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What does this particular PC do ? There may be a completely different solution using ordinary networking.

This is all speculative, depending on the outcome of a letter I wrote to the CEO of PC World getting him to rattle Sony Vaio's cage.
We had a Sony VGC-M1designer PC in the kichen, which doubles as an analog TV, at least it has a clunky piece of software which acts as a TV! A couple of months back its PSU gave out and Sony want £445 to look at it, so if I can't beat them down, I'll make alternative arrangements.
In a few months, we'll have a spare PC, but it's too big to fit the space in the kitchen, hence my original post.
All its used for is surfing, or more particularly frittering my small fortune on ebay and countless retail sites.
Apart from that it acts as a TV and MP3 player.
To be acceptable to Mrs.B, the TV function has to be as foolproof as switching on a regular TV, the red button on the remote has to bring up the picture pdq!. I'm not suggesting that Mrs.B is thick, just that she doesn't want anything she has got to fiddle with.
Therefore I'm fairly committed to DigiTv, we're used to the UI and, after some development problems, it works fairly faultlessly.
The only further complication is that it has to be able to display an analog signal(Satellite, VHS, or relaying what's on in the sitting room). The PCI version of DigiTv will do this, the USB won't. I know that there are 110 ways to get an analog picture from a USB on to a PC screen, but bear in mind the need for simplicity.
That's about it really.
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Politics and Ideology: Not my bag