Simple skin/wrapper for VLC

[FumbleFingers]

Hi. Not sure if this is the place to ask my question, but here goes...

I want to set up a WinXP Pro PC with television as "second monitor" so my father can watch old "out-of-copyright" b/w movies which I can download off the internet complete with subtitles. I've already got a few dozen folders each containing an *.avi plus the relevant *.sub/*.srt subtitle file.

Being 90, my Dad's not too good at figuring out user interfaces. He could just about navigate through those folders with Windows Explorer and double-click one to start playing it. BUT I happen to know some of them need to override default aspect ratio, or advance/retard audio / subtitle, etc. I can figure out any necessary adjustments for each movie, but I really can't expect him to actually change anything through vlc menus + mouse.

Although I've never had to use it for myself, I see vlc has pretty comprehensive command-line options. So maybe I could create a batch command file alongside each *.avi, containing all switches necessary to play that particular video file correctly on his particular hardware.

That's the background. What I REALLY want to know is - has anyone else faced the same problem, and is there already some (preferably free) software to simplify my task? Ideally I'd like some kind of "video library manager" maintaining a database with one entry for each movie, against which I can store all setting overrides. All my Dad needs to see is one line for each movie in the database - containing at least Title, but standard info like Director, Release Year, main actors, comments, etc. would all be good.

So - is there a "VLC front-end for Dummies" out there? Note that I wouldn't consider using anything other than vlc to actually play the movies.