the longer version of the story goes like this:
my home has three pretty distinct users that have widely differing abilitities in terms of using technology.
*I want to watch and save (via disk/usb) the US-TV programs that i currently download and store on my black macbook (in a range of file types) on the TV. where/when possible, would prefer to stream from laptop to TV rather than endlessly burning disks.
* wife wants to view photos, slide shows and home movies that are stored on her white macbook and manage the 3yo's entertainment on the TV from her laptop whilst in her office
* 3yo daughter just wants to Wiggle and play basic on-line games like memory, colouring-in, counting, reading etc which she currently does with a mouse on one of our laptops
both my wife and 3yo daughter need to be able to use the components therfore simple tasks can't be too convoluted. the 3yo can load DVDs and press play but we hoped we could store her favourite movies on the unit and teach her how to choose from the remote instead. this would also help to alleviate the problems we have with scratched and missing disks. wife and i both use laptops for work i.e. can't leave connected to the TV all the time. we also currently have a Digitec HD STB and Elgato Eye TV (USB 2.0 DTT) with infared remote.
I thought it would be simple to co-ordinate all via an Apple-TV type unit. Apple staff couldn't convince me it was the right unit for the job as it doesn't have any functionality beyond being just an extrenal HD. next step was DVD players, after all, this all began when our DVD player died and i went to replace it. looked at DVD player that played DivX and had a memory to store the 3yo's fav films to. couldn't find one that had enough of my (by now quite long) list of mandatories. next thing i know, sales people are more confused than i am and the final question appears:
beyonwiz or mac/mini?
apologies for the long winded response, hope it doesn't put you to sleep reading it. also hope that it gives a complete enough picture. thanks,
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