Help me figure out if the aTV2 is for me.

No, ATV2 does not store files locally.

However, you could set up a media server (iTunes) and simply make a playlist that is set to loop with output set to the ATV2.

I believe that jb allows you to hook up an external hd but I think you still need to have Itunes on, on a computer.

Totally agree with Sedulous. You can just use one of your old minis or any old computer running iTunes and set it to run that way. Multiple Apple TVs can access a single iTunes library simultaneously so you would only need one computer. Apple has ended its restocking fees so you could try it out and if it doesn't work for you, just return it or keep for personal use. It's only $99.

Other options:

1. Use an iPod touch and use Airplay to send the video to the Apple TV. In that way, the iPod Touch is acting like a wireless flash drive but you can't stream to multiple ATVs simultaneously.

2. Put the video up on Mobileme and stream it from the Apple TV. I'm not sure if you can get it to loop with this method though.

The only real limitation is your network and obviously an N network could potentially stream in HD to 10 different Apple TVs at the same time or more. All the processing and decoding is done at the Apple TV so that wouldn't be a problem.

Using the mac mini as an itunes host for the file is a brilliant idea in my opinion, and with regards to network bandwidth I'm sure it would be feasible to setup a wired network, perhaps with a gigabit capable router? (would this allow a connection of 100Mbit to each apple tv? or would the whole network be capped at 100Mbit for all aTVs).

Keeping a Mac Mini and buying 5 aTV's would cost £500/$500 which (unless your other Mac Mini's are exceptionally old/damaged) could be recouped from the sale of the old minis.

deadjoe2002 said:

Using the mac mini as an itunes host for the file is a brilliant idea in my opinion, and with regards to network bandwidth I'm sure it would be feasible to setup a wired network, perhaps with a gigabit capable router? (would this allow a connection of 100Mbit to each apple tv? or would the whole network be capped at 100Mbit for all aTVs).

Keeping a Mac Mini and buying 5 aTV's would cost £500/$500 which (unless your other Mac Mini's are exceptionally old/damaged) could be recouped from the sale of the old minis.

Click to expand...

Bandwidth limit depends on the size of the video files. If the media server is wired to the router, you are right, this would probably solve bandwidth issues since the bottleneck is removed.

deadjoe2002 said:

would this allow a connection of 100Mbit to each apple tv? or would the whole network be capped at 100Mbit for all aTVs).

Click to expand...

The whole network would not be, but the server to switch at least would be. Each AppleTV would be capped at 100mbit because they only have 100mb ethernet ports (this is true for 95% of all media players out there as no one video stream requires more than 100mb worth of data). With that said, having them on a gb network would still be advantageous (assuming the model of mac mini has a gb ethernet port) because then each AppleTV would have plenty of bandwidth (theoretically you could have 10 appletv's each maxing out their bandwidth on one gb network, again theoretically).