I'd argue that's not too different for grown-ups. ;)

https://us.yotoplay.com/

https://us.tonies.com/

I had plans to build something that for the TV, but having kids means I never had the time. And honestly, that might not have been such a bad thing since it made setting limits easier. I was able to teach my kid to turn the TV off when she was fairly young (and pause more recently), which seems to be enough.

I don't know, I would have just have the kid get off their seat in between shows and walk up to the TV with drive attached and change disks there. Very similar to how you had to change VHS tapes.

Unless, of course, the above was just an excuse to do some tinkering, then it's fine and fun.

As a father I can't imagine ever leaving a 3-year-old alone with media so they can be 'independent'. If for no other reason, that's an age and developmental stage where media should be almost nonexistent in their lives.

A good option would be to have the same data printed as QR codes in labels glued to small domino sized wood blocks that could be inserted in a slot in a box and read by a cheap camera module.

Bonus: it is an arts and crafts project to put on the stickers for the cards.

https://batocera.org

https://zaparoo.org/docs/platforms/batocera/

For my toddler, I've started the process of hooking up my TV with a Mac Mini, Broadlink RF dongle, and a Stream Deck. I'm using a python library to control the stream deck.

I'm configuring the buttons to play her favorite shows with jellyfin. End goal is to create a jukebox for her favorite shows/movies/music. Only thing I have it wired to do right now is play fart noises.

One thing I notice with kids is they think everything is already in a device, which is not true at all, same for the internet always being available.

I see DVDs etc coming back into popularity for kids now too, because they can control and make it play, instead of fighting a youtube algorithm that is obesses with getting them to play the next video. Streaming platforms are the same and they will be leaving my life if I can't manage how they are to be used.

That combined with Youtube not allowing me to add youtube kids videos to a playlist however I wish (premium account or not) has me looking elsewhere.

Unfortunately, it takes a fair bit of time and skill with microelectronics and fabrication to build these things.

My 7 year old has figured out the Roku app pretty well and can play stuff on PBS Kids or turn on the Nintendo Switch without any guidance. His 3 year old brother, not so much.

In particular what brought it to mind was a scene in one episode with a bunch of kids being shown how it works, same episode as the page's title image.

I wonder if he could have just polled the drive every five seconds?

https://simplyexplained.com/blog/how-i-built-an-nfc-movie-li...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41479141

This remedy only requires a Raspberry Pi and an HDMI cable. Also, disconnect the TV from the Internet.

https://youtu.be/Z2xq3ns5Hsk

https://github.com/tidwall/RetroSwiper

For those talking about not using TV much, or that the UI is slow, my setup is a cheap projector hooked into my sound system and hooking up a laptop when streaming as necessary. Really dislike the smart anything that can be used in other ways for the reasons I already saw mentioned, but it is hard to lag something that has no Internet by looking for ads and updates for sure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HitClips

I remember being quite entranced with one that a neighbor had. It feels like a bit of a silly format now, but perhaps it's time for a resurgence.

I would say that feeling that we have everything at the tip of our fingers does not make our brains value it for some reason, but I'm not sure if it's true, and can't support it with any arguments others than anecdotical.

The kids love it and it's easy to use

My child just turned 3, she can already turn on the NVIDIA Shield, go into Jellyfin and put a movie playing.

The movie is always Shrek or Jungle Book though, so I still didn’t have to put parental restrictions. But she can already choose them from the favorites list.

I built an app for managing a similar project based on something else linked here previously: https://github.com/Chuntttttt/TapeDeck/

I self-host it and it isn't exposed outside of my network, not sure if it'll work for anyone else.

Is the terminology correct though?

Looking at the showcased disks, in my youth we called these “stiffy disks” - owing to their stiff plastic casing.

We also had “floppy disks” - but these were larger (in size, albeit with less storage capacity) and floppier (the plastic case would bend easily).

I treasured my burgundy Dysan stiffy disk boxes!

Maybe we'll eventually get an AR os where you get to lean spatial reasoning instead of just floating screens. (Along side all the power tools, of course)

Both really tactile and if you don’t look after them then there is a cost/consequence

works fine, though my kids tended to toss it around.

fairly easy to get blanks and record an mp3 on there. got a few of grandma reading favorite books, which my daughter loved.

At least those are easier to acquire, and they can't get demagnetized :)

I feel seen

They must be _over_ 20 years old

Does it play exactly one video?