I just installed OSMC on a Pi V3B with a 16 GB SD card and a 16GB USB memory stick attached.
My goal is to make our music libraries, our home videos and photo available via our home network to all of our computers (Windows) and, eventually, to our cell phones (Samsung and iPhone).
I do not want to store media on the SD card, so I need advice on how to configure the system so that it uses the USB stick.
Since computers can be on or off, I do not want the Pi to be using them directly as media sources, but rather I would like to move/copy the media files to the USB stick or an āalways onā network storage. But to get started I want to use the USB stick.
So, I need some detailed advice on how to move/copy our music files to the USB stick and then make them available for streaming.
Finally, Iām 100% new to the idea of streaming files over our network. First question which comes to mind is what program/app(s) do we need to be able to receive and play the stream? The computers are all Windows 10 Pro or home, fully updated.
Install Samba Server from App Store that will give you the option to share with the Windows machines.
The USB stick (if formatted and labled) should be mounted automatically and then be shared via Samba.
Samba/SMB are native Windows protocols so nothing is needed to access the files you can do that via the file manager.
If you want to have a interface on WIndows you always also can install Kodi on it.
Fzinkenā¦.Thanks for the quick reply, your answers have prompted some additional questions:
Install Samba Server from App Store that will give you the option to share with the Windows machines.
Iām familiar with Debian OS for the Piās but not the OSMC OS, how does one go about installing Samba on this Pi? Iām very familiar with Samba and it is installed on several of my Debian Piās. I recall significant configurations issues with the Piās. Will I have them with OSMC?
It is still not clear how I force the media libraries to be on the USB stick and not on the SD card? It seems that Kodi wants stuff on the SD card??
Perhaps to clarify āhow does one play stuff from this media server?ā, for example if I have a video from our last vacation on this medial server, what program/app do I need to watch it and how do I reference the content on this server. Yes, I realize these are very basic questions, but Iām a very new user to this technology.
I is easily packaged available via MyOSMC -> App Store and preconfigured.
Kodi wants to what ever you configure it to do. Basically original nothing is added to the Library. The USB stick should be automounted and should appear under files, you then can add it to the libarry via Add Source https://kodi.wiki/view/Adding_video_sources
Well as soon as you have the Samba server installed than you can access it on your Windows machine via the file manager (you also could permanently add it as a network source.
To play content you could either use the windows media player, VLC or as I mentioned if you want to go fancy install Kodi on your windows machine.
Fzinkenā¦Thanks again. I will now go away and do some experimenting. Weāll see where it get me and what additional question will arise. Thanks againā¦RDK45
Once you install Samba that gets you network access to the Pi from other machines. With just that there is nothing other than a file share and Kodi doesnāt come into play at that point (as it is only Debian your playing with). If you wanted to actually run a whole home system with Kodi you would need to either share it with uPnP/dlna in Kodi, or run a MySQL library on your Pi.
The upside of uPnP/dlna is that it is fast and easy to implement and it allows you to use a whole host of programs/platforms such as smart TVās. Windows 10 even automatically adds these sources to file explorer so you donāt need any additional software there unless you wanted to. The downside is that you cannot integrate this with another Kodi library so the only access you have from other Kodi instances is browsing for what you want in the āfilesā section.
To get the full Kodi experience that is synchronized across different Kodi installs you would have tomanually install and setup MariaDB and point all the Kodi clients to that. The downside is the additional setup and it will probably be a little slower in the UI (probably a bigger issue with very large libraries). The upside is that what you do on one is done on all so you only update the library on one box and you can stop a video half way on one box and start it again from the same point on another. You can also use this at the same time as uPnP/dlna if you want.
The only real problem is the home movies. As sharing from Kodi requires the files be added to its library (database) this becomes an issue with any movies that canāt be automatically identified by its movie/TV show scrapers. You can find info on how to deal with this here.
Darwindesignā¦Thanks for the info. I think it may be more meaningful after I do some experimenting with this new setup/OSMC/Kodi. Itās all VERY new to me so some simple and practical exercises may help the pieces to come together. ā¦RDK45
