I’m trying to build some kind of simple “video clip distribution system”. In fact, I have to distribute a few groups of video clips (and/or slides) to about seven monitors (or TVs) placed in a building. That video materials should be changed/downloaded at night (different movies for each monitor), and then should be played on monitors during the day (repeatedly: when playlist come to its end, it should restart).

Monitors are about 50m away from “server”, video clips are usually in MPEG2 format, slides are JPG…

I am newbie at this kind of “a/v network”. I think that some kind of HDD media player with standard LAN support could be very good for solving this problem. It seems to me that it would be best to connect those HDD media players to the PC using a standard wired LAN Ethernet. What do you think, is there some kind of HDD media player that could be managed from a distance server, through the network (I mean, to have possibility to copy my clips from server to each player [maybe by FTP…] and then to start/stop playing that material from server [maybe by telnet or something else…])?

As I read some threads in this forum, I found that Mediagate MG-35 looks very interesting. What do you think about that? What else could be the cheap solution?

Any suggestion is appreciated! Thanks!
Bogi

This is a tough one. I may not have any good answers, but I do have some suggestions and questions. The most important question is what's your budget?
I think one problem will be the playlist and combining jpgs and video. Maybe Powerpoint? The least expensive solution is 5 DVD players then you burn your 5 videos and put the players in repeat mode. This is going to be time consuming. Powerpoint would require 5 computers, not cheap.

Thanks for reply!
I have to distribute that video content from a single PC-server (because that way it could be managed over the internet…). So, the solution with DVD players is not adequate for this system. And yes, playlist and combining jpgs and video could be the problem.
As you said, the most important question here is my budget – I thought it could be less expensive to take some network hdd media players than taking small PCs (one unit per monitor) and connecting them to the network.
But now I realize that in fact it is good solution (small PC -> no need to make the special software for managing remote units, etc…)

I think the MG-35 would be a cost effective solution for you sans the hard drive IF you do not nor never will need playback of HD video. But you gotta check to make sure it has the playlist feature along with repeat. I have one but dont use it for that. Check out the manual. Store everything on a server-which needs to be beefy enough to handle 7 streams concurrently-it depends on the bitrate of your video.