My setup includes:

65" Rear Projection CRT with Component, Composite, and S-Video

Desktop computer with some kind of old ATI All In Wonder card with s-video hooked up to the tv.

All of the videos reside on an ubuntu smb share. Playback with vlc.

The tv and the computer are at right angles on an inside corner so watching tv from the computer chair sucks. It's set up so we can watch broadcast tv on the computer, tv or both. Video from the server can be watched on the tv, computer, or both.

Works great for everything except hd due to a) old playback computer, b) old tv, c) network lag (permanently installed cable limited to 10 mbps, permanently means in concrete)

Lack of hd notwithstanding, it's fine. I never jumped on the hd bandwagon, and besides, what is hd going to do for Family Guy, Futurama, and Southpark anyway?

Use VBS... it was designed to replace batch files and it can do all of the same stuff. Even more, I recon.

After all, 100 million script kiddies can't be wrong. Just make sure the user has the ability to tell the printer to STOP printing test pages and that the vbs doesn't automatically copy itself to all other attached computers on the network...

I'm pretty certain that it'll still have a mic port. This will double as a line-in in a pinch. Just turn down the recording source as mics produce a lot lower level than a line-in.

I helped a tech-savvy friend with this. He asked how I knew that the signaling was compatible. Lulz were had.

Been trying to get my gf, who's into s/m, more interested in computers in general. I think you helped me find my solution.