Stephanie,

Okay, so you have about 2-3 ways to install this service. I like Parallels. There is also VMware Fusion, and Boot camp.

[link]

that is the boot camp set up guide. I think boot camp is the cheapest solution, but Parallels and VMWare are the most convenient.

Note; you need to have a copy of Windows, so you'll have to buy one, etc. to install and you need to have x amount of space on the hard drive to install.

You should absolutely backup the computer on an external hard drive before installing any of this.

Whenever I have installed Parallels, I have spent about 3-4 hours doing it (setting up parallels, and installing windows, and all the goddamn windows updates)

if I have any kind of lead time (or set it up before bed), I'm golden

I didn't use it much, because it was such a resource hog and so slow.. I had to give over the computer to it entirely, and it was a separate step. But if I had a backlog, that'd be the way I'd address it.

handbrake doesn't really slow my computer down a lot when I use it, but typically I'm websurfing or writing when that happens, so I am not sure I would see a lot of slowdown.

Thanks! At least now I have a place to start.

Lee, have you tried OPlayer?

Lee, have you tried OPlayer?

Nope--I shall do so though.

There's a lite version that's free that you might want to test out first.

Lee, i lovelovelove AVPlayerHD.

thanks for the two tips. I will try both!

Thanks for the tip, Tiggy. I will try that too!