Newbie Setting Up Help

[visibleman]

Howdies all,
ive been searching for a front-end/all in one type software for a simple server client media centre setup. And alot of sites pointed me in the direction of XLobby - which seems to be pretty good, apart from a few errors/bugs there are.

However, im having a real headache setting it all up
I have an XP SP1 system that i want acting as the server, which has all my DVDs/Movies and music stored. I have a win2000 system SP4 which i want to act as the client, to basically stream the media off the server.
Now i can get XLobby to run on both systems perfectly (apart from a number of errors that pop up) and they all seem to work great, until i start the XNet stuff and then its a hit/miss on whether the client sees the server and gets the database properly

Currently i have mapped drives on both systems to shared folders on the server system - ie: Z:\ = Movies, Y:\ = Music (on both server and client systems). I have then imported the drives into the server xlobby program and that seems fine. Now, i start the server...fine, takes a while to load, but hey its windows the client on the other hand, not only takes ages to load, it just stays at "connecting to 10.10.10.1" or "database". Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesnt. The weird thing is that both systems can see each other fine and i can browse the net off the client system (which runs through an x-over cable to the server, then through a proxy server for the net connection).

The other problem i have is the fact that i select a film, click play and although its starts winamp to play the film, it doesnt start in fullscreen...is there a way around this?

Also, music is totally buggered - you click a track and it says it playing, but the counter stays at "00:00" and there is no sound - although again i have setup winamp to response to mp3,wav,wma filetypes...but it doesnt even load winamp when i click play

Also i have an ATI Wonder remote, but the plugin seems to fail to work - apart from the fact that i can control the curor with the multifunction button on the remote.

So if anyone has a nice guide or tutorial that is packed with info (the beginners guide in the tip section is abit basic and didnt really help me) then please share as its doing my head in spending hours upon hours going around in circles, and i cant seen any offical documentation what so ever
Its a shame as XLobby seems to be about the right software for what i want without all of the PVR stuff that i dont need (dont have SKY and i cant get any UK cable digital cards, so its abit pointless it getting a tuner card for five channels), and also seems to offer a server client function which i have only been able to find in XLobby (so far anyways).

Hope someone can help,
Tar - Dom

[stevenhanna6]

well the xnet client server stuff is still very buggy i would stay away from it for now. I will be updating it soon though.

The music problem sounds like you did not add a winamp zone. When you start xlobby make sure winamp is closed...open setup (F2) and add a new winamp zone...just point to the winamp.exe file and it should work fine. Also make sure your using the latest winamp.

[greyjackal]

For movies opening full screen, most media players have a "start in full screen" type option somewhere in them - it's a player thing, not an XLobby thing.

I'd recommend Media Player Classic (not just for the fullscreen startup option but also because it's just the simplest, most effective player I've ever come across )

In there, go to the View menu, then Options. Within the Player section at the top, under "Open Options" is the setting you need