Hey,
My brother is trialling MC21 at the moment. He's got his main PC in the lounge with a local Windows Storage Spaces volume of content. He uses this PC as his one-stop-shop, so broadcast TV, ripped film and TV shows, photos, music etc.
He wants his bedroom PC to have the same config. so he's asked me to help him export his current settings (including Theater View skins and customizations). I'm not sure how to do this correctly. Basically, he wants both PC's to be identical.
Then it got me thinking. He should really be going the server/client route, which has it's own questions:
1) Is it possible for both server and client to have their own TV cards so they have independent broadcast capabilities.
I don't think so, but Yaobing can confirm, however
2) If his bedroom PC didn't have a TV card, could he use the 'server' hardware for this purpose (almost like remote/streaming TV). He could then keep a central recording location
Yes, part of the client server setup is that the server can stream TV to clients, which is why not being able to run tuners on the client isn't such a big issue.
3) In server/client mode, is everything in sync. So Standard View settings, Theater View skins, Theater View customizations, audio/video options etc.
Not everything syncs automatically, but the majority of the things you'd want to sync do sync. The library and metadata sync, the standard view and theater view view schemes and most related configuration sync, playlists will sync, and certain other settings will also sync. On the other hand, you'll probably need to install skins on the client, and depending on what you mean by customizations, those might also need separate configuration. A good rule of thumb is that if it relates to library database and how the database is organized or displayed, it probably syncs; if it relates to playback (audio device settings, video playback settings, etc.) or requires extra files (like skins or VST plugins) it probably won't sync.
As a one time step you can create a library backup of the main instance, and then restore it on the client. That will capture 99% of settings (not skins or plugins, but almost everything else). If you then turn the "cloned" client into a client of the server, you'll have 99% overlap of settings, but certain settings will not be automatically synced in the future, which is probably a good thing unless you have identical audio and video hardware in both places.
4) Is it easy to setup
Yes. If you just want to setup client/server, you can literally just turn on media network on the server, and then walk over to the client and select the server's library in library manager. You will then have a basically working server/client setup. There are best practices that will improve how well it works especially for certain media types. For example you'll get better overall results if the drives on which the actual media files reside are shared and accessible to the client PC, with the same path as on the server (see
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Media_Server#Access_from_another_PC_on_your_LAN for details). But that step is strictly optional for many setups, although it will make everything work better and is strongly recommended (quick caveat, if you have DVD .ifo rips, it's mandatory).
And if you want to do the library backup and restore mentioned above that will add a step obviously.
