RE: Family Friendly Media PC

[Martin Greenwood <martin@xxxxxxx>]

I have just setup myHTPC on an Windows XP based EPIA unit. I'm ripping all
the kids DVDs to the HDD. I think it will do all that you want. When
ripping it's quite easy to remove all the extra rubbish from the DVD image
so that the movie starts playing immediately.

http://www.myhtpc.net/

It is a simple front end showing the dvd artwork. You click on the DVD you
want and it launches the software player,(ZoomPlayer, PowerDVD etc) which
plays the selected DVD image from the HD. It also can launch music and
pictures and more. It looks fine using S-video TV-out. Composite TV-out
wasn't very good at all.
It is good, because it is very simple to use.

The software DVD players are more complicated!
Ideally when you stop and press eject using the player's on-screen menu the
player application should quit.
So at moment you need to press eject, then in a menu select quit from the
DVD player, which pops you back to the myHTPC front end ready to choose
another title.
Not difficult, just extra steps which make it difficult for normal
non-nerdy user!!

ZoomPlayer is very configurable, anyone any ideas on how to get it (or
other DVD player) to do exactly what I want....I guess I need to spend some
time looking thru all it's options (there are loads)
Regarding control, need to get a simple remote as three button mouse is a
pain. Our two year daughter is used to a single button mouse on the iMac!

Any comments from other users of simple ir remotes with pc's.

Martin