the largest available thumbnail from the server (or cached)
3. I down-convert my cover art to smaller, more reasonable sizes. Ideally around 150KB (1-2 seconds via my connections)
I think I can solve this problem, other than a still visible apparent delay from launching a song while the cover art is retrieved--MC caching/threading could make this seamless. Otherwise, I can downsize my files (#3) and make this setup usable. Right now it is questionable having to wait for Media Center to become responsive (5-20 seconds or up to 60 seconds if the connection is saturated) after each new song play. Movies seem to load very quickly because the cover art images are very small (even the originals).
Thoughts or comments anyone? Other than this unresponsive interface issue, library server is again impressing me on many levels.
