XBMC with external SQL video database - Maybe this may make direct database updates easier?

Quote :

There is a new feature already implemented in XBMC(since svn r28142) that lets you use a central MySQL database for all your clients.
The basic steps you need to do in order to use it are:

1. Setup a MySQL server (a database server) accesible from all the machines running XBMC. Even some NAS support running MySQL server, so an option is to run the database server directly on your NAS (if you have one that supports it) or run it on any machine that you want (MySQL server is freeware and supports lots of OSs).

2. Modify your advancedsettings.xml located in the userdata folder of XBMC adding this lines:
Code:
<videodatabase>
<type>mysql</type>
<host>localhost</host>
<port>3306</port>
<user>xbmc</user>
<pass>xbmc</pass>
<name>xbmc_video</name>
</videodatabase>
where:
host is the network address of the server running MySQL
port is the port used by the MySQL server (default is 3306)
user and pass are the credentials used to connect to the MySQL server
name is the name of the MySQL database you want XBMC to use (it must be all lowercased)
(you don't need to create the database, XBMC will create it for you the first time you run it after modifying the advancedsettings.xml).

You can also setup a central database for music albums, you need to add these additional lines to your advancedsettings.xml:
Code:
<musicdatabase>
<type>mysql</type>
<host>localhost</host>
<port>3306</port>
<user>xbmc</user>
<pass>xbmc</pass>
<name>xbmc_music</name>
</musicdatabase>
The same explanation given for videodatabase applys here, just one more thing: you can't share the same database for music and video, so just pick a different name for each database (also all lowercased)
Remember to modify the advancedsettings.xml of each XBMC you intend to share the MySQL database with.

Some advantages of this setup:
Every PC or MAC running XBMC can access that central database even simultaneously (instead of using a local database for each instance of XBMC), avoiding the need to scrape movie info once per each XBMC. Also sharing the info of watched/unwatched movies/tvshows/musicvideos and any other info that XBMC stores in the media library database (like stop/resume bookmarks).

from the XBMC forum...
http://forum.xbmc.org/showpost.php?p=510203&postcount=2

I really like the single database multiple xbmc's concept!

Cheers

PS just read that this will not work with xbox's as it is not ported to that system (at this stage)

Greetings Stormy, I have mySQL installed via XAMPP lite(portable) and even tried creating a seperate dbase manually called xbmc_video and curious how to set this up?
I created a advancedsettings.xml from scratch with the tags you provided nothing seems different and I dont see any new tables in the phpMyadmin page for my dbase.
I'm using a Linux XBMC setup on an Acer Aspire Revo.
is there more to this setup that you could provide supplemental insight on?

Sorry I haven't tried to get this working since 2 of my 3 XBMC's run on xboxes so it will not help me. My only suggestion is to read the XBMC thread & to ask questions there. Are you sure you running a recent enough version for it to work?

Cheers