The correct Linux for my customer.....help!

[Aquaflamz]

I am an experienced PC guy. I have my own computer repair business but I know squat about Linux. Just installed ubuntu 9.10 on my system and am using it now to play around with it. Anyway, I need some help from the Linux community to steer me in the right direction on a decision.
I have a customer that is in the advertising business. What they do is create a 1 hour looping video which contains many different business' advertising segments. These videos play on one of the internal TV channels in hotels. They currently use a cheap video player that has to be updated and rebooted manually. Sometimes it freezes up and my customer has to drive out and reset these things. What I plan on doing is building an Nvidia ION mini-ITX based media player system. It needs to be able to reboot itself after losing power, must have remote acces with the ability to transfer files to it via internet, and be able to reliably play back these 1 hour videos. Oh and the cost of each system I build is a big factor, which is why I'm looking to Linux.

Is there a particulat Linux version that is better suited for this job than another? I found out about XBMC while googling the other day. Don't know if that would be of any use for my need. Please keep in mind that I know absolutely nothing about Linux other than its pretty cool so far! lol
I'm not saying I want to do somthing without learning about it, just try not to use tons of acronyms that I'm not used to!

Thanks in advance!

[Rubberman]

So, the big thing here is the NTSC output - to a local cable network I assume? All the other stuff most any Linux can do well. The cable interface is the main issue, unless you have an external VGA/DVI/HDMI to cable adapter you can use. In any case, other than that, you can configure most systems to reboot on power, so if power goes out, the system will reboot. However, power failures/spikes have a tendency to corrupt mounted file systems. A small UPS might be a good idea. Also, you might consider a low-cost, low-power embedded PC with an ARM processor and video adapter to handle your video needs. They can be backed up with low-cost batteries, are very reliable, and can even be booted/run from SD or compact flash cards. I'm working on an embedded system like that now which we expect to cost less than $200 in material costs, and it runs a full Debian Etch distribution in less than 64MB of RAM, including Apache and an X-Windows server.

[MikeTbob]

Hello and Welcome.
I think for your needs, you should probably stick with Ubuntu or whatever you feel most comfortable with. Under the hood, almost every version (Distro) of Linux is the same and they all perform the same tasks. You can make a full blown server or just a plain jane desktop from almost any Distro. The only real difference between Distros is the GUI (The Desktop). Once you figure out which Distro you want to use then set it up just the way you want. Adding software that you need and removing software you don't need.
You can always check out distrowatch to find specific distros that better suit your need, if you like.
DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.

[Aquaflamz]

I have been looking online for VGA to composite adapters online and they seem easy enough to find so thats not my big concern. Thanks Rubberman for the reply!

MikeTbob: Thanks for the info. I'll prolly stick with Ubuntu then.

Now comes the fun part, learning a new OS all over again. lol

[Rubberman]

Yep. My old friend, Janos (Just another operating system).