Prepurchase questions. I plan to use network sharing (via Samba):
What I can derive from the WD Community posts and the manual are:
It appears that “Media Library Compilation” will build one comprehensive database for thumbnails and metadata for your media. During this compilation, does the hub behave in a promiscuous way and compile pointers to all usable media types it can find on all network shares and its local drive? I believe the answer is yes.
If the answer to 1) is yes, is the best way to limit the compilation to specific media on the NAS is to create specific share points with a user name and password? For example, if I create multiple SMB shares to a user/password “wdtvhub/wd1”, will the hub pick up only those areas during the library compilation process? Of course I’d need to give the hub the user/password combination so it could access those specific shares.
If I copy new media to a previously shared location on a NAS (i.e. a new video file copied to the NAS from a PC), then do I need to force a re-compile of the media library or will the hub notice the additional file(s) and perform an incremental compilation on it’s own? Similarly, if I delete files(s) from the NAS, will the hub notice those missing files and remove them from the library or am I stuck with “stale” links until I manually recompile?
There is a menu option of “Select Current Source”. Is this a feature used to “browse” media outside of the compilation process? For example, if I compile the library today and next week add media to a new location, is the feature used to manually browse to that new location? More generically, when is the “Select Current Source” used?
Meaning, if you SWITCH SERVERS, it will compile a new media library.
Basically, YES. If you have MULTIPLE shares on a NAS box, but they’re all reachable via the same User ID and password, they will be combined in the media library.
Yes, you currently have to force a re-compile if you add / change / delete media from a NAS.
No. The Select Source is to change between different NAS servers / switch to DLNA MEDIA SERVERS / or LOCAL STORAGE.
Ouch. That means the section from page 30 of the manual below doesn’t imply what I thought. For example if files a.avi, b.avi, and d.avi exist on hub’s drive and files c.avi and e.avi exist on a share, then I won’t be able to browse one listing showing a.avi through e.avi in one place (i.e. not in one contiguous listing). I’d need to switch media libraries to see the groups of 3 and 2 files respectively, correct? Well after re-reading, that little “or” I have highlighted below it appears to be quite literal. It can consolidate a single media source into a single media library. This forces you to consolidate all of your media into one device if you want to hub to do the same.
Media Library Compilation
Media Library Compilation refers to the process of scanning and consolidating the
media contents of the media center, network attached storage, or an attached USB
device into one comprehensive database so that you can easily browse and locate
media files based on certain metadata information (e.g., video files are categorized
based on title or release date)
OK. This might help out a bit. If I need to consolidate multiple locations into a single device, I can use a second NAS I have, cross mount the NAS boxes in Linux and make the expanded area of the second NAS visible on the first. The WD hub would only need to see the first server and both the files on the first NAS and the mounted second NAS would look like a single file system from one server. The WD hub would then create one contiguous library and I’d have a route for expansion without having media spread over multiple individual ‘consolidated’ libraries.
Kind of makes sense from a software standpoint. Compilation is once and done and the hub isn’t expending any bandwidth on further media maintenance of SMB shares.
