RE: Family Friendly Media PC

["Alistair Watkins" <ukha@xxxxxxx>]

have you seen windows XP media centre? www.Microsoft.com/ehome

I know its not publicly available in the UK, but you may be able to get a
copy from somewhere?

ali :)
-----Original Message-----
From: wayne [mailto:wayne@xxxxxxx]
Sent: 16 July 2003 21:09
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: [ukha_d] Family Friendly Media PC


Hiya all
Just a little thing to think about while your sunbathing in the garden
replying to this over your wifi connection :)

Having just managed to get my TV out to work on my pc (new nVidia drivers
if anyone's got one :) one thing is blazingly obvious, what to use as an
'interface' to the media playing functions on the pc.

If any of you have tried using windows on a telly you will soon realise
that the resolution, while ample for films played full screen, is a bit
rubbish for normal window operations - menu navigation and all. More to it
-
when the family doesnt have an interest on pc's at all - how the hell do
you
get them to use a mouse and click all over the place, let alown read the
screen.

Therefor - what would be the best way to control such. Idealy you need big
bold text displays/ menus - including file / title browsing for your media
(mp3's avi's etc) and somthing that is, shall we say SWMBO friendly to use,
and idealy with a remote controller rather than a keyboard. Also the
'interface' would need to support the ability to fire off the relavent
programs for the media being played (maybe winamp for mp3's, zoom player
for
videos / dvd's the like) and if possible custom web pages to spy on your
MV1000 :) - Text overlays etc? the list is endless...

I guess you get the idea - is this goal reachable?
Point me in the right direction!

Thanks
Wayne.

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