DynaFlash Tech

If you use XBMC as your media center you probably have noticed that once you setup your video or music libraries you have two choices to update those libraries as you add content to your source. You can manually tell xbmc to update either library and/or tell xbmc to update the libraries at startup. Now for a pc where you start xmbc every time you want to use it, update at startup is sufficient, however for a setup like the AppleTV 1 running xbmc where its always pretty much running, it can be frustrating to be adding content to your Video/Music sources then running to the atv constantly to tell xbmc to scan for new content so your latest and greatest is on tap.

Hence the XBMC Library Auto Update Addon. Now this was originally written for XBMC 10.0 and 10.1 Dharma by Rob Weber and was available in the official repo. Basically the Addon allows you to specify time intervals upon which XBMC will scan for new content in your Video or Music libraries. Very nice! However since I have updated to xbmc’s Pre 11.0 “Eden” source code I notice it was broken in the newer XBMC versions.

Now, I found this addon to provide the type of library auto updating I wanted on a system like the AppleTV running one of the AtvCloner XBMC linux images. So, what to do ? Well rewrite it to be compatible with newer version of Pre-Eden XBMC. So I did so and it works, I also added a check so that if there is already a scan occurring the Addon will cancel its scheduled scan and reset the timer. As well as it was originally written if either a movie or a song is playing it will cancel the scan and reset so you don’t have reduced performance while watching your content.

This addon is already installed on all AtvCloner XBMC Linux images since image 21 but I figured I’d offer it here for any other folks running XBMC since it works as far as I know on all XBMC supported platforms (tested here on linux and osx, not sure about windows but I can not see any reason it wouldn’t work there).

Please note: you need to be running XBMC as of this revision I also posted this on the XBMC developer forums where there is a bit more info.

if you want to try it out … download it here and install it via the XBMC addons manager with “Install from zip”.

NOTE: As was said above, this is already installed on AtvCloner XBMC linux images and as well will also NOT work on XBMC 10.1 Dharma ( the addon in its original form from Rob Weber is available via the xbmc Add ons Repo for that version).

A new AtvCloner XBMC (Linux) image 24 is now available for download! While XBMC is still between 10.1 (Dharma) and 11.0 (Eden) I have decided it makes sense to release a newer AtvCloner Linux image which can build current xbmc git head. The image includes a more capable build environment which includes newer dependencies than the previous image 21 (yes, images 22 and 23 were scrapped). Also of note … the default skin in image 24 is pecinko’s Quartz skin which is much like the stock atv os on steroids! As an added bonus I have added a newer udpated version of the XBMC Library Auto Update plugin which means that your xbmc install will attempt an update of your libraries at specified intervals (default is every 4 hrs.) . If however a movie or music is playing or a library scan is already in progress then the scheduled update will be bypassed and the timer rescheduled for the next interval. Also of note this is the first AtvCloner XBMC Linux image that comes default with a pre Eden (XBMC 11.0) build installed. Many enhancements and fixes have been made at the XBMC project since the last official 10.1 Dharma release.

Additonal information can also be found at the AtvCloner forums.